• How often do you question what you're told by your friends, family and teachers?
When you think about it, how sure are you about anything you know?
Here's 15 more lies that you still believe.
15 – LIE: Lightning never strikes twice • In storm clouds the lighter, positively
charged particles rise and the heavier, negative ones sink.
Lightning occurs when the negative particles discharge with positive points on the ground
below, often the ones closest like treetops or skyscrapers.
So, not only DOES lighting strike twice in the same place, it's actually most likely
that it will keep coming back for more.
14 – LIE: Alcohol can sterilize a wound • We've all seen it in the movies; the
action hero has a gaping wound so he just splashes it with brandy.
In reality, this is a waste of time.
• Sure, the alcohol may kill off some bacteria but it will also damage many cells and cause
inflammation.
• So, it does more harm than good.
However, surprisingly booze is fine to sterilise needles and intact skin.
13 – LIE: You can "detox" yourself • After one too many heavy weekends and
donut binges, you decide to give your body a break and go on a detox.
Maybe it's a Sober October or a week without alcohol, either way, it's all nonsense.
• Your liver and kidneys already "detox"; they remove the bad stuff from your body.
If you put in too many toxins, too often, then you'll damage your organs.
This sometimes can be repaired but it takes years and a complete change in diet.
• So, having a week or even a month off does nothing other than make you no fun to
hang out with.
12 – LIE: There is only the "north" and "south" pole
• We like to order the world with nice simple definitions.
At the top is the north pole and at the bottom is the south pole.
• But the poles are actually much more complex.
• Technically the north pole is south facing and vice versa.
On a magnet, north attracts south.
So, when your northern compass point spins up towards the Arctic, it's being attracted
to a magnetic south.
• And then there's different types of pole.
There's magnetic north, geomagnetic north, the point where all the longitude lines meet,
and some others.
11 – LIE: Soap kills germs • After you go to the bathroom or handle
some ingredients, you're supposed to wash your hands with soap.
But what would happen if you just rub your hands with soap?
Does it still kill all the evil germs?
• No, soap doesn't kill germs.
All it does it reduce their grip on your skin, so the water can wash them away.
That's why early soaps used oils and animal fats; it helped slide off the bacteria.
10 – LIE: Carrots help you see better at night
• Carrots are packed full of vitamin A and low in calories.
But if you think they're going to save you on torch costs because of your super night
vision then the British Air Force owe you an apology.
• During WWII, they leaked stories about how carrots were helping their troops spot
Nazi planes at night.
But they were just trying to cover up the fact that they had managed to put radar in
their aircraft.
9 – LIE: World maps have accurate country sizes
• Maps today give us *very* inaccurate impressions of the real sizes of many countries and continents.
• Anything nearer the poles gets stretched to look far bigger than it really is.
• The biggest misunderstanding it creates is with Africa.
Africa is absolutely bloody enormous.
Russia seems to stretch round half the world but it would fit into the northern half of
Africa.
• Australia is really about half the size of Russia.
8 – LIE: Eating before bed is bad • Many people think you shouldn't eat
before bed time as the body is less active at night so less of the food will be burnt
off, meaning more will get stored as fat.
• Here's the thing though: you don't see joggers constantly piling sugar cubes
in their mouth to prevent them keeling over on the sidewalk.
The food goes in, gets broken down and then the energy is stored to be used when you need
it.
You don't burn it all immediately and then dispose of the excess on your hips an hour
later.
Come on.
7 – LIE: 1 in 4 people are gay • If this were true, then gay rights would
have advanced at a lot more quickly than they have done.
But this is what the average estimate is in the USA.
At 25%, they'd be almost as big as the entire US Black and Hispanic communities combined.
• It's hard to get an exact figure but it's really closer to 2 or 3%
6 – LIE: The cheetah is the fastest animal alive
• Cheetahs are incredibly fast over short distances, but they are not the fastest animal.
It's true they're the fastest runners, but a peregrine falcon can hit 200 mph, over
three times a cheetah's top speed of 61.
• And before you say "well that's cheating, Falcons basically just fall through the sky",
well, there's still a quicker beast.
• The sailfish can hit 68 mph and that's in water.
If you've ever seen a cheetah running in water then you'll know how quick this is.
5 – LIE: You shouldn't end sentences in a preposition
• If you've ever read a comments section, you'll know grammar is one of the things
people like to argue over.
And one English classic is that prepositions at the ends of sentences are looked down on.
But this was just something that 17th century critic John Dryden was annoyed about.
• In fact, a preposition is a perfectly acceptable thing to end a sentence with.
4 – LIE: Women are better multitaskers • Your laptop can play music while you edit
photos and pretend to be listening to your mum over skype.
Your computer is multi-tasking and so are you, right?
• You're not.
The computer is, for sure, there are multiple programs running, but you are only doing one
thing at a time.
No one, not women nor men, can multi-task • What we really do is rapid task switching,
as our brain flicks from one thing to another.
And different people have different skills with it.
One person might struggle to concentrate in an office, as they switch too often, but they're
more likely to react to danger while chatting in the car.
3 – LIE: Diamonds are rare • The truth is, diamonds are a terrible
investment if they're already cut.
An engagement ring plummets in value the moment it goes out the door.
• A South African company called De Beers controlled the world's diamond supply for
many years and created the advertising campaign that made them part of the engagement romance.
DeBeers have a huge warehouse full of uncut diamonds, since they only allow a restricted
amount on the market, which artificially boosts the value.
2 – LIE: You look your worst on Monday morning • We all assume that we look our worst when
we crawl into work at the start of the week, smelling of stale booze and tears.
• But, it actually takes about 72 hours for some of the negative effects of drinking
to show.
Combine this with half a week's work and research found that it's Wednesday 3.30
pm when you should be screaming in horror at the mirror.
1 – LIE: Cavemen lived in caves • When we talk about ancient history, we
often refer to early humans as cavemen.
• But, just like in the highly scientific cartoon, The Flintstones, cavemen didn't
really live in caves.
• We found a lot of evidence of them in caves because it was well preserved.
They actually lived in simple structures made of branches, covered in leaves or animal skins.
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