It ’s prison term to put an end to the most enticing science myth , misconception , and inaccuracies go down through the ages .
To help the cause we ’ve rounded up and corrected dozens of the most shocking science " facts " that are bizarrely wrong about food , creature , the Earth , biology , space , alcohol , and wellness .
FOOD MYTHS
Mauna Kea.Creative Commons
MYTH : There are bug in your strawberry Frappuccino .
Ron Cogswell / Flickr ( cubic centimeter BY 2.0 )
This one is no longer true .
Before April 2012 , Starbucks ' hemangioma simplex Frappucino contained a dye made from the land - up bodies of thousands of tiny dirt ball , call cochineal bugs ( orDactylopius coccus ) .
Farmer in South and Central America make a living harvesting — and smashing — the bugs that go into the dye . Their crushed bodies produce a inscrutable violent ink that is used as a natural food for thought colour , which was " prognosticate cochineal " violent but is now called " carmine coloring material . "
Starbucks stopped using carmine color in their strawberry Frappucinos in 2012 . But the dyestuff is still used in thousands of other food product — from Nerds confect to grapefruit juice . Not to bring up cosmetic , like lovely shades of red lipstick .
Sources : Business Insider , CHR Hansen , AmericanSweets.co.uk , FoodFacts.com , LA Times
MYTH : deplete food within 5 seconds of dropping it on the level is safe .
Flickr / Rubbermaid Products
It ’s the worst when something you really wanted to eat crepuscule on the flooring . But if you snap up it in five seconds , it ’s ok , right ?
The five - second - rule is n’t a real thing . Bacteria can contaminate a food for thought within msec .
Mythbusting test show that moist foods pull more bacterium than dry food , but there ’s no " safe continuance . " rather , rubber look on how clean the surface you dropped the food on is .
Whether you eat up it or not after that is up to you , but if the people that walk on that floor are also walking around New York City , for example , we would n’t urge it .
source : Business Insider , Discovery.com
MYTH : The chemic tryptophan in turkey fix you sleepy .
Bev Currie / Flickr
Who does n’t enjoy the post - Thanksgiving pile ? After all , turkey contains tryptophan — an amino acid that is a component of some of the brain chemicals that aid you relax .
But pot of foods contain tryptophan . Cheddar cheese has even more than turkey , yet cheddar is never pointed out as a sopor inducing food .
expert say that instead , the carbs , alcohol , and general size of the turkey - sidereal day feast are the cause of those delicious holiday siesta .
source : Business Insider , LiveScience
MYTH : There ’s beaver butt secretions in your vanilla glass emollient .
Via Flickr
But castoreum is so expensive , at up to $ 70 per pound of anal retentive secreter ( the toll to humanely milk castoreum from a beaver is likely even higher ) , that it ’s improbable to show up in anything you eat .
In 2011 , the Vegetarian Resource Group write to five major companies that produce vanilla flavoring and ask if they use castoreum . The answer : According to the Federal Code of Regulations , they ca n’t . ( The FDA highly regulates what live into vanilla flavoring and selection . )
It ’s as unlikely you ’ll find castoreum in mass - marketed goods , either .
source : Business Insider , Vegetarian Resource Group , FDA , NY Trappers Forum
MYTH : wipe out chocolate consecrate you acne .
False .
For one month , scientist fed dozens of people candy bar containing 10 times the usual amount of coffee , and dozen of others fake chocolate bar .
When they count the pimple before and after each diet , there was " no difference " between the two group . Neither the deep brown nor the fat seemed to have any effect on acne .
Source : JAMA
MYTH : An Malus pumila a twenty-four hour period keep the doctor away .
Imperfect
Apples are packed with vitamin C and fiber , both of which are crucial to long - term wellness , but they are n’t all you need .
And if certain viruses or bacteria get into your system , an apple will unfortunately do nothing to protect you .
Go ahead and get that influenza shot , even if you eat apple .
Source : Business Insider
MYTH : Organic food is pesticide - costless and more nutritious .
naotakem via Flickr
MYTH : born saccharide like honey is better for you than process sugar .
A granola bar made with dear instead of high - fructose corn syrup is not good for you .
That ’s because shekels in born products like fruit and synthetical products like confect is the same : " scientist would be surprised to hear about the ' clean-cut superiority ' of honey , since there is a nigh whole consensus that the biologic essence of high-pitched - fructose corn sirup are basically the same as those of honey , " professor Alan Levinovitz narrate Business Insider .
The problem is that candy and other related to products typically contain more sugar per serving , which means more calories — a conflict you should actually be watching out for .
Sources : Business Insider , SciShow , Dr. Joy Dubost / Huffington Post
MYTH : Milk does a body good !
liz west / flickr
This is an incredibly successful routine of advertising that has wormed its way into our brains and policies to make Milk River seem magical .
The US Department of Agriculture say us that adults should drink three cups of milk a day , mostly for calcium and vitamin D.
However , multiple study show that there is n’t an affiliation between booze more milk ( or taking atomic number 20 and vitamin D supplementation ) and having fewer bone fractures .
Some studies have even shown an connection with high overall mortality , and while that does n’t mean that milk phthisis itself was responsible for , it ’s sure not an endorsement .
Sources : Business Insider , NYTimes , Journal of Bone Mineral Research , JAMA Pediatrics , The Lancet , British Medical Journal
MYTH : coffee berry stunt your growth .
Susanne Nilsson / Flickr
Most inquiry finds no correlational statistics between caffeine consumption and bone growth in kids .
In adults , researchers have seen that increased caffeine intake can very slightly limit calcium immersion , but the impact is so small that a tablespoon of Milk River will more than adequately offset the personal effects of a cupful of coffee .
advert seems to be mostly responsible for this myth : Cereal maker named C.W. Post was endeavor to market a first light beverage prognosticate " Postum " as an option to coffee , so he ran ads on the " evils " of Americans ' favourite hot beverage , call it a " nerve poisonous substance " that should never be serve up to tyke .
Sources : Business Insider ( 1,2),Smithsonian Magazine
MYTH : Eating ice-skating rink emollient will make your frigid worse .
Álvaro Nistal / Flickr ( CC - BY - NC - ND 2.0 )
If you ’re home sick with a coldness , you may totally go ahead and solace yourself with some methamphetamine hydrochloride cream .
The thought that dairy increase mucous product is very fortuitously not true , according to researchers and a doctor at the Mayo Clinic , who says " in fact , frozen dairy products can soothe a painful throat and provide Calorie when you otherwise may not eat . "
consecrate him .
source : Business Insider , American Review of Respiratory Disease , Mayo Clinic
MYTH : Sugar is as addictive as diacetylmorphine .
Jake Harris / flickr
In the 2009 rule book " Fat Chance , " the generator , Dr. Robert Lustig , arrogate that dough arouse the nous ’s reinforcement system the same path that tobacco , alcohol , cocaine , and even diacetylmorphine does , and therefore must be equally addictive . Lustig even cites subject area that show parts of our brain that light - up from a sugary reward are the same parts that get excited for many types of gratifying activities , from drink intoxicant to take in sex .
Mauna Kea.Creative Commons
The trouble , however , with these type of scientific field of the wit is that " In neuroimaging , there is no all the way - trim down sign of the zodiac of addiction , " Hisham Ziaudden , an eating behavioral specializer , told Levinovitz .
So , scientists do n’t fuck what addiction in the encephalon look like , yet , and until that mystery is solved we should not be hold up in veneration from something as imaginary as sugar addiction .
Source : Business Insider ( 1,2 ) , " Fat Chance "
MYTH : Sugar and chocolates are aphrodisiacs .
In the mid nineteenth C — before sugar supposedly induce diabetes or hyperactivity — sugar was opine to heat sexual desire in women , children , and , more polemically , the poor .
So do n’t get worked up over loot . There ’s little to no grounds to support the notion that it — or any solid food , including umber — stimulates sexual desire .
Sources : Business Insider , Mayo Clinic
MYTH : cabbage induce hyperactivity in children .
Flickr user edith_soto
Numerous scientific studies have tried and failed to find any evidence that fend for this off - the - wall notion .
The myth probably egress in 1974 , when Dr. William Crook wrote a missive to the American Academy of Pediatrics , which published it . " Only in the past three years have I become cognizant that sugar … is a moderate effort of hyperactivity , " the missive stated .
A letter does not include the rigorous scientific enquiry that a theme does , and consort to the National Institute of Mental Health : " The idea that urbane sugar get ADHD or makes symptom worse is pop , but more research discounts this theory than supports it . "
source : University of Arkansas for Medial Sciences , Business Insider , NIH
MYTH : Dogs and true cat are colorblind .
flickr substance abuser : rob.wiss
Dogs and cats have much better color vision than we thought .
Both hotdog and cats can see in blue and green , and they also have more rods — the idle - sensing cell in the eye — than humans do , so they can see well in depleted - illumination billet .
This myth probably comes about because each brute sees colors differently than humans .
Reds and pinks may come along more immature to CAT , while purple may look like another shade of wild blue yonder . Dogs , meanwhile , have fewer cones — the color - sensing cells in the eye — so scientists estimated that their people of colour vision is only about 1/7th as vibrant as ours .
Sources : Today I chance Out , Business Insider
MYTH : lemming leap off cliffs in mass suicide .
Lemmings do not commit hoi polloi suicide .
During their migrations they sometimes do flow off cliffs , or if they wander into an area they are unfamiliar with .
Source : Alaska Department Of Fish And biz
MYTH : Sharks do n’t get malignant neoplastic disease .
Wendell Reed / Flickr
Back in 2013 , researchers reported a huge neoplasm growing out of the mouthpiece of a great clean shark , and another on the fountainhead of a bronze whaler shark .
And those are n’t the only cases of shark cancers . Other scientists have reported tumors in dozens of different shark species .
The myth that sharks do n’t get cancer was created by I. William Lane to sell shark gristle as a cancer treatment .
reservoir : Journal Of Cancer Research , LiveScience
MYTH : ostrich conceal by arrange their heads in the Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin .
When threaten , ostriches sometimes founder on the ground and play dead .
germ : San Diego Zoo
MYTH : People get warts from anuran and toad frog .
USDA
Frogs or toads wo n’t give you warts , but shaking hands with someone who has warts can .
The human papillomavirus is what chip in the great unwashed warts , and it is unique to humans .
Source : WebMD
MYTH : This dinosaur is call a Brontosaurus .
public domain
Many people would call this dinosaur a Brontosaurus — even Michael Crichton did in " Jurassic Park . "
It is actually called the Apatosaurus . The myth emerged some 130 long time ago during a feud between two paleontologists .
Source : NPR
MYTH : Sharks can smell a drop of blood from miles away .
This one is a big overstatement . Jaws is not coming for you from across the ocean if you bleed in the water .
A neuron, connected to many others.Flickr/ZEISS Microscopy
Shark have a highly enlarged mental capacity area for smell smell , allow some of the fish to detect as petty as 1 part blood per 10 billion part water — approximately a pearl in an Olympic - size swim pocket billiards .
But it the ocean is much , much , much bigger and it takes for a while for odor molecules to drift . On a very unspoilt twenty-four hour period when the currents are favorable , a shark can smell out its prey from a few football fields away — not miles .
origin : American Museum of Natural History
MYTH : Bats are unsighted .
Being " unsighted as a bat " means not being blind at all .
While many use echolocation to navigate , all of them can see .
Source : USA Today
MYTH : Goldfish ca n’t remember anything for longer than a second gear .
Flickr user riviera2008
Goldfish actually have moderately good memory .
They can remember thing for months , not seconds like many people say .
germ : ABC News
MYTH : Giraffes sleep for only 30 minute a twenty-four hour period .
Wikimedia Commons
Giraffes have pretty distinctive sleeping pattern .
To debunk this one , researchers closely monitored a herd of five adult and three young giraffes for 152 days , consider all of their naps and recondite slumber .
The animal typically kip overnight and catnap in the afternoon ( sound intimate ? ) .
In total , each giraffe slept about 4.6 hours every day .
Source : European Sleep Research Society
MYTH : shark die if they halt drown .
Elias Levy / Flickr
Blue Cherenkov radiation in a nuclear reactor, where neutrons travel faster than light through the surrounding water.Argonne National Laboratory
You often hear sharks can breathe only when swim push water over their gills .
That ’s lawful of some sharks , but many others — like bottom - dwelling nursemaid shark — can pump atomic number 8 - rich water over their gills without swim .
All shark lack swim bladder , however , so if they stop swimming they will sink to the bottom . fortunately a shark ’s body is incompressible and rapid descents or ascents do n’t harm them .
MYTH : Poinsettias check deadly poison .
Poinsettias wo n’t down you or your pets , though you still should n’t wipe out them .
The flowers might make you a bit sick with some gastrointestinal issues .
Source : The New York Botanical Garden
MYTH : Humans got HIV because someone had sex with a monkey .
flickr exploiter : kvn.jns
A photo of Earth and the moon from space. That tiny speck at the bottom left is the moon.JAXA
HIV probably did n’t jump to mankind through human - imp sex .
It believably jump to humans through search of monkey for bushmeat solid food , which led to blood - to - blood impinging .
Source : Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives In medicament
MYTH : cut down a penny from the Empire State building could kill someone .
Flickr user Charles 16e
sink a cent from the Empire State edifice is very unlikely to maim anyone .
The far side of the moon.WOtP on Wikipedia
A penny weighs just about 1/11th of an ounce and lead out at 50 miles per hour in freefall , which is n’t fast enough to kill . It ’d hurt like heck , though .
Sources : Today I Found Out , US Mint
MYTH : The great wall of China is the only man - made structure seeable from space .
From the International Space Station 250 miles up , you could see the wall and many other valet - made structures . From the moon , you ca n’t see any structure at all — only a dim glow of city light .
Source : NASA
MYTH : The moon ’s gravity pluck on water induce the tide .
NOAA
This is only half true .
On the side of Earth that ’s confront the moon , the moon ’s gravitation does indeed pull water toward it to stimulate tides .
On the other side of Earth , however , gravity is weaker ( from the moonshine ’s wrench on the other side ) and it ’s the inactivity of water from the Earth ’s rotary motion at work : spinning at about 1,040 mph flings sea water into a slight bulge we recognize as the tide .
Sources : NOAA , NASA
MYTH : Lightning never take up the same place twice .
Lightning does hit twice .
Some places , like the Empire State Building , get struck up to 100 times a twelvemonth .
Source : WeatherBug
MYTH : The Earth is a perfect orbit .
The Earth rotate at about 1,040 mph . That ’s about 60 % the upper of your typical bullet after it blast out of the muzzle .
This inertia slimly flatten the planet ’s perch and causes a bulge of careen around the equator .
Due to global warming and the melt of glaciers ( and less weight pushing down on the crust ) , scientist think that bulge is now growing .
Sources : StarrySkies.com , MythBusters the Exhibition
MYTH : Mount Everest is the tall great deal on Earth .
Mauna Kea . Creative Commons
The world ’s tallest mountain technically is not Mount Everest .
Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea floor , but if we ’re talking plenty base - to - summit height , then the tallest is the island of Hawaii that bill as Mauna Kea .
Everest stand 29,035 foot above sea grade . Mauna Kea only support 13,796 feet above seal degree , but the plenty extend about 19,700 feet below the Pacific Ocean . Over half of it is submerged .
That set up the total height of Mauna Kea at about 33,500 feet — nearly a mile tall than Everest .
Source : Tech Insider
MYTH : Water conduct electrical energy .
flickr exploiter : elitatt
everlasting or distilled piss does n’t conduct electricity well at all .
The reason we can get shocked when standing in electrified water is because water we number across will be contaminate by mineral , dirt , and other things that will conduct electricity .
root : USGS
MYTH : There was a globular thawing pause .
NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Earth ’s average surface temperature has n’t really agitate since the start of the 21st century , but 70 % of the satellite is hatch in piss — and that ’s where 90 % of heat trapped by planetary warming ends up .
In fact , thaw of the oceans has stimulate them to thermally expand , creating a immense share of the ocean level rise that scientists see today .
Sources : Scientific American / Climate Wire , Tech Insider
MYTH : Tectonic collection plate move because volcanism pushes them aside .
Older edge of a tectonic plate are cool and denser , causing them to sink into the mantle where they ’re reprocess . Where two plates are being yanked aside by this sinking , ocean ridges appear .
That ’s where the tectonic plate is being built — by hot , buoyant stone that convect upward and emerge from the stretched - out debile point . The resulting volcanism is n’t what pulls two plates aside .
MYTH : The Sahara is the biggest desert on Earth .
Not all deserts are live and full of sand . They need only be dry and inhospitable .
Antarctica fits the bill , since it get only two inches of precipitation a year and has few farming creature .
At 5.4 million square miles compared to the Sahara ’s 3.6 million square air mile , the Bottom of the World is a immensely larger desert .
Sourcse : USGS ( 1,2),NASA , Encyclopedia of Earth ( 1,2 )
MYTH : Diamonds come from coal .
alternatively , they ’re carbon paper that is compress and heated 90 miles below the surface of the Earth . Coal is found about 2 miles down .
Source : Geology.com
MYTH : masses in the Middle Ages thought the Earth was 2-dimensional .
Shutterstock
During the other Middle Ages , almost every scholar thought the Earth was rotund , not bland .
This myth picked up steam in the 1800s , right around the same time the idea of evolution was turn out in prominence — and religious and scientific interests jar .
Sources : Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , Patheos
MYTH : summertime is ardent because you are closer to the sun .
Flickr / Gilberto Filho
The northerly cerebral hemisphere of the Earth is not close to the Lord’s Day when it is summer , nor is the southerly hemisphere during its summer .
It is always warmer during the summertime because Earth is tilted ; during its class - long orbit , our home planet ’s tilt allows the Lord’s Day ’s zip to shoot us more forthwith .
MYTH : Lightning do nose drops .
A scientific and philosophical nitpick here , but lightning is just a stream of electrons zapping from cloud to cloud or flat coat to befog . This in turn heats air into a vacuum tube of plasma that ’s three times hotter than the surface of our sun .
That tube violently flesh out and contract nearby air , creating an unmistakable crack and rumble — not the flow of negatron itself .
generator : Scientific American
MYTH : Your pedigree plough blue when it ’s out of oxygen .
Your blood is never blue : It deform dark red when it ’s not carry oxygen .
line only looks blue because you are take care it through several level of tissue , which permeate the color .
Source : UCSB ScienceLine
MYTH : Every gene in your DNA codes for on the nose one protein .
One factor does not equalise one protein .
Many genes make multiple dissimilar protein , reckon on how the mRNA from the gene is sequenced and reduce up in the cell . And many other genes do n’t make proteins at all .
Source : Annual Reviews Of Biochemistry
MYTH : Humans have five senses .
stack , olfactory sensation , taste , auditory sense , and tinge are just the root .
Do n’t block about balance , temperature , and time , as well as proprioception — the body cognisance that helps us not take the air into matter all the meter — and nociception , our sensation of pain .
MYTH : The hymen is a mainsheet of tissue that forget a women ’s vagina .
Flickr / CarbonNYC
Wrong .
Guys , the hymen is a thin membrane that only part blocks the vaginal opening — if a woman is born with one at all .
Also , plenty of activity other than gender can dilute or damage the hymen , include exercise or inserting a tampon .
Sources : Columbia University , College Humor
MYTH : Eating a lot of carrot pay you great night vision .
MissMessie / Flickr ( CC BY - SA 2.0 )
Vitamin A is a major nutrient found in carrot , and it is good for the health of your centre — specially those with poor visual modality . But eating a caboodle of the veg wo n’t give your all - seeing superpowers .
The myth is call back to have started during as a piece of British propaganda during World War II . That government wanted to secret the existence of a radar engineering that allowed its bomber pilots to round in the Nox .
root : Smithsonian Magazine
MYTH : Blonde and red fuzz colors are snuff it extinct .
flickr exploiter : e3000
blonde and redheads are not " going extinct . "
Genes rarely die out , and recessive factor , like those that lead to red or blonde hair semblance , can be carried from generation to propagation without creating the tomentum color . ( As much as 40 % of some populations , for case , carry a gene that leads to red fuzz color . )
When two people with the right recessionary factor have a babe , there ’s a good chance the kid will have red or blonde hair color — even if the parent do n’t have red or blonde hair’s-breadth themselves .
rootage : John McDonald / University of Delaware , BritainsDNA
MYTH : Pregnancy gives you " baby genius " and urinate you dull .
Flickr / Frank de Kleine
subject on this turn of events up mixed results , at best .
Some studies on changes to working memory during gestation do show a small-scale effect on the learning ability , though other studies show no negative impacts whatsoever .
There ’s actually growing grounds that being significant makes women more organized and smart , at least , concord to a study on rats .
It make sense , though , since fraught women and novel mothers have a lot more to worry about and opine about — for their brains to keep up they may even be getting a boost .
Sources : Dr. Myra Wick / Mayo Clinic , New Scientist
MYTH : pilus and nails keep growing after last .
fuzz and fingernails do not keep growing once someone dies .
Instead , the skin dries out and shrinks , afford the appearance of further increase .
rootage : Lecture Notes : Dermatology , Tech Insider
MYTH : Humans ca n’t grow raw Einstein cells .
You are not born with all of the brainpower cellphone you will ever have .
There is plenty of evidence that the brain continues to create new cellular telephone in at least a few mentality region well into adulthood , through a process called neurogenesis .
Source : The Scientist
MYTH : Some people have photographic memory .
flicker drug user : slalit
There ’s actually no such matter as a " photographic " memory — only very skilful store .
Even citizenry with exceptional or autobiographic memories do n’t recall issue with optic details exact enough to mimic the fidelity of film or a television camera sensor .
beginning : Moments of Science
MYTH : People only use 10 % of their Einstein .
This myth has been debunked over and over again , but it just wo n’t fail .
Just because you ’re not doing maths equations and juggling while you write a sonnet does n’t mean you are n’t using all the parts of your mentality at once .
you may utilize your total brain , and you do — the brain is 3 % of the trunk ’s hatful but utilize 20 % of its energy .
MYTH : " Left - brained " people are originative . " Right - brain " people are analytic .
Flickr / Shaheen Lakhan
It ’s a common old canard : originative hoi polloi are right - brain , while the logically - minded are allow for - brained . False .
It ’s true that different hemisphere of your brainiac are more meshed in sure task ( the remaining side is rife in language , for example ) , but written report have never found overall left- or right - brain control in individuals .
Sources : Business Insider , psychological science Today
MYTH : The big your brain is , the wise you are .
Humans do n’t even have a particularly impressive brain - to - consistence - mickle ratio .
The succeeder in that family among mammals is the baseborn tree shrew , though that ’s mostly because its eubstance is so midget .
Sources : Business Insider , Scientific American , Washington University
MYTH : It occupy 7 year for mucilage to digest if you accept it .
flickr exploiter : sembrandogirasoles
Nope .
Gum is mostly indigestible , but the occasional swallowed spell will go by through your intestines and croak the other side , just like anything else you eat that your body does n’t demand and ca n’t support .
The only sheath where swallowed glue has caused a problem is when that gum is swallowed along with other thing that should n’t be in your stomach .
Scientific American cites a case where a 4 - twelvemonth - erstwhile young woman suffered a gastrointestinal blockage — from a wad of gum with four coin inside of it .
Sources : Business Insider , Scientific American
MYTH : Your microwave can give you cancer and disrupt your pacesetter .
Flickr
microwave oven radiation wo n’t cause cancer , it just heats solid food up .
Only a few types of radiation case genus Cancer , and these calculate on the Lucy in the sky with diamonds . radiotherapy from the sunlight can make cutis cancer , for example , but just enough help your consistence make Vitamin D , too .
Microwaves also wo n’t break up a pacemaker . However , things like anti - theft arrangement , metal detectors , powerful refrigerator magnets , mobile phones , and even headphones can mess with the heartbeat - keeping machine .
generator : Cancer Research UK , American Heart Association
MYTH : Shaving makes your fuzz grow back thicker .
Shaving your whisker does n’t make it thicker , it just makes it finger coarser for a prison term .
That ’s because the ends of the hairs are shrill and stubbly instead of suave .
origin : Mayo Clinic
MYTH : Drugs make " hole " in your brain .
That does n’t intend drugs are good for your brain .
Many drugs ( illicit and otherwise ) can significantly interpolate your brain ’s structure and disrupt its mathematical function . But none will rick a healthy mental capacity into a stack of Swiss high mallow .
MYTH : Humans have 100 billion genius mobile phone .
A neuron , connected to many others . Flickr / ZEISS Microscopy
In 2009 , scientists rule that you really have more like 86 billion brain cells .
It ’s tempting to round up , but this conflict is meaning when you believe the fact that 14 billion nerve cell might represent the intact brain of another creature .
Sources : Business Insider , The Journal of Comparative Neurology
MYTH : You call for to waitress an 60 minutes after eating to swim or you could hamper and drown .
The theory behind this seems to be that concentrate food for thought will take up parentage to your stomach , intend that less blood is available for your muscles , make believe them more likely to hamper .
But there ’s no grounds to sustain this title .
In fact , many root say there are no document cases of anyone ever drowning because they ’ve had a cramp related to swim with a full belly .
Cramps do happen frequently when swimming , but they are n’t do by what ’s in your belly . If you do get one , the best insurance policy is to drift for a minute and let it go by .
Sources : Business Insider , Washington Post , TodayIFoundOut.com
MYTH : Taking your vitamins will keep you sizable .
Vitamins sound like a great theme : One pill that can provide you everything you need to be healthy !
If only they cultivate .
tenner of enquiry on vitamin has n’t regain any justification for our multivitamin habit , and in some cases , vitamins have in reality been link up with an increase risk of infection of various malignant neoplastic disease .
MYTH : Everyone should drink in eight glasses of urine a day .
Flickr / Stockphotosforfree
Hydration is very of import , but the mind that eight ice of water is all-important is a unknown one .
In healthy people , researchers have not find any connection between fluid intake and kidney disease , heart disease , atomic number 11 levels , or skin lineament .
But water is a large calorie - free option to other beverages ( especially sugary ones like soda or sports drinks ) , and people who imbibe water instead of those potable eat fewer nutritionist’s calorie overall .
A good rule is to drink when you ’re athirst — you do n’t take to number the glasses .
Source : Business Insider , FiveThirtyEight , Nutrition Reviews
MYTH : Carbonated water supply is n’t as hydrating as 2-dimensional water .
Keith Williamson via Flickr
Just because water is fizzy and novel does n’t mean it ’s bad for you .
In one of many studies that bust this myth , researchers made piece bike on several occasions until they sudate off 4 % of their body weight — then straight off handed them a drink .
One time the cyclists got flat water system , another time carbonated body of water , yet another sugar weewee , and during a final trial everyone drink carbonated sugar piddle .
The results ? Carbonation did not make any difference when it came to rehydrating .
reservoir : International Journal of Sports Medicine
MYTH : Yogurt will help put your digestive system back in guild .
Flickr / Howard Walfish
Yogurt is often market as help oneself digestion and slimming our figure because of probiotics — the estimate that " full bacteria " survive in the yoghourt will shack up in our guts .
Bacteria are well - colligate to our metabolism and fleshiness rates , among other things , so the connectedness seems coherent .
However , we do n’t yet translate how the million of bacterium already in our bodies turn together , let alone when yogurt is added into the commixture .
This is not to say that yogurt is unhealthy , just that its benefits are oversold . Keep in mind , though , that a great deal of yoghourt is packed with sugar , which we do have a go at it contributes to corpulency and other problems — so if you enjoy the dairy Cartesian product , find some that is n’t full of empty calories .
Sources : Business Insider , Tech Insider
MYTH : You lose 90 % of your body heat through your head .
Flickr / hounombrellonelculo
Not really .
You fall back dead body heat through anything that ’s uncovered , and your head is more likely to be unwrap than other area of your body .
" Most of the time when we ’re outside in the cold , we ’re tog , " Dr. Richard Ingebretsen distinguish WebMD Magazine . " If you do n’t have a lid on , you lose heat through your pass , just as you would suffer heating plant through your legs if you were wearing shorts . "
Sources : byplay Insider,“Don’t bury Your Gum ! : Myths , Half - Truths , and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health,“WedMD Magazine
SPACE MYTHS
MYTH : The sun is lily-livered .
NASA
If you wince and look at the good afternoon Sunday , it might look yellow — but the brightness level it contribute off is actually white in colour .
The Earth ’s atmosphere between your eyes and the sun is what makes the champion appear white-livered .
The gases bend the light in an effect called Rayleigh scattering , which is what also makes the sky blue and causes sunset to blaze into glorious orange and reds .
Not helping matters is that astronomers classify the sun as a main - sequence grand - eccentric star , or the misnomer " yellow dwarf . "
Sources : NASA , NOAA , Washington University , University College London
MYTH : Nothing can go quicker than light .
Blue Cherenkov radiation in a nuclear reactor , where neutrons journey faster than visible light through the surround pee . Argonne National Laboratory
Wrong on a few spirit level .
While illumination can move unimpeded at 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum , it slow down when it travels through different substances . For example , light moves 25 % slower through water and 59 % slower through diamond .
speck like an electron , neutron , or neutrino can outpace photon of luminance in such medium — though they have to run off energy as radiation when they do .
What about luminosity in a emptiness ? Even then , the expanding fabric of space once exceeded clean - speed during the Big Bang , and physicists recollect wormhole and quantum entanglement might be able-bodied to " move " faster as well .
Sources : Georgia State University , Tech Insider
MYTH : The Asteroid Belt is dangerous .
Movie scenes of starship flying through a dense field of tumbling , colliding rocks are fanciful .
The Asteroid Belt — a zone between 200 and 300 million nautical mile from the sun — is an incredibly lonely and desolate void .
In fact , if you pulled all the asteroid together they ’d only weigh about 4 % the multitude of Earth ’s moon .
This is why NASA gets really unrestrained when it catches so much as one asteroid colliding with another .
source : NASA , TodayIFoundOut.com
MYTH : Going past the sharpness of space reach you weightless .
Most scientist agree quad begins 62 mi up , where the Earth ’s standard pressure is more or less a vacuum .
Yet going past this argumentation does not magically make you weightless ; if you ’re in an accelerate rocket , you will feel many times Earth ’s soberness . It ’s only when you protrude falling that you sense weightless .
This is what it means to orb something : to seemingly fall forever around that object . The moon around the Earth , the Earth around the sun , the solar arrangement around the Milky Way Galaxy … They ’re all falling into one another in a crazy cosmic terpsichore .
If you ’re 250 miles above the Earth , you have to travel 17,500 miles per hour around the planet to have continuous freefall — precisely the hurrying of the International Space Station and its astronauts .
Sources : FAI , NASA
MYTH : The moon is very close to the Earth .
A photo of Earth and the moon from place . That diminutive speck at the bottom left is the moonshine . JAXA
The moon sometimes looks so confining you could reach up and up and take hold of it .
In world , the moon orbits at a distance of about 239,000 knot from Earth . If you could somehow hop in a Boeing 747 and sail to the moonshine at full speed , the journey would take about 17 days .
The moon is far , far away .
origin : Tech Insider , Boeing
MYTH : you’re able to only balance an ball during the Spring Equinox .
flickr user : Christopher Hsia
It ’s possible to stand an egg on its head on any mean solar day of the year — not just on the Spring Equinox .
The illusion just requires a well - textured egg shell and a skilled hand .
MYTH : A atomic arm could demolish an asteroid .
Nuking an asteroid would not vaporize every undivided bit of rock .
Most asteroid are heaps of detritus to set out with , so a powerful blast would probably just disclose everything apart further ( a bad idea if you ’re trying to save the satellite ) .
However , some researcher think a well - directed , smartly plan atomic flak could irradiate an asteroid ’s surface , vanish some of the stone , and fritter away off gases that ’d push an asteroid on off - course .
informant : National Geographic
MYTH : When you call someone , the signaling go through a artificial satellite .
This is true ofsatellitephones , which the war machine utilise every sidereal day , but yourmobilephone works in a much unlike way .
Mobile River phonesbroadcast a wireless wireless signaling and constantly look for , ping , and relay information to and from land - based cellular towers . When you make a call , the near towboat connect you to another speech sound via a vast internet of tugboat - to - tower connecter and bury cable .
At best , a satellitemightbe involved in a call around the ball — but 99 % of communication data jaunt through undersea cables .
Source : Global Data Systems , Tech Insider
MYTH : There ’s a dark side of the moon .
The far side of the moonshine . WOtP on Wikipedia
It ’s easy to think this , since we never see it , but the far side of the moon is n’t always dour . It goes through the same lunar stage as the approximate side , which faces the Earth , but in reverse gear .
When there ’s a new ( and very gloomy ) moon on the near side , for example , that means there ’s a full moonlight on the far side . We just ca n’t see it from our earthbound vantage point .
reservoir : NASA ( 1,2 )
MYTH : The vacuity of space is cold-blooded .
If you ’re in entire darkness at the cold spot in the known universe , the vacuum of place can get down to minus-454 degrees Fahrenheit . Brr !
But in sunlight near Earth , temperatures can swing to a simmering 250 F. That ’s why astronauts wearreflective whitespacesuits .
Source : NASA ( 1,2 )
MYTH : Enrico Fermi developed the " Fermi paradox " about stranger .
Physicist Enrico Fermi once excellently asked " where is everybody ? " after seeing a New Yorker cartoon featuring a flying dish antenna .
But Fermi was query the feasibility of travel between stars — not the real existence of alien .
The " Fermi " paradox , which search the contradiction that thinking alien are inevitable but we have n’t figure them , doesquestion alien existence . And Fermi did n’t do that work .
Astronomer Michael Hart and physicist Frank Tipler were the one who actually flesh out the estimation in the seventies and 1980s .
" The Fermi paradox might be more accurately called the ' Hart - Tipler argument against the world of technological alien , ' which does not sound quite as authoritative as the old name , but seems mediocre to everybody , " stargazer Robert H. Gray write for Scientific American .
reference : Tech Insider , Scientific American
MYTH : There are only 3 phase of matter : upstanding , liquid , and gas .
Jared Tarbell on Flickr
You forgot one : Plasma .
It ’s easy to assume solid are the most abundant form of matter in the cosmos , since we all survive on a gargantuan stone . But plasma is immensely more abundant ; asterisk , let in the sun , are mammoth eyeball of glowing plasm .
generator : NASA , Southwest Research Institute
MYTH : Breaking the seal means you ’ll have to pee more all night .
Flickr/ Sean
Alcohol is a diuretic , so it ’s already going to make you pee a slew .
" relegate the seal " the first time will not increase the amount of times you have to go to the bathroom — but tope lots of alcoholic drink will .
MYTH : you may cure a hangover by drinking more .
Flickr / Viewminder
The " hairsbreadth of the frump " is a myth — a mimosa or Bloody Mary in the break of the day wo n’t make you experience good . At ripe , you ’re just prolonging the holdover .
Same goes for coffee after a night of drinking . Like alcohol , coffee is a diuretic , so it will dehydrate your soundbox even more and likely prolong the hangover .
MYTH : Drinking alcohol kill your Einstein cellphone .
Yik Yak YouTube
Excessive drinking can damage the link between brain cells , but wo n’t actually zap any of your nerve cell .
That said , children with foetal alcohol syndrome often have few mental capacity cells , and excessive drinking over long periods of time can indeed damage the brain — just not in the way you may think .
root : Business Insider , NIH , New York Times
MYTH : Tequila pretend our clothes come off and vino makes us sleepy .
expert say this is bunk . " Alcohol is intoxicant whichever way you slice it , " pharmacologist Paul Clayton told The Guardian .
So why do people importune that tequila ready them crazy ? Scientific enquiry going back to the 1960s shows that we " learn " how to do while inebriated , and that our literal drunken behaviour is a direct expression of our first moment .
Many citizenry may become red while uplift , but people who have never colligate drunkenness with difference do n’t show the same behaviour .
By that same token , if we look that vodka will make us need to talk karaoke , we can perhaps reverse that into a self - fulfilling divination .
Sources : Business Insider , The Atlantic , The Guardian , " Drunken Comportment,“Alcoholism Clinical & Experimental Research
MYTH : Eating before salute continue you sober .
Business Insider
Eating before drinking does facilitate your body absorb alcohol , but it only delays the alcohol enter your bloodstream , it does n’t restrict it .
Your dead body absorbs the alcoholic drink more slowly after a gravid meal , so rust before crapulence can facilitate fix the severity of your holdover . Eating a lot after drinking , however , wo n’t do much to help your holdover .
MYTH : Mixing energy drinks with alcohol makes you drunker .
Turns out it just stimulate you .
The problem is the extra gibe of energy can make you feel less intoxicated than you actually are , which might lead you to drink more alcohol than normal .
origin : Business Insider , California State University
MYTH : Beer before liquor , never sicker ; pot likker before beer , you ’re in the clear .
intoxicant is alcoholic drink , and too much of it will make anyone feel sick .
" There is no evidence that booze in a particular Holy Order alters how sick you get , " Julia Chester , a behavioural neuroscientist at Purdue , tell NBC .
However , people who switch from beer to mixed drinks ( with sensory faculty and judgment already dulled ) may be less likely probable to monitor their alcoholic drink consumption and thus salute more .
This may be because your body metabolise beer and mixed drinks faster than higher - concentration alcohol ( like a shot of whisky ) . tally liquor to a stomach - full of beer could , in theory , make a sort of assorted drink that would metabolise quicker than one or the other on its own .
But while " liquor before beer " seems part true , we ’ll mostly chalk up " never sicker " to bad decisiveness - fashioning .
Sources : Business Insider , NBC News , Gizmodo
MYTH : Memories lose during alcohol - induced brownout can be remembered .
If you wake up fuzzy on the details from the night before , you in all probability should n’t even bother endeavor to remember : It ’s impossible . When we drink too much the part of our brain that encodes memories in reality change over off .
the great unwashed claiming they retrieve what happened after they blacked out are in all probability having what are call fake memories .
Sources : Business Insider , computer storage
MYTH : The lines on a solo cup are for measure alcohol .
Solo even went to the trouble of making a computer graphic on their Facebook page illustrating their breaker point .
Sources : Business Insider , Solo / Facebook
MYTH : Brown sugar is healthier than blank gelt .
Flickr / Howzey
Sugar that ’s the color of stain does n’t make it more " natural " or healthier than its blanched counterpart . The color comes from a common residuary muggy syrup , call molasses .
Brown carbohydrate keep some of that molasses . In fact , brown sugar is mostly white carbohydrate with some molasses — so complicate it further would give you lily-white table sugar .
While molasses contains some vitamin and minerals like potassium and magnesium , there is not enough in your standard brownish sugar packet that should make you pass on for it if you ’re assay to wipe out healthier .
As far as your organic structure is concerned , blank and browned loot are one - in - the - same .
Sources : Business Insider,“The dispensatory of the United States of America,“Self Nutrition Data
MYTH : Sitting too tight to the TV is bad for your eyes .
The most this will do is give you a vexation from eye tiredness .
This hearsay credibly bulge with old boob tube , which produced some hug drug - rays , but newfangled one do n’t .
author : New York Times
MYTH : Vaccines cause autism .
If you decide to wade into this one at the dinner table , we ’d recommend calmly explaining that this estimate started with a now thoroughly - debunk — and retracted — study of only 12 children that appeared in 1998 in The Lancet , which claimed there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism .
That survey was not only blemished , but it also sneaked in false information to test and make its tip .
Since then , numerous studies that have analyzed data from more than a million children have shown that there ’s no connexion between vaccines and autism .
fear about that connection persist because of public figures making ( unknowingly or otherwise ) false title about vaccines . This has lead to scary disease like measles coming back and to vaccination charge per unit in some flush Los Angeles neighborhoods that are similar to those in Chad or the South Sudan .
Sources : Business Insider ( 1,2,3),PBS , The Lancet
MYTH : saccharide causes diabetes .
Eating sugar in relief wo n’t give you diabetes .
The American Diabetes Association , while it recommends that masses avoid sodium carbonate and sports drinks , is agile to point out that diabetes is a complex disease , and there ’s not enough evidence to say that eating sugar is the direct cause .
However , both weight addition and waste sugary drinks are tie in with a heightened peril , and ( with child ) portion size of it seems to be most crucial when it comes to sugar and diabetes .
reservoir : Business Insider , Tech Insider , American Diabetes Association , PLoS ONE
MYTH : Taiwanese intellectual nourishment with MSG will make you sick .
Flickr / acedout
The myth that MSG ( monosodium glutamate ) is unfit for you comes from a alphabetic character a doctor compose to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 , where he strike the phrase " Taiwanese restaurant syndrome " and charge a salmagundi of symptoms include numbness and world-wide weakness on MSG .
Further enquiry has not backed him up .
The scientific consensus accord the American Chemical Society is that " MSG can temporarily affect a select few when run through in immense quantities on an empty breadbasket , but it ’s perfectly dependable for the vast legal age of people . "
MSG is nothing more than a unwashed amino group acid with a sodium atom added . eat on a short ton of intellectual nourishment or tablespoons full of the salt could cause the general unease attributed to the flavor enhancer , and the placebo effect is more than impregnable enough to describe for the negative effects sometimes link with MSG .
source : Business Insider ( 1,2),Tech Insider
MYTH : nipper who drink soda are at a greater risk of becoming obese .
frankieleon / Flickr ( CC BY 2.0 )
In " Fed Up , " a documentary moving picture that probe the supposed lawsuit of America ’s obesity epidemic , you hear the alarming statistic that " One soda a mean solar day increases a fry ’s opportunity of obesity by 60 % . "
drink too much nutritionist’s calorie - load soda is in all probability unhealthy , but it ’s not the sole factor driving a advance in puerility obesity .
The CDC advises parents to do what they can to protect against obesity by encouraging healthy modus vivendi habits that include healthy feeding and exercise , both of which will likely do more for a kid ’s waistline than trying to completely cut saccharide .
Sources : Business Insider . " Fed Up,“The Lancet , CDC
MYTH : Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis .
flickr user : orijinal
luckily , this is n’t true either .
Cracking your knuckle may annoy the the great unwashed around you , but even people who have done it oftentimes for many age are not more probable to develop arthritis than those who do n’t .
source : Business Insider , Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine
MYTH : famish a febricity , feed a cold .
Flickr / Laura Taylor
A tiny and for the most part misconceive study in 2002 recently fan the flames of this myth , but limiting your caloric pulmonary tuberculosis may actually hurt your immune system of rules more than helping it — it would for certain be a defective idea to not use up during the six- to eight - day continuance of a coldness .
Instead , doctors say to go forrader and exhaust if you’re able to . The more accurate reflection would be " feed a cold , feed a fever . " And make trusted to drink in wad of fluids .
Sources : Business Insider , BBC , Scientific American
MYTH : Green snot mean a bacterial infection and icteric snot a viral one .
The colour of your snot ca n’t point a bacterial versus a viral infection . It variegate from clear-cut to lily-livered to green with a variety of illnesses and lengths of infection .
Whatever your snot ’s colouring might be , if you ’re not feeling well and have n’t been for days , it ’s fourth dimension to see a medico .
Sources : Tech Insider , Medline Plus , Cleveland Clinic , Medline Plus
MYTH : A succus cleanse will detoxify you after an feeding splurge .
Your torso naturally move out harmful chemical substance through the liver , kidney , and GI tract — there ’s nothing about succus that will rush that process along .
Juicing mainly just removes digestion - aiding fiber from fruits and veg . Also consider that many sugary yield succus are as tough for you as sodas .
And while some juices are just fine , they do n’t offer anything that you would n’t get by eating the whole components instead .
rootage : Business Insider ( 1,2,3 )
MYTH : All people with Tourette ’s syndrome yell swear words .
Flickr / suuswansink
Only a small per centum of people with Tourette syndrome arbitrarily yell out swear countersign .
It really encompasses a caboodle more than that , let in unvoluntary movements and different sound tics .
The swearword tic is call coprolalia .
informant : Child Mind Institute
MYTH : Being cold can give you a cold .
There ’s no grounds that pass out of doors with wet hair when it ’s freezing will make you queasy — supply you avoid hypothermia .
But there is a scientifically sound explanation for why people overtake more colds in winter : We spend more meter in close quarters indoors , it is more likely that we ’ll pass over paths with a cold - get virus scatter from another person during the winter .
reference : Business Insider , LiveScience , CNN
MYTH : Being stressed will give you high blood insistency .
accent does n’t toy a large function in chronic high blood pressure .
Acute stress can temporarily increase blood pressure , but overall it ’s not a main drive of high blood pressure . thing like genetics , smoke , and a big diet are much big factors .
root : British Medical Journal
Kevin Loria , Lauren Friedman , andKelly Dickersoncontributed to this post . Robert Ferriscontributed to a old version .
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