Heard the one about the German breast-oggling study? July 31, 2010

No? Well where have you been for the past ten years, since that’s how long the story seems to have been circulating. It’s now resurfaced on this website. In short, the story claims that a German research team led by Dr. Karen Weatherby have discovered that staring at a woman’s breasts increases a man’s life span, and is pretty much the same as doing aerobic exercise. The study was allegedly published in the New England Journal of Medicine. But surprise, surprise, no such article was published in the journal. Nor do there appear to be any entries on medical article databases for Weatherby. The only source for the story seems to be this tabloid news story, where the research is credited to a Dr. Franz Epping. He doesn’t appear in the New England Journal of Medicine, or on any other medical article databases either. You can read more about the hoax here. Thanks to J-Bro.