710 claim verifications avg. score 4.6/10 234 rated true or mostly true 476 rated false or misleading
“The ABC conjecture has been proven as of March 18, 2026.”
The ABC conjecture has not been proven in any broadly accepted sense as of March 18, 2026. While Mochizuki's proof was published by RIMS in Kyoto, leading mathematicians including Peter Scholze and Jakob Stix identified a serious, unfixable gap that remains unresolved. The RIMS publication carries a conflict of interest, and Joshi's subsequent defense is explicitly conditional on acceptance of enhancements the community has not endorsed. As of early 2026, the conjecture remains "a theorem in Kyoto, a conjecture everywhere else."
“Devendra Fadnavis and Salman Khan jointly inaugurated a room named 'Gram Medical Assistance Fund' at Mantralaya in Mumbai in April 2026 to provide financial aid of up to 2.5 million INR for needy patients across all diseases.”
This claim is fabricated misinformation recycling a real 2016 event with false details. The Maharashtra Chief Minister's Office explicitly labeled the viral "Gram Medical Assistance Fund" claim as fake news. No credible official record, photograph, or contemporaneous report of an April 2026 inauguration exists. The actual event was a 2016 Rural Medical Aid Fund launch by Fadnavis and Salman Khan offering up to Rs. 2 lakh — not Rs. 25 lakh — making the claimed date, fund name, and aid amount all false.
“China's gross domestic product (GDP) will exceed that of the United States by the year 2030.”
This claim is not supported by current evidence. As of 2026, the US nominal GDP (~$31.8T) exceeds China's (~$20.7T) by over $11 trillion — a gap that cannot close by 2030 at projected growth rates. The major institutions once cited for a 2030 overtake (notably CEBR) have revised their forecasts to the mid-2030s. Goldman Sachs, Citi, and CEBR now all project the overtaking around 2035–2036. China also faces structural headwinds including a shrinking workforce and declining productivity growth.
“More than 30% of code written in 2026 is generated by AI tools.”
The claim that more than 30% of code written in 2026 is generated by AI tools is not supported by the strongest available evidence. The largest empirical study — covering 4.2 million developers from November 2025 through February 2026 — found AI-authored production code at 26.9%, below the 30% threshold. Higher estimates (41–42%) come from surveys that conflate "AI-assisted" with "AI-generated" code, inflating the figure. While AI coding tool adoption is widespread, usage rates do not equate to code generation share.
“The 10,000-hour rule reliably predicts the attainment of expertise in a given field.”
The 10,000-hour rule does not reliably predict expertise. Meta-analyses show deliberate practice explains only 18–26% of skill variance across domains. Individual variation is enormous — chess masters have achieved mastery in as few as 3,016 hours while others never reached it after 25,000+. The "rule" is a popularized oversimplification of one violinist study's average, and its originator, K. Anders Ericsson, distanced himself from this framing. Genetics, instruction quality, and learning rates matter significantly.
“Most studies reporting benefits of collagen supplements are funded by the supplement industry or by researchers with financial ties to the supplement industry.”
Industry funding is widespread in collagen supplement research, and a major 2025 meta-analysis found that positive results were concentrated in industry-funded, lower-quality trials while independent, higher-quality studies showed no significant benefit. Harvard and peer-reviewed reviews flag conflicts of interest as a pervasive concern. However, no source in the evidence base actually counts the proportion of benefit-reporting studies that are industry-funded, so the specific claim that "most" such studies meet this threshold is plausible but not directly demonstrated.
“Birds are surveillance drones created or operated by the government.”
This claim is entirely false. "Birds Aren't Real" is a well-documented satirical movement founded in 2017 by Peter McIndoe as absurdist commentary on conspiracy culture — not a genuine assertion. Its founder publicly confirmed it was a hoax in 2021. Centuries of ornithological science confirm birds are biological animals. No credible, independent evidence supports the idea that birds are government surveillance drones. The claim's cultural popularity reflects its success as satire, not any factual basis.
“The United States was downgraded in a democracy index.”
The claim is accurate. The V-Dem Institute's 2026 Democracy Report documents a 24% one-year drop in the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index score and a rank fall from 20th to 51st place. The Century Foundation's Democracy Meter also recorded a significant decline. While other indices like Freedom House and International IDEA did not report a downgrade, the claim only states the U.S. was downgraded in "a" democracy index — which is clearly supported by multiple credible sources.
“The Civil Defence Department of India issued an official advisory warning that temperatures in India will reach between 45°C and 55°C during the period from April 29 to May 12, 2026.”
This viral message is a fabrication — no such advisory was ever issued by India's Civil Defence Department. Two independent fact-checking organizations (BOOM and FACTLY) investigated this identical claim and confirmed it is false, with an IMD official explicitly denying it. The message appears to be a recurring hoax, first debunked in 2025 and now repackaged with 2026 dates. Actual IMD forecasts describe temperature anomalies in degrees above normal and never project temperatures reaching 55°C.
“It takes exactly 21 days to form a new habit.”
The claim that it takes "exactly 21 days" to form a habit is a widely debunked myth. The figure originated from a plastic surgeon's anecdotal observations in 1960, not from any scientific study. Multiple peer-reviewed studies and a 2024 meta-analysis show habit formation typically takes 59–66 days, with individual variation ranging from 4 to 335 days. Caltech researchers explicitly stated the 21-day estimate "was not based on any science." There is no fixed universal timeline for habit formation.
“AI deepfake detection technology is highly accurate and reliable as of March 15, 2026.”
While some leading deepfake detection tools report 92–98% accuracy in controlled lab settings, these figures come largely from vendor benchmarks, not independent real-world testing. Multiple sources — including academic challenge benchmarks and forensic experts — document that detection accuracy drops by 45–50% under real-world conditions such as compression, low-quality media, and novel AI generators. Some deployed systems are only ~80% effective. Calling the technology "highly accurate and reliable" as a blanket characterization significantly overstates its current operational performance.
“Generative AI models consistently produce factual inaccuracies in their outputs.”
Generative AI models do produce factual inaccuracies, and this is a well-documented, persistent challenge confirmed by peer-reviewed research and major benchmarks. However, the word "consistently" overstates the problem. Error rates vary enormously — from below 1% on grounded summarization tasks to over 30% on open-domain reasoning — depending on the task, domain, model, and whether retrieval tools are used. Hallucination rates are also declining over time. The claim describes a real issue but frames it in a misleadingly uniform way.
“Professional wrestling matches are scripted and predetermined rather than genuine athletic competitions.”
The core of this claim is accurate: professional wrestling match outcomes are predetermined by bookers and creative teams, a fact confirmed by multiple credible sources and WWE's own public admissions dating back to 1989. However, the phrase "rather than genuine athletic competitions" is misleading. Sources consistently affirm that the physical demands, athleticism, injury risks, and in-ring improvisation are entirely real. Scripted outcomes and genuine athleticism coexist — they are not mutually exclusive.
“The James Webb Space Telescope has produced evidence that disproves the Big Bang theory as of March 26, 2026.”
This claim is false. As of March 2026, no peer-reviewed scientific body or credible institution has concluded that JWST disproved the Big Bang theory. NASA explicitly rejects this framing. JWST has revealed unexpectedly bright and mature early galaxies, prompting refinements to galaxy formation models — but the Big Bang's core evidence (cosmic microwave background, expansion, primordial nucleosynthesis) remains uncontradicted. The "disproof" narrative traces to fringe sources, creationist outlets, and a mischaracterization of normal scientific model adjustment as theoretical falsification.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) classified processed meats, including deli ham, as Group 1 carcinogens.”
This claim is substantively accurate. In October 2015, IARC — the cancer research agency of the WHO — classified processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, and explicitly listed "ham" as an example. WHO itself communicates this classification on its own website. Saying "WHO classified" is reasonable shorthand, though technically the classification comes from IARC's Monographs program. "Deli ham" falls under the processed meat category rather than being individually evaluated. The core claim holds up well.
“Norway generates more than 95% of its electricity from renewable sources as of March 4, 2026.”
Norway's electricity generation is well above 95% renewable. Statistics Norway (SSB) reports that hydro (87.8%) and wind (10.7%) together accounted for 98.5% of electricity generation in December 2025 — the most recent granular data available. This is corroborated by the European Environment Agency (~98%) and Enerdata (February 2026). Norway's renewable electricity share has been structurally above 95% for decades, and no evidence suggests any change by March 2026. The claim is accurate.
“The Apple Watch can predict heart failure with high accuracy using an AI model that analyzes peak oxygen uptake (pVO2) data.”
The claim overstates what current evidence supports. While the TRUE-HF AI model uses Apple Watch data to estimate daily fitness surrogates correlated with pVO2, the Apple Watch does not directly measure peak oxygen uptake — it estimates submaximal VO2max with known error and bias. Published findings show promising risk associations (e.g., threefold higher event risk per 10% fitness drop), but no validated "high accuracy" prediction metrics (AUC, sensitivity, specificity) for heart failure have been reported for this specific pVO2-based approach. The research is promising but preliminary.
“Countries with universal healthcare systems have worse overall health outcomes compared to the United States.”
This claim is the opposite of what the evidence shows. Multiple high-authority sources—including the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, KFF, and America's Health Rankings—consistently demonstrate that countries with universal healthcare outperform the U.S. on life expectancy (by 4+ years), infant mortality, maternal mortality, and avoidable deaths. The U.S. spends far more per capita than any peer nation yet ranks last or near-last on most key health outcome measures. Avoidable deaths are rising in the U.S. while falling in universal-care nations.
“Romantic love typically lasts no more than three years in most relationships.”
The claim conflates early-stage passionate intensity — which research does show fading within roughly 1–3 years — with romantic love broadly. Multiple high-authority sources, including the American Psychological Association and Harvard Medical School, explicitly distinguish these constructs. Neuroimaging studies show couples married over 20 years can exhibit the same dopamine-rich romantic brain activity as newly in-love individuals. The blanket assertion that romantic love "typically lasts no more than three years in most relationships" is not supported by the preponderance of scientific evidence.
“Smartphones use their microphones to actively listen to users' conversations in order to serve targeted advertisements.”
No credible, independent evidence supports the claim that smartphones actively listen through microphones to serve targeted ads. The primary supporting evidence — a leaked CMG marketing pitch deck — was walked back by the company itself. Independent scientific studies, including a Northeastern University analysis of 17,000+ Android apps, found no unauthorized microphone activation. The "eerily accurate" ads people experience are well-explained by extensive metadata collection: location data, browsing history, app usage, purchase records, and cross-device tracking — no eavesdropping required.