All posts tagged: myths

Sex during your period: Benefits, risks and myths

Sex during your period: Benefits, risks and myths

Published by Sam Flores

Even if a woman gives period sex the thumbs up, her partner might not be keen – or vice versa. If it’s your partner who’s unwilling, you shouldn’t force him to accept it but, instead, have a conversation to understand what about period sex he is concerned about, said Dr Tan. She recommended starting with curiosity, perhaps asking him: “Is it the mess, the smell, worries about hygiene or something else? “A lot of discomfort comes from myths, embarrassment or simply not knowing what to expect. You can reassure him, explain what you are comfortable with and suggest practical ways to make it less messy.” Dr Tan stressed that a partner does not need to be talked into having period sex – consent still applies both ways. “The goal here is: Can we talk about intimacy without shame or avoidance? And note that there are many ways to be close without penetrative sex or to prove that he loves you,” she said. If you’re the hesitant one, know that you do not have to get over the …

4 sunscreen myths too many people still get wrong

4 sunscreen myths too many people still get wrong

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Do you really need to reapply sunscreen every two hours? Is chemical sunscreen bad for you? If it’s cloudy out, do you still need to wear sunscreen? There is plenty of misinformation about sunscreen out there, and it can be really tricky to parse out what’s true from what’s a flatout lie. That’s why in our most recent episode of Popular Science’s Ask Us Anything podcast, we dive deep into the most common sunscreen myths. Turns out, I’ve been thinking about spf completely wrong.  Ask Us Anything answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions—from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. So, yes, there’s a reason most of us are right handed and no, dinosaurs have …

Moral Realism and the Persistence of Ethical Myths

Moral Realism and the Persistence of Ethical Myths

Published by Jenni Sidey

Moral realism is the view that there are moral facts, that there are objective moral properties out there in the world. But there are not. Notions like ‘rights’, ‘wrongs’, and ‘duties’ are leftovers from a pre-scientific age in which dogma and myths ruled over evidence and reason. And much like unicorns, gods, and other fairy tales, they should be consigned to hell. Despite the pride we take from human scientific and technological advancements, our minds, our brains are as much obstacles to these achievements as they are its cause. Humans are largely irrational and addicted to their own intuitions, which we had to overcome in order to develop modern science. Of course, even when it comes to science, we have hardly overcome this psychology. The rise of anti-scientific sentiments is not a reflection of the realization of flaws of science, as some conspiracy theorists may proudly proclaim, but simply a reflection of our poorly designed primate brains (from the perspective of finding out truths about the world). But when it comes to morals, our thinking …

Is a growling dog always aggressive? 10 common myths about canine behaviour

Is a growling dog always aggressive? 10 common myths about canine behaviour

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more It is difficult to refer to what dogs, as a collective, like and dislike and how they behave. Just as humans do, dogs all have their own personalities and learned preferences and so can differ dramatically in how they approach life and what they take from it. In our book, Making Dogs Happy, we use scientific research, illustrative photos and practical tips to help dog owners to appreciate what their dogs may be feeling from moment to moment, and have strategies ready to respond in ways that support their dogs. Making Dogs Happy is focused on the pragmatic application of current theory to improve your relationship with your dogs and, of course, in the process make them happy. There are many ways in which …

5 Myths That Keep Emotional Neglect Hidden

5 Myths That Keep Emotional Neglect Hidden

Published by Jenni Sidey

Of the hundreds of psychological and emotional conditions, childhood emotional neglect is, in my opinion, among the least widely understood. That’s because we have spent decades talking about and studying the negative things that can happen to a child. As we’ve done all of this vital and important work, we have overlooked, and essentially ignored, an equal but opposite force: what fails to happen for a child. Childhood emotional neglect is a parent’s failure to respond enough to a child’s emotional needs. Here are five natural, automatic assumptions that are frequently held and expressed, even by mental health professionals. Myth 1: Emotional neglect is a form of child abuse This has been the default assumption of many people for many years. In professional articles and research studies, emotional neglect is typically lumped in with the various forms of child abuse. It’s assumed that all of these forms of childhood mistreatment belong in the same category and have similar effects upon the child. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. While abuse is a parental …

4 myths cause us to abandon science. Here’s the path back.

4 myths cause us to abandon science. Here’s the path back.

Published by Jenni Sidey

There are a lot of people who think they know what science is, what science tells us, and how to evaluate claims based on their scientific merits. But are their assessments accurate? How do you, yourself, conceive of science? Do you do what most people do, and default to what you learned about science across a variety of classes in school, with a layer of cynicism and skepticism layered atop it? That’s understandable, as many of us remember being taught “facts” in our science classes that later were shown to be — if not completely incorrect — at least “not as they seemed” at the time. It’s as though, somewhere along the lines, many of us were taught that science is simply a collection of isolated facts about the world, and then our ability to regurgitate those facts was used as a metric to measure how good we were at science, even though: Many of those facts may have felt absurd. Many of the experiments we performed didn’t give the results we were told they …

3 myths about cursive handwriting

3 myths about cursive handwriting

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Cursive is making a comeback. States and provinces across North America are re-introducing the continuous form of handwriting, making all sorts of arguments as to why.  There are good arguments for teaching cursive, granted, but some of the most common ones don’t stand up to scrutiny. People will confidently state the idea that cursive is faster, that it offers cognitive benefits over manuscript handwriting, and that signatures legally need to be in cursive. The problem: None of that’s true. Let’s dig into what the science, and the law, actually suggests.  Cursive isn’t faster than handwriting A common idea is that cursive is faster than printing, but scientific research doesn’t bear this out. I couldn’t find a single study that suggests cursive is faster, …

The 13 biggest myths about heatwaves – and how to bust them | Extreme heat

The 13 biggest myths about heatwaves – and how to bust them | Extreme heat

Published by Sam Flores

Some people – and media organisations – still have difficulty connecting the heatwaves currently gripping much of the world and human-caused climate chaos. Others are in outright denial. So how to address their evasions, distractions and lies? The Guardian has trawled through climate sceptics’ claims and put their doubts to one of the UK’s top climate scientists, Prof Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading. As the inventor of the famous “climate stripes” graphic, which visually represents the change in temperature as measured in each country, region or city over at least a century, he has arguably done as good a job in communicating global heating as anyone. Here are his responses to those who ignore or downplay the truth. It has been hot, but mostly bearable. Can’t we just get used to this as the new normal? The “normal” for humans and other life is fundamentally changing: high temperatures today are likely to seem cool in comparison with those of the future. The warmest 10 years on record have all happened in the past …

The Elixir of the Payroll-Tax Cap and Other Social Security Myths

The Elixir of the Payroll-Tax Cap and Other Social Security Myths

Published by Sam Flores

Since the mid-1990s, Social Security trustees have warned lawmakers that insolvency was coming in the 2030s. Why are lawmakers seemingly content to wait until we reach that cliff, now projected for 2032? Because so many voters misunderstand how the system works and steadfastly refuse to accept the changes needed to fix it. Interest groups have capitalized on those fears, savaging any politician who dares to touch senior benefits or taxes. When House Republican Leader Paul Ryan proposed reforming Medicare, opponents ran a television ad portraying him pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair off a cliff. As policy, Social Security is not complicated. Closing the gap between revenues and benefits involves three broad levers: raising payroll taxes, hiking the eligibility age, and trimming benefit formulas for wealthier seniors. Fixing Social Security is a matter of negotiating how far to pull each lever. I’ve attended policy dinners where Republican and Democratic lawmakers quietly outlined, with relative ease, a plausible deal that would gradually raise the normal eligibility age from 67 to about 69, trim benefits for …

Cancer Myths and Falsehoods Can Be Deadly

Cancer Myths and Falsehoods Can Be Deadly

Published by Jenni Sidey

When we talk about misinformation, we often focus on its downstream effects: polarization, eroded trust, and fractured public discourse. Yet there is one corner of the misinformation landscape where the consequences are far more immediate, and far easier to measure: cancer. Cancer misinformation is not a niche concern. An estimated 40% of people will receive a cancer diagnosis in their lifetimes. And a growing body of research links false information about cancer prevention and treatment not only to a polluted online environment, but to real harm in people’s lives. A 2018 study found that cancer patients who chose alternative treatments over conventional ones had more than a twofold increase in the likelihood of death over five years. For colorectal and breast cancer, the mortality risk was 4.5 and 5.6 times greater, respectively. In other words, choosing alternative treatments was associated with a 350% increase in the risk of death from colorectal cancer, and a 460% increase in the risk of death from breast cancer. Why Cancer Is Uniquely Vulnerable to Misinformation Misinformation researchers argue that …