This week, we checked:
Past 55, it means less.
Pencavel's 1914-1918 munitions-worker study found weekly output plateaus around 48-50 hours and turns downward from there.
The ’10x engineer’ claim traces to a dozen-person 1968 study that was actually comparing computer setups. Here’s what happened to the number since, and what really explains star performance.
‘Self-made man’ was coined in an 1832 speech about tariffs, not bootstraps. Here’s what research on inheritance, capital access, and business survival actually shows about who gets to try.
Venture-backed founder data shows prior failure barely moves your odds versus a first-timer. Prior success does, dramatically. Here’s why ‘fail fast’ isn’t the mechanism people think it is.
A 2018 study tested ‘follow your passion’ directly and found it backfires: believing passion must be found, not built, makes people quit faster the moment it gets hard.
Seven myths, one shape: an arbitrary number or unnamed villain gets treated as settled science, then sold back to you as a problem only a purchase can solve. Here’s the pattern, named.
The panel behind ‘8 hours of sleep’ actually recommended a 7-9 hour range that shifts by age. Here’s what the research (and a rare gene) actually say about individual variation.
‘Superfood’ has no scientific definition anywhere — a fruit company invented the word in the 1920s to sell bananas. Here’s what happened once regulators actually asked for proof.
A study literally tested ‘no pain, no gain.’ One group got five times sorer than the other. Their strength gains came out virtually identical.
Detox products almost never name the toxin they claim to remove. Here’s what a 2015 critical review and the medical consensus since actually found.
Waking up at 5am only works because it matches roughly 15% of people’s biology. Here’s what chronotype research actually says about the rest of us.
