As a matter of fact, these 'truths' are fiction
Remember when they said smoking was good for you? Those cocaine ads for toothaches? That lightning never struck the same place twice?
That’s just a drop in the bucket of “facts” we dinosaurs either learned in school or heard often enough to accept as gospel, since debunked or disproven.
Did you know:
Dinosaurs aren’t extinct. Today’s kindergartners know dinosaurs didn’t die out 65 million years ago. They’ll point out the pigeons, hummingbirds, and seagulls flying around carrying dinosaur genes. In fact, thanks to more fossil discoveries, we now know many of those old variety dinosaurs had colorful feathers.
George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth (but they were awful). By 1789, Washington had only one remaining natural tooth, but no wooden ones. His dentures were a hodgepodge of ivory, gold, human and animal teeth, and lead (yikes!). People probably thought they were wooden because of brown stains. According to historians, one of his account books lists a purchase of nine teeth from his plantation slaves at Mount Vernon.
American “witches” weren’t burned at the stake. The 19 convicted during the infamous Massachusetts Bay Colony witch scare in 1692 were hanged, not burned. Same goes for those poor women accused of witchcraft in England, although some were burned elsewhere in Europe.
There are more than three states of matter. Liquid, solid, gas — and plasma. The first three are the most common on Earth, but beyond our atmosphere plasma is believed to be prevalent in the universe.
Toilets (and water fountains) don’t flow opposite in the South. Mere observation should have made this obvious. The Coriolis effect is to blame for the confusion: Yes, the Earth’s rotation makes hurricanes spin counterclockwise above the equator and clockwise below. But the amount of water in a toilet is too small to be affected by it.
Neanderthals weren’t dummies. Research suggests Neanderthals weren’t the hulking, well, “Neanderthals” who faced extinction because they weren’t as sophisticated as our human predecessors, with whom they coexisted for a while. European Neandertals were making cave paintings, tools and jewelry thousands of years before we humans emigrated from Africa. Why’d they die out while we survived? Probably because there were simply a lot more of us.
That left-brain vs. right-brain thing is out of date. I used to think I was left brained — more analytical and often accused of being too “logical” when emotion was socially expected. But that doesn’t match neurological studies, which don’t show such correlations with personality traits. Yes, different parts of the brain have different purposes, but generally multiple areas light up at once when we emote or exhibit behaviors. Brain function is complicated.
Oxygen-poor blood isn’t blue. Veins may look blue from the outside, but the blood inside is red. They appear blue because of the way tissue and skin reflect light. Differences in hemoglobin make it more or less red, but still red. In the animal kingdom blood is a rainbow of colors, with many red like ours, others blue (crabs and spiders), green (leeches and lizards), violet (marine worms), yellow (beetles) and even clear blood (icefish).
Napoleon wasn’t short. He was average height for his time — about 5 feet, 7 inches. British cartoons mocking him made him look short, and it stuck.
You have more than five senses. Touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing are the most basic, but we take in information in other ways, too. Proprioception tells us where our bodies are in space, helping us keep balance. Kinesthetic receptors detect stretching in muscles and tendons, which helps us keep track of body parts. We also have receptors to keep track of how much oxygen is flowing through our arteries.
Sources: Nature, Reader’s Digest, Smithsonian, National Geographic, and Science Direct.
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Today’s weird word: Minutae — precise or trivial details.
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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.