The Straight Dope - Fighting Ignorance Since 1973

Straight Dope Archive

Does it take fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown?

By Cecil Adams
January 16, 2004

Are there really "Mole People" living under the streets of New York City?

By Cecil Adams
January 9, 2004

What happened to Napoleon's penis?

By Cecil Adams
January 2, 2004

In what language do deaf people think?

By Cecil Adams
December 26, 2003

Are we living in a new "Gilded Age" of income inequality?

By Cecil Adams
December 19, 2003

What's the story on Leo Strauss?

By Cecil Adams
December 12, 2003

Are camp lanterns radioactive?

By Cecil Adams
December 5, 2003

What's the true story on ethanol?

By Cecil Adams
November 28, 2003

Are "cage free" chickens really better?

By Cecil Adams
November 21, 2003

Did "Potemkin villages" really exist?

By Cecil Adams
November 14, 2003

Did John F. Kennedy really write "Profiles in Courage?"

By Cecil Adams
November 7, 2003

Do curveballs really curve?

By Cecil Adams
October 31, 2003

Handwriting Analyis Revisited: Are elements of personality revealed through handwriting?

By Cecil Adams
October 24, 2003

Saints and Popes revisited: Were Pius XI and Pius XII anti-Semitic?

By Cecil Adams
October 17, 2003

Can use of Ecstacy cause fatal fever? What "Indignities" are grounds for divorce?

By Cecil Adams
October 10, 2003

Does multiple personality disorder really exist?

By Cecil Adams
October 3, 2003

In whodunits, "the butler did it." Who did it first?

By Cecil Adams
September 26, 2003

How can a corporation be legally considered a person?

By Cecil Adams
September 19, 2003

Was Sigmund Freud a quack?

By Cecil Adams
September 12, 2003

What is the "designated hitter" rule in baseball?

By Cecil Adams
September 5, 2003

If nuclear fallout lasts thousands of years, how did Hiroshima and Nagasaki recover so quickly?

By Cecil Adams
August 29, 2003

What is nymphomania?

By Cecil Adams
August 22, 2003

Whatever became of B. F. Skinner?

By Cecil Adams
August 15, 2003

Was Anne Frank the only author of her famous diary?

By Cecil Adams
August 8, 2003

Did John Dillinger really die outside the Biograph Theater?

By Cecil Adams
August 1, 2003

Medium and message revisited: Was Marshall McLuhan a visionary?

By Cecil Adams
July 25, 2003

Has anyone really gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel?

By Cecil Adams
July 18, 2003

An infinite question: Why doesn't .999~ = 1?

By Cecil Adams
July 11, 2003

How did the phrase "built like a brick shithouse" get to be a compliment? Are today's PCs more powerful than the legendary supercomputers of the 1970s?

By Cecil Adams
July 4, 2003

During WWII, did a Soviet general and his men desert to the Nazis?

By Cecil Adams
June 27, 2003

Man Wrecks Planet: Are the popularly published environmental statistics accurate?

By Cecil Adams
June 20, 2003

Are peanut allergies for real?

By Cecil Adams
June 13, 2003

Why is so much of the Islamic world backward and ignorant?

By Cecil Adams
June 6, 2003

What is "passive-aggressive?"

By Cecil Adams
May 30, 2003

"Own-race bias" revisited: Do other races really look more alike?

By Cecil Adams
May 23, 2003

How does marijuana cause "the munchies?"

By Cecil Adams
May 16, 2003

Was Martin Luther King, Jr. a plagiarist?

By Cecil Adams
May 2, 2003

What's the story behind Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven?"

By Cecil Adams
April 25, 2003

Is handwriting analysis legit science?

By Cecil Adams
April 18, 2003

Did George W. Bush go AWOL during his time in the National Guard?

By Cecil Adams
April 11, 2003

What is the Holy Grail?

By Cecil Adams
April 4, 2003

Are gorillas using sign language really communicating with humans?

By Cecil Adams
March 28, 2003

Is cow's milk "the worst beverage on earth?"

By Cecil Adams
March 21, 2003

Why do we travel in space?

By Cecil Adams
March 7, 2003

What caused the massive 1908 explosion in Tunguska, Siberia?

By Cecil Adams
February 28, 2003

Who is Nielsen and how does he count who watches tv?

By Cecil Adams
February 21, 2003

Was Chuck Barris a hit man for the CIA?

By Cecil Adams
February 7, 2003

How do you become a United Nations weapons inspector?

By Cecil Adams
January 31, 2003

What the heck is "leetspeek?"

By Cecil Adams
January 10, 2003

Nature, fossil fuels, and global warming: How many trees should I plant to balance my yearly CO2 output?

By Cecil Adams
January 3, 2003

prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 next

Does meditation make your brain work differently?

Send questions for Cecil Adams to: cecil@chicagoreader.com

Send comments about this website to: webmaster@straightdope.com

Advertise on the Straight Dope! Your direct line to thou- sands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.

Publishers - interested in subscribing to the Straight Dope? Write to: sdsubscriptions@chicagoreader.com.