Lies Your Parents Told You As A Kid That You Actually Believed
It's easy for the truth to get misrepresented as a kid or for schoolyard gossip to make its way into your memory. These are the biggest "truths" you spent your whole life believing that turned out the be wrong.
Tilting Your Head Back Won't Stop A Bloody Nose
If you've ever gotten a bloody nose, you've probably heard at least one person tell you to tilt your head back to help stop it, but you should actually do the opposite.
Sit up straight and lean your head forward slightly. And don't forget to apply pressure. As annoying as they are, most bloody noses clear up in 10 to 20 minutes.
Daddy Long Legs Aren't Spiders
Because daddy long legs are arachnids, we tend to believe that means they are also spiders. Daddy long legs actually belong to the group known as harvestmen.
Daddy long legs have two eyes, whereas spiders have eight. Daddy long legs also have a fused head, abdomen, and thorax, whereas spiders have a distinct separation of their body cavities.
Chameleons Don't Camouflage By Changing Colors
The ability of a chameleon to change color is not actually a self-defense mechanism. More often than not, they are using their color-changing ability to communicate with one another.
Every chameleon has four layers of skin. Three of those layers have various colors and preset patterns. By changing colors in front of each other, they can help better display their emotions and reactions.
Cracking Your Knuckles Won't Cause Joint Problems
Contrary to popular belief, there is no correlation between cracking your knuckles and future joint problems.
The sound of cracking knuckles, however, isn't cracking at all. It's actually the sound of gas bubbles popping as you increase the space between your joints.
Salt Doesn't Boils Water Faster
Salt might make food taste better, but it does not make water boil faster. Adding salt to your pot of H20 will actually make it boil more slowly.
Oddly enough, adding salt will make your pasta cook faster.
We Use More Than Ten Percent Of Our Brain
Although the myth that humans only use ten percent of their brains has been thoroughly disproved, it's still prevalent in society and even featured in movies like Lucy and Limitless.
In an interview with Scientific American, neurologist Barry Gordon explained that at any given moment, a majority of the brain is always active.
Coffee Doesn't Dehydrate You
There's a commonly-held misconception that your morning cup of coffee will dehydrate you.
Though drinking coffee will make you have to use the bathroom more frequently, there is no evidence to suggest that it will actually dehydrate you.
Gum Doesn't Stays In Your Gut For Seven Years
Just because gum isn't made to be digested doesn't mean it will refuse to flush through your body.
In general, it will only take gum a few days to pass through your body, but you still probably shouldn't swallow it!
The Winter Doesn't Make You More Likely To Catch A Cold
While there is some truth to the statement that you are more likely to get sick during colder months, it's more coincidence than anything else.
As Shannon Fecher of UnityPoint Health explains, "Can you get sick from being cold? Yes, but not in terms of a cold or the flu. This comes from frostbite and/or even hypothermia. If you get frostbite or hypothermia, this can weaken the immune system, which leaves you more at-risk for getting illnesses, such as the common cold and/or the flu."
Bats Aren't Actually Blind
Because we're taught about how bats use echolocation in school, we tend to believe that means they are blind.
According to National Geographic, bats can see just fine, and some species can even see three times better than humans!
Twinkies Don't Last Forever
While movies like Zombieland have spread the myth that Twinkies will last forever, the truth is that the sponge cake with a cream filling stays good for about 25 days, thanks to the preservative sorbic acid.
Once those days are up, the snack food will begin to lose its texture and flavor.
You Don't Need To Wait 30 Minutes To Swim After Eating
You do not have to wait 30 minutes after eating to go swimming.
This popular falsity was spread through a past belief that blood would be sent to your gut to aid in digestion after eating. With less blood in your legs and arms, you would fatigue more easily.
Carrots Don't Make You See Better
The false truth that carrots can improve your eyesight comes from the fact that carrots are high in vitamin A, a nutrient that helps your eyes see clearer in low-light conditions.
A lack of vitamin A in the body may also lead to blindness, so keep eating carrots. Just don't expect to suddenly be able to stop wearing glasses in the process.
Vitamin C Isn't A Miracle Cure
Back in the 1960s, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling came up with the idea of "megadosing" on vitamin C, claiming this would help prevent people from getting sick.
Since then, the idea of "megadosing" has been proven wrong. It is true, of course, that vitamin C will help reduce how long a cold lasts, but it will not stop you from getting sick.
Elephants Are Terrified Of Mice
If you grew up watching the movie Dumbo, you might believe the false truth that elephants are terrified of mice.
However, elephants so have poor eyesight, so they could be startled by a fast-moving mouse or rat, but that does not mean they will stampede away in utter fear of any tiny mouse.
Goldfish Don't Have A Three-Second Memory
Several experiments have proven that goldfish have a memory that lasts for more than three seconds.
A study at the University of Plymouth trained goldfish to use a lever to earn food as a reward. The lever was only activated for one hour of the day, so not only did the fish have to remember how it worked, they had to remember at what time it worked!
Melatonin Isn't A Sedative
Melatonin has been marketed as an all-natural sleeping aid. Taken in pill form, the naturally-produced hormone is commonly confused as a sedative.
Taking melatonin won't make you fall asleep, but it will assist in helping you get a better night's rest. Just be warned, by taking the supplement, you can develop resilience to melatonin and actually decrease your ability to stay asleep.
Bulls Don't Hate The Color Red
Bulls are colorblind, so they can't actually see the color red. When you watch a bull going after a matador, they are actually responding to the person's movement, not the color of the cape.
The cape is actually red because it has become a recognizable detail for audiences to react to.
Dogs DO Sweat
Dogs do sweat, but their sweat glands are located on the paws. When they sweat, the moisture released helps them grip the ground easier.
To regulate temperature, a dog will pant, which helps to lower body temperature by allowing water to evaporate from a canine's nasal passages and tongue.
Black Holes Don't Have Endless Gravity
One of the biggest misconceptions about black holes is that they have an endless gravitational pull. If that were true, then everything in existence would slowly be getting sucked into one right now.
As with any large object in space, if you get close enough, you will get pulled in by its gravitational pull. If you stay a safe distance away, however, you will be just fine.
Bananas Don't Grow On Trees
The plant that bananas come from is not a tree, but it reaches heights of 25 feet tall and is considered the world's largest perennial herb.
Also, a common misconception about bananas is that they are fruits, but they don't produce mature seeds, which makes them berries.
Alcohol Doesn't Warms You Up
You might suddenly feel warmer when you drink, but that doesn't mean you are.
The facts on this one are clear; drinking alcohol actually lowers your body temperature. This causes your blood vessels to constrict and rise to the surface, making your skin feel warmer.
The Sun Doesn't Create The Seasons
The closer we get to the sun, the warmer the weather gets, which means that if the sun controlled the seasons, we probably wouldn't have four distinct variations.
We actually have four seasons because the Earth rotates on a tilted axis. Scientists at NASA believe this tilt was created by another space-bound object crashing into the earth.
Ancient Statues In Greece Weren't Always Colorless
Today, almost every statue we have recovered from ancient Greek sites lacks one thing -- color. This has led many to falsely believe that grey statues were all that was ever built back then.
However, statues were actually decorated with vibrant colors that wore away over time. Artists of the era practiced polychromy.
Lightning Can Strike The Same Place Twice
Lightning has no choice about where its strikes; it's a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Did you know that the Empire State Building in New York, for example, is struck 23 times on average per year?
Water Isn't Stored In A Camel's Hump
The truth is that camels actually use their humps to store fat. By loading up on fat, up to 80 pounds of it at a time, camels can survive three weeks without "refueling."
Camels also have oval-shaped red blood cells and highly efficient intestines and kidneys that allow them to stay hydrated without a nearby water source.
Without Oxygen, Our Blood Is Blue
Even though our veins can appear blue at times, the blood flowing through them is always red. Depending on how oxygenated our blood is, it may appear to be a lighter or darker red, but it is never blue.
Our veins appear blue because when light hits our skin, it reflects back at a certain wavelength, and that wavelength is responsible for the blue hue that we see.
Snakes Can't Always Unhinge Their Jaws
Snakes cannot unhinge their jaws to swallow large prey. They can stretch their jaws to open their mouths wide because their upper and lower jawbones are not fused together.
These bones are connected by stretchy ligaments that allow the snake to open their mouths extremely wide.
The Great Wall Of China Isn't Visible From Space
According to Yang Liwei, a Chinese astronaut who tried, he could not see the Great Wall from space.
He could see other man-made structures, though. As cities light up at night, they become visible to astronauts in space.
Your Tongue Doesn't Have "Taste Sectors"
In school, we were taught all about taste, and how putting food on different parts of the tongue would create a different tasting experience (salty, sweet, sour, and bitter).
This idea of the tongue map was first created by a German scientist in 1901 and has since been disproved. Taste buds all over your tongue can identify all four flavor sectors, five if you count umami.
