https://actuallyrandom.com/tags/fact-check/ Recent content in Fact Check on Actually Random Hugo en-us Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:52:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/what-would-aliens-look-like/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:52:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/what-would-aliens-look-like/ The standard answer is that eyes evolved independently 40 times, so aliens will have eyes. Those 40 origins turn out to share a gene and a protein, which quietly ruins the argument. https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/is-the-sun-getting-hotter/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:38:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/is-the-sun-getting-hotter/ The Sun is 48 percent brighter than when it started, but its surface is only 159 degrees warmer. It is getting brighter mostly by getting bigger, and that distinction runs through one of the best unsolved problems in Earth science. https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/do-your-cells-replace-themselves-every-7-years/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:20:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/do-your-cells-replace-themselves-every-7-years/ No. Some of your cells are exactly as old as you are, and we know because nuclear weapons testing accidentally stamped a date on every cell built after 1955. https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/why-cant-humans-photosynthesize/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:35:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/why-cant-humans-photosynthesize/ Everyone says we lack chloroplasts. That is the least important reason. A human is a 97 watt appliance wrapped in the wrong shape, and no amount of chlorophyll fixes geometry. https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/does-earths-rotation-affect-flight-time/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:20:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/does-earths-rotation-affect-flight-time/ Flying east is faster, but not because the planet turns underneath you. The rotation does move bullets, change what an aircraft weighs, and it once cost a freight train 42 femtoseconds. https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/bosch-pof-1200-ae-dimensions-and-specs/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:00:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/bosch-pof-1200-ae-dimensions-and-specs/ The official specs for the Bosch POF 1200 AE, straight from the manual. Plus the base plate hole pattern, which Bosch has never published, and which every source online gets differently. https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/can-pistachios-spontaneously-combust-during-shipping/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 19:20:00 +1200 https://actuallyrandom.com/posts/can-pistachios-spontaneously-combust-during-shipping/ Large shipments of pistachios really can self-heat and catch fire, but the claim that all pistachios are officially dangerous goods needs some qualification.