Science

Popular science claims and brain myths

• Myth

  A peacock never eats anything but tears and flowers

• Myth

  Snakes drink milk left in a saucer on Nag Panchami as their main diet

• Myth

  Plastic rice from China has replaced grain in every Indian bazaar

• Uncertain

  Bhabha-era science proved cow dung paints block nuclear radiation in a home

• Myth

  The Indian monsoon starts because the government opens a dam on a date

• Myth

  Himalayan glaciers cannot shrink because the Ganga is eternal

• Myth

  A solar eclipse permanently poisons food left uncovered in an Indian kitchen

• Partly true

  Mustard oil is illegal in the United States so it must be poison here too

• Myth

  Jaggery is not sugar so it cannot affect diabetes

• Myth

  Western medicine ignores Ayurveda because it always fails in every trial

• Myth

  Almonds grow underground like peanuts

• Myth

  A peanut is a nut and a pea is not related

• Myth

  Bamboo is a tree

• Partly true

  Kelp is a true plant with roots like a tree

• Myth

  Sponges are plants that hold dish soap in the sea

• Myth

  Green potatoes are a gourmet color

• Myth

  Raw kidney beans are a crunchy snack

• Myth

  Cinnamon challenge is a funny harmless trick

• Myth

  Nutmeg is harmless in any dose because it is a spice

• Myth

  Cherry pits are fine to crunch like candy

• Partly true

  Apple seeds are a healthy snack by the handful

• Myth

  Rhubarb leaves are the tasty part

• Myth

  Cucumbers are vegetables and not related to melons

• Myth

  Avocados are vegetables because they are savory

• Myth

  Coconuts are a dairy product

• Myth

  Coral is a rock plant

• Myth

  Squid ink is only for art class

• Myth

  Octopuses have one heart and tiny brains

• Myth

  Crabs have no blood

• Myth

  Seahorses are mythical

• Myth

  Starfish are stars that fell

• Myth

  Jellyfish are fish

• Partly true

  Great white sharks must roll their eyes back because they go blind in a bite

• Myth

  Orcas are whales that never hunt in groups

• Partly true

  Sharks can smell a drop of blood across an entire ocean

• Uncertain

  Magnetic water softeners are proven like ion-exchange systems

• Uncertain

  Copper bottles ionize water into medicine

• Myth

  Oxygenated water gives athletes extra air

• Myth

  Alkaline water rewires your blood pH

• Partly true

  Distilled water is dangerous to drink because it steals minerals from bones

• Myth

  Boiling always removes every poison

• Myth

  Freezing food kills all bacteria

• Partly true

  Moldy bread can be saved by cutting the green spot

• Myth

  A queen bee rules by issuing spoken orders

• Partly true

  Ants are all female workers with no queens in any species

• Myth

  Termites are white ants

• Myth

  Wasps are bees that decided to be mean

• Myth

  A bee dies if it lands on you

• Myth

  Dragonflies stitch children's lips shut

• Myth

  Earwigs crawl into ears to lay eggs in the brain

• Partly true

  Moths eat clothes as adults flying around the lamp

• Partly true

  All bright animals are deadly

• Myth

  Venomous and poisonous mean the same thing

• Partly true

  A snake's rattle always means it will strike next second

• Myth

  Milk snakes steal milk from cows

• Myth

  A hoop snake grabs its tail and rolls after you

• Myth

  All snakes chase people for sport

• Myth

  If you see a shark fin you should splash toward it to scare it

• Partly true

  Undertows pull you to the bottom and keep you

• Partly true

  You float better if you know how to swim, even without air in the lungs

• Myth

  Freshwater cannot drown you because it is not salty

• Partly true

  The sea is blue because it reflects the sky only

• Myth

  Tide goes in and out because of fish drinking

• Myth

  Tide pools are empty of life at low tide

• Uncertain

  A silver spoon turns black so the mushroom is deadly, always

• Myth

  Wild mushrooms are safe if animals ate them

• Myth

  You can change blood type by eating a food

• Partly true

  You can catch a virus from sharing a toilet seat instantly

• Myth

  Cracking your back realigns organs

• Myth

  Knuckle cracking releases toxins

• Myth

  Hiccups mean someone is talking about you

• Myth

  Sneezes always stop your heart

• Uncertain

  Yawning is only about needing oxygen

• Partly true

  The heart is on the left side only

• Myth

  Veins carry blood that has no oxygen at all

• Myth

  T. rex stood upright like a Godzilla poster

• Partly true

  Brontosaurus never existed as a name anyone can use

• Myth

  Woolly mammoths died out before any humans saw them

• Myth

  Saber-toothed cats are the ancestors of house cats

• Myth

  Pterodactyls were dinosaurs

• Myth

  Dimetrodon was a dinosaur with a sail

• Myth

  Fossils are bones turned into mystery plastic

• Myth

  Radiocarbon dating is used on dinosaur bones as the usual method

• Myth

  Evolution means animals try to adapt on purpose in one lifetime

• Myth

  If humans evolved from apes, apes should have vanished

• Myth

  Missing links mean evolution has no fossils

• Myth

  Microevolution is real but macroevolution is a different magic

• Myth

  Intelligent design is just another testable lab protocol

• Myth

  The second law of thermodynamics forbids life and evolution

• Myth

  Mutations are always harmful

• Partly true

  DNA is a blueprint that never changes in a lifetime

• Partly true

  You inherit exactly half your traits from each parent like a 50-50 smoothie

• Myth

  Identical twins have identical fingerprints

• Myth

  Eye color is a single gene with two settings

• Myth

  Red hair will go extinct soon

• Partly true

  Tongue rolling is a simple one-gene classroom demo

• Partly true

  Attached earlobes are a perfect Punnett-square trait

• Myth

  You can taste PTC or not, and that is the only taste gene

• Myth

  Blood type personality charts are science

• Myth

  Arteries are only in the wrist

• Myth

  You have more than five liters of blood so a paper cut is dangerous

• Myth

  The funny bone is a bone that tells jokes

• Partly true

  Goosebumps exist to make us look huge to buses

• Myth

  Humans have a tailbone because we used to have monkey tails last century

• Partly true

  Wisdom teeth always wreck a modern tiny jaw

• Myth

  Tonsils should always be removed as a childhood default

• Partly true

  The appendix is only a time bomb

• Myth

  All dinosaurs were giant lizards that dragged their tails

• Myth

  The asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs is a guess with no crater

• Myth

  Titan has no weather because it is cold

• Myth

  Europa's ice means it cannot have an ocean

• Myth

  Io is a dead rock like our Moon

• Myth

  Uranus is tilted because someone painted it that way in a textbook

• Myth

  Neptune is too far to have storms

• Myth

  Mercury has no ice because it is so close to the Sun

• Myth

  Venus is hotter than Mercury only at night

• Myth

  Cutting down a rainforest has no climate effect because trees are just plants

• Partly true

  A tomato is a vegetable

• Myth

  Peanuts grow on trees

• Myth

  Strawberries are berries

• Myth

  Bananas grow on trees

• Myth

  Carrots were originally orange

• Myth

  Moss always grows on the north side of trees

• Partly true

  You can tell a tree's age only by cutting it down

• Myth

  Poison ivy is contagious

• Myth

  Venus flytraps eat a lot of meat like a tiny lion

• Partly true

  Sunflowers always face the sun, even as adults

• Myth

  Oak trees take hundreds of years before they make acorns

• Myth

  The five-second rule keeps dropped food safe

• Myth

  Microwave ovens cook with radioactivity that stays in the food

• Partly true

  Leaving a phone in rice is the best way to dry it

• Myth

  You should rub butter on a burn

• Myth

  If you are cold you will catch a cold

• Myth

  Science has proved that we only use a tiny slice of DNA and the rest is junk

• Myth

  Evolution is 'just a theory' in the casual sense of a guess

• Myth

  Humans evolved from modern chimpanzees

• Partly true

  The appendix has no function

• Myth

  You can catch a virus from sitting on a cold rock

• Myth

  Antibiotics kill viruses

• Myth

  All bacteria are harmful

• Myth

  Pasteurization means milk is full of chemicals

• Myth

  Organic food contains no pesticides

• Myth

  Natural chemicals are safe and synthetic ones are dangerous

• Myth

  The full moon makes people behave strangely

• Partly true

  You can tell the temperature by counting cricket chirps exactly

• Partly true

  A red sky at night always means fair weather

• Partly true

  No two snowflakes are alike

• Partly true

  Boiling water freezes faster than cold water every time

• Partly true

  Hot water is a better solvent so it sanitizes better than chemistry

• Myth

  Oil and water never mix for a mysterious reason

• Myth

  Rust is just dirt on metal

• Partly true

  Stainless steel cannot rust

• Partly true

  Gold does not tarnish because it is fake if it changes

• Myth

  A magnet can scramble a computer permanently through a case from across the room

• Uncertain

  The Earth's magnetic field is about to flip next Tuesday and will kill satellites instantly

• Myth

  You can balance an egg only on the equinox

• Myth

  Coriolis force decides how a toilet flushes in Australia

• Partly true

  The Amazon produces 20% of the world's oxygen in a way that would suffocate us if it vanished tomorrow

• Partly true

  Recycling plastic means every bottle becomes a new bottle forever

• Partly true

  Electric cars produce zero emissions, including from the power plant

• Myth

  Nuclear power plants can explode like a city-killing nuclear bomb

• Partly true

  Solar panels do not work in cloudy countries

• Myth

  Wind turbines kill so many birds that they are worse than buildings and cats

• Myth

  Hydroelectric dams are impact-free green energy

• Myth

  Science is just opinions in lab coats

• Myth

  Lemming swarms leap off cliffs on purpose

• Myth

  Koalas are bears

• Partly true

  Polar bears have white fur

• Myth

  Penguins live at the North Pole

• Myth

  Crocodiles cry while eating out of guilt

• Myth

  Piranhas strip a cow to bones in seconds

• Myth

  Whales spout water

• Myth

  Dolphins are fish

• Myth

  Sharks do not get cancer

• Myth

  Daddy longlegs are the most venomous spiders

• Myth

  All spiders are dangerous to people

• Partly true

  Bees die after they sting, so they rarely sting

• Myth

  Houseflies live only a day

• Partly true

  An earthworm cut in half becomes two worms

• Uncertain

  Elephants are afraid of mice

• Myth

  A dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's

• Partly true

  Cats always land on their feet

• Myth

  Dogs see only in black and white

• Partly true

  Eating carrots gives you night-vision like a cat

• Myth

  Cracking knuckles causes arthritis

• Myth

  You lose most body heat through your head

• Myth

  Swallowed gum stays in your stomach for seven years

• Uncertain

  Bullfrogs croak only when it is about to rain

• Myth

  A duck's quack does not echo

• Myth

  Putting a shell to your ear lets you hear the ocean

• Myth

  Metal in a microwave always makes sparks

• Myth

  Microwaves heat food from the inside out

• Partly true

  Heat rises, so upper floors are always warmer for that reason alone

• Partly true

  Nothing can travel faster than light, including the universe's expansion

• Myth

  Vaccuum of space would make a human explode instantly

• Myth

  NASA lost the technology to go to the Moon

• Myth

  You can see the flag on the Moon with a backyard telescope

• Myth

  Polaris will always be the North Star

• Myth

  The Big Dipper is a constellation

• Myth

  Stars twinkle because they are burning unsteadily