How do you verify information?
This is a problem I usually come across with my stories. I often worry about whether the plotlines I introduce are realistic or not, and it's usually something that can't be solved with a simple Google search.
Example:
One of the characters in my story, a young boy, is locked up in a cell and is on the verge of starvation before he's rescued. However, the rescuers are unable to get him to a hospital, but they are able to supply him with food. Unfortunately, the boy is at a point where he would need intense medical attention to recover. Giving him food only delays his death, hopefully until they can find help before he dies.
How can I know how long the boy could survive under such circumstances? How can I find out what would be realistic in such a situation?
This is a pretty simple example, but I've got a lot more, where I just can't simply look up the answer. I could just make something up, even if it doesn't make sense later, but I'd like for it to be in the realm of possibility.
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3 answers
Starvation
The information you seek is in the Wikipedia article on starvation. There it is explained how starvation leads to death (because important organs are "digested"), how long it takes (though the exact number of days will differ from individual to individual), and you can infer that after a certain point (when organs are damaged irredeemably) eating won't "heal" the person again.
Generally
You will find most of this kind of information on the web. Usually Wikipedia is sufficient, though you may have to combine the information in several articles to get what you need. Wikipedia, as @TripeHound has mentioned in a comment below, will also give you the technical terms and alternative keywords for your search.
If resources like Wikipedia and other encyclopedias cannot help you, there are many Q&A sites that either allow questions regarding certain topics (e.g. Stack Exchange) or all questions (e.g. Quora). Just ask there.
You can also use Google Scholar to do your own research. Some scientific journals are open access, many books can be read (at least in the relevant parts) on Google Books (or their Amazon previews), and often the abstract will suffice. If you need to read something behind a paywall, you can go to a university library, register as a guest, and access most journals from there.
If you still cannot find an answer, simply use common sense. Most readers won't know either and will not notice any mistakes.
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If the Internet doesn't suffice (and when really trying to craft characters, it may very well not), there are other types of research. A significant type of research is interviews.
Finding someone to interview related to a topic and scheduling and interview with them can be very difficult, but the understand, granularity of detail, and story and character ideas that you can get from a face-to-face interview are invaluable. For technical information, you may find that looking to university faculty is easier than industry professionals. Professionals are really "in it", so their perspective and attitude is what you'd really like to experience, but many professionals do not have the time and/or inclination to talk about their work. All professors do is talk about their field, so if you can't find a pro, a prof might be the next best thing.
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Little Details is a livejournal fact-checking community for writers. They are not currently as active as I'd like, but you can find there huge amounts of tiny details for writers, sorted by topic. I have found them to be very useful. When they are active, they are happy to answer exactly the sort of questions you're asking about.
Some Stack Exchanges (SEs) do not like hypothetical questions, but others are very happy to give you the information you're looking for. Worldbuilding in particular deals with all kinds of theoretical situations, (though your specific question isn't really world-building related, so this one wouldn't fit there,) but here, for example, is me asking on Mi Yodeya about building synagogues on other planets. It's just a question of finding the right SE for your question.
TV Tropes can be a useful resource. Look, in particular, at analysis pages of tropes, and at Real Life examples. However, be warned - TV Tropes sucks you in, and then you emerge several hours later, reading something interesting but totally unrelated, while whatever you've left in the oven has long turned into charcoal.
There is, of course, the Right Honourable Lord Google, and his daughter, Lady Wikipedia.
And if you feel comfortable introducing yourself as a writer (even if in fact you are an aspiring writer), you can go and ask experts in the field. (Students count as experts, and they're less intimidating.) I've seen an epidemiologist squee in delight when I've asked her to help me find ugly diseases with potentially lethal sequelae.
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