20 Completely False 'Facts' Everyone Knows!
From geography to physiology, there are many examples of people collectively doing it wrong by learning fiction as truth. Here are 20 of the biggest errors walking around masquerading as well-known facts.
20. Mount Everest Is The Tallest Mountain in the World!
Mount Everest is one whopping big mountain, but is it the tallest in the world? In fact it is not. A mountain is highest in regard to how far it soars above sea level. But technically it is tallest from base to summit. And Mauna Kea kills it at being the tallest.
Here's the deets: Above sea level, Mauna Kea (in Hawaii) is only 13,799 feet (4,206 meters). But when you count the crazy enormous portion of it that's underwater, it's 33,465 feet tall (10,200 meters). Everest, that snobby little upstart, is only 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level, with none of it below sea level.
But the shame doesn't end there. Mount Kilimanjaro hasn't taken the stand yet. Kilimanjaro is 19,340 feet (5,895 meters) top to bottom. So it's not as tall as Everest – but Everest is surrounded by the rest of its friends, the Himalayas, all of which are collectively growing by a quarter of an inch per year and pushing Everest's summit higher. Kilimanjaro, on the other hand, is solitary, rising out from the relative flatness of Tanzania all on its dramatically striking own.
19. Body Heat Dissipates Mainly Through the Head!
You lose most of your body heat through your head because there are so many blood vessels in your scalp. Or because there's not a lot of fat between your scalp and your skull. Or because there's a lot of circulation keeping your brain warm. Or something. At least, that's what we've all heard. That's why you need to wear a hat in the winter: Otherwise you'll catch cold. But, the sad truth is, you lose just as much heat per square inch through your head as you do through the rest of the body, a fact that would become abundantly clear if you ever tried to scrape the frost off your windshield while naked. (We don't recommend trying that experiment.)
So if you're out on a wintry day and you notice that your head seems to be particularly cold compared to the rest of your body, it's probably because your head is bare, and everything else is sensibly bundled up. Putting on a hat will fix that problem.
It's less likely to keep you from catching a cold, though.
So if you're out on a wintry day and you notice that your head seems to be particularly cold compared to the rest of your body, it's probably because your head is bare, and everything else is sensibly bundled up. Putting on a hat will fix that problem.
It's less likely to keep you from catching a cold, though.
18. The Great Wall of China Is the Only Man-made Object Visible from Space!
The Great Wall of China gets a double whammy on this myth. You can see other man-made objects from space (especially when the part of the Earth being viewed is awash in the artificially illuminated glow of nighttime). It's also pretty hard to pick out the Great Wall of China from any space-based locale. In low-Earth orbit, it's next to impossible to see it with the naked eye. Even with a fairly hefty camera lens, it's still challenging to tell if you're looking at the Great Wall or not.
There are a couple of reasons this pseudo-fact is so far-flung. For one, its history dates back to well before the Space Age, so no one knew enough to nip it in the bud straight off. And for another, the Great Wall of China is, well, a giant wall. Being hundreds of miles long, it's understandable people would assume it sticks out like a sore thumb from space.
Yes, the Great Wall of China is very, very long. It's also built from rocks collected from all over the local landscape – in other words, ones that are usually the same color as the wall itself. So unless China decides to give the wall a makeover and paint it hot pink, it's going to remain fairly hard to spot from space.
So what can astronauts see out the windows of the space station? Quite a bit, actually. Cities light up like spiderwebs at night, of course, but even during the day lots of stuff is visible. Bridges, dams, airports and major highways are among the structures seen by spacemen as they shoot across the sky, far above the pitiful, land-bound mortals on Earth.
There are a couple of reasons this pseudo-fact is so far-flung. For one, its history dates back to well before the Space Age, so no one knew enough to nip it in the bud straight off. And for another, the Great Wall of China is, well, a giant wall. Being hundreds of miles long, it's understandable people would assume it sticks out like a sore thumb from space.
Yes, the Great Wall of China is very, very long. It's also built from rocks collected from all over the local landscape – in other words, ones that are usually the same color as the wall itself. So unless China decides to give the wall a makeover and paint it hot pink, it's going to remain fairly hard to spot from space.
So what can astronauts see out the windows of the space station? Quite a bit, actually. Cities light up like spiderwebs at night, of course, but even during the day lots of stuff is visible. Bridges, dams, airports and major highways are among the structures seen by spacemen as they shoot across the sky, far above the pitiful, land-bound mortals on Earth.
17. Glass Is a Slow-moving Liquid!
You may have lived for field trips as a kid, looking forward to a whole day of out-of-school fun and exploring. That is, until you got started on a tour of some musty building that seemed, well, boring. Not even the tour guide's explanation of how the glass in the wavy, uneven windowpanes has slowly flowed downward over time could keep your attention.
Liquid windowpanes? No.
Rather than the (magical-sounding) slow drip of centuries, the reason old glass windows aren't perfectly even and clear is because of how they were made. Until the early-mid 1800s, most window glass was made using a process called the crown method. The glass was blown, flattened, heated and spun, yielding a sheet that was relatively cheap to produce. It was also rippled and thicker in some places than in others.
In other words, the windows looked that way when they were installed, and they look that way now. No downhill liquid flow is involved.
Liquid windowpanes? No.
Rather than the (magical-sounding) slow drip of centuries, the reason old glass windows aren't perfectly even and clear is because of how they were made. Until the early-mid 1800s, most window glass was made using a process called the crown method. The glass was blown, flattened, heated and spun, yielding a sheet that was relatively cheap to produce. It was also rippled and thicker in some places than in others.
In other words, the windows looked that way when they were installed, and they look that way now. No downhill liquid flow is involved.
16. Mother Birds Will Abandon Babies if You Touch Them!
You're out in the yard and you see a distressing sight – a baby bird is floundering around on the ground, looking like it's desperate to get in the air, but it can't despite all its efforts. Suddenly, out of your peripherals, you spot a cat readying for a pounce. Sacre bleu! You rush over to scoop up the little bundle of feathers, take it into the house, and try to remember how to assemble a shoebox nest to serve as a habitat for your precious little find. You'll raise it yourself until it's ready to fly.
While this is wrong on several levels, it's not because you touched the bird.
Baby birds usually don't leave the nest until they're ready (or at least readyish) to fly. But, just like how well you drove during your very first driving lesson, they typically stink at flying at first. So needless to say, they suffer a few false starts and end up on the ground, whining like a teenager who wants the keys but hasn't completely got the hang of which is the gas and which is the brake. But that doesn't mean the fledgling's parents aren't supervising their offspring. They're probably in a nearby tree, shuddering as their little dunce forgets all the lessons they taught it. And if you leave the baby bird alone, chances are they'll be there soon to smack it upside the head and tell it to pay more attention during the next round of flying lessons.
As for the scent issue – birds just don't smell too well. A few species are an exception, but chances are vastly greater that the little chirping ball of fluff won't suffer if you need to move it to the other side of the fence from where your dog plays. Plus, its parents have invested way too much time and energy raising it to just scoot off at the first opportunity, no matter how the little guy smells.
While this is wrong on several levels, it's not because you touched the bird.
Baby birds usually don't leave the nest until they're ready (or at least readyish) to fly. But, just like how well you drove during your very first driving lesson, they typically stink at flying at first. So needless to say, they suffer a few false starts and end up on the ground, whining like a teenager who wants the keys but hasn't completely got the hang of which is the gas and which is the brake. But that doesn't mean the fledgling's parents aren't supervising their offspring. They're probably in a nearby tree, shuddering as their little dunce forgets all the lessons they taught it. And if you leave the baby bird alone, chances are they'll be there soon to smack it upside the head and tell it to pay more attention during the next round of flying lessons.
As for the scent issue – birds just don't smell too well. A few species are an exception, but chances are vastly greater that the little chirping ball of fluff won't suffer if you need to move it to the other side of the fence from where your dog plays. Plus, its parents have invested way too much time and energy raising it to just scoot off at the first opportunity, no matter how the little guy smells.
If the baby bird you encounter is rather fuzzy or has no feathers at all, a little intervention is called for. Scoop it back up into its nest. Mom and Dad won't care (or likely even notice) if their offspring has a little eau de human on it. Read more in How to Rescue a Baby Bird.
15. Different Parts of Your Tongue Detect Different Tastes!
Lots of people think different parts of the tongue are fine-tuned to detect different tastes. The tip of the tongue is where you get your cupcake on, the sides are where the salty taste really hits home, bitter's in the back, and in between is the sour zone. This "fact" was the prevailing notion for a very long time. It has persisted in spite of millions of kids in health class insisting that the wooden spoon just tastes like wooden spoon, no matter how they lick it.
More recently, however, we've found out that the whole zones theory was pretty much bologna. (That would be the umami talking. More about that in a sec.) It turns out people can sense different tastes all over their tongues. There are a few outliers, but for most people, them's the facts.
Then there's the fifth basic taste that doesn't get a lot of PR, and that's umami. Auguste Escoffier, the pimpest chef in 19th century France, concocted this fifth wheel in the palate party. Foodies swooned over it – it's been described as savory and meaty – but scientists stuck to the sweet/salty/bitter/sour taste tetrahedron.
Even though umami was a familiar taste in Japan, the "fifth taste" idea didn't get much traction there, either. That is until Kikunae Ikeda, a whiz-bang Japanese chemist, decided to get to the bottom of what umami was all about. He figured out the taste came from glutamic acid, and he called it the Japanese version of yummy.
No one at the time believed him, though, and it wasn't until the end of the 20th century that scientists decided to look into it. They realized Ikeda was right all along.
14. People Thought the World Was Flat Before Columbus.
Christopher Columbus' crew had a lot to be worried about as they set sail. There was the possibility that they might wind up with scurvy or meander into a vengeful weather front, and of course there were all those warnings about where there be monsters.
But falling off the edge of the planet? Not so much. The idea that Columbus was endeavoring to attempt the unimaginable, defy all existing scientific precedent and become an international celebrity for not toppling off the world is false.
People have known since the learned and logic-laden age of the Greeks that they lived on a great, big globe. There were lots of obvious clues, like the way ships sailed over the horizon.
There were many objections to Columbus' plan to reach the East Indies via a somewhat novel route, but a tragic (and expensive) plunge into the abyss wasn't one of them. Most contentious were the logistics. Given the estimated (and not too shabby) size of the globe, there were steep odds his ships wouldn't successfully reach their intended destination. In the 1800s, the "knowledge" that our goofy, dark-ages ancestors had just up and forgotten the shape of the thing that they lived on started to circulate.
The Wrong Belief That Really Was. Flat Earth – not so much. But people really did believe that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. Physicists, mathematicians and astronomers thought up all kinds of complicated equations to explain why planets moved through the sky in a way that made no sense if they were orbiting Earth. Realizing that the planets orbited the sun solved that problem.
People have known since the learned and logic-laden age of the Greeks that they lived on a great, big globe. There were lots of obvious clues, like the way ships sailed over the horizon.
There were many objections to Columbus' plan to reach the East Indies via a somewhat novel route, but a tragic (and expensive) plunge into the abyss wasn't one of them. Most contentious were the logistics. Given the estimated (and not too shabby) size of the globe, there were steep odds his ships wouldn't successfully reach their intended destination. In the 1800s, the "knowledge" that our goofy, dark-ages ancestors had just up and forgotten the shape of the thing that they lived on started to circulate.
The Wrong Belief That Really Was. Flat Earth – not so much. But people really did believe that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. Physicists, mathematicians and astronomers thought up all kinds of complicated equations to explain why planets moved through the sky in a way that made no sense if they were orbiting Earth. Realizing that the planets orbited the sun solved that problem.
13. Deoxygenated Blood Is Blue!
Everybody has veins snaking up and down their bodies, and those veins are blue. So it stands to reason that whatever magical and mysterious substance courses through those veins (all right, fine, it's just boring, old blood) is, as a matter of course, blue.
But no! Once your blood has stopped by the bank (your lungs) and picked up a withdrawal of cash monies (oxygen) it's flush with greenbacks (bright red blood). Once it's spent a night on the town (circulated through your body), it returns with a massive hangover (the blood has turned dark red) and it goes to curl up on the couch (take another pass through the heart).
Basically, the veins are blue thanks to a trick of the light, not the color of what's inside them.
12. Chameleons Change Color to Blend in with Surroundings!
Chameleons are one of the five coolest species in the world. That's a fact. They're wicked awesome for a number of reasons: their funny, little two-toed feet, their uber-mobile eye cups, their super curly tails and their other exciting physical embellishments. What's probably best about them, though, is their polychromatic flare. But all those changing colors, unlike what many people believe, usually don't have a thing to do with blending into their surroundings. It hinges on the particular species, of course, but they're usually pretty well camouflaged to begin with. If they need to visually merge into the background, they can just stick with their normal coloration.
Instead, chameleon color-changing is typically triggered by physical, physiological and emotional changes. If they're feeling fussy, say angry or afraid or combative, they'll change colors using their chromatophores. They'll also change colors as a way of communicating in various manners (insert romantic music here) and to pick a fight with a competitor. Light and temperature play a big part, too, in how these little fancy pantses look.
Instead, chameleon color-changing is typically triggered by physical, physiological and emotional changes. If they're feeling fussy, say angry or afraid or combative, they'll change colors using their chromatophores. They'll also change colors as a way of communicating in various manners (insert romantic music here) and to pick a fight with a competitor. Light and temperature play a big part, too, in how these little fancy pantses look.
11. Humans Have Five Senses!
We hear what you're saying. We see your point of view. We feel your pain. Also, you smell bad and possibly taste funny, the latter of which we don't intend to test.
But if you believe these are the only five ways you can detect information about your environment or alterations to your person, we're going to punch you in the face. There. Boom. You will feel it thanks to nociception, the ability to sense pain.
There are lots more, too, although the lists vary and the final number-of-senses tally is in great dispute. There are several boring ones that your body does without you knowing it. So let's skip those. More interesting is proprioception, which helps you pass the "close your eyes and touch your nose" test. Basically, it's what lets two parts of your body connect without visual confirmation. If you're (successfully) rubbing your eyes in disbelief, you used proprioception to do it. If you accidently smacked yourself in the forehead instead, you experienced a proprioception fail.
Apart from those, hunger and thirst can count according to some, as can feelings of hot and cold. Itch, interestingly, is apparently independent from both touch and pain. It's annoying on so many levels!
10. Talking on your cell phone will give you cancer!
There has been lots of talk over the years about how the radiation from cell phones may be causing brain tumors. As it turns out, not so much. An annual report from the Presidents Cancer Panel found no evidence to support the link between cell phones and malignancies. In fact, while talking on cell phones has increased by sixfold since 1991, the number of brain cancer incidences has actually dropped by half.
9. Holding your laptop on your lap will make you sterile!
This myth grew out of a study by Argentinian researchers in 2011 which seemed to indicate that the electromagnetic radiation from the wifi signal damaged the sperm in a man’s testes. Chalk this one up to media sensationalism. The truth is that the researchers themselves admitted that the setup was artificial in nature. The laptops were placed on laps for four straight hours, a somewhat rare scenario. Not only that, but the normal angle a man would sit would place the computer not on his testes, but rather on his thighs. In rebuking the study, French cancer researchers remarked, “Genotoxicity of radio frequencies is not a matter of opinion: Radio frequency energy absorption cannot break DNA molecules.”
8. You only use 10% of your brain!
Is that so? Then that gunshot to the brain probably won’t do much damage. This myth is very, very false. The brain only weighs a couple of pounds yet it uses around 20% of the oxygen and glucose the body requires. It’s pretty doubtful we would have evolved so inefficiently if the brain was 90% useless. Never mind that, brain scans show the whole organ is pretty darn active. During the course of a normal day, 100% of your brain is chugging away at one point or another.
7. Sugar makes kids crazy!
Try telling a parent who is watching a roomful of children at a birthday party that all that cake and ice cream hasn’t made their kid a hyperactive buzzsaw. Actually, there really isn’t much evidence to show that the so-called sugar buzz is a real thing (with the exception of a small number of kids with a rare insulin disorder). All that activity is more likely the result of the general excitement of lots of children together, party atmosphere, games, etc. The same thing you might see at the college frat toga party. Of course, that does not mean a lot of sugar is OK for kids. There are plenty of reasons to limit sugar in children, such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, inflammation, and even cancer. Just not hyperactivity.
6. Lightning never strikes the same place twice!
Wrong. In fact, lightning tends to strike the same place over and over again. The Empire State Building gets hit 100 times a year. Any tall structure or tree is prone to multiple hits from lightning during electrical storms. A study in 2003 by NASA pretty much put this myth to rest.
5. Hair and nails continue to grow after you die!
In order for this to be true, you would need to be able to supply nutrients to the hair and body, which means there would still need to be metabolic processes going on, which pretty much means you wouldn’t be dead. So shelve this myth. Hair and nails can appear to grow after death because the skin dries out and retracts, exposing more of the hair and nail roots. But growing? Nope.
4. Eating watermelon seeds will give you appendicitis!
Nah. Just like almost everything we eat, watermelon seeds pass through the system and end up in the toilet. They don’t have much taste, and the body doesn’t have much use for them, but they aren’t harmful. Nor will they make you grow a watermelon inside your stomach.
3. If a jellyfish stings you, urine will help alleviate the pain!
It might make for a good “Friends” episode, but the truth is that urine isn’t the answer to a jellyfish sting. In fact, putting urine on the sting could cause more pain by releasing more venom from the stinger. Better to rub it with vinegar. The acid in the vinegar will counteract the stinger and relieve the pain. In any event, the pain should dissipate within 24 hours.
2. Crossing your legs gives you varicose veins!
Varicose veins are caused when your vascular system works extra hard pumping blood up from your legs to your heart. If the valves in your veins are working inefficiently, blood pools in the vein and out pops the varicose condition. Crossing your legs has nothing to do with varicose veins. In fact, standing a lot will most likely cause the blood to pool. Pregnancy, blunt force (like getting hit by a ball), or genetic pre-disposition are other common causes of varicose veins. Crossing your legs? Nope.
1. You should wash your chicken before you cook it!
Stop doing this. Not only is it a waste of time (proper cooking will destroy harmful germs), but according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, washing raw chicken just splashes potentially dangerous germs all over the sink and counter.
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