Every time I read “could” my brain automatically also says “could not!” lol “hot beverages could _not_ cause oesophageal cancer”

I know very hot beverages are group 2A probable carcinogen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_2A

In some ways I wish that sample size and delta were manditory parts of these sorts of headlines.

Like "In a study of 900,000 people, those that drank their coffee were 5% more likely to develop esophageal cancer".

At very least it'd stop BS like "In a 10 rat study, peppermint oil cured cancer in 10% of the rats" or "Peppermint oil could cure cancer!" as a lot of scientific reporters would phrase it.