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Truth Classification

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How classification works

Capsule of the Day

DebunkedThe PolygraphThe instrument popularly called a lie detector, which records breathing, blood pressure, pulse and skin conductance dur…

New in the Library

  • FactTardigrade
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The library

Capsules

1,028 capsules, each one classified by the strength of its evidence.

All1,028Fact599Proven130Theory89Hypothesis71Contested90Debunked48
geography236biology88physics67history54medicine45astronomy33psychology26mathematics26chemistry20engineering20astrophysics19neuroscience19anthropology18art18

Trending now

Most recent activity

Factart

Museums

Institutions that collect, preserve, study and display objects. What they display is a small fraction of what they hold, how they came to hold it is increasingly disputed, and the…

by Capsule · Aug 5, 2026
Factbiology

Axolotl

The axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum, is a salamander that never leaves the larval form. It reaches sexual maturity while keeping its gills and its aquatic body, it regrows amputated…

by Capsule · Aug 7, 2026
Factnutrition

Salt

Sodium chloride. It is physiologically essential, it was the only reliable food preservative for most of history, and its scarcity relative to demand made it a strategic commodity…

by Capsule · Aug 5, 2026
Fact

Browse all

Showing 121 to 140 of 1,028

NewestMost votedA to Z
nutrition
Fact

Carbohydrates

A class of molecules made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, comprising sugars, starches and fibre. They are the main energy source in most human diets…

byCapsule
biology

Common Raven

The common raven, Corvus corax, is the largest songbird in the world and among the most widely distributed birds on Earth, occupying the whole northern hemisphere from high Arctic…

by Capsule · Aug 7, 2026
Factbiology

Hummingbird

Hummingbirds, the family Trochilidae, are small nectar-feeding birds of the Americas that hover in sustained flight and run the highest mass-specific metabolic rate of any…

by Capsule · Aug 7, 2026
Factbiology

Chimpanzee

The chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, is one of the two species of the genus Pan and, with the bonobo, the closest living relative of human beings. It is a forest and woodland ape of…

by Capsule · Aug 7, 2026
Fact· Empirical

Axolotl

The axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum, is a salamander that never leaves the larval form. It reaches sexual maturity while keeping its gills and its…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviewsAug 7, 2026
Fact

Salt

Sodium chloride. It is physiologically essential, it was the only reliable food preservative for most of history, and its scarcity relative to demand…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviewsAug 5, 2026

Also new

More from the last few days

media studies
Fact

Radio

Communication using electromagnetic waves without a conductor between sender and receiver. It was the first medium to reach a mass audience…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
geography
Fact· Empirical

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Manitoba, built where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet near the longitudinal…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Salmon

Salmon are anadromous fish of the family Salmonidae: born in fresh water, grown at sea, and returning to fresh water to spawn, in most cases to the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
geography
Fact· Empirical

Morden

Morden is a city in the Pembina Valley of southern Manitoba, close to the United States border and about twenty kilometres west of Winkler, with…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Monarch Butterfly

The monarch, Danaus plexippus, is a large orange and black butterfly of the Americas, and the migratory population of eastern North America performs…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Seahorse

Seahorses are small marine fish of the genus Hippocampus, around fifty species, distinguished by an upright posture, a prehensile tail, a tubular…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
medicine
Fact

Surgery

Treatment by physical intervention in the body. Surgery was limited for millennia not by knowledge of anatomy but by three specific obstacles, and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
medicine
Fact

Nursing

The care of the sick, injured and dependent. Nursing is the largest health profession by a wide margin, its outcomes are measurable and substantial,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews

Settled science

Verified facts and proven results

See all
history
Fact· Empirical

The Colosseum

The Colosseum is a giant amphitheatre in the centre of Rome, the largest ever built and one of the most recognisable monuments of the ancient world.…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
geography
Fact· Empirical

Mount Everest

Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth as measured from sea level, with a summit reaching 8,848.86 metres (29,031.7 feet) above sea level, a…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Great White Shark

The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, is the largest predatory fish, reaching about six metres. It is warm-blooded in a limited and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
history
Fact

The Founding and Agricultural Development of Brandon, Manitoba

Brandon, Manitoba was established in 1881 as a planned railway town along the Canadian Pacific Railway and rapidly became the agricultural hub of the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
history
Fact· Empirical

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is not a single wall but a vast, discontinuous system of fortifications, walls, watchtowers, garrisons, and beacon towers,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Lion

The lion, Panthera leo, is the only truly social cat and the second largest after the tiger. It once ranged from southern Africa through the Middle…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
agriculture
Fact

Traditional Yoruba Agricultural Practices in Southwestern Nigeria

The Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria developed sophisticated agricultural systems over centuries that integrated intercropping, seasonal…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Proven· Replicated

Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, algae, and certain bacteria capture the energy of sunlight and use it to turn carbon dioxide and water…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
geography
Fact· Empirical

The Sahara

The Sahara is the largest hot desert on Earth, a sweep of sand, gravel, and bare rock stretching across northern Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Honey Bee

Honey bees are eusocial insects of the genus Apis, of which the western honey bee, Apis mellifera, is the one kept worldwide. They communicate the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Fact· Empirical

Domestic Cat

The domestic cat, Felis catus, is the most numerous small carnivore on Earth, with something over six hundred million individuals. It is also barely…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
astronomy
Fact· Empirical

The Solar System

The Solar System is the Sun and everything bound to it by gravity: eight planets, several dwarf planets, scores of moons, and countless smaller…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews

Open questions

Hypotheses under investigation and ideas still debated

See all
biology
Contested

Are Animals Conscious?

Whether animals have conscious experiences, an inner life of feelings and awareness, is a deep and genuinely contested question. That many animals…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
earth science
Contested

What Causes the Ice Ages

Throughout its history, the Earth has repeatedly cooled into ice ages, when vast sheets of ice spread across the continents, and warmed again between…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
astronomy
Contested

The Origin of the Moon

How the Moon came to be is a question that has fascinated and divided scientists for generations. While one explanation is now favoured, important…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
astronomy
Hypothesis

The Rare Earth Hypothesis

The Rare Earth hypothesis proposes that complex, multicellular life, of the kind found on Earth, is extremely rare in the universe, because it…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Hypothesis

Wormholes

A wormhole is a hypothetical tunnel through spacetime that could, in principle, connect two distant points in the universe, or even two different…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
astrophysics
Contested

Dark Energy

Dark energy is the name given to an unknown influence that appears to be driving the expansion of the universe to speed up over time. It is thought…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
psychology
Contested

Nature versus Nurture

The nature versus nurture debate asks how much of who we are, our intelligence, personality, talents, and behavior, comes from our genes, and how…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Hypothesis

Panspermia

Panspermia is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe and is spread between worlds by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets.…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
philosophy
Contested

Free Will

Free will is the question of whether people are truly free to choose their actions, or whether every choice is the inevitable product of prior…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
astrophysics
Contested

How the Universe Will End

The ultimate fate of the universe is one of the deepest questions in science. Cosmologists have proposed several very different endings, and which…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Contested

The Multiverse

The multiverse is the hypothesis that our universe is only one of many, perhaps even infinitely many, other universes. It is taken seriously by many…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
history
Contested

The Bronze Age Collapse

The Bronze Age collapse was a sudden, widespread breakdown of civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean roughly 3,200 years ago. Within a few…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews

Debunked

Claims the evidence overturned

See all
history
Debunked

Astrology

Astrology is the belief that the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars influence human affairs and personalities, and that they can be used…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
geography
Debunked

The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle is a region of the Atlantic Ocean, roughly between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, said to be the site of mysterious…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
chemistry
Debunked

Phlogiston Theory

Phlogiston theory was an early explanation of combustion, widely accepted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It held that all flammable…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
history
Debunked

Alchemy

Alchemy was an ancient and medieval practice that sought to transform base metals such as lead into gold, to discover a universal cure for disease,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
astronomy
Debunked

The Martian Canals

The Martian canals were a network of fine, straight lines that some astronomers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries believed they…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
nutrition
Debunked

Breakfast as the Most Important Meal

The claim that eating breakfast is necessary for health and weight control, and that skipping it causes weight gain. The phrase was popularised by…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
architecture
Debunked

The Golden Ratio in Art and Architecture

The golden ratio is a real and interesting number. The claim that it governs the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid, the Mona Lisa and the proportions of…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Debunked

Spontaneous Generation

Spontaneous generation was the long held belief that living organisms could arise directly from non living matter. People thought maggots formed from…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
literature
Debunked

The Shakespeare Authorship Question

The claim that the works attributed to William Shakespeare were written by someone else. It has attracted eminent supporters for a hundred and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Debunked

Perpetual Motion

Perpetual motion is the idea of a machine that runs forever without any energy source, or that produces more energy than it consumes. Inventors have…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
neuroscience
Debunked

The Left-Brain, Right-Brain Myth

The idea that people are left-brained and therefore logical, or right-brained and therefore creative, is one of the most widely believed claims about…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
music
Debunked

The Mozart Effect

The claim that listening to Mozart makes people, and especially babies, more intelligent. It came from one small study whose actual finding was far…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews

Theories explained

Well substantiated explanations of how things work

See all
physics
Theory· Scientific

Special Relativity

Special relativity is the theory of space and time that Albert Einstein published in 1905. It revolutionized physics by showing that measurements of…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Theory

Acoustics: The Science of Sound

Acoustics is the branch of physics that studies sound: how it is produced, how it travels as waves, and how it is heard. It bridges science and art,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
biology
Theory

Cell Theory

Cell theory is one of the foundational ideas of biology. It holds that all living things are made of cells, that the cell is the basic unit of life,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
computer science
Theory· Mathematical

Information Theory

Information theory is the mathematical study of how information is measured, stored, and communicated. It defines what information actually is in…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
mathematics
Theory

The Theory of Computation

The theory of computation is the branch of mathematics and computer science that asks what problems can be solved by computation, and how…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Theory

Dark Matter: The Leading Theoretical Framework for Missing Mass in the Universe

Dark matter is the leading theoretical framework proposed to explain gravitational effects observed in galaxies and galaxy clusters that cannot be…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
mathematics
Theory· Mathematical

Game Theory

Game theory is the mathematical study of strategic decision making, where the outcome for each participant depends not only on their own choice but…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
geology
Theory

Uniformitarianism

Uniformitarianism is the foundational principle of geology: that the same natural processes we observe today, such as erosion, sedimentation, and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
mathematics
Theory

Topology

Topology is the branch of mathematics that studies the properties of shapes that survive stretching, bending, and twisting, but not tearing or…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Theory

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics that studies light: how it travels, how it interacts with matter, and how it can be controlled with lenses and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
science
Theory

The Gut-Brain Axis: Microbiome Influence on Mental Health

The gut-brain axis describes the bi-directional signalling between gut microbiota and the central nervous system via the vagus nerve, immune system,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
physics
Theory

Electromagnetism

Electromagnetism is the branch of physics that describes the forces between electric charges and the deep connection between electricity and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
0 votes0 reviews
ecology
Fact

Food Webs

The network of feeding relationships in an ecosystem. It describes who eats whom, and because energy is lost at every transfer, it explains why large…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
genetics
Fact

Sex Determination

The mechanisms by which an organism develops as male, female or another form. The systems are far more varied than the mammalian arrangement…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
immunology
Fact

Inflammation

The body's response to injury or infection, producing redness, heat, swelling and pain. It is protective and necessary, and when it persists without…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
neuroscience
Fact

Brain Imaging

Techniques for observing the structure and activity of a living brain without opening the skull. They transformed both clinical neurology and the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
computer science
Fact

Operating Systems

The software that manages a computer's hardware and provides services to every other program. It exists because writing each program to control the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
film
Fact

Animation

The creation of apparent motion from a sequence of still images. It predates cinema, it is a technique rather than a genre, and its production…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
architecture
Fact

Vernacular Architecture

Building made without architects, using local materials and inherited methods, adapted to local climate and way of life. It accounts for the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
anthropology
Fact

Gift Exchange

The transfer of objects as gifts rather than as trade, governed by obligations to give, to receive and to reciprocate. It is a distinct economic…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
literature
Fact

Drama

Literature written to be performed by actors representing characters. It is distinguished from other literary forms by being incomplete on the page:…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
music
Fact

The Orchestra

A large ensemble of instrumentalists, organised into sections and directed by a conductor. Its composition was not designed but accumulated, and it…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
law
Fact

Human Rights

Rights held by every person by virtue of being human, independently of citizenship, law or the consent of any government. The idea is old, its…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
linguistics
Fact

Language Families

Groups of languages descended from a common ancestor. The relationships are established by systematic correspondence rather than by resemblance, and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
science
Fact

The Scientific Method

The set of practices by which scientific claims are tested against evidence. It is not a single fixed procedure, and its most important components…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
sociology
Fact

Urbanisation

The shift of a population from rural to urban living. More than half the world's people now live in cities, a threshold crossed around 2007, and the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
oceanography
Fact

The Deep Sea

The ocean below roughly 200 metres, where sunlight fails. It is the largest habitat on Earth by volume, it is under extreme pressure and permanent…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
philosophy
Fact

Logic

The study of valid inference: which conclusions follow from which premises, and why. It is the shared foundation of philosophy, mathematics and…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
urban planning
Fact

Public Transport

Shared passenger transport available to the general public on fixed routes and schedules. Its economics differ fundamentally from private transport,…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
statistics
Fact

Sampling

Selecting part of a population in order to draw conclusions about the whole. It is what makes measurement of large populations possible, and how the…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
sociology
Fact

Social Class

Divisions within a society based on economic position, occupation, education and status. How class should be defined has been argued about for as…

byCapsule0 votes0 reviews
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