The key is in the pairing of the not blinking and then the fast blinking. A 2013 study, in which several experiments were carried out, correlated the finding that liars would keep their eyes open for long periods of time before blinking quickly afterwards.

At first, the idea that not blinking is linked to deception doesn’t appear to have impacted Holmes. As Carreyrou noted, many people were “taken in” by her unblinking eyes and her “hypnotic” stare. It was only after the fraudulent behaviour at Theranos was exposed that people began to analyse footage of the tech founder.

Dr Jack Brown, a body language expert, took an in-depth look at an interview that Holmes did in which she kept her eyes wide open for long periods of time, and found that this body language had a “very high correlation” with “deception” and “antisocial personality disorder” or sociopathic behaviour. But there are also other body language experts who make the valid point that there’s no way we can truly know what is going on inside someone’s head without in-depth, personal analysis. Digging through old video clips and photographs isn’t going to prove anything.

Elizabeth Holmes reportedly never blinks: here’s why that's so important