In a recent piece, Alice Robb reported on the rapid rise of the Public Library of Science, or “PLOS,” a non-profit that produces a handful of journals that have abandoned traditional peer review in favor of a more freewheeling approach to the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Occasionally, it backfires.

One April 24, 2013, a group of researchers from Montclair State University published a study on the open-access journal PLOS ONE with a shocking claim about memory: Simply clench your right fist before memorizing information, and clench your left fist as you want to recall it.

The study participants were split into groups and asked to memorize a list of words. One group clenched a ball in their right fist when reading the words, and again when recalling them. Another group did the same, but with their left fist. Two other groups started in one fist and switched to the other. A final group didn’t clench their fists at all. The researchers concluded that the right to left combination produced the best results, and attributed this to the clenched fist triggering the opposite hemisphere of the brain.

Over the following days, the study was picked up by a slew of outlets, including TIME, The Atlantic, International Business Times, The Los Angeles Times, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and New York Daily News. (It inspired plenty of cringe-worthy headlines about “handy” tricks and “getting a grip.”) The headlines also spanned a range of certainty when referring to the study:

BBC: