So, r/skeptic, this question has been bouncing around since I had a viral sore throat thing about a month ago, when, after a negative strep test, my doctor sent me home with instructions to take sucrets and drink plenty of what can best be described as hot lemon-honey water.

Seeing as there wasn't much to do but wait, I had cough drops as directed, and plenty of the lemon-honey water, which seemed to make my throat feel better. However, I wonder if the lemon-honey water was, as I described it to friends and family, Placebo Tea, or if there's actually some evidence hot lemon and honey can soothe a sore throat?

From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p10mj/is_there_any_evidence_supporting_lemon_honey_for/
1/29/2012 10:11:54 AM

submitted by Veeveev
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0zs0/sixteen_concerned_scientists_no_need_to_panic/
1/29/2012 9:50:22 AM

Wow, it's been some time since I've posted a puzzle!  Here's a simple pure math puzzle off the top of my head.

Back in middle/high school, I would kill time in classes drawing graph of all the points (n,m) such that n and m are relatively prime.  Relatively prime means that there is no integer greater than 1 which divides both n and m.  The graphs would look something like this:

The black squares represent (n,m) where n and m are relatively

From Skeptic's Play
http://skepticsplay.blogspot.com/2012/01/relatively-prime-graph.html
1/29/2012 8:49:00 AM

 On 19 Oct 2009 Intelligence Squared, hosted a debate :-The Catholic Church is a force for good in the worldSpeakers included :- Stephen Fry, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, Ann Widdecombe, Zeinab Badawi, Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Stephen Fry shows why he is so awesome:-

From The Shockwave Writer
http://shockwaveplasma.blogspot.com/2012/01/stephen-fry-is-awesome-at-inteligence.html
1/29/2012 8:40:00 AM

This one is fine but I am hoping for a place where people are willing to get their hands a little dirty.

From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0wle/is_there_a_better_subreddit_to_discuss_the/
1/29/2012 8:30:51 AM

submitted by Icarus3
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0vaa/hes_not_a_alien_or_anything_stupid_like_that/
1/29/2012 8:00:46 AM

Male house mice pro­duce me­lo­di­ous songs to at­tract mates, not un­like many birds, ac­cord­ing to new re­search.

The dit­ties are too high-pitched for hu­man hear­ing, but sci­en­tists at Vi­en­na's Un­ivers­ity of Vet­er­i­nary Med­i­cine an­a­lyzed them and found they con­vey in­forma­t­ion about ident­ity and kin­ship. The find­ings are pub­lished in the jour­nal Phys­i­ol­o­gy & Be­hav­ior and in the Jour­nal of Ethol­o­gy.
“It seems as though house mice might pro­vide a new mod­el or­gan­ism for the study of song in an­i­mals,” said Dus­tin Penn of the uni­vers­ity, one of the co-authors of the work. “Who would have thought that?”

Sci­en­tists knew house mice make sounds dur­ing court­ship, but as­sumed they were just squeaks, ac­cord­ing to the group. In real­ity, they said, they are complex and show char­ac­ter­is­tics

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644757-mice-sing-to-impress-the-girls-scientists-find
1/29/2012 8:00:21 AM

submitted by skepticliberty
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0v6u/skepticism_and_free_will_the_skeptical_libertarian/
1/29/2012 7:58:36 AM

Here's a safety tip from your friendly skeptical doctor - don't wrap yourself in mud and then stay in a sweat lodge for hours. You may or may not remember from your grade school health class that the body needs to regulate its own temperature to keep it within a fairly narrow healthy range.

There are several mechanisms for regulating body temperature, but the most important is simply behavior. When you feel hot you take actions to get cool, like remove clothing or drink cold water. When you are cold you bundle up, seek out a warm location, and maybe drink some hot tea. There are also many automatic mechanisms of thermoregulation, such as adjusting metabolic rate, sweating, and shivering.

You can, however, overwhelm the body's automatic thermoregulation with behavior. Stand outside in below freezing temperature with few clothes on (or just s

From RichardDawkins.net - All Aggregated News Content
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644755-when-pseudoscience-kills
1/29/2012 7:52:39 AM

– Obama’s got some good plans for the country, and I’m sure it’ll work out well. This time. – Rod Liddle wants to become disabled. A less kind observer might offer to help him out with that. – If you’re only as vaguely aware of the caste system in place in India as I generally [...]

From Cubik's Rube
http://cubiksrube.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/linksplat-280112/
1/29/2012 7:28:12 AM

Post by E.M. Pamu ————————— Many atheists, especially those who are the most outspoken about their disbelief (usually labeled “militant”), have often encountered many a theist who suggest and often blatantly demand that we stop being so intolerant of their religion and/or religion in general. Some expound on this request by pointing that religion has [...]

From Skeptic Money
http://www.skepticmoney.com/tolerating-intolerance/
1/29/2012 7:00:55 AM

This is only the first of three panels but the last one is more of a sad reality than a hilarious punchline: (via Calamities of Nature)

From Friendly Atheist by @hemantsblog
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/01/28/but-physics-is-toooo-haaaard/
1/29/2012 7:00:28 AM

Here’s a bit of unintended humor from our nation’s highest court.  Inside the court building, above where the justices sit, is a frieze depicting  some great “lawgivers” of history. As The Daily Republican reports, The 18 lawgivers looking down on the justices are divided into two friezes of ivory-colored, Spanish marble. On the south wall, [...]

From Why Evolution Is True
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/is-the-u-s-supreme-court-islamophobic-and-racist/
1/29/2012 6:58:17 AM

submitted by Tylzen
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0sm2/skeptictv_blogtv_live_in_5_minutes/
1/29/2012 6:56:24 AM

submitted by bryanBr
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0s0e/understanding_conspiracy_theories_and_fear/
1/29/2012 6:41:18 AM

submitted by Neurotraveller
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0rv1/skeptical_education_appeal_to_probability/
1/29/2012 6:37:33 AM

Strange noises reported around North Battleford. There's been a lot of buzz over the last few weeks about strange sounds being heard in the atmosphere. People around the world and here at home have reported hearing some bizarre noises. The latest were recorded in the Battlefords last weekend. Ian Hamilton, North Battleford's mayor, says he can't ... more

From Skeptic.com
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Skepticcom/~3/FpZ_ENc1t9M/
1/29/2012 6:33:51 AM

The miseducation committee of the Indiana legislature recently approved a bill to allow the teaching of creationism in the schools, and now the Indianapolis newspaper approves, with the usual tepid and illegitimate arguments.

Much would depend on how teachers handle the origins of life in a biology or science class.

No, it doesn't. A bill that inserts garbage into the curriculum is a bill that inserts garbage; it doesn't matter if you think it could be used to make a lovely collage, or as an exercise in recycling, it's still garbage. And if you trust teachers to do their job, let them do it without boneheaded cretins in the legislature telling them how.

And there is no provision in the bill that states creationism must be ta

From Pharyngula
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/jG4T5lUoD58/in_indiana_its_not_just_the_la.php
1/29/2012 6:32:26 AM

submitted by AgentJohnson
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0rmk/yoga_have_there_been_any_actual_scientific_studies/
1/29/2012 6:31:56 AM

submitted by butterfly_cake
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From Skeptic's Subreddit
http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/p0r3e/skeptical_search_engine_curated_by_tim_farley/
1/29/2012 6:17:22 AM