Factlets & Fallacies

[kompressaur]

Myth: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is making us fat
Since HFCS entered the American food supply in the 1970s, and the rates of obesity started to rise about then. Consequently, many blame HFCS for the fat plague. It’s true of course that the calories HFCS contributes can be linked to the nation’s obesity problems, but its calories are no different from those in refined white sugar: the makeup of HFCS (55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose) is close to that of white sugar (50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose), which means that our bodies digest HFCS and sugar in very similar ways. Nutritionally speaking, the two are virtually identical.
Interesting Fact: Coca Cola produced in Mexico is still made with sugar (as opposed to corn syrup in the US), and many people claim to be able to taste the difference – refusing to buy the “inferior” American coke. Unfortunately a truly scientific blind test has not been done and the various tests online all vary widely in their conclusions.


Myth: Cell phones cause brain cancer
Lawsuits and news headlines have fueled the myth that cell phones cause cancer, particularly brain cancer, and 30 percent of Americans still believe this myth, according to the Discovery Health/Prevention telephone survey. Consumers could easily have missed the reports showing no danger from cell phones because they didn’t receive alarming front-page coverage like the original reports. A few studies suggested a link with certain rare types of brain tumors, but the consensus among well-designed population studies is that there is no consistent association between cell phone use and brain cancer. [Source]
Interesting Fact:The very first patent for a cell phone like device (wireless telephone) was granted in 1908 to Nathan B. Stubblefield who some people claim invented the radio before Tesla and Marconi. Stubblefield died as a self-imposed hermit by starving to death.


Myth: The number of hooves in the air on a statue of a horse tells us how its rider died
In my research for this list I was very surprised to come across this myth – I, like many others, had always believed it to be true! The idea is that when a statue of a horse has one footin the air, his rider was wounded in battle but survived. If he has two hooves in the air the rider was killed, and if he has none in the air , the rider survived. While this is a myth – interestingly it does seem to apply to the majority of statues relating to Gettysburg equestrians though not James Longstreet who was not wounded but his statue does have one leg raised (pictured above).
Interesting Fact:A statue of a horse with a rider is called an equestrian statue – which is derived from the latin “eques” for Knight and “equus” for horse. A statue of a horse is called an “equine statue”.


Myth: Christopher Columbus discovered that the world was round
This is a very old myth that is surprisingly believed by millions of people. What we are told is that the Genoese Columbus’ peers doomed his trip to failure because they thought he would fall off the edge of the earth. Now – this was in the 1490s but man has known the earth was round since the idea was first put forth by Pythagorus 2,000 years before Spain even existed. Columbus did fail to reach his original destination, but in so doing he discovered the Americas. Not a bad end to a failed journey really. The round earth theory was so well established that the navigational methods at the time were all based on the fact that the earth was round.
Interesting Fact: At the age of 53, Columbus returned to Spain from the Americas and was promptly arrested with his two brothers for the atrocities he had committed. They remained in jail for six weeks before the King finally released them and restored their wealth and property. Columbus believed that his explorations to the New World would result in the beginning of the Last Judgement of man.


Myth: In ten years there will be no bananas left
There is some basis in truth to this myth (as is often the case) – there is a disease (fusarium wilt, or Panama disease) that is threatening bananas in some Asian countries and it is the Banana most Americans are familiar with (the Cavendish banana) but it is not likely to wipe out the entire world’s stock of bananas – or even the Cavendish banana as it has not infected some of the larger exporting farms. Furthermore, the cavendish is only one of roughly 300 types of bananas that are available and good for human consumption.
Interesting Fact: Bananas don’t grow on trees – the plant that produces the banana is actually a herb.


Myth: Newton devised his universal law of gravity when an apple fell on his head from the tree under which he was sitting
It is always exciting to think of a great discovery happening in the blink of an eye due to a coincidental event – we consider that if it were not for the right person being in the right place at the right time, man would have lost an incredibly significant piece of knowledge. For this reason people have clung to the idea that Newton devised his universal law of gravity because of an apple hitting him on the head. But in fact the first mention of an apple in relation to Newton came 60 years after his death: “Whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but that this power must extend much further.” (John Conduitt)
Interesting Fact: Though he is better known for his love of science, the Bible was Sir Isaac Newton’s greatest passion. He devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science, and he said, “I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.” He spent a great deal of time trying to discover hidden messages within the Bible. [Source]


Myth: Typhoid Mary, the most dangerous woman in America, killed hundreds (if not thousands) by infecting them with typhoid
The story is Typhoid Mary is relatively well known and it certainly is true that she (Mary Mallon) carried Typhoid fever without catching it herself. It is also true that she caused human deaths as a consequence. What is not true is the enormity of the carnage she left behind her. In fact, Mary (who worked as a cook) caused 30 – 53 (different sources cite different numbers) people to catch Typhoid, but only 3 of those people died. When it was first discovered that Mary was the cause of these people becoming ill, she was quarantined. This was for a short time only as it was felt that it was unfair to quarantine her as others in a similar situation were not. Mary was allowed to leave on the condition that she stop working as a cook. She accepted the condition but unable to get a job paying as well as cooking, she took on a false name and began working at a hospital as a cook. She caused 25 people there to become sick and one died. For this reason she was arrested and put in quarantine until she died 18 years later. She is pictured above in a bed during her first quarantine.
Interesting Fact: Typhoid is spread by the salmonella typhi pathogen which would normally be killed by the heat of cooking – but one of Mary’s specialty dishes (that was frequently requested by diners) was her peach icecream. Mary’s lack of hygiene when using the toilet enabled the bacteria to transfer from feces to her hands.


Myth: Einstein failed math at school
This is a surprisingly old error which everyone seems to believe. Its origins seem to be a 1935 article in the Ripley’s Believe it or not magazine in which the myth first appears in print under the heading “Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics.” Many failing students probably take heart in the myth thinking that there may be hope for them if Einstein could flunk math and still become a genius, but unfortunately for them, Einstein showed genius from a very young age – including in the field of mathematics. When he was shown the article from the magazine, Einstein laughed and said: “I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”
Interesting Fact: In 1905, during his spare time, Einstein produced four papers that upended physics. The first showed that light could be conceived as particles as well as waves. The second proved the existence of atoms and molecules. The third, the special theory of relativity, said that there was no such thing as absolute time or space. And the fourth noted an equivalence between energy and mass described by the most famous equation in all of physics, E=mc^2. [Source]


Myth: The Titanic was the first ship to send out the SOS signal
Initially the Titanic sent out the CQD signal (standing for “All stations: distress”) but Britain had recently signed up to the new standard of SOS so one of the crew suggested that it be used as well: “Send SOS; it’s the new call, and besides, this may be your last chance to send it!” It certainly was new to British ships, but the standard had been in use for some years prior and there is even a newspaper article from 1909 which describes its use by an American ship, the Arapahoe.
Interesting Fact: Contrary to popular belief, SOS does not stand for anything. Some believe it means “save our souls” or “send out ships” but in fact, the signal was chosen because it was so simple to send that a person who was unfamiliar with radio equipment could send it in the case of an emergency (… / – - – / … SOS in Morse Code – is far easier than the previous distress signal of CQD: -.-. / – -.- / -..).


Myth: Margarine is 1 molecule away from plastic
Americans eat four times as much margarine as butter every year which seems surprising considering so many people believe this little myth about the chemical spread. While much of the negative stuff we hear about margarine is true, this particular myth is not. Margarine is made by heating vegetable oil and infusing it with hydrogen – in other words saturating it to a point that it remains hard at room temperature. It is then mixed with other ingredients to give a white lump that resembles fat. Yellow food coloring is added and voila – we have margarine. There is not one molecule of anything that you could add to margarine to turn it into plastic.
Interesting Fact: Margarine was invented because Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France offered a prize in 1869 for anyone that could come up with a cheap butter alternative for the army and the lower classes. Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés (a French chemist) won the prize with his oleomargarine. Governments around the world tried to stop people from using margarine by putting heavy taxes on it and banning its coloring. Believe it or not, it is still illegal to sell butter-colored margarine in Missouri [source] and it was illegal in Quebec until July 2008 [source].

[kompressaur]

Misconception: It is dangerous to use a cellphone at a gas station
This misconception came about due to a bunch of emails being spread around the Internet describing cases of explosions caused by cellphone use. The emails were purported to have been sent by Shell Oil. When questioned, Shell denied sending the emails. Furthermore, not only has there never been a case ofa cellphone causing an explosion at a gas station , no one has been able to prove that it is even possible in scientific testing. According to Snopes: “News reports routinely attribute gas pump fires to cell phone use whenever a fire occurs at a service station where such a phone was in use at the time, and police and firefighters at the scene often simply assume the connection between the two to be valid.” Despite this complete lack of evidence of likelihood of accident, Australia and New Zealand both display signs at gas stations telling people to turn off cellphones and the city of Cicero in Illinois has made the use of cellphones at gas stations illegal. Read the full Snopes article here.


Misconception: Charles Lindbergh was the first man to fly the Atlantic Ocean
Charles Lindbergh was not the first man to fly the Atlantic Ocean, although he was the first to have flown across it solo. The first flight had been done first in stages between May 8 and May 31, 1919, by the crew of the Navy-Curtiss NC-4 flying boat which took 24 days to complete its journey. The first truly non-stop transatlantic flight was made in 1919 by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy bomber.


Misconception: The US Highway system was designed to allow planes to land in emergencies
The United States Interstate Highway System was not designed with airplane landings in mind. A common urban legend states that one out of every five (or ten) miles of highway must be straight and flat to allow emergency (or military) airplane landings, but this is not the case. However, several parts of the German and later the Swiss Autobahn system were indeed designed to be auxiliary military airports, both during World War II and the Cold War. [Source]


Misconception: Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press or movable type
Johannes Gutenberg was not the first to invent the printing press or movable type; these were in use in China and Korea centuries before. Gutenberg was the first European to use movable type, and he probably invented it independently; the printing press did have a larger influence on Western than on Eastern culture. Another misconception about Gutenberg is that the first thing he printed was the Latin Vulgate (known as the Gutenberg Bible). Gutenberg’s Bible was printed in Latin because he believed it would be more widely accessible to the common people. But prior to the Bible, he had printed a number of Catholic Church documents and papal letters. [Source]


Misconception: Web cookies are dangerous and should be avoided
In fact, cookies are plain text files which a website can store on your computer with information to manage your browsing. Unless there is a security flaw in your webbrowser, cookies can not access or modify files or settings on your computer, nor can they execute code. The only thing you have to fear from web cookies is the lack of privacy regarding some of your browsing habits. In general, cookies are helpful things – for example, they can keep you logged in to your favorite websites saving you from having to enter your login data every time you visit.


Misconception: Apple Macs don’t get viruses
While it is true that Macs almost never get viruses, it is also true that there are some in existence. First of all there are Macro Viruses which infect Microsoft Word and Excel documents. Because Word and Excel are available for the Mac also, this means that they can be potentially harmful on Macs as well (thanks Microsoft). As of writing, Apple recognizes four possible viruses for Macs, though they are seldom seen. The reason for the low number of viruses is that the Mac operating system is based on a Unix subsystem which usually prevents the average user from running software with sufficient privileges to allow harmful software to cause damage.


Misconception: Hitler created the autobahn
Many people believe that Hitler and the Nazis conceived of the idea of the first Autobahn (essentially a large motorway) in Germany (and the first laned free public motorway in the world). But in fact the autobahn was built in 1931 and opened by Konrad Adenauer, the Mayor of Cologne. This was two years before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Interestingly, however, the very first motorway (unlaned) was the pet project of a dictator: the Autostrada dei laghi was inaugaurated on the 21st of September 1924 in Milan during the rule of Benito Mussolini.


Misconception: Planes dump their toilet waste while up in the air
Not only do planes not dump their waste mid-flight, it is also impossible for them to do so short of some kind of catastrophe which causes the waste tanks to explode open (because the valve is on the outside of the plane). When toilets are used on a plane, the waste is dumped into a special tank. The waste remains in the tank until the plane lands, and then special ground crew members pump the tanks. So now you can rest safe in the knowledge that you don’t need to watch out for flying chunks of frozen poop when a plane flies over you. In case you are wondering about the sucking noise toilets on planes make, a vacuum is used to allow the toilet to be flushed with less water and because plumbing cannot rely on gravity alone in an aircraft in motion.


Misconception: Pong was the first video game
Computers are much older than many people think and when you talk about the very first game, most people tend to think of Pong. Pong was invented in 1972 by Atari and it was an arcade style game that featured two opposing paddles and a ball with which you played virtual tennis. It was the first commercially successful video game and it launched the video game industry. But… Twenty years earlier (in 1952), another game was created. It was called OXO and it was a noughts-and-crosses (tic-tac-toe) type game which was played on the EDSAC computer. It was made by Alexander Douglas for his PhD thesis at Cambridge University. It is quite astonishing to think that the very first computer game was created nearly sixty years ago!


Misconception: The web is the Internet
This is a very common misconception, most likely brought about due to the fact that most people use the web as their almost exclusive method of using the Internet. But in fact, the Internet technically began to exist in the form we know it on January 1, 1983 when its predecessor (Arpanet) began using TCP/IP – the system of network communication still used today. The web was invented by an Englishman called Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. The World Wide Web is made up of servers (which serve the pages) and clients (like Firefox, Safari, and IE) which display the page. The Internet is the set of technologies beneath the web which enable the web to exist. If the Internet didn’t exist, the web would not be able to function; if the web didn’t exist, the Internet still would. Other programs that use the Internet which have nothing at all to do with the web are email, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), most internet messaging programs, newsgroups, BitTorrent, telnet, FTP, etc.

[kompressaur]

Amazing Fact: Some millipedes (Apheloria Virginiensis) are able to secrete cyanide
Laboratory study of these millipedes (which are slow moving and feed on plants) are able to release clouds of hydrogen cyanide gas through small vents in their body. This is most likely to occur when being handled, or attacked by other creatures such as ants. It is essential that one wash ones hands after touching one of these millipedes. This large creature is found in North America and is also known as the Kentucky Flat Millipede

Amazing Fact: Red Ants and Large Blue Butterflies work together
Large Blue caterpillars feed on wild Thyme or Marjoram flowers for the first few days of development. Afterwards, they seek out the nests of a specific species of red ant, and hibernate inside their tunnels. The caterpillar will spend a further 3 weeks transforming into the Large Blue butterfly adult. After its change from caterpillar to butterfly, the insect emerges from its chrysalis and leaves the red ant nest to find a mate. Usually, red ants will escort the newly emerged butterfly to the surface, taking it to a low plant or shrub nearby. The red ants will encircle the butterfly and ward off any predators that attempt to attack the butterfly as it dries out. After the butterfly is ready to fly away, the ants will retreat back into their nest. To make itself less of an intruder to the red ants, Large Blue caterpillars will adopt the red ant’s scent and mimic the ant’s sounds, in addition to providing the ants with honeydew. Once the caterpillar is inside its chrysalis, it will rub its head against the chrysalis walls to make a scraping sound that the red ants make. Failure to complete any of these disguises will often lead to the caterpillar being eaten by the red ants.


Amazing Fact: If a female ferret goes into heat but can’t get any sex, she will die
This is a female specific problem; female ferrets can go into extended heat – during which time they must breed or they can die of aplastic anemia – a condition in which the bone marrow stops producing enough new blood cells (caused by estrogen toxicity.) This is because female ferrets are induced ovulators, so mating is required to bring the female out of heat. Intact females, if not mated, will remain in heat, and after some time the high levels of estrogen will cause the bone marrow to stop producing red blood cells.


Amazing Fact: Dolphins, like humans, have sex for pleasure
Dolphin copulation happens belly to belly and though many species engage in lengthy foreplay, the actual act is usually only brief, but may be repeated several times within a short time-span. Dolphins are known to have sex for reasons other than reproduction, sometimes also engaging in acts of a homosexual nature. Various dolphin species have been known to engage in sexual behavior with other dolphin species, this also having resulted in various hybrid dolphin species as mentioned earlier. Sexual encounters may be violent, with male dolphins sometimes showing aggressive behavior towards both females and other male dolphins. Occasionally, dolphins will also show sexual behavior towards other animals, including humans.


Amazing Fact: Hummingbirds don’t walk
There is a popular misconception that hummingbirds don’t have feet. It is, of course, wrong. But while they do have feet, they don’t use them to walk because they are so poorly developed; this is due to the fact that they spend most of their time in flight and seldom need to walk. Hummingbirds also have an incredibly fast metabolism which means they are always just a few hours away from starvation.


Amazing Fact: The pistol shrimp makes such a loud noise with its claws, that it can kill other fish
The snap of the pistol shrimp’s claw is so loud that it competes with animals such as the sperm whale for the title of loudest creature of the sea. When it snaps its claws together, it creates a vapor bubble with pressure sufficient to kill nearby small fish; these are then eaten. Incredibly, when the bubble bursts it produces temperatures of up to 5,000 K, close to the temperature of the surface of the sun. This is not visible to the naked eye because of its low intensity.

Amazing Fact: The males of some species (including bees, baboons, rats, squirrels,scorpions, mice, and spiders) create a “mating plug” after sex which prevents other males from having sex with the same female
The mating plug is a gelatinous compound which is inserted in the female’s vagina after copulation. When it hardens, it prevents other males from having sex with the female. This is useful in the case of bee-hives where there may be thousands of males wanting to have sex with the queen. When a drone in the beehive has had sex with the queen, his entire genitalia detaches to form the plug – which also means that he dies shortly after. Future drones who wish to mate with the queen must forcibly remove the plug.


Amazing Fact: Some frogs hear with their lungs
Panamanian golden frogs don’t have outside ears – their lungs pick up sound waves and direct them to their eardrums. Interestingly, many fish hear in this same manner which supports the link between frogs and their evolutionary ancestors. Due to internal air-pressure controlled by the frog, it is able to largely ignore its own voice which is incredibly loud.


Amazing Fact: Octopuses (or octopi if you prefer) eat with their hands like humans.
With the suckers on its arms, an octopus seizes prey and pulls it up to its mouth, where a poisonous salivary secretion is immediately released from the beak. The secretion paralyzes the prey and partially digests it. Fortunately for the octopus, if it loses an arm, another one grows to replace it. Another interesting fact about octopuses is that one of the legs of the male is used for copulation and it is broken from the body in the act of sex.


Amazing Fact: A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes
Before you start pining to be a pig, remember, after the orgasm the pig eventually ends up on our dinner table! But that aside, it is true that a pig can have an orgasm that lasts up to 30 minutes – at least I have not been able to find any evidence to the contrary after extensive research.

[kompressaur]

The Myth: Evolution causes something to go from “lower” to “higher”
While it is a fact that natural selection weeds out unhealthy genes from the gene pool, there are many cases where an imperfect organism has survived. Some examples of this are fungi, sharks, crayfish, and mosses – these have all remained essentially the same over a great period of time. These organisms are all sufficiently adapted to their environment to survive without improvement.
Other taxa have changed a lot, but not necessarily for the better. Some creatures have had their environments changed and their adaptations may not be as well suited to their new situation. Fitness is linked to their environment, not to progress. [Source]


The Myth: When exposed to the vacuum of space, the human body pops
This myth is the result of science fiction movies which use it to add excitement or drama to the plot. In fact, a human can survive for 15 – 30 seconds in outer space as long as they breathe out before the exposure (this prevents the lungs from bursting and sending air into the bloodstream). After 15 or so seconds, the lack of oxygen causes unconsciousness which eventually leads to death by asphyxiation.


The Myth: Polaris is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere night sky
Sirius is actually brighter with a magnitude of −1.47 compared to Polaris’ 1.97 (the lower the number the brighter the star). The importance of Polaris is that its position in the sky marks North – and for that reason it is also called the “North Star”. Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor and, interestingly, is only the current North Star as pole stars change over time because stars exhibit a slow continuous drift with respect to the Earth’s axis.


The Myth: Food that drops on the floor is safe to eat if you pick it up within five seconds
This is utter bunkum which should be obvious to most readers. If there are germs on the floor and the food lands on them, they will immediately stick to the food. Having said that, eating germs and dirt is not always a bad thing as it helps us to develop a robust immune system. I prefer to have a “how-tasty-is-it” rule: if it is something really tasty, it can sit there for ten minutes for all I care – I will still eat it.


The Myth: There is a dark side of the moon
Actually – every part of the moon is illuminated at sometime by the sun. This misconception has come about because there is a side of the moon which is never visible to the earth. This is due to tidal locking; this is due to the fact that Earth’s gravitational pull on the moon is so immense that it can only show one face to us. Wikipedia puts it rather smartly thus: “Tidal locking occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, one side of the Earth’s Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner. This synchronous rotation causes one hemisphere constantly to face the partner body.”


The Myth: Brain cells can’t regenerate – if you kill a brain cell, it is never replaced
The reason for this myth being so common is that it was believed and taught by the science community for a very long time. But in 1998, scientists at the Sweden and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California discovered that brain cells in mature humans can regenerate. It had previously been long believed that complex brains would be severely disrupted by new cell growth, but the study found that the memory and learning center of the brain can create new cells – giving hope for an eventual cure for illnesses like Alzheimer’s.


The Myth: A penny dropped from a very high building can kill a pedestrian below
This myth is so common it has even become a bit of a cliche in movies. The idea is that if you drop a penny from the top of a tall building (such as the Empire State Building) – it will pick up enough speed to kill a person if it lands on them on the ground. But the fact is, the aerodynamics of a penny are not sufficient to make it dangerous. What would happen in reality is that the person who gets hit would feel a sting – but they would certainly survive the impact.


The Myth: Meteors are heated by friction when entering the atmosphere
When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere of the earth (becoming a meteor), it is actually the speed compressing the air in front of the object that causes it to heat up. It is the pressure on the air that generates a heat intense enough to make the rock so hot that is glows brilliantly for our viewing pleasure (if we are lucky enough to be lookingin the sky at the right time). We should also dispel the myth about meteors being hot when they hit the earth – becoming meteorites. Meteorites are almost always cold when they hit – and in fact they are often found covered in frost. This is because they are so cold from their journey through space that the entry heat is not sufficient to do more than burn off the outer layers.


The Myth: Lightning never strikes the same place twice
Next time you see lightning strike and you consider running to the spot to protect yourself from the next bolt, remember this item! Lightning does strike the same place twice – in fact it is very common. Lightning obviously favors certain areas such as high trees or buildings. In a large field, the tallest object is likely to be struck multiple times until the lightning moves sufficiently far away to find a new target. TheEmpire State Building gets struck around 25 times a year.



The Myth: There is no gravity in space
In fact, there is gravity in space – a lot of it. The reason that astronauts appear to be weightless because they are orbiting the earth. They are falling towards the earth but moving sufficiently sideways to miss it. So they are basically always falling but never landing. Gravity exists in virtually all areas of space. When a shuttle reaches orbit height (around 250 miles above the earth), gravity is reduced by only 10%.

[kompressaur]

Common Saying: To get off scot free
Many people think that this saying refers to Scottish people being tight with money – hence something being free, but in fact the word “scot” is an old Norse word which means “payment” – specifically a payment made to a landlord or sheriff. So this phrase – while meaning what mostpeople think it means, has no connection to the Scottish people – it just means to get off without having to pay.



Common Saying: As fit as a fiddle
This is another phrase where a single word has confused people – “fit” in the context of this saying does not mean “healthy” which is a 19th century definition. Its original meaning was “suitable” – and it is still used in that context in the sentence “fit for a king”. As fit as a fiddle means “as appropriate as can be” – not “in excellent health”. The first use of the phrase, incidentally, was in the 16th century and it was originally “as right as a fiddle”.

Common Saying: If you think that, you have another thing coming
This is a complete aberration of the original phrase because of the sound of English. The correct phrase is “if you think that, you have another think coming” – in other words, “what you think is wrong so think again”. Because the “k” in “think” often ends up silent when saying “think coming” people have changed the phrase over time. Of course, “another thing coming” makes no sense at all. To illustrate how global this error is, when you google “another thing coming” it returns 139,000 results; when you google “another think coming” it returns a mere 39,000 results.


Common Saying: Eat humble pie
This phrase means “to be humble in apologizing for something.” I was slightly reluctant to put it on the list because it actually does mean whatpeople think it means, but there is still a misconception here; people think that this phrase means to eat a pie made of humbleness but it actually means to eat a pie made with umble (pictured above). Umble is an old English word for offal – the bits of the animal seldom eaten today (sadly). It was a pie that was normally eaten by the poor as the finer cuts of meat were left for the rich only. “To eat a humble pie” is an example of metanalysis (words being broken down into parts or meanings that differ from the original) as it sounds just like “to eat an umble pie”. Other examples of this in English are “an apron” which used to be “a napron”.


Common Saying: Rule of thumb
People commonly think that this saying is a reference to a law allowing a man to beat his wife as long as he uses a rod no thicker than his thumb. It is, of course, completely untrue. There is no record of any judge in Britain ever making a ruling like this – or any lawmaker passing a law. The phrase actually refers to doing something by estimates – rather than using an exact measure.


Common Saying: On tender hooks
This phrase is very commonly misspelt. First off, what exactly is a tender hook? It doesn’t seem logical does it? Well – that is because it isn’t. The phrase is actually “on tenterhooks”. A tenter was a medieval tool used for making cloth – the tenterhooks (pictured above) were small hooks to which the fabric would be stretched in the manufacturing process. To be on tenterhooks means to be left hanging – or to be in a state of suspense.


Common Saying: I’ll take a raincheck
This phrase is usually meant to mean “I won’t do it now but I will later”. This is the commonly accepted meaning (and has been for a long time) so it is now considered to be correct. It is included here merely out of interest because its original meaning was slightly different. Initially, a raincheck was offered to people who had tickets to a baseball game that was rained out – they would offered a “raincheck” which was a ticket for a game at a later date to make up for the missed game. This eventually found its way into shopping jargon in general where a raincheck was an offer to sell an out-of-stock good when it arrived back in stock. The meaning has eventually broadened to a point that it is not an offer any longer but a response.


Common Saying: To give someone free reign
This is a spelling error that leads to a misunderstanding – though the meanings remain the same fundamentally. Many people presume this phrase to mean that a person given free reign, has the “royal” power to do anything they want. In fact, the correct phrase is “free rein” and it comes from the days before cars when horses were used as our main mode of transport. When navigating a steep or winding path, one would relax the reins so that the horse could pick the safest path as he was more likely to do a better job than the rider.


Common Saying: To wreck havoc
Havoc means chaos – and to wreck something is to put it into a state of chaos. So why would you make chaos out of chaos? You wouldn’t. What you might do is wreak havoc though – because “to wreak” means “to cause to happen”. The two words are pronounced differently – wreck sounds like “rek” while “wreak” sounds like “reek”. It is a small – but common, error.


Common Saying: To beg the question
Let’s face it – 99% of people reading this list will not know the correct meaning of “beg the question”, but that implies that the mistaken meaning should really be considered correct throughcommon usage – so let us not fight about right or wrong – I will just state the facts: “to beg the question” does not mean “to raise the question”. Originally the phrase was “to begge the question” and it appeared in English around the 1580s. It is a reference to a question (or phrase) which implies the truth of the thing it is trying to prove. Confusing? Okay – here is an example: “why does England have fewer trees per acre than any other country in Europe?” This is a “begged question” – the person asking is implying that England has fewer trees – when in fact, it may not. Another example is “he must be telling the truth because he never lies”. Decartes was begging the question when he said “I think, therefore I am”. Oh – and for those of you who are used to using the term in the wrong way, consider using “prompt the question” as a correct alternative

[kompressaur]

Myth: Catholic priests can’t be married
In order to clear this one up, we need to first understand the nature of the Catholic Church. Within the universal Church there are sections (also called churches but not in the sense that they are separate) – the most common one is, of course, the Roman (or Latin) Catholic Church. Then there is the Eastern Catholic Church (not to be confused with the Orthodox which is a different religion). Both of these churches fall under the jurisdiction of the Pope and all believe the same doctrines. There are a lot of differences between the two groups and these are all in matters of style of worship and certain rules. In the Eastern Church, priests are allowed to be married – but a married priest can’t become a Bishop. It also happens that occasionally in the Latin Church, pastors from other religions such as the Church of England are allowed to become priests (if they renounce their religion and become Catholic) even though they are married, so married priests can be found in all parts of the Roman Catholic Church. Pictured above is a Greek Catholic priest and his wife. Don’t believe me? Here is proof. And here is more proof.


Myth: St Bernard Dog’s carried or carry flasks of brandy around their necks
I am sure everyone is familiar with the picture above – a large St Bernard dog carrying a flask of brandy around his neck in order to revive people lost in the snowy mountains. What most people won’t be familiar with, is the fact that it is entirely made up –St Bernard dogs have never been used to carry small barrels of brandy. In fact, alcohol can make hypothermia worse so the whole idea is not just made up – it is dangerous. The famous monks at the travelers hospice in theSt Bernard Pass (where the name of the dogs originated) state that they have never put brandy casks on their rescue dogs but they do keep a few flasks lying around for the tourist’s photos.


Myth: Coffee can help sober a person up
Not true. Alcohol is metabolized by the body at a constant rate (one unit of around eight grams per hour) and you can’t do anything to make it happen faster. Beer contains two units of alcohol per pint, so if you drink two pints, it will take four hours for your blood alcohol level to return to zero. All coffee will do is make you a wide-awake drunk. Just as a cold shower will make you a wet drunk. All you can do is settle down and wait for the effects to pass naturally.


Myth: Haggis is Scottish
I have Scottish roots so any Scots reading this list had better not lambast me too much for this item. It turns out that haggis (the tasty dish of minced lamb’s heart, lungs, and liver) is an import to Scotland – most likely from Scandinavia long before Scotland was even a nation. In fact, even the Roman’s used to eat a very similar dish and it is mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey: “a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly.” While we are on the subject, Bagpipes are not Scottish either: they were described in ancient writings of the Hittites (from present day Turkey), and kilts (though not tartan) were also introduced to Scotland by the Vikings.


Myth: Spinach makes you strong – like Popeye the Sailor man!
The myth comes from the fact that spinach is high in iron – but wait… spinach is actually not very high in iron. Believe it or not, this part of the myth comes from a handwriting error in 1870 when a Doctor Wolf accidentally put a decimal point in the wrong place and made it look like Spinach had 10 times more iron that it really has. Now to the strong part of the myth: in order to get muscle strength, you need to exercise and do weight training – eating spinach (or anything else for that matter) won’t make you strong on its own – it will only give you the energy you need to survive your workout.


Myth: The Great Fire of London in 1666, ended the Great Plague of 1665.
A study done by the University of London recently found no correlation between the location of the fire and the geography of the dreadful plague. It was just a coincidence that the fire happened around the same time as the plague was beginning to mysteriously disappear. Most of the areas effected by the plague were poor parts of London north, south and east of the city walls – whereas the fire was in the city itself. Encyclopedia Britannica says “The cessation of plague in England must be regarded as spontaneous.”


Myth: Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian and didn’t drink alcohol.
This is a very common myth that seems to be extremely popular – perhaps because it seems ironic that a man who caused one of the worst cases of genocide in history loved animals so much that he wouldn’t eat them. But this ironic twist is actually untrue. What is true is that Hitler did prefer a diet of vegetables, but he had a strong fondness for German Sausage and ham, and his cook in the 1930s, Dione Lucas, said that his favorite dish was stuffed baby pigeon. Oh – and to wash it all down, Hitler’s drink of choice? Beer or watered-down wine. This was also confirmed by Hitler’s waiter, Salvatore Paolini.


Myth: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone
We have all heard the tale of Alexander Graham Bell inventing the phone and using it for the first time to call his secretary Mr Watson, but the first functioning telephone was actually invented 15 years earlier by Philipp Reis, a German inventor. His device (which he called the Reis Telephon) was first demonstrated in 1861. The Reis Telephon was only able to transmit musical tones quite clearly, and human voices faintly. There is no doubt at all, that the first transmission of human voices over wire was on the device created by Reis, a full fifteen years prior to the invention by the man who now receives all the accolades for it.


Myth: Aluminum is an American corruption of the correct word “aluminium”
While I am sure that many of our American readers will know this, the British and commonwealth readers probably don’t. Aluminum is actually the older term, while aluminium was created later by the British to make it sound more like the other elements. Here is a timeline which explains things clearly:
1808: Sir Humphrey Davy isolates the metal for the first time. He calls it alumium
1812: Sir Humphrey decides to change the spelling of his element: he renames it to aluminum – the term adopted in the United States
1812: British scientists dislike the new name and change it to aluminium to match the other classical sounding elements.
So, if we are to give the discoverer the naming rights, the proper term is aluminum. And for those who love grammar, here is a slightly off-topic aside: From the late 17th century, “fall” wasthe universal English word for the third season (both British and Americans used it exclusively). It was not until the 18th century that the British began to use the very old fashioned (dating from the 14th century) word “Autumn” while the Americans continued to use “fall”.


Myth: Classical statues and buildings were finished in white stone or marble
Those of you who have been following the site since its infancy will know that this is a myth, but we have so many new readers that it seems appropriate to include it here anyway. When most of us think of the Romans and Greeks, we think of the beautiful white statues and buildings that they left behind them. But even way back in the 1800s, statues that had been excavated were found to contain traces of paint pigment. At the time, color was considered a non-essential part of beauty so no one bothered to try to replicate the original appearance of these great works of art. Fortunately for us, in more recent years people have tried to replicate – matching the original pigments found embedded in the stone. You can see one above – and we even have an entire list based on them.

[kompressaur]

False Fact: A scientific study on peanuts in bars found traces of over 100 unique specimens of urine.
After rigorous searching for more information, it turns out that no scientific study (or non-scientific study for that matter) has ever been conducted in to peanuts at bars. However, there was a study in ice-cubes in UK bars in 2003 which discovered that 44% of ice cubes tested contained coliform bacteria – bacteria that comes from human poop. Even more shockingly, 5% were infected with the potentially deadly E. Coli bacteria. I guess that proves that they aren’t making their ice cubes from bottled water. So, next time you are in London, pass on the ice and enjoy some peanuts instead.


False Fact: Elevators have killed or can kill when their cable snapped
There is a small element of truth to this “fact” – but we will get to that soon. Firstly, elevators usually have a minimum of four operating cables, as well as an inbuilt braking system and a backup braking system in the shaft which forces a wedge into the shaft to prevent too rapid a drop. If the cables were all to snap (and believe me, elevator cables are strong), the cars braking system would detect the free fall and automatically apply. If that also fails, the shaft’s braking system takes over. Now, the small element of truth I mentioned earlier is that there has been one recorded account of a complete elevator free fall; it was caused by an airplane which crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945. The crash caused the cables in the elevator to be weakened – ultimately leading to them breaking. The person riding the lift (Betty Lou Oliver) survived the 75 floor free fall because of air pressure beneath the car.


False Fact: You can’t fold a piece of paper in half more than 7 times
This is one we all hear regularly – and we believe it because it is true when we tried it. But, in 2002 a US high school student Britney Gallivan proved it wrong by folding a piece of thing gold leaf more than 7 times with the use of tweezers. To further prove that it could be done, she bought a giant roll of toilet paper on the internet and her and her family took it to the local mall where they attempted to fold it more than 7 times. Seven hours of folding later, they had it folded into 12 folds.


False Fact: Elephants are the only mammal that can’t jump
First of all, just so you know, it is true that adult elephants can’t jump – if by jumping we mean the state of having no feet on the ground at the same time after propelling oneself from a stationary position. But contrary to the popular myth that it is is the only mammal that can’t, it is joined by a few others. Firstly, the sloth is unable to jump which suits its lazy lifestyle rather well. Also, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses also cannot jump, though unlike elephants, when they run it is possible for them to have all four feet off the ground.


False Fact: One dog year is equal to seven human years
This bogus fact is usually worked out so that a dog life is equal to a human life in total years, but the numbers just don’t add up. The average human life expectancy is 78, while the average dog life expectancy (in false dog years) would equal around 90 years. Furthermore, different dog breeds have dramatically different life expectancies, ranging from a short 6 years to 13 or more years (in general, the smaller the dog, the longer its life expectancy). Furthermore, dogs have a very short “childhood” and a very long middle-age, making the comparison completely invalid.


False Fact: If someone wrongly advertises goods for the wrong price, they have to sell it to you at that price
This is a very popular misconception and I have even seen people arguing about it in a shop. But the reality is a little more bland. A shop price is an “invitation to bargain” not an “invitation to buy”. This is true in the United States, United Kingdom, Commonwealth nations, and probably the rest of the Western world. If a shop makes a mistake, they can simply continue to sell the goods at the normal price. Attempts to defraud by advertising lower prices are caught in other consumer laws. However, it should be noted that if an electronic transaction is completed you may be eligible to keep the goods if a mistake is made.


False Fact: NASA invented the DustBuster
First of all, how do you vacuum in a vacuum? You don’t, so why would NASA need a vacuum cleaner for its space missions? It didn’t, but what it did need was a small battery powered drill, so they teemed up with Black and Decker to come up with the perfect device. Once the device had been realized, Black and Decker were left with great technology from which they eventually developed the DustBuster and other useful home devices.


False Fact: Polar Bears are left handed
Where this myth came from is now lost in the dark recesses of history. The widespread of this misnomer is quite extraordinary with more google results announcing it as gospel than not. But in reality, scientists who have spent their working lives studying polar bears have found that they are actually ambidextrous (they use both hands equally well). It is possible that the myth was started when people observed the bears working well with their left hands, but they neglected to notice that they also worked well with their right.


False Fact: No two countries with McDonald’s franchises have ever gone to war.
This theory was proposed by Thomas Friedman and became massively popular all around the world. It was used to show that countries loving democracy (those most likely to have a McDonald’s franchise) have lived peacefully together due to the merits of that political system (this is also called the Democratic Peace Theory and the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Resolution). Friedman proposed it in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. So, is it true? No. Georgia and Russia were recently at war with each other and both have McDonald’s. Furthermore, Israel and Lebanon also defy the theory for their conflict in 2006, and right after the book waspublished, NATO bombed Serbia – again disproving the idea.



False Fact: The Great Wall of China is the only manmade structure visible from space.
Well this is wrong on many levels. Firstly, while you are still close enough to earth to actually see the great wall, you can also see road networks, and other large objects created by man. There is, in fact, no distance from earth in which you can only see the great wall. By the time you get a few thousand miles away, you can see nothing manmade. Astronaut Alan Bean said:

“The only thing you can see from the moon is a beautiful sphere, mostly white (clouds), some blue (ocean), patches of yellow (deserts), and every once in a while some green vegetation. No man-made object is visible on this scale. In fact, when first leaving earth’s orbit and only a few thousand miles away, no man-made object is visible at that point either.”

[kompressaur]

Common Misconception: Humans use only 10% of their brain
This is utterly false. No one really knows how this myth started – but what we do know is how it has been perpetuated for so long. When people first began making this false claim, psychics “decided” that this explained why some people had paranormal abilities and others didn’t: paranormal powers were unleashed in people who had developed the use of more than 10% of the brain. They believed that some region of the brain, if tapped, could provide psychic abilities. This certainly helped their bottom line as thousands of books have since come out aiming to “teach” people how to develop this power. So, the truth of the matter? Humans use 100% of their brain – that is why it is there! Here is a case in point: a hemispherectomy – this is the surgical procedure that removes an entire half of the brain. When this surgery is performed, the patient becomes paralyzed in half of their body.


Common Misconception: Shaving makes hair grow back thicker or coarser
The reason that so many people believe this is that uncut hair ends up developing a taper – or split ends – both of which feel softer than freshly cut hair. It is for this reason that a man’s beard feels soft, but stubble feels rough. Of course, if this myth were true, every man going bald would simply get a hair cut in order to make his hair grow back thicker – true also for women with thinning hair. It is surprising that so obvious a myth (when you really think about it) is believed by so many!


Common Misconception: You can extend your penis or widen its girth with special devices or medications
This is patently untrue and the source of millions of spam emails sent around the world every day. Vacuum pumps, pills, stretching techniques: none of them make one iota of difference to the size of your manhood (and consequently the engine size of your car). The only way to enlarge your penis is to have enhancement surgery. This is, obviously, extremely expensive, extremely painful, and extremely gruesome – or so I am told!


Common Misconception: Half, or more than half of all humans ever born, are alive today
This is a myth – probably perpetuated by eugenicists and other people who believe the planet should be saved by population control of the human species. This is not a new myth either: in 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that population growth would surpass the world food supply by the mid 1800s. The Population Reference Bureau estimate that the earth has held over 106 billion humans throughout history. With a current world population of over 6 billion, that means that roughly 6% of people ever born are alive today. A significantly lower number than that given by population explosion alarmists. What is perhaps more frightening, is the fact that many nations today are not producing enough children to replace the population with no growth at all, in other words, many countries are suffering negative birth rates (see chart above).


Common Misconception: Plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen
I suspect this will come as a surprise to most people, but while plants do produce oxygen, they do not do it by converting carbon dioxide. The process by which this all happens is called photosynthesis and is a relatively complex process, but to put it simply, plants convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrate precursors and water (fuel for the plant). This is a light independent process – it doesn’t need light to perform this task. So how do plants make oxygen for us to breathe? It uses a light dependent process – this requires light. It takes the light and converts it to potential energy – the byproduct of this process is oxygen.


Common Misconception: The North Pole is north and the South Pole is South
Actually, in terms of physics, the North Pole (while geographically in the north) is actually a south magnetic pole, and the South Pole (geographically in the south) is a north magnetic pole. When your compass is pointing north, it is actually pointing to the south pole of Earth’s magnetic field. 780,000 years ago, this would not have been the case, as the magnetic poles of the earth were reversed (this is called a geomagnetic reversal). Oh – and just to complicate things further, the poles drift around randomly – they are not in a fixed spot. This is most likely due to movements in the molten nickel-iron alloy in the Earth’s core.


Common Misconception: A mirror image reverses left and right
When we look in a mirror, our left and right sides appear to be reversed – left is right and right is left. In fact, what has really happened is that the mirror has inverted us front and back. The reason that we think it is a left-to-right reversal is that we are used a person’s left and right being reversed when they face turn to face us. So what is the mirror doing? Imagine a person with their back to us doing a hand stand to face us, rather than turning around – their right and left remain the same but their top and bottom swap. Looking in to a mirror has the same effect: nothing reverses in the mirror – not bottom and top, not left and right.


Common Misconception: Glass is actually a very slow flowing liquid
First of all, this is not true. Secondly, the reason many people believe it is due to the nature of old panes of glass in which the bottom appears to be thicker than the top – suggesting that the glass is “melting” and pooling at the bottom. The reason for this distortion in the glass is the method of manufacturing in the past. You will notice that you don’t see this “melting” behavior in modern glass windows. Glass is actually an amorophous ceramic.


right i give up. i got as far as here
Ultimate Top 10 Lists - Listverse


if anyone wants to add any more

[MickeyPaul]

You 'aving a laugh? The time it takes to scroll through all that is the exact same length of time it takes to watch Avatar. But more entertaining. That is a fact.

Hey, what's that interesting fact about scanning pages of text and you don't realise you've read it? You scan a page and as far as you're concerned, you haven't read it. But your brain did and knows it all. Fuck. All this time our brains are gathering info and plotting against us I bet. Bribing your eyes trying to get them to join and stuff. "Well, surely you could just look the other way... what's it worth you ask (eventually via the mouth who can be bought really cheaply)? How does a pair of paco rabannes sound? Ah haha, I thought so. No no, of course I won't mention you."

[JOMO]

Why do they never pick my threads to spam? Laboratory testing has proved my threads are usually no less than 43% worse than others yet can make a cat's fur grow 48% faster. You do the math.

[ONEDUNME]

You two should get together, you make me titter