50 Facts You Thought Were True, But Weren’t
A lot of people have been taught misconceptions. How many of these facts did you believe to be true?
When you pour from cartons with a screw on top on one end, like oil for your car or broth that comes in boxes, why do they splash all around? Probably because you’re pouring it all wrong. The opening for pouring should be at the top, which will give you more control and a smoother pour.
People:
We like think that everyone died young in the Middle Ages, and we’re much better at living. The average life expectancy in the Middle Ages is skewed so young because the infant mortality rate was horrible. But if a person lived to adulthood, it was normal to live to be anywhere from 50/60 to 80 years old. Plus, in the Middle Ages, MOST people knew the world was round.
Gum does not take seven years to digest. It just passes right through you.
Adam and Eve probably did not eat an apple in the Garden of Eden. Scholars say it was most probably fig, a grape or pomegranate.
Going Out With Wet Hair Does Not Make You Sick- Colds and flu are caused by a virus, not by wet hair. Sleeping with wet hair doesn’t give you a cold either.
You’re 25 times more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker than by a shark. Don’t stay out of the Ocean, stay out of New York.
You do lose most body heat through your head, but only because it is the least covered part of your body.
Shaving does NOT make your hair grow back thicker.
You won’t get cancer because you stood too close to your microwave.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson are not Identical Twins, they are fraternal twins.
It’s commonly believed that our fingers shrivel up when exposed to liquid for long periods of time because they absorbed a lot of water. Scientists believe this shriveling is actually an evolutionary trait that provides better gripping in areas that are wet.
You only use ten percent of your brain… FALSE! People say we only use 10% of our brain. We actually use most of it, just not all at once.
George Washington DID NOT have wooden teeth – He had dentures made out of gold, ivory, lead, animal teeth and teeth.
Deoxygenated blood is blue… FALSE! Your blood doesn’t run blue when it’s inside your body. It just looks that way due to how the skin reflects and absorbs light.
Blondes and Redheads are not going extinct.
In a random group of 23 people, there’s a 50 percent chance that two people will have the same birthday.
Foods:
Anecdotal Evidence aside, consuming sugar doesn’t make children hyper. Green Gummy Bears are strawberry flavored. Every Froot Loop tastes the same.
There is no proof that monosodium glutamate (MSG) triggers migraine headaches.
Carrots Improve Your Vision… False! It started as a British disinformation ploy in WWII so the Germans would not know how well developed their Radar system worked.
Fortune Cookies were invented in Japan, and made popular in San Francisco in the 1800s.
Your tongue has different taste regions and different parts of your tongue detect different tastes… FALSE! All of the taste buds on your tongue taste flavors: bitter, sweet, sour, salty and savory (now called umami) equally.
French fries are from France… FALSE! French fries originated in Belgium.
Coffee Does NOT stunt your growth, and it does not dehydrate you (the water in coffee more than makes up whatever dehydration you might get). BTW – coffee beans are technically seeds.
Apparently, Doritos thinks that you’re only going to eat 12 Doritos in one sitting, because that’s the serving size listed.
Captain Crunch Cereal should actually be Commander Crunch. Military ranking is displayed by the number of stripes on an officer’s sleeve. This so-called “Cap’n” Crunch is actually a commander.
The Five Send Rule does not apply… even if you picked it up in a fraction of a second, that bit of food would already be infested with bacteria.
Double Stuf Oreos are really on stuffed with 1.86 times the original amount; Mega Stuf Oreos are stuffed 2.68 times the original amount.
Peanuts are a legume, like a pea or a bean. Bananas are actually herbs, scientifically speaking.
History:
‘Frankenstein’ was the name of the scientist, not the monster!
Vikings never had horns on their helmets – The image of a Viking with a horned helmet is from a 1876 production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Logistics:
A penny dropped from the Empire State Building would not kill the average adult. By the time it hit the Earth, it would be traveling 64.4 MPH.
They say Lightning never strikes the same place twice. It does. The Empire State Building was struck 8 times in one storm and it’s hit about 100 times a year.
Diamonds are made from compressed carbon, not coal
Nature & Animals:
Mother birds will abandon baby birds if you touch them… FALSE! Baby birds don’t get abandoned just because a human touches them.
Dogs Can See Color! While common knowledge says they can only see gray, scientists recently proved that they can actually see shades of blue, yellow, and green as well.
A Duck’s Quack does echo, but very softly.
Houseflies live longer than 24-48 hours; they can live up to a month.
Penguins appear to waddle around on stubby little legs, but they actually have knees inside their bodies!
Goldfish don’t have 3-second memories. They can learn tricks in just a few days.
Gadgets:
We’ve all been wearing earphones the wrong way. To keep them from falling out, the wire is supposed to wrap over and around behind your ear.
Microwaves do not cook from the inside out.
NASA did not spend millions of dollars to make a “Space Pen” instead of a pencil. Astronauts used pencils too, until the Fisher Pen Company made them, and sold them to both the USSR and NASA for under $4.00 each.
You can’t see the Great Wall of China from space.
Toilets DO NOT Flush in different directions in different hemispheres – The Coriolis effect does not actually make water rotate in different directions while flushing toilets and draining bathtubs.
Those folding cardboard containers we get from Chinese Takeout or delivery are designed to unfold and serve as their own plates.
Literature & Society:
Contrary to popular belief, the ‘First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech’ provision doesn’t actually allow you to say anything you like, to anyone you like. It simply means that the government cannot arrest you for something you say.
If you ask an undercover cop if they’re a cop, they don’t actually have to tell you they are.
Hello Kitty is not a cat… Her creator, Sanrio maintains that Hello Kitty is a little girl rather than a feline. Another shocking detail is that although Hello Kitty is a huge part of what the world views as Japanese culture, she is actually British according to her backstory.
There are more public libraries than McDonald’s restaurants in America.
MPAA no longer rates ‘porn’ films X. Adult film companies use the rating to make it clear about the contentent of their films. The NC-17 rating was created in 1990 to replace the X rating.
Entertainment:
Michael Jackson had perfect human balance in his Smooth Criminal video… FALSE: He had shoes with inlets in the soles that attached to metal pegs on the ground to ensure that he wouldn’t fall over.