Curtis Strite

We constantly see new beauty products and treatments that promise amazing results, from picture-perfect skin to waist-length, shiny hair. But the unfortunate truth is that a number of products out there don’t have much, if any, scientific backing. They can be ineffective at best and downright harmful at worst.
You should always do your research before spending your hard-earned money. Here’s what the experts say to be wary of.

1. At-Home Derma Rollers

Maybe you’ve heard of micro-needling—running a roller of tiny sterile needles over your skin to boost collagen production and help absorb skincare products. According to Jacqueline Schaffer, MD, micro-needling can be really effective—but you should always have this done at a doctor’s office, never at home.
The needles of a derma roller range from 0.25 millimeters to 3.0 millimeters in length (though anything over 1.5 millimeters is not recommended for at-home use under any circumstances), meaning they can go quite deeply into your skin and potentially cause damage if used incorrectly.

“It’s something that can actually worsen your skin,” Schaffer says. “It can cause more injury and disturb your skin’s texture. Your [desired] outcome is to have a more even skin texture, which is what the fine needles should do, because it should stimulate collagen and repair. But because it’s manual and not done by a machine, [at-home derma rollers are] actually causing damage and unevenness in you.”
Ultimately, Schaffer says, your skin can end up looking irregular—and there are safety concerns, too.
Without proper sterilization, your derma roller could put you at risk for serious infections or flare-ups of existing skin conditions. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is looking to regulate these devices to keep users safe.
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“With anything that is going to puncture your skin, you can really hurt yourself,” Schaffer adds. “It’s going to be a complete shock to your skin, and [at home] there’s no supervision.”

2. Eye Cream in a Jar

The skin around your eyes is generally thinner and more delicate than the skin on the rest of your face, as Rachel Nazarian, MD, a board-certified dermatologist, told HuffPost. As such, you may well want a specific cream to help hydrate that area—but make sure it comes in the right type of container.
“You need to be very, very careful with certain eye cream,” Schaffer says. “If it comes in a jar, after the cream is exposed to oxygen it’s going to oxidize. So that expensive eye cream is going to be goop.”

“Oxygen, sunlight, and microbes, which cosmetic products are often exposed to during storage and use, can change their characteristics, [resulting] in strange odors, discoloration, or contamination,” researchers said in a review (link opens as a PDF) published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical and Scientific Innovation. “This reduces the shelf life of the product and degrades its quality and effectiveness once opened.”  
So, despite the luxurious look, eye cream from a jar may actually be less effective and full of germs after only one use. But don’t give up on all eye creams just yet.
Schaffer suggests this alternative: “You want to make sure it comes in an airless tube.”
The researchers agreed. “… The danger of contamination and degradation is almost non-existent for airless packaging,” they said.

3. SPF Nail Polish

Obviously, proper sun care is very important. As dermatologist Fayne Frey, MD, explained to HealthyWay, you are exposed to the sun’s rays every day, even while walking to your mailbox or driving during the daytime.
Because of this, you should definitely make sure a chemical sunscreen (which will absorb the potentially harmful UV rays) or a physical sunscreen (which will block the UV rays entirely by reflecting them off your skin) is part of your everyday regimen.

Other safe sun tips include staying away from tanning beds, wearing baseball caps and long-sleeved shirts or UV-protective outfits, and wearing sunglasses to protect your eyes from UV rays.
What you don’t need? SPF nail polish.
While the sun can certainly burn the skin under your nails if the rays are strong enough, regular nail polish should act as a good enough barrier. Just make sure you pay attention to your hands and nails when applying sunscreen: If you’re already wearing nail polish, some chemical sunscreens can ruin your manicure, cosmetic chemist Joseph Cincotta told Allure.

4. Tanning Beds

Tanning beds are a scam (even though they technically do give you a tan) simply because they are dangerous to use.
Tanning beds give off UVA and UVB radiation, which can cause adverse effects, including increased cancer risks. According to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), “Researchers estimate that indoor tanning may cause upwards of 400,000 cases of skin cancer in the U.S. each year.”

What’s more, according to the AAD: One single session in a tanning bed can increase your risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma by 67 percent, basal cell carcinoma by 29 percent, and melanoma by 20 percent.
Despite these risks, the AAD estimates that 7.8 million adult women in the United States tan indoors.
The safest way to get a sun-kissed glow is to get a spray tan, or use fake tanning lotion. And if you are low on vitamin D, the AAD recommends eating foods like fatty fish, cheese, and fortified cereals, drinking orange juice, or looking into vitamin D supplements.

5. Split End Repair Serum

Split ends—when individual strands of hair separate at the ends into two or more pieces—are caused by hair damage from heat tools, over-brushing, or chemical dyes.
You can prevent split ends by getting enough protein in your diet, avoiding heat tools and excessive hair handling whenever possible, and brushing your hair gently, among other healthy hair habits. But once you have them, forget about fixing them with expensive serums or oils.

Sadly, products that claim to repair split ends really don’t work. They can temporarily glue the split ends back together until your next shampoo, or add moisture to conceal and prevent further split ends, but they can’t actually repair your hair.
“Once your ends are split, the only solution is to go to the salon to get them trimmed,” WebMD explained.

6. Stretch Mark Creams

Stretch marks are incredibly common. They are caused by tearing in a layer of the skin called the dermis and are especially likely to occur during puberty or pregnancy, when the body is growing.
“Stretch marks are caused by the skin rapidly pulling to accommodate weight gain, growth, or stretching from other causes,” says Jennifer Caudle, DO, a board-certified family physician. “Genetics can play a role, and certain medications can as well. Stretch marks may fade somewhat over time, but they are generally considered to be permanent.”

Though stretch marks can vary in appearance, some people don’t like the way they look and seek to get rid of them. Unfortunately, topical creams that claim to treat stretch marks usually don’t do much to help.
Some clinical trials suggest that certain creams help decrease the appearance of stretch marks, but more than likely won’t eliminate them. The Mayo Clinic explains, “Products made of cocoa butter, vitamin E and glycolic acid, for example, aren’t harmful, but they probably won’t help much either.”
Caudle agrees: “Many over-the-counter creams claim to remove stretch marks, but they usually provide moisture without a proven benefit of stretch mark removal. For treatment options that may help reduce the appearance of stretch marks, it’s best to talk with your doctor.”

7. Sheet Masks

Sheet masks have become insanely popular over the past few years, to the point where it’s not unusual to see people using them on airplanes. But experts are divided on whether they actually work.
The point of sheet masks is to hold the mask close to the wearer’s face and trap moisture, aiding in absorption. Effectiveness depends on the active ingredients in a sheet mask.
However, even when those ingredients are beneficial, does the paper mask itself actually make any difference in how well they work when applied to your face?

Paula Begoun, the Cosmetics Cop, doesn’t think so.
“Sheet masks don’t deliver ingredients to the skin any better than well-formulated skin-care products,” she said in a recent interview with The Cut. In fact, she considers them a waste of time. She explained that absorption depends on the molecular size of the ingredients, not on something holding those ingredients to the skin. So all those single-use sheets are fairly useless.
You can get the same (or better) results by investing in a good leave-on face cream. It will last longer and, as Begoun emphasized, allow you to make better use of your time.

8. Bee Pollen Weight-Loss Products

Bee pollen weight-loss products have been touted by some health experts as a quick way to shed pounds. These products are made from the pollen bees collect from flowers and feed to their larvae. Sellers make grand (unsubstantiated) claims about the supposed benefits of these products, which can include anything from quick weight loss to increased longevity.
Scientists are still researching the effectiveness of these products, but some bee pollen products have already proven themselves dangerous and deadly.

“Some bee pollen products marketed for weight loss have been found to contain hidden and potentially dangerous ingredients that may be harmful for people who have conditions such as irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, and bipolar disorders,” said Gary Coody, the FDA national health fraud coordinator, in a consumer update.
Over 50 people have reported adverse health effects, including renal failure and anaphylactic shock, after using bee pollen weight-loss products—and shockingly, one person has died.
“It is tempting to believe that a quick and effortless weight loss supplement is safe for use,” FDA regulatory manager Jason Humbert said. “But given the fact that these products contain a hidden dangerous ingredient, consumers should avoid taking them.”

9. Gold-Infused Face Creams

We totally understand the appeal of gold face creams; they’re slightly shiny, they leave you feeling moisturized, and they contain real specks of gold. What’s not to love?
For starters, the price tags. Real gold is expensive, and facial creams that include precious metals aren’t ideal for budget-conscious consumers. Some gold-infused eye creams and moisturizers cost upwards of $200. More importantly, gold doesn’t do anything to improve skin health. 

“At best, [gold skin creams] do nothing, and at worst, they can give you irritation of the skin,” dermatologist Judith Hellman told The New York Times in 2010. “I would tell people to put that money into gold that they can wear around their neck or on their fingers.”
While some other doctors note that gold may have anti-inflammatory properties that could potentially provide a real-world benefit, we couldn’t find any research supporting that claim in relation to skincare.

10. Bee Venom Lip Plumpers

Ever notice that your favorite limp plumper makes your lips hurt? That’s by design.
The fastest way to increase the size of body tissue—to “plump” up—is to cause irritation. That’s exactly what plumping glosses and lipsticks do; most contain cinnamon, peppermint oil, capsicum (an extract from peppers), and other mild irritants, which draw blood flow to wherever you apply them. You might notice your lips stinging for a while, and repeated use can cause your lips to dry out or crack. 

Those are annoying side effects, but they’re relatively minor, and hey, sometimes you’re willing to put up with a little pain in the name of beauty. We’re not here to judge, but know this: Some lip plumpers use stronger ingredients, including products derived from bee venom (Kourtney Kardashian endorsed one such product, because of course she did).
If you’re prone to allergic reactions, make sure to avoid these glosses. And if you’re not, still be wary. Some dermatologists don’t recommend any irritating products, but if you really crave that fuller pout, stick with the peppermint- or capsicum-based products. Oh, and use them with moderation—nobody likes cracked lips, even if they do look rather plump. 

11. Collagen Supplements (Maybe)

Your body uses collagen to grow skin, hair, and fingernails. Give your body more collagen, and you’ll have better hair, skin, and fingernails—it makes sense, doesn’t it? 
Unfortunately, there’s not much evidence to show that collagen supplements do much of anything. While a few studies have shown that regular supplements can improve skin collagen density, moisture, and elasticity, those studies used small sample sizes…and tended to be sponsored by the companies making those supplements.

“I don’t think that I am in a position to pooh-pooh it and say this definitely doesn’t work,” Diane S. Berson, associate professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College, told The New York Times in 2018. “But as a physician, I would want to see more evidence-backed science.”
Another issue: In many of the studies, participants took relatively large amounts of collagen, so to get the same possible benefits, you’d have to take six pills per day or pay upwards of $40 per month for powdered collagen. Again, there’s not a ton of evidence showing that the supplements actually have a noticeable effect, so that’s a lot of effort for limited benefits.
And as we’ve covered in other pieces, many supplements contain far less of their active ingredients than the amount listed on their labels. If you do decide to supplement, make sure you trust the source—and don’t count on breathtaking results.

12. Activated Charcoal Foods

Emergency responders use activated charcoal to treat patients who have consumed poison or overdosed on medications. It’s effective at sucking out toxins, allowing them to harmlessly pass through the gastrointestinal tract.
But while charcoal is incredibly effective in some emergency scenarios, it’s not the type of thing you want to take regularly—despite what manufacturers say. Charcoal is said to whiten teeth, brighten skin, and reduce bloating, but physicians are skeptical of those claims.

The reason: Activated charcoal absorbs toxins, but when you’re not actively treating a toxin, there’s really no reason to use it.
“Our bodies have the ability to detox ourselves,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, manager of wellness nutrition services at Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute, told TODAY. “That is the majority of the role of the liver … it does so much of the detoxing.”
Activated charcoal might make prescription drugs less effective, and it can draw out many important vitamins and minerals.
With all of that said, some charcoal skin products (yes, including sheet masks) look cool and feel great, and if you like them, that’s enough of a reason to keep using them. Topical applications of charcoal won’t hurt you—they just won’t suck out “impurities” or “toxins” that aren’t there. Some of those peel-off charcoal skin products are effective at removing blackheads, but many aren’t.
Still, if you use them in moderation, they’re far from the worst treatment on this list. Just be sure to skip those charcoal-infused foods at your local health food store.

13. “Slugging”

“Slugging” involves covering your face with a thin layer of petroleum jelly before you head to bed at night. It gets its name because…well, it makes you feel like a slug. Proponents of the therapy swear by it.
“My face has never been so soft,” Reddit user trainbangled wrote after trying slugging. “I am reborn. I am a new woman. I was not a slug; I was a caterpillar in the cocoon.”
We’re glad that the slug life worked out for her, but dermatologists aren’t sold on the technique. While petroleum jelly can keep moisture from escaping from your skin, it can also plug your pores, causing breakouts.

“Dermatologists already know that people who use greasy hair waxes or gels tend to breakout more along the hairline, so it is highly likely that slugging would do the same to the whole face,” dermatologist Justine Kluk told Women’s Health.
Other physicians echoed that sentiment.
“I would never recommend this as a first line of treatment to my patients,” dermatologist Steven Swengel told NewBeauty. “Although it is an inexpensive way to hydrate the skin, there is a potential risk for acne prone skin. Pure occlusion can set off some bad outbreaks so this method should be used with caution.”
The consensus seems to be that if you’re considering this therapy, you should talk to your dermatologist first. Other treatments might give you the same results without putting your skin at risk.

14. Sunscreen Pills

Applying sunscreen is a lot of work. Well, okay, not really, but some people don’t like slathering themselves in SPF 30 before spending a few hours at the beach. There’s got to be a better way…right?
Enter sunscreen pills, which are exactly what they sound like: capsules intended to shield consumers from harmful UV rays. The keyword in that last sentence is “intended,” since sunscreen pills don’t work. In fact, several were cited by the FDA for making misleading claims.

“Consumers should be watchful for unscrupulous companies making unproven claims,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a May 2018 statement. “When the FDA sees companies taking advantage of people’s desire to protect themselves from the harmful effects of the sun—we’ll step in. There’s no pill or capsule that can replace your sunscreen.”
Nevertheless, we found several “sun skin care” pills from several different manufacturers with a few seconds of Googling (we’re not linking them here to avoid giving them additional traffic). Companies typically claim that their supplements contain ingredients like Polypodium leucotomus, which is said to decrease the damage that UV rays cause to skin cells.
That extract might actually protect skin from the sun when taken regularly in high enough quantities, but more research is needed, and as we mentioned a few paragraphs ago, the supplement market isn’t exactly highly regulated. Until your dermatologist recommends a “sun pill,” stick with the lotions.

15. BB Creams

BB (or “Beauty Balm”) creams claim to combine moisturizer, sunscreen, and makeup into one easy-to-apply product. That’s an appealing concept—if you can apply one pea-sized amount of a single cream and head out the door, you’ll certainly save a lot of time.
Unfortunately, while these balms are safe and useful, they’re not a complete replacement for the aforementioned products.

“BB Creams are a brilliant marketing concept, however, ‘one cream that fits all’ is a false notion,” dermatologist Dr. Harold Lancer told HuffPost. “There is some modest benefit-moisturizing, but should not be the end all of the fountain of youth and certainly should not replace any other vital steps in skincare.”
The issue is that BB creams vary greatly in terms of their ingredients and efficacy. That’s not a big deal, except when it comes to the sunscreen component. Remember, you really, really need appropriate protection if you’re spending time outdoors, and a pea-sized amount of anything probably isn’t doing the job. If you decide to use BB creams, research them carefully (and consider adding a dedicated sunscreen with an appropriate SPF rating).

Protect yourself.

There are tons of treatments and products out there that truly work and are worth spending your money on. Other products, like these, are total scams, with marketing campaigns designed to appeal to people’s insecurities.
So how can you tell if something is worth trying or not? First, see if you can find trustworthy reviews. Then, if the product or treatment makes grand claims, check the clinical trial registry, find out if the claims are linked to any peer-reviewed research, or see if a licensed medical doctor recommends the treatment. Generally, the more scientific experimentation and backing a product or treatment has, the more likely it is to be the real deal.

Ultimately, if you’re not sure that something is effective or safe, you should avoid using it. Better to be safe than sorry!

We hate to say it, but at this point in our lives, we’re starting to accept the fact that we’ll never become superheroes. We’re stuck with boring human bodies without adamantium claws, laser eyes, or any of the other awesome anatomical features we’ve been praying for since we were six (we’re 30 now, by the way—not that that matters).

The good news is that, thanks to the internet, we’ve learned about dozens of “life hacks,” purportedly backed by science, that will let us unlock the secrets of our (horrible, boring) bodies. The bad news is that some of those hacks are, well, slightly misleading.
We decided to take a closer look at some of the stranger examples floating around the internet. Some of them are pretty awesome body hacks—others are more like “writing hacks.”

1. Looking at the color green can make you more creative.

Need to sit down and write an essay? Looking for inspiration for your latest play? Are you a professional wrestler and you’re running out of fresh ideas for your armbar? Just look at a big green rectangle, and you’ll somehow trick your brain into jump-starting its creativity circuits, hackers purport.

This hack actually has some basis in science. A 2012 study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin showed that the color green can aid creative tasks, although the authors were careful to note that the effect was limited. Researchers provided study participants with a “brief glimpse of green,” then asked them to perform various “creativity challenges.”
For instance, in one experiment, participants were asked to come up with various uses for a tin can, at which point their responses were graded by a tester. Participants who saw a green rectangle performed more creatively than those who saw a white rectangle.

“Green may serve as a cue that evokes the motivation to strive for improvement and task mastery, which in turn may facilitate growth,” researcher Stephanie Lichtenfeld, PhD, said in a 2012 interview.
However, Lichtenfeld also characterized the effect as subtle. If you’re really looking to boost your creativity, you’re better off building a creative routine, according to the American Psychological Association. You’ll also want to minimize stress, get plenty of sleep, and collaborate with others—if you want to do so in an all-green room, all the better.

2. Rubbing “pressure points” on your body can prevent migraines.

This hack comes from a piece on Livestrong, which references some…unscientific sources. It’s based on pressure point therapy, a somewhat dubious interpretation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and an ebook that apparently came from an online health food store (not exactly the New England Journal of Medicine).
Activating those “pressure points” can actually reduce the symptoms of a migraine, and some researchers recommend massage and acupuncture (another pressure-therapy) as a first-line course of treatment for migraine sufferers.

However, there are some crucial caveats. For starters, we’re not really sure if pressure point therapy really needs the, uh, pressure points. One study notes that the positive effects “can be achieved even if point selection is not as dogmatic and precise as proposed by the Chinese system.” Rather than trying to find the one inch of your body that holds all of your Chi, you might be able to just rub for a while and get the same results.
And since the placebo effect is more pronounced in people suffering from migraine pain, it’s also possible that pressure-point therapies provide a sort of enhanced placebo effect. One study found that trigger-point massage, while effective at limiting migraine pain, was no more effective than a placebo.
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If you suffer from migraines, you’re better off increasing your intake of folic acid, getting regular exercise, and seeing a physician if the headaches are occurring regularly. Don’t expect to cure severe headaches simply by rubbing the webbing between your fingers—but with that said, if you feel like rubbing your finger-webs, go for it. You’re not doing any damage.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of possible placebos…

3. Use placebos to cure…lots of things.

Placebos aren’t just sugar pills. Well, okay, they are just sugar pills, but they’re powerful medicine.
“The placebo effect is more than positive thinking—believing a treatment or procedure will work,” explained Professor Ted Kaptchuk of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in a piece published on Harvard Health. “It’s about creating a stronger connection between the brain and body and how they work together.”

Kaptchuk’s research shows that placebos can be just as effective as other medical treatments. You’ve probably heard about that concept—it’s extremely well documented.
What you might not know is that the placebo effect has its own placebo effect; oddly enough, some placebos work even when people know that they’re placebos.
“People can still get a placebo response, even though they know they are on a placebo,” Kaptchuk said. “You don’t need deception or concealment for many conditions to get a significant and meaningful placebo effect.”
In one of his studies, Kaptchuk gave patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) “open-label” placebos. Half of the study’s volunteers received the pills and were explicitly told that they were in the placebo group, while half of them received nothing at all. The group who received the placebos experienced a “dramatic and significant improvement” in their symptoms.

How could that possibly work? Kaptchuk has some theories.
“People associate the ritual of taking medicine as a positive healing effect,” he said. “Even if they know it’s not medicine, the action itself can stimulate the brain into thinking the body is being healed.”
So, how can you turn this information into a superpower? Well, you can’t gain Wolverine-like healing abilities simply by scarfing down some sugar pills, but if you’ve got a condition in which pain or stress is a factor, try taking a harmless supplement and telling yourself that you’re treating the condition. As dumb as that might sound, the research shows that open-label placebos can work.
Oh, and if the placebo doesn’t do the trick, be sure to see an actual physician. Seriously. Don’t trust your health to some advice you read in an internet article.

4. Bend over in a chair to get rid of the hiccups.

We know, we know—everyone’s got a hiccup cure. We’ve seen cures that include rubbing parts of your hand, covering your mouth, and chugging pickle juice.
Those cures might be effective for some people. If you want a really powerful hiccup cure, however, you’ve got to turn to a neuroscientist.

Why are hiccups even a thing??? I must find a cure

— imboolin (@youngrananu) June 10, 2018

“For non-pathological hiccups, there’s a really easy way to cure them for 99 percent of the population,” James Giordano, PhD, professor in neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center, told Urbo. “You want to sit down and bend forward at the waist, and I mean really bend forward… Then, drink a room-temperature, non-carbonated fluid for 10 seconds straight, or 8-10 swallows of fluid. Stay in that position until you’re finished, then slowly sit up.”
Why does that work? Hiccups are caused by excessive stimulation to the upper part of your digestive tract, including the soft palate, the top of the throat, and the top of the stomach. Giordano explains that his method overwhelms the spasm, allowing your muscles to relax.

“It’s sort of a neurological override,” he says. “The swallowing reflex requires coordination of a number of different nerves, and you’re literally overcoming the spasm by super-coordinating a pattern response.”
Of course, excessive hiccuping can be a symptom of a more serious condition, so if your hiccups don’t disappear in a few hours, you might want to see your physician.

5. Tweak your walking technique to burn more calories.

Walking has to be the best exercise of them all—if you can count walking as an exercise, that is. Running is hard on the knees. Lifting weights is just plain hard. But walking? Heck, we do that every day.
Good news: Fitness motivation site Super Skinny Me says you can burn plenty of calories during a nice, relaxing walk, provided you know how to walk the right way. But the site only cites itself; all of its links are internal. So is this welcome exercise tip too good to be true?

At first glance, Super Skinny Me’s prescription for strolling passes the common-sense test. They say you should boost your walking speed until your heart-rate monitor tells you your heartbeat is up to 65 to 85 percent of your maximum beats per minute. They recommend pumping your arms, weighing yourself down, and taking a hilly route. All of those things require more exertion, so it makes sense that they’d burn more calories.
But what do the doctors have to say about walking as exercise?
It’s a go, particularly for folks who aren’t used to being active, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Walking can help you burn calories and lower your risk of high blood pressure and heart disease. But Super Skinny Me definitely got one thing right: In order to get the most benefits, you’ll need to keep your pace pretty brisk.

The NIDDK recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. Walk fast enough to increase your heart rate, and you’re there. So while you don’t have to learn new walking techniques to burn calories, you do have to move faster than a shuffle. Try walking quickly for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. If that doesn’t help you meet your weight-loss goals, double your walking time to an hour per day, according to the NIDDK’s recommendations.

6. Refresh quickly with a “coffee nap.”

More than a third of Americans don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis. If you count yourself among them, we’ve got good news (sort of): You can get an extra burst of energy by consuming caffeine and taking a quick nap.

Okay, when we put it that way, it sounds sort of obvious. “Drink coffee and nap to get energy” isn’t exactly groundbreaking advice. However, scientific research suggests that the technique is more effective than other methods, and the “coffee nap” trend has been promoted by dozens of sites, including HuffPost.
Here’s the deal: Caffeine fits into your brain’s adenosine receptors. Adenosine naturally accumulates during normal brain activity and makes you feel tired, and when caffeine fills some of those receptors, you’re less capable of getting drowsy. Sleeping, on the other hand, naturally clears out adenosine. Drink a cup of coffee, then nap for 20 minutes, and your body will clear out some adenosine just as the caffeine makes its way to your brain.

Sleep longer, though, and the effect won’t work as well, since you’ll enter the deeper stages of sleep (when that happens, your body needs more time to recover). Various scientific studies have established this effect, so this “hack” is actually supported by evidence.
With that said, sleep is an incredibly complex process—so complex that scientists don’t really understand why we sleep—so your mileage might vary. Even so, it’s worth a try. If you’re suffering from midday drowsiness, try chugging a cup of coffee and laying down for a short rest. Just make sure to set an alarm, or all of your coffee-chugging effort will be for naught.

7. Improve your brainpower by chewing gum.

Ever hear someone say that a person “is so dumb, he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?” There might be something to that (plus, it’s a sick burn). Some research suggests that chewing gum affects cognitive abilities, though the extent of the effect is disputed.

In a 2011 study published in the scientific journal Appetite, participants saw significant improvements in their test-taking abilities when chewing gum. Researchers theorize that because chewing gum sends more blood to the brain for about 15-20 minutes, it actually enhances our ability to think.
Of course, that was only one study, so it’s important to take it with a grain of salt (and a stick of Juicy Fruit). We’re not quite sure whether we can classify this as a functional life hack, and we’re even more critical of the other purported effects of chewing gum.

For instance, several sites, including Cracked, have suggested that the habit can dramatically improve reading speeds by eliminating “subvocalization.” The idea behind the hack is that your brain tries to vocalize words as you read them, and when your mouth’s already occupied, it skips this step.
That seems logical to us, and given the study referenced above, we’re sure that some people read more quickly when they’re chewing gum, but we couldn’t find any scientific research showing that the effect has anything to do with subvocalization. Go ahead and try using gum to enhance your brainpower—it certainly couldn’t hurt, provided that you choose a sugar-free product.

8. Study more effectively by taking a quick nap.

While chewing gum might not make you a genius, napping can help you during a late-night cram session.
In 2015, a team of researchers at Saarland University performed a memory recall experiment on 41 study participants. About half of them were asked to take a brief nap after studying.

“The control group, whose members watched DVDs while the other group slept, performed significantly worse than the nap group when it came to remembering the word pairs,” professor Axel Mecklinger, who led the study, told ScienceDaily. “The memory performance of the participants who had a power nap was just as good as it was before sleeping, that is, immediately after completing the learning phase.”
Sleep plays an important role in encoding memories; our brains essentially reorganize our short-term memories while we’re resting, throwing out the useless stuff (the color of the dog you saw on your way back home) while keeping the important stuff (the speech you need to memorize for your presentation on Thursday).

“A short nap at the office or in school is enough to significantly improve learning success,” Mecklinger said. “Wherever people are in a learning environment, we should think seriously about the positive effects of sleep.”
There you have it: When your boss asks why you’re sleeping before the big meeting, you can simply explain that science told you to.

9. See in the dark (and in the light) by keeping one eye closed.

This one comes from Reddit, and it’s one of the simplest hacks on this list…and, oddly enough, one of the most effective.

“If you’re like me, sometimes you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night,”  Reddit user jbondhus2002 wrote. Why, yes, jbondhus2002, we are like you.
“[When] you do, keep one eye closed if you need to turn a light on. When you turn the light off, open your closed eye, [and it] will be able to see without much light. It’s a really cool trick—and makes you aware of how awesome your body is!”

This one’s pretty easy to explain. In a dark room, your pupils expand in order to capture as much light as possible. When the lights are on, your pupils contract. By covering one eye, you keep one pupil contracted and one dilated, and by switching between them, you can see in either environment.
Some Reddit users suggested that this is the reason that pirates wore eyepatches. Sailors had to move from dark cabins to the bright outdoors regularly, so they’d simply switch their eyepatch when going from one area to another. Mythbusters actually tested this idea and found it plausible, but the show noted that there aren’t any historical sources to support the idea that pirates actually wore eyepatches in the first place.

10. Clear a stuffy nose with a simple trick.

According to a video from Prevention Magazine, you can clear a stuffy nose by pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth while pressing on the middle of your forehead. Alternate between pressing the two spots (one with your tongue, the other with your finger). If you’re having trouble visualizing that, here’s the video.

One Reddit user suggested that this works by moving the vomer bone, which separates the left and right nasal cavities. Your sinuses loosen, the gunk gets released (sorry for the visual), and you’re able to breathe clear again.
There are plenty of anecdotes about this trick working, but we couldn’t find any scientific studies backing it up. Additionally, that explanation about the vomer bone might not be completely accurate. Another Redditor, this one claiming to be a doctor, replied that the vomer isn’t supposed to move and that it’s more likely that the simple muscular activity of the nasopharynx (which connects the nose to the throat) loosens everything up.

Even if this trick is the real deal, you probably won’t get too much relief, since you’re not treating the cause of your symptoms; you’re only easing the pressure for a few moments, and it will build back up fairly quickly. Still, it’s a nice life hack to keep in mind during flu season.

11. Use your right ear to hone in on conversations from far away.

You’re at a party, and you’re trying to hear someone over the music. You can’t quite make out what they’re saying, even though they’re yelling. Not to worry: Turn your right ear toward them, and you’ll magically hear what they’re saying.
This hack comes from a variety of sites, including BBC News, and it’s totally legitimate, even if it doesn’t quite rise to the level of “superpower.” It’s supported by research published by the Acoustical Society of America, and we just tried it out—in loud environments, your right ear is much better at hearing speech. What gives?

When a sound enters your right ear, it’s processed by the left side of the brain, which is generally responsible for speech and language development. If you’re listening to speech, you’ll typically have an easier time using your right ear than your left, though we should note that brain organization is complicated—some people process speech on the right sides of their brains, and some people use both hemispheres.
This is an especially useful hack for younger people, as young brains don’t have well-developed listening tools. Kids have trouble separating different auditory information, but as they age, they’re able to separate audio more effectively.

12. Hold your breath longer by intentionally hyperventilating.

Yeah, yeah, we know—this one doesn’t seem intuitive. It also seems incredibly dangerous. As LifeHacker reports, magician David Blaine claimed that he used this trick to hold his breath underwater for 17 minutes.
“The buildup of CO2 in your lungs can get just as painful as the lack of oxygen,” Blaine explained. “Purge as much as you can before you begin. Repeatedly exhale and inhale. Hard. Imagine you’re trying to blow a toy sailboat away from you.”

He’s not totally wrong. Hyperventilating can improve your ability to hold your breath; with less CO2 in your body, you’re able to stay calm and suppress your natural instinct to take a breath.
Before you try this technique, though, you should understand that it can be extremely dangerous in certain situations. Intentional hyperventilation allows you to feel less pain as you hold your breath, but it doesn’t actually put more oxygen at your disposal.

13. Banish the call of nature by scratching your leg.

Back in 2006, Australian newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald published a bizarre little story with the headline “Leg scratch ‘controls’ women’s loo call.” The story popularized advice from a physiotherapist named Janetta Webb, who said that women can ease the pressure of a full bladder by giving the back of the leg a hearty scratch.
Since then, this body hack has been picked up by a number of sites, including Lifehacker. There’s just one problem, and it’s the obvious one: Even Webb herself isn’t too confident the trick will work long enough to do much good.

“If you scratch or rub the back of your calf for a few moments, really vigorously, you may interrupt the message from your bladder to your brain just long enough for you to make it to the toilet.”
Webb told the reporter that the only real way to stop the leaks is to strengthen the pelvic floor through special exercises. Add that to the fact that, when she was interviewed for the article, Webb was working on a program to boost consciousness about continence problems and their cures. Could she have come up with the theory in an early bid for viral attention?

We don’t know, but we wouldn’t recommend holding it in if you’ve got the option. That can stress your bladder muscles, leading to urinary retention (in other words, you’re not fully able to urinate). That’s a potentially serious medical condition. Your best bet is to truck it to the bathroom when you need to go—and save the leg scratching for when your leg itches.
If there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s that some life hacks are sheer hackery. If you can call any beneficial behavior a life hack, which it seems you can, here’s our favorite: Do your research.

A simple typo can have massive consequences.
Mistakes happen. Most of the time, they don’t really affect things in a meaningful way—you might be slightly embarrassed if you misspell a few words or swap out some homonyms, but you probably won’t suffer too terribly. Hey, everyone screws up; you forgive, forget, and move on.
That’s not always the case. Just ask Lynne Lambert. Her company, NYC Subway Line, is a small business that assigns data entry duties to a single employee. Accuracy is crucial because each invoice represents a fairly significant portion of the company’s revenue. A mistake can have serious ramifications, even if it appears fairly innocuous.
“We had a person in that job who would swing from very good to terrible within a day,” Lambert says. “One day, we discovered two errors on invoices she’d made for our biggest customer. I pointed them out and asked [her] to correct them, then resend the invoices via email with an apology.”

Lambert checked up on the employee later to make sure that she’d followed through.
“The invoice was correct, but the note said, ‘We are sorry for the incontinence,'” Lambert recalls. Flabbergasted, she pointed out the mistake to the employee, who blamed it on spellcheck (probably an appropriate explanation, since if it wasn’t a misspelling…well, never mind). She gave the employee another chance.
“She then sent the corrected invoice with the exact same note within two minutes of the first,” Lambert says. “That’s when I knew she was out of chances. We had to let her go.”

In a sense, Lambert was fortunate. While that typo cost an employee her job, the most significant typos in history have had more far-reaching consequences. We looked into the stories behind a few of the most costly typographical errors of all time.

1. A missing hyphen destroyed a NASA spacecraft.

In 1962, NASA launched Mariner 1, a spacecraft intended to fly by Venus and send vital scientific data back to Earth on its infinite journey into the cosmos. Instead, it veered off course, forcing a safety officer to detonate it about five minutes after launch.
A review board later determined that a missing hyphen in the Mariner 1’s coded instructions played a major role in the disaster. The typo caused an issue with the spacecraft’s tracking mechanism.

If you’re picturing some programmer missing a key while setting up the Mariner 1’s software, that’s not exactly the case; at the time, NASA coded computers with punch cards. The hyphen—referred to as a “bar” in NASA’s parlance—should have told the computer to ignore veering movements resulting from a radio guidance failure without attempting to correct course.
The “bar” had been missing from other successful flights that relied on the same software, but radio failure compounded the problem for the Mariner 1. In other words, the missing hyphen wasn’t the only issue with this spaceflight, just the most significant preventable error.

“[The radio guidance failure combined with the missing hyphen] caused the computer to swing automatically into a series of unnecessary course corrections with erroneous steering commands, which finally threw the spacecraft off course,” NASA wrote.
Fortunately, the Mariner 1 was an unmanned mission. Still, the error cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $80 million—in 1962. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $663 million today. That’s a lot of money for a single hyphen.

2. In 1988, an unfortunate typo led to a $10 million lawsuit.

The plaintiff: Gloria Quinan, owner of the Banner Travel agency in Sonoma, California. She placed an ad in the Yellow Pages, but as you might have guessed if you paid attention to the title of this article, the phone book’s copy editor apparently skipped a day.
The ad was supposed to advertise “exotic travel.” Instead, it promoted “erotic travel.”  To some tourists, that’s certainly an intriguing offer, but it wasn’t the type of promotion that Banner Travel had intended to promote.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Quinan says she developed severe health issues due to stress from the misprinted ad. She claimed that her business was effectively ruined. Unsurprisingly, the defendant, Pacific Bell, declined to comment (though we’re sure they offered a sexy, sexy apology at some point).

”Her older clients, which was most of her business, want to avoid her now,” Quinan’s attorney, George Altenberg, told the Associated Press.
In accordance with California law, the records regarding the case were destroyed—understandable, given its age—so we’re not sure of the outcome. Regardless, it wasn’t great press for Pacific Bell, and it certainly wasn’t great press for the Banner Travel agency. We’re sure it also disappointed a few frisky travelers.

3. New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched a memorable advertising campaign in 2013.

That year, the MTA was forced to dispose of up to $250,000 worth of new subway maps. The reason? They didn’t display accurate fare information.
“[The MTA] is very embarrassed about this,” an anonymous source told The New York Post at the time. “They were frantically calling the booths, trying to get these maps back.”
The maps listed minimum prices for pay-per-ride cards as $4.50 instead of $5. That’s a minor mistake, right? Not quite. The entire purpose of the campaign was to print maps with accurate pricing.

“They weren’t coming out with a new map because they were changing the map,” said Paul Flores, an MTA station agent, in 2013. “They were coming out with a new map because they were changing the price. That was the sole purpose. And they couldn’t even get that right.”
How does that sort of mistake happen? You’d think that someone would catch the typo during the printing process.
“When a document is extremely important, it goes through hundreds of hands,” says James, a freelance copy editor who recently edited the quarterly report for a Fortune 100 company. “You essentially have to edit the document while it’s being printed, and that’s not an exaggeration.”

“Ironically, we see more of these mistakes with massive campaigns since everyone assumes that someone else has looked over the document—or in this case, the map.”
By MTA union estimates, 80,000 incorrect maps were erroneously printed.

4. Back in 1631, a misprinted Bible ruined its publishers’ lives…and gave readers some terrible advice.

Religious typos are particularly unfortunate because the mistakes can ruin important messages. This Easter, for example, a UK church printed a celebratory banner that hadn’t been through spellcheck. It reportedly read: “Chris is Risen.” That’s great news for Chris, we suppose, but it was a massive waste of money for the church.
Still, that embarrassing blunder pales in comparison to an infamous 17th-century printing error. Royal publishers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas sent out 1,000 copies of the Bible without noticing a fairly striking misprint: When listing the seventh of the Ten Commandments, the book left out the word “not.”

The resulting verse read “Thou shalt commit adultery.”
The Anglican Church wasn’t thrilled, as the Bible was intended to represent the faith of the royalty. King Charles I ordered the Bibles destroyed, but several survived the censorship. Recently, The Telegraph reported that one of 10 known copies of the “Wicked Bible” went to auction and was expected to sell for around $21,000; it sold for about $44,000.

History has known worse typos. As here in the Wicked Bible. pic.twitter.com/zXJxV56pIE

— David Drew (@NHSwhistleblowr) March 19, 2018

Unfortunately, the publishers didn’t fare so well. They lost their printing license and faced heavy fines for their mistake. According to one text, the Archbishop of Canterbury said:
“I knew the time when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially. Good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and letter rare and fair, every way of the best. But now the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned.”
That’s the 17th-century equivalent of saying, “Your Bible is bad, your editing is bad, and you should feel bad.”

5. An erroneous trade nearly ruined a major banking firm.

Granted, we’re not usually interested in stories of corporate stock trading, but try to put yourself in the shoes of a Mizuho Securities employee in December 2005.

The company attempted to sell 610,000 shares of J-COM Co., Ltd., a staffing services company, at one yen each. That was an amazing deal—at the time, a single share of J-COM went for 610,000 yen. The issue compounded throughout the day, eventually resulting in estimated losses of 27 billion yen (roughly $255 million).
As you might have guessed, someone at Mizuho Securities had attempted to sell a single share for 610,000 yen, but somehow, the values for “value” and “number of stocks” switched. The error probably occurred due to an issue with the firm’s electronic trading system, and in 2009, a court determined that the Tokyo Stock Exchange was 70 percent liable for the mistake.
That wasn’t the only time a human error created a massive disaster on the stock market. In 1994, Chilean stockbroker Juan Pablo Davila lost his company $30 million when he accidentally entered a trade as “buy” instead of “sell” on his computer. In an attempt to rectify his mistake, Davila made additional (unauthorized) trades…and lost $175 million by the end of the day.
Davila served three years in prison for his catastrophic series of bad decisions, and today, the word “davilar” is part of the Spanish language. Its meaning: “to botch things up royally.”

6. An extra comma cost the United States government millions of dollars.

What do you do if you’re a major government and you’re recovering from, oh, a massive Civil War?

If you answered “tariffs,” congratulations, you’re the United States during Reconstruction (also, how are you reading this article?). The Tariff Act of 1872 was intended to restore the economy by changing some of the taxes on imported goods. It was a crucial piece of legislation, since the United States didn’t have a federal income tax at the time; in some years, tariffs provided for up to 95 percent of the federal budget.

The Ulysses S. Grant administration enacted the Tariff Act of 1872 to reduce rates on manufactured goods while maintaining other tariffs. Unfortunately, it included an enormous error: an extra comma.

Like previous tariff acts, the legislation had an extensive list of duty-free products. People wouldn’t have to pay taxes when importing these items. Here’s the important line that made its way into the act:
“[Exempted from the tax are] Fruit, plants tropical and semi-tropical for the purpose of propagation or cultivation.”

The language was supposed to read “fruit plants,” referring to plants that were imported specifically to grow in the United States. Because the comma made its way into the document, however, all fruits were exempted from tariffs—and imported fruits were big business. When importers noticed the error, they pounced (and here, we’re using “pounced” to mean “slowly litigated their case in a boring legal way that probably doesn’t need much further explanation”).
In total, the United States was forced to refund $2 million in collected fruit tariffs, which was about 0.65 percent of the government’s entire federal budget in 1875. Despite a public outcry, nobody could figure out how the comma made its way into the document, but needless to say, it was removed in subsequent tariff acts.

7. A car dealership sent out scratch-off tickets…and all of them were winners.

Technically, this is a printing error rather than a typo, but we think it’s painful enough to include in this list.
If you’ve ever lived in any place ever (and we’re guessing you have), you’ve probably received junk mail from car dealerships. You throw most of them away—except the scratch-off tickets. Everyone loves scratching their way to a prize, even if that prize is something lame like a free test drive or a short conversation with an oddly aggressive used car salesperson.

But for one New Mexico car dealership, the stakes were substantially higher. In 2007, Roswell Honda sent out 30,000 scratch-off tickets to local drivers—and each one was a winner. Recipients believed that they’d won a $1,000 grand prize, and within days, the dealership was swarmed by excited “winners.”
The winning tickets were, of course, not real winners; they were misprinted.
“Unfortunately, they missed it in the proofreading,” Jeff Kohn, Roswell Honda general manager, told The Associated Press.  
Adding that his dealership was making a “full-faith effort” to investigate the error, Kohn said that he was able to stop 20,000 more mailers from reaching his potential customers.
“[This is] not how we portray ourselves or our community,” he said.
Kohn blamed the mistake on Atlanta-based ad agency Force Media Group, which issued a press release shortly after the mailers made the news.
“It was a printing error,” said Force Media Group spokesperson Jim Fitzpatrick. “Instead of only one ticket in 50,000 having the winning notification under the scratch‐off, they all did. We’re going to make up for that in this new sweepstakes by actually increasing both the value and number of prizes offered as well as by dramatically increasing the chances of winning. The dealer and Force looked at the situation and decided we had to make it better to make it right.”

8. An airline offered its passengers a once-in-a-lifetime fare.

In 2006, Italian airline Alitalia (try saying those last three words three times fast) offered an incredible opportunity: For only $33, travelers could fly from Toronto to Larnaca, a small resort town in Cyprus.That was a shocking discount, since business-class fares between the cities usually cost around $2,500.
Alitalia quickly sold hundreds of tickets, which would have been great news if they’d actually intended to sell them in the first place. Someone at the airline had messed up, pricing the tickets at 1 percent of their actual value.

The company suspended ticket sales within a few hours, but the damage was done. To their credit, Alitalia honored 509 of the bookings (the rest, which hadn’t been ticketed, were refunded).
“It was a human mistake,” Alitalia’s spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal. “We hope that people will appreciate the effort we are making.”
At normal rates, the tickets would have meant about $1.32 million for the airline. Instead, Alitalia received about $16,797.

9. An extra “s” ruined a business that had operated for more than a century.

In 2009, Welsh engineering firm Taylor & Sons was doing well. The company had operated for 124 years and employed 250 people. Unfortunately, that changed rapidly thanks to a clerical error.
Companies House, the United Kingdom government institution responsible for registering businesses, reported that Taylor & Sons Ltd. had been officially dissolved. Suppliers jumped ship, customers cancelled their orders, and banks refused to issue loans to the failing business—but the business wasn’t failing. Companies House had meant to report the dissolution of Taylor & Son Ltd. (no “s”), a completely different company.
To make matters worse, Taylor & Sons managing director Philip Davison-Sebry was on vacation when the news broke, and some clients believed that he’d skipped the country.

“I felt physically sick. Back at the business the phones were ringing out, it was like Armageddon,” Davison-Sebry said. “Everyone wanted to be paid. People were queuing up for money. Equipment was being taken off site.”
“We lost all our credibility as all our suppliers thought we were in liquidation. It was like a snowball effect.”
While Companies House corrected the error three days later, the damage was done. Taylor & Sons wasn’t able to recover and officially liquidated in 2014.
“I was so close to a nervous breakdown,” Davison-Sebry said in 2015. “I was terrible with the stress of it. I could see everything disintegrating before my eyes and it was not very pleasant … I would not wish it on my worst enemy. Well, except the bloke who nicked my boat.”
The firm sued Companies House and eventually won; they’d asked for £9 million (roughly $11.6 million USD).  We could not find an update on who stole Davison-Sebry’s boat.

10. An antique ale sold at auction for much, much less than it was worth.

In 1852, explorer Sir Edward Belcher led an expedition to the Arctic, and like all good 19th century explorers, he took some strong drinks with him. That included Allsopp’s Arctic Ale, specially brewed in Staffordshire, England for Belcher and his men.
These days, a pristine bottle can fetch more than $500,000 at auction—provided that you spell its name correctly. In 2007, an eBay seller made a costly mistake by listing a bottle of the stuff as “allsop’s arctic ale. full and corked with a wax seal.”

That missing “p” prevented the bottle from showing up in most collectors’ searches. A buyer named collectordan placed the winning bid of $304, then turned around and resold it on the same auction site for a whopping $503,300. We’re not sure whether or not anyone ever drank the expensive brew, but we’re guessing you don’t spend that type of money on an after-dinner drink.

11. A man was sentenced to death (partially) due to a missing word.

While the other typos on this list are serious, at least they didn’t endanger someone’s life. That’s not the case here.
In 1987, Bruce Wayne Morris (who was not Batman, as far as we can tell through cursory research) was found guilty of killing a man who picked him up while he was hitchhiking in 1985 (okay, definitely not Batman). The jury could choose between two punishments for the crime: life in prison with no possibility of parole, or a death sentence.

However, the written instructions given to the jury inaccurately said “with possibility of parole.” Jurors were left with a difficult decision; either they sentence Morris to death, or they allow for the possibility that he could eventually rejoin society. They sentenced him to execution.
That kicked off a legal battle that undoubtedly cost California taxpayers quite a bit of money. A federal court eventually reversed the sentence because it found that the mistake “is too obvious, the likelihood of prejudice too great, and the stakes are too high to conclude the error was harmless.”
Bruce Wayne Morris was freed from prison, became a billionaire, and is using his spare time to build a high-tech batsuit with…oh, actually, we typed the wrong name into Google. Bruce Wayne Morris is probably still behind bars.

12. An embarrassing typo on a ballot led to expensive reprints.

In 2006, Ottawa County in Michigan spent about $40,000 to reprint 170,000 ballots with an unfortunate spelling error in the text of a proposed amendment to the state constitution.

Here’s how the proposal should have read:
“A proposal to amend the State Constitution to ban affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes.”
Granted, it’s pretty dry and boring, but that’s a competent description of the ballot measure. Unfortunately, someone left off the “l” in “public,” which, ahem, substantially changed the meaning of the sentence. The county clerk’s office had proofread the ballot several times, but somehow, the error made it through.
“It’s just one of those words,” county clerk Daniel C. Krueger said. “Even after we told people it was in there, they still read over it.”
The proposal ultimately passed, prompting a lengthy Supreme Court case questioning the ballot initiative’s constitutionality. The law was found to be constitutional, and we should note that the court’s decision correctly spelled the word “public” 73 times. Maybe spelling isn’t that difficult.

13. The URL mistakes you’re making every day are earning someone money.

Make a tiny mistake while typing our name, and you might find yourself at healthway.com, a manufacturer of air purifiers.
Those are honest mistakes, but some companies intentionally try to take advantage of typos by setting up “typosquatting” websites. Add a stray vowel while typing a popular site’s URL into your address bar, and you’ll likely end up at one of these sites; the advertisements on the side of the screen will collect a tiny amount of revenue from each accidental view.

[Editorial note: Because many typosquatting websites have malicious intent, we don’t recommend intentionally mistyping the names of well-known websites to try to find typosquatters. Trust us, they’re out there.]
About 57 percent of typosquatting websites feature Google pay-per-click ads; the others make their money via other means. According to an estimate from Harvard Business School associate professor Ben Edelman, Google makes about $497 million from typosquatting on the top 100,000 domains every year.
“In fact, comparing domain parking sites to ordinary search results, we expect that the parking sites (including typosquatting sites) have a higher click-through rate,” Edelman writes. “… If so, advertisers’ costs for typosquatting placements could easily exceed our estimates by a factor of two or more.”

That means that every time you make a mistake while typing a URL, you’re likely contributing to a multi-billion dollar industry. See—we all make mistaekes.
Wait, we meant mistakes. We’re fired, aren’t we?