Explainer
Background pieces that explain a concept or mechanism.
Do Walking Pads Actually Work? What the Treadmill Desk Trials Found
The research on walking while working is older than the walking pad, was run on a different machine, and its senior author once took royalties from…
Does “Japanese Walking” Actually Work?
The fastest-growing fitness search of 2026 rests on solid but narrow evidence, and the trial that tested it in the wild found the hard part was…
Does Magnesium Actually Help You Sleep?
The most searched sleep supplement of 2026 rests on 151 older adults and a manufacturer-funded trial whose competing interests were initially left out.
Does Using AI Make You Worse at Thinking?
Fifty-four people, one EEG study, and a headline that ran everywhere. What that study can and cannot show, and the retraction that reshaped the counter-evidence.
Can Changing What You Eat Actually Help Depression?
A striking result from a small trial, delivered alongside existing treatment, and a published challenge asking whether recruitment explains the effect size.
Is There Really a Correct Way to Sit?
The posture advice everyone receives rests on a causal claim one review could find no support for. Who funded that review is part of the story.
Does Eating Late Actually Matter?
Identical food, different body. The physiology is now specific rather than suggestive, and what follows for a healthy person is still a separate question.
Is Dry Air the Reason Your Eyes Hurt at Work?
The mechanism is well described and measurable. The obvious fix is where the evidence gets awkward, and the work itself is part of the cause.
How Much Does One Bad Night’s Sleep Actually Cost You?
The effects of sleep loss are not uniform, and the pattern of what suffers most is more useful than knowing that something does.
Does Media Multitasking Actually Wreck Your Attention?
A famous finding, two direct replications, three meta-analyses, and a small surviving effect that nobody can show is causal.
Does Writing With AI Flatten Your Voice? The Homogenisation Evidence
An experiment where the individual result and the collective result point in opposite directions, and the authors name the structure that produces it.
Does Office Lighting Actually Affect How Alert You Are?
A daylight study with striking results, two brightness studies that found almost nothing, and a distinction between them that explains the field.
Browse by subject
Tags cut across the four pillars, so a subject can be followed wherever it turns up.
AI Tools Beginner Friendly Blue Light Burnout Buying Guide Caffeine Ergonomic Chairs Explainer How-To Monitor Arms Posture Remote Work Screen Time Sleep Tracking Standing Desks
How these articles get written
Every claim is traceable to a named source, and where the evidence is thin that gets said rather than smoothed over. Read the research standards to see what a claim has to clear, or read about TorpidLife.