The Myth Report

Tech & Culture

Local Food Feels Virtuous — But 'Food Miles' Tell Only a Fraction of the Story

Buying local has become shorthand for eating sustainably, built on the intuitive idea that shorter distances mean smaller environmental footprints. But food sustainability researchers tell a more complicated story — one where what you eat matters far more than where it came from. Here's why 'food miles' became such a powerful but misleading metric.

Mar 13, 2026

Health & Wellness

Eight Glasses a Day: The Hydration Rule That Was Never Really a Rule

Americans have been told to drink eight glasses of water a day for decades — but the science behind that number is shakier than you'd expect. Tracing this guideline back to its origins reveals a surprising story about how a rough midcentury estimate quietly became medical gospel. Here's what hydration research actually says.

Mar 13, 2026

Tech & Culture

Columbus Didn't Prove the Earth Was Round — Educated People Already Knew That

Generations of American students learned that Christopher Columbus set sail to prove the Earth wasn't flat — but that story is almost entirely fiction. Educated Europeans had accepted a spherical Earth for nearly two thousand years before 1492. So where did this myth come from, and what was Columbus's voyage actually about?

Mar 13, 2026

Tech & Culture

Digg vs. Reddit: The Rise, Fall, and Comeback of the Internet's First Great News War

Before Twitter algorithms and TikTok feeds told us what was trending, two scrappy websites were locked in an all-out war for the soul of the internet. The story of Digg and Reddit is one of the most fascinating — and brutally honest — tales in tech history, and it's still playing out today.

Mar 12, 2026