This might not sound significant, until you compare it with the control group: an equal number of study participants who were not forced to freeze their feet, and presumably just sat in the lobby reading a People magazine from 1989 until the time came to collect their fee. Of these, only 9 percent got sick. That's what scientists officially call "statistically fucking significant."

It turns out you and your mom were both sort of right: Colds are viral, but research shows that cold temperatures can substantially worsen any largely dormant viruses you might already have, to the point that it becomes noticeable and you're considered "sick."

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See, you technically were sick all those times you called into work so you could binge-watch Netflix.

Right now, you're actually a lot sicker than you realize, but your immune system is doing a damn good job arresting the various viruses, and you're doing a really shitty job giving it credit. Among those who reported developing a cold in the days after the ice experiment, it's likely that most of them already harbored the cold virus, but their white blood cells were keeping that all in check -- until they worsened the situation by dunking their feet in a glacier.

Freezing temperatures constrict the blood vessels, cool the blood, and prevent the immune system from doing its job properly. As a result, the inhibited immune response allows the cold virus to get just enough of an upper hand to produce symptoms. The correct path of action is clear: Put on the sweater first, then tell your mother to suck the science.

The Science:

In a survey of Internet users, researchers asked a bunch of questions to discern the motivations of those who commented on the Internet (presumably beyond "I really want attention.") Then they further surveyed them to determine how closely their personalities aligned with what psychologists refer to as the "dark tetrad" -- Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism -- aka the four horsemen of the asspocalypse.

The results:

E.E. Buckels et al via slate.com
The study didn't measure the use of caps lock, presumably because they couldn't create a big enough chart.

The minority of responders who admitted to being trolls also racked up off-the-charts scores in all of the "human piece of shit" categories. In fact, psychologists have recently specified a new official personality category for these people. They call it "negative dispositional attitude." But we've known about it for a long time -- we call them "haters," and we recognize them from the fact that they're gonna hate.

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Great: another special interest group.

In another survey, researchers asked people for their opinions on a bunch of different, unrelated topics, ranging from architecture to politics. They found that the participants with NDAs had opinions about any given topic that were dictated less by a reasoned analysis of the facts at hand and more by a general tendency to focus on only the negative aspects of everything.

Science has also determined that players are indeed going to play, though the likelihood of ballers to continue balling has yet to be conclusively determined.

The Saying:

"You can tell just by looking at them."

Come on, maybe it's not PC -- but you know it's true. You look at some people, and you can just tell they're gay by the way they're actively boning only members of the same sex while shouting, "I am a homosexual!"

But of course we know "gaydar" is a complete myth, or else Grindr wouldn't be a thing.

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Or it'd be a sandwich social app to find people that like meaty footlongs.

The Science:

Researchers conducted an experiment in which they took a bunch of facial photographs of men and women, straight and gay, then removed any distinguishing characteristics such as hair and makeup, so that they all looked like the default setting in a video game's character creator. The scientists flashed these images in front of the participants for a fraction of a second -- just long enough to see the image, but not long enough to overthink it -- then asked whether the participants thought the subject of the photo was straight or gay.

Shockingly, people were able to correctly determine which gender the person in the photo preferred to rub their bits against around 60 percent of the time -- which doesn't sound that impressive, but it's better than random chance, even when adjusted for margin of error.

Michael Cogliantry/The Image Bank/Getty Images
If you think this sounds like a game show premise, you're right.

The scientists hypothesized that the shape of our facial features and the spatial relationships between them contain clues about our sexual orientation, if not most of the time, then often enough to be statistically significant.

But that's not the only determining factor. Other studies have shown that gay men and women are also more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous, have denser fingerprints, a different tone of voice, and even distinct hair-whorl patterns. Also, gay men have, on average, bigger dicks. So if you want to fine-tune your gaydar, you can either listen attentively to him while meticulously checking his hands and hair, or just shove your hand down the front of his pants and skip the foreplay.

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After which, you may want to check your whorl.

One theory suggests that, because we tend to hang out mostly with members of our own race, our brains simply get less practice in differentiating features in other races. Another theory suggests that our brains are more inclined to recognize the differences in other people, rather than the similarities. For example, when a bunch of white people get together, they recognize each other through subtle differences in the shapes of their eyes, nose, and mouth. But as soon as you bring a dark-skinned man into the circle, all your brain thinks is, "There's a black dude. I better hide my wallet."

The first sentence is not your fault. That's biology. It's only the second sentence that makes you an asshole.