101 things you thought were true, but have actually been debunked by science

Who hasn't shared an amazing science fact only to feel embarrassed later on, when you find out the information was wrong?

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No more.

It's time to put an end to the most alluring science myths, misconceptions, and inaccuracies passed down through the ages.

To help the cause we've rounded up and corrected dozens of the most shocking science "facts" that are bizarrely wrong about food, animals, the Earth, biology, space, alcohol, and health. (Click a link to skip to that section.)

science myths 3x4
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

Have any favorites we missed? Send them to science@techinsider.io.

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Kevin Loria, Lauren Friedman, and Kelly Dickerson contributed to this post. Robert Ferris contributed to a previous version.

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Myths_food
Skye Gould/Tech Insider
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MYTH: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

apples
Imperfect

Apples are packed with vitamin C and fiber, both of which are important to long-term health, but they aren't all you need.

And if certain viruses or bacteria get into your system, an apple will unfortunately do nothing to protect you.

Go ahead and get that flu shot, even if you eat apples.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: The chemical tryptophan in turkey makes you sleepy.

turkey, small
Bev Currie/Flickr

Who doesn't love the post-Thanksgiving nap? After all, turkey contains tryptophan — an amino acid that is a component of some of the brain chemicals that help you relax.

But plenty of foods contain tryptophan. Cheddar cheese has even more than turkey, yet cheddar is never pointed out as a sleep inducing food.

Experts say that instead, the carbs, alcohol, and general size of the turkey-day feast are the cause of those delicious holiday siestas.

Sources: Business Insider, LiveScience

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MYTH: Milk does a body good!

milk cartons
liz west/flickr

This is an incredibly successful bit of advertising that has wormed its way into our brains and policies to make milk seem magical.

The US Department of Agriculture tells us that adults should drink three cups of milk a day, mostly for calcium and vitamin D.

However, multiple studies show that there isn't an association between drinking more milk (or taking calcium and vitamin D supplements) and having fewer bone fractures.

Some studies have even shown an association with higher overall mortality, and while that doesn't mean that milk consumption itself was responsible, it's certainly not an endorsement.

Sources: Business Insider, NYTimes, Journal of Bone Mineral Research, JAMA Pediatrics, The Lancet, British Medical Journal

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MYTH: There are bugs in your strawberry Frappuccino.

bugs insects cochineal red flickr ron cogswell ccby2
Ron Cogswell/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

This one is no longer true.

Before April 2012, Starbucks' strawberry Frappucino contained a dye made from the ground-up bodies of thousands of tiny insects, called cochineal bugs (or Dactylopius coccus).

Farmers in South and Central America make a living harvesting — and smashing — the bugs that go into the dye. Their crushed bodies produce a deep red ink that is used as a natural food coloring, which was "called cochineal" red but is now called "carmine color."

Starbucks stopped using carmine color in their strawberry Frappucinos in 2012. But the dye is still used in thousands of other food products — from Nerds candies to grapefruit juice. Not to mention cosmetics, like lovely shades of red lipstick.

Sources: Business Insider, CHR Hansen, AmericanSweets.co.uk, FoodFacts.com, LA Times

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MYTH: Eating chocolate gives you acne.

brugges chocolate
Flickr/lhongchou's photography

False.

For one month, scientists fed dozens of people candy bars containing 10 times the usual amount of chocolate, and dozens of others fake chocolate bars.

When they counted the zits before and after each diet, there was "no difference" between the two groups. Neither the chocolate nor the fat seemed to have any effect on acne.

Source: JAMA

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MYTH: There's beaver butt secretions in your vanilla ice cream.

Beaver
Via Flickr

You've probably heard that a secretion called castoreum, isolated from the anal gland of a beaver, is used in flavorings and perfumes.

But castoreum is so expensive, at up to $70 per pound of anal gland (the cost to humanely milk castoreum from a beaver is likely even higher), that it's unlikely to show up in anything you eat.

In 2011, the Vegetarian Resource Group wrote to five major companies that produce vanilla flavoring and asked if they use castoreum. The answer: According to the Federal Code of Regulations, they can't. (The FDA highly regulates what goes into vanilla flavoring and extracts.)

It's equally unlikely you'll find castoreum in mass-marketed goods, either.

Sources: Business Insider, Vegetarian Resource Group, FDA, NY Trappers Forum

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MYTH: Organic food is pesticide-free and more nutritious.

grapes
naotakem via Flickr

Organic food isn't free of pesticides and it isn't necessarily better for you.

Farmers who grow organic produce are permitted to use chemicals that are naturally derived — and in some cases are actually worse for the environment than their synthetic counterparts. However, pesticide levels on both organic and non-organic foods are so low that they aren't of concern for consumption, according to the USDA.

Eating organic food also doesn't come with any nutritional benefits over non-organic food, according to a review of 98,727 potentially relevant studies.

Sources: University of California - Berkeley, Annals of Internal Medicine, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

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MYTH: Natural sugar like honey is better for you than processed sugar.

A bee sits on a honeycomb from a beehive at Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague September 6, 2013. REUTERS/David W Cerny
A bee sits on a honeycomb from a beehive at Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague
Thomson Reuters

A granola bar made with honey instead of high-fructose corn syrup is not better for you.

That's because sugar in natural products like fruit and synthetic products like candy is the same: "Scientists would be surprised to hear about the 'clear superiority' of honey, since there is a near unanimous consensus that the biological effect of high-fructose corn syrup are essentially the same as those of honey," professor Alan Levinovitz told Business Insider.

The problem is that candy and other related products typically contain more sugar per serving, which means more calories — a difference you should actually be watching out for.

Sources: Business Insider, SciShow, Dr. Joy Dubost/Huffington Post

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MYTH: Eating food within 5 seconds of dropping it on the floor is safe.

cleaning floors
Flickr / Rubbermaid Products

It's the worst when something you really wanted to eat falls on the floor. But if you grab it in five seconds, it's ok, right?

The five-second-rule isn't a real thing. Bacteria can contaminate a food within milliseconds.

Mythbusting tests show that moist foods attract more bacteria than dry foods, but there's no "safe duration." Instead, safety depends on how clean the surface you dropped the food on is.

Whether you eat it or not after that is up to you, but if the people that walk on that floor are also walking around New York City, for example, we wouldn't recommend it.

Sources: Business Insider, Discovery.com

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MYTH: Coffee stunts your growth.

coffee
Susanne Nilsson/Flickr

Most research finds no correlation between caffeine consumption and bone growth in kids.

In adults, researchers have seen that increased caffeine consumption can very slightly limit calcium absorption, but the impact is so small that a tablespoon of milk will more than adequately offset the effects of a cup of coffee.

Advertising seems to be largely responsible for this myth: Cereal manufacturer named C.W. Post was trying to market a morning beverage called "Postum" as an alternative to coffee, so he ran ads on the "evils" of Americans' favorite hot beverage, calling it a "nerve poison" that should never be served to children.

Sources: Business Insider (1, 2), Smithsonian Magazine

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MYTH: Eating ice cream will make your cold worse.

woman licking ice cream alvaro nistal flickr cc by nc nd 2
Álvaro Nistal/Flickr (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)

If you're home sick with a cold, you can totally go ahead and comfort yourself with some ice cream.

The idea that dairy increases mucous production is very fortunately not true, according to researchers and a doctor at the Mayo Clinic, who says "in fact, frozen dairy products can soothe a sore throat and provide calories when you otherwise may not eat."

Bless him.

Sources: Business Insider, American Review of Respiratory Disease, Mayo Clinic

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MYTH: Sugar is as addictive as heroin.

Eating sugar
Jake Harris/flickr

In the 2009 book "Fat Chance," the author, Dr. Robert Lustig, claims that sugar stimulates the brain's reward system the same way that tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, and even heroin does, and therefore must be equally addictive. Lustig even cites studies that show parts of our brain that light-up from a sugary reward are the same parts that get excited for many types of enjoyable activities, from drinking alcohol to having sex.

The problem, however, with these types of scientific studies of the brain is that "In neuroimaging, there is no clear-cut sign of addiction," Hisham Ziaudden, an eating behavioral specialist, told Levinovitz.

So, scientists don't know what addiction in the brain looks like, yet, and until that mystery is solved we should not be living in fear from something as fanciful as sugar addiction.

Source: Business Insider (1, 2), "Fat Chance"

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MYTH: Sugar and chocolates are aphrodisiacs.

heart candy
A worker displays a heart-shaped praline for Valentine's Day at a Wittamer chocolate boutique in Brussels February 14, 2012.
REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

In the mid 19th century — before sugar purportedly caused diabetes or hyperactivity — sugar was thought to ignite sexual desire in women, children, and, more controversially, the poor.

One vintage Kellogg advertisement even claimed "Candies, spices, cinnamon, cloves, peppermint, and all strong essences powerfully excited the genital organs and lead to the [solitary vice]."

So don't get worked up over sugar. There's little to no evidence to support the notion that it — or any food, including chocolates — stimulates sexual desire.

Sources: Business Insider, Mayo Clinic

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MYTH: Sugar causes hyperactivity in children.

kids children candy lolipop
Flicrk user edith_soto

Numerous scientific studies have tried and failed to find any evidence that supports this off-the-wall notion.

The myth probably emerged in 1974, when Dr. William Crook wrote a letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which published it. "Only in the past three years have I become aware that sugar ... is a leading cause of hyperactivity," the letter stated.

A letter does not include the rigorous scientific research that a paper does, and according to the National Institute of Mental Health: "The idea that refined sugar causes ADHD or makes symptoms worse is popular, but more research discounts this theory than supports it."

Sources: University of Arkansas for Medial Sciences, Business Insider, NIH

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MYTH: Twinkies and McDonald's burgers last forever.

twinkies
Twinkies
Flickr/Christian Cable

They don't.

Any food that has moisture and isn't frozen can grow microbes that break the food down, packaging or not.

Twinkies are less than optimal to eat after about 25 days on a shelf, and burgers go bad within a day. However, cooked meat patties (McDonald's or otherwise) are less likely to rot outright if conditions are abnormally dry or cold. But who would eat a weeks-old burger?

Sources: Business Insider, Tech Insider, Washington Post

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Myths_animal
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

Dogs and cats have much better color vision than we thought.

Both dogs and cats can see in blue and green, and they also have more rods — the light-sensing cells in the eye — than humans do, so they can see better in low-light situations.

This myth probably comes about because each animal sees colors differently than humans.

Reds and pinks may appear more green to cats, while purple may look like another shade of blue. Dogs, meanwhile, have fewer cones — the color-sensing cells in the eye — so scientists estimated that their color vision is only about 1/7th as vibrant as ours.

Sources: Today I Found Out, Business Insider

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MYTH: Dogs and cats are colorblind.

cat and dog   rob wiss
flickr user: rob.wiss

Dogs and cats have much better color vision than we thought.

Both dogs and cats can see in blue and green, and they also have more rods — the light-sensing cells in the eye — than humans do, so they can see better in low-light situations.

This myth probably comes about because each animal sees colors differently than humans.

Reds and pinks may appear more green to cats, while purple may look like another shade of blue. Dogs, meanwhile, have fewer cones — the color-sensing cells in the eye — so scientists estimated that their color vision is only about 1/7th as vibrant as ours.

Sources: Today I Found Out, Business Insider

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MYTH: Lemmings jump off cliffs in mass suicides.

Lemming
kgleditsch

Lemmings do not commit mass suicide.

During their migrations they sometimes do fall off cliffs, or if they wander into an area they are unfamiliar with.

Source: Alaska Department Of Fish And Game

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MYTH: Sharks don't get cancer.

Sand tiger shark by Wendell Reed:Flickr 2
Wendell Reed/Flickr

Back in 2013, researchers reported a huge tumor growing out of the mouth of a great white shark, and another on the head of a bronze whaler shark.

And those aren't the only cases of shark cancers. Other scientists have reported tumors in dozens of different shark species.

The myth that sharks don't get cancer was created by I. William Lane to sell shark cartilage as a cancer treatment.

Sources: Journal Of Cancer Research, LiveScience

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MYTH: Ostriches hide by putting their heads in the sand.

ostrich
Trisha Shears

Ostriches do not stick their heads in the sand when threatened. In fact, they don't bury their heads at all.

When threatened, ostriches sometimes flop on the ground and play dead.

Source: San Diego Zoo

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MYTH: People get warts from frogs and toads.

Frog with warts   USDA
USDA

Frogs or toads won't give you warts, but shaking hands with someone who has warts can.

The human papillomavirus is what gives people warts, and it is unique to humans.

Source: WebMD

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MYTH: This dinosaur is called a Brontosaurus.

apatosaurus brontosaurus
public domain

Many people would call this dinosaur a Brontosaurus — even Michael Crichton did in "Jurassic Park."

It is actually called the Apatosaurus. The myth emerged some 130 years ago during a feud between two paleontologists.

Source: NPR

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MYTH: Sharks can smell a drop of blood from miles away.

Dronestagram user Tahitiflyshoot took this image called “Snorkeling with sharks” over the sparkling waters near Mo'orea island in French Polynesia. The sharks just happened to arrive at just the right moment for a beautiful snap. This image won first place in the category, Nature.
tahitiflyshoot/Dronestagram

This one is a big exaggeration. Jaws is not coming for you from across the ocean if you bleed in the water.

Shark have a highly enlarged brain region for smelling odors, allowing some of the fish to detect as little as 1 part blood per 10 billion parts water — roughly a drop in an Olympic-size swimming pool.

But it the ocean is much, much, much bigger and it takes awhile for odor molecules to drift. On a very good day when the currents are favorable, a shark can smell its prey from a few football fields away — not miles.

Source: American Museum of Natural History

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MYTH: Bats are blind.

Niumbaha Superba bat from the side
DeeAnn Reeder/Bucknell University

Being "blind as a bat" means not being blind at all.

While many use echolocation to navigate, all of them can see.

Source: USA Today

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MYTH: Goldfish can't remember anything for longer than a second.

goldfish pond
Flickr user riviera2008

Goldfish actually have pretty good memories.

They can remember things for months, not seconds like many people say.

Source: ABC News

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MYTH: Giraffes sleep for only 30 minutes a day.

selous game reserve giraffe
Wikimedia Commons

Giraffes have fairly typical sleeping patterns.

To debunk this one, researchers closely monitored a herd of five adult and three young giraffes for 152 days, counting all of their naps and deep sleeps.

The animals typically slept overnight and napped in the afternoon (sound familiar?).

In total, each giraffe slept about 4.6 hours every day.

Source: European Sleep Research Society

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MYTH: Sharks die if they stop swimming.

Great White Shark
Elias Levy/Flickr

You often hear sharks can breathe only when swimming pushes water over their gills.

That's true of some sharks, but many others — like bottom-dwelling nurse sharks — can pump oxygen-rich water over their gills without swimming.

All sharks lack swim bladders, however, so if they stop swimming they will sink to the bottom. Luckily a shark's body is incompressible and rapid descents or ascents don't harm them.

Source: American Museum of Natural History

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MYTH: Poinsettias contain deadly poison.

Pointsettia  fontplaydotcom
fontplaydotcom

Poinsettias won't kill you or your pets, though you still shouldn't eat them.

The flowers might make you a bit sick with some gastrointestinal issues.

Source: The New York Botanical Garden

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MYTH: Humans got HIV because someone had sex with a monkey.

capuchin monkey by flickr user kvn.jns
flickr user: kvn.jns

HIV probably didn't jump to humans through human-monkey sex.

It probably jumped to humans through hunting of monkeys for bushmeat food, which led to blood-to-blood contact.

Source: Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives In Medicine

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MYTH: Humans evolved from chimpanzees.

Adult female-infant wild chimpanzees
Alain Houle/BMC Ecology Image Competition

Chimps and humans share uncanny similarities, not the least of which is our DNA — about 98.8% is identical.

However, evolution works by incremental genetic changes adding up through many, many generations. Chimps and humans did share a common ancestor between 6 and 8 million years ago but a lot has changed since then.

Modern chimps evolved into a separate (though close) branch of the ape family tree.

Sources: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History

Myths_earth
Skye Gould/Tech Insider
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MYTH: Dropping a penny from the Empire State building could kill someone.

Empire State building   Charles 16e
Flickr user Charles 16e

Dropping a penny from the Empire State building is very unlikely to maim anyone.

A penny weighs roughly 1/11th of an ounce and tops out at 50 mph in freefall, which isn't fast enough to kill. It'd hurt like heck, though.

Sources: Today I Found Out, US Mint

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MYTH: The great wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space.

Great Wall of China   Matt Barber
Matt Barber

The Great Wall of China isn't the only man-made structure visible from space. It all depends on where you believe space begins above Earth.

From the International Space Station 250 miles up, you can see the wall and many other man-made structures. From the moon, you can't see any structures at all — only a dim glow of city lights.

Source: NASA

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MYTH: The moon's gravity pulling on water causes the tides.

earth tides noaa
NOAA

This is only partly true.

The moon does pull on ocean water, but that tug at any one point is about 10 million times weaker than Earth's gravity. It's really the interplay of gravity between the moon, Earth, and sun that creates a tidal force, and it's more of a "push" than a "pull."

Each molecule of water is pulled by the moon's gravity, but alone that acceleration is so weak it isn't noticeable. Because ocean water covers about 71% of Earth's surface and is connected as one liquid body, however, all of those tiny tugs add up to form a significant pressure — the tidal force.

Molecules of water near the poles are pulled mostly straight down, those on the face of Earth closest to the moon experience the strongest pull toward the moon, and those on the opposite side of Earth feel the weakest acceleration.

Together, these interactions form a pressure on seawater that generally directs it away from the poles and toward the equator, where it's strong enough to fight gravity to form two bulges: the high tides.

High tides stay put as the Earth rotates underneath them every day, and they follow the moon as it orbits Earth every 28 days. Low tides occur where the tidal force (or water pressure) is weakest, and dramatic tides can result where land and seafloor terrain funnel more seawater into one spot.

Smaller bodies of water, like lakes and pools, don't have noticeable tides because they lack enough liquid to create a pressure that can visibly overcome the pull of Earth's gravity.

The sun's gravity also affects the tides, accounting for roughly one-third of the phenomenon. When the sun's gravity counteracts the moon's, it leads to lower-than-average "neap tides." When the sun lines up with the moon, it triggers larger "spring tides."

Correction: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the nature of tides.

Sources: PBS Space Time/YouTube, USGS

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MYTH: Lightning never strikes the same place twice.

Willis Tower Lightning
Scott Olson/Getty Images

The world's tallest mountain technically is not Mount Everest.

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level, but if we're talking mountain base-to-summit height, then the tallest is the island of Hawaii that peaks as Mauna Kea.

Everest stands 29,035 feet above sea level. Mauna Kea only stands 13,796 feet above seal level, but the mountain extends about 19,700 feet below the Pacific Ocean. Over half of it is submerged.

That puts the total height of Mauna Kea at about 33,500 feet — nearly a mile taller than Everest.

Source: Tech Insider

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MYTH: The Earth is a perfect sphere.

earth spheroid illustration
NASA (illustration by Tech Insider)

The Earth rotates at about 1,040 mph. That's about 60% the speed of your typical bullet after it shoots out of the muzzle.

This inertia slightly flattens the planet's poles and causes a bulge of rock around the equator.

Due to global warming and the melting of glaciers (and less weight pushing down on the crust), scientists think that bulge is now growing.

Sources: StarrySkies.com, MythBusters the Exhibition

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MYTH: Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth.

mauna kea
Mauna Kea.
Creative Commons

Earth's average surface temperature hasn't really budged since the start of the 21st century, but 70% of the planet is covered in water — and that's where 90% of heat trapped by global warming ends up.

In fact, warming of the oceans has caused them to thermally expand, creating a huge share of the sea level rise that scientists see today.

Sources: Scientific American/Climate Wire, Tech Insider

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MYTH: Water conducts electricity.

running water elitatt
flickr user: elitatt

Earth's average surface temperature hasn't really budged since the start of the 21st century, but 70% of the planet is covered in water — and that's where 90% of heat trapped by global warming ends up.

In fact, warming of the oceans has caused them to thermally expand, creating a huge share of the sea level rise that scientists see today.

Sources: Scientific American/Climate Wire, Tech Insider

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MYTH: There was a global warming pause.

ocean currents gulf stream nasa
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Earth's average surface temperature hasn't really budged since the start of the 21st century, but 70% of the planet is covered in water — and that's where 90% of heat trapped by global warming ends up.

In fact, warming of the oceans has caused them to thermally expand, creating a huge share of the sea level rise that scientists see today.

Sources: Scientific American/Climate Wire, Tech Insider

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MYTH: Tectonic plates move because volcanism pushes them apart.

tectonic plates noaa
NOAA

Older edges of a tectonic plate are cooler and denser, causing them to sink into the mantle where they're recycled. Where two plates are being yanked apart by this sinking, ocean ridges appear.

That's where the tectonic plate is being built — by hot, buoyant rock that convects upward and emerges from the stretched-out weak point. The resulting volcanism isn't what pulls two plates apart.

Source: USGS

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MYTH: The Sahara is the biggest desert on Earth.

Antarctica
A lone foraging emperor penguin "toboggans" on its belly across the frozen Ross Sea, with the live volcano Mount Erebus in the background
REUTERS/Deborah Zabarenko

Not all deserts are hot and full of sand. They need only be dry and inhospitable.

Antarctica fits the bill, since it receives only two inches of precipitation a year and has few land animals.

At 5.4 million square miles compared to the Sahara's 3.6 million square miles, the Bottom of the World is a vastly larger desert.

Sourcse: USGS (1, 2), NASA, Encyclopedia of Earth (1, 2)

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MYTH: Diamonds come from coal.

looking at a diamond
REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid

Most diamonds aren't formed from compressed coal.

Instead, they're carbon that is compressed and heated 90 miles below the surface of the Earth. Coal is found about 2 miles down.

Source: Geology.com

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MYTH: People in the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat.

flat earth water edge dragon middle ages shutterstock_286800752
Shutterstock

During the early Middle Ages, almost every scholar thought the Earth was round, not flat.

This myth picked up steam in the 1800s, right around the same time the idea of evolution was rising in prominence — and religious and scientific interests clashed.

Sources: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Patheos

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MYTH: Summer is warm because you are closer to the sun.

happy, sky, sunset
Flickr/Gilberto Filho

The northern hemisphere of the Earth is not closer to the sun when it is summer, nor is the southern hemisphere during its summer.

It is always warmer during the summer because Earth is tilted; during its year-long orbit, our home planet's tilt allows the sun's energy to hit us more directly.

Source: NASA

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MYTH: Lightning causes thunder.

Lightning
Getty Images/Ethan Miller

A scientific and philosophical nitpick here, but lightning is just a stream of electrons zapping from cloud to cloud or ground to cloud. This in turn heats air into a tube of plasma that's three times hotter than the surface of our sun.

That tube violently expands and contracts nearby air, creating an unmistakable crack and rumble — not the flow of electrons itself.

Source: Scientific American

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Myths_biology
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

Sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch are just the beginning.

Don't forget about balance, temperature, and time, as well as proprioception — the body awareness that helps us not walk into things all the time — and nociception, our sense of pain.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: Your blood turns blue when it's out of oxygen.

arm wrist hand veins
Colin Davis

Your blood is never blue: It turns dark red when it's not carrying oxygen.

Blood only looks blue because you are seeing it through several layers of tissue, which filters the color.

Source: UCSB ScienceLine

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MYTH: Every gene in your DNA codes for exactly one protein.

DNA Swab
Getty Images/William Thomas Cain

Sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch are just the beginning.

Don't forget about balance, temperature, and time, as well as proprioception — the body awareness that helps us not walk into things all the time — and nociception, our sense of pain.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: Humans have five senses.

flower smell
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch are just the beginning.

Don't forget about balance, temperature, and time, as well as proprioception — the body awareness that helps us not walk into things all the time — and nociception, our sense of pain.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: The hymen is a sheet of tissue that blocks a women's vagina.

Confused Puzzled Look
Flickr / CarbonNYC

Wrong.

Guys, the hymen is a thin membrane that only partially blocks the vaginal opening — if a woman is born with one at all.

Also, plenty of activities other than sex can stretch or damage the hymen, including exercise or inserting a tampon.

Sources: Columbia University, College Humor

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MYTH: Eating a lot of carrots gives you great night vision.

carrots flickr missmessie ccbysa2
MissMessie/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Hair and fingernails do not keep growing once someone dies.

Instead, the skin dries out and shrinks, giving the appearance of further growth.

Sources: Lecture Notes: Dermatology, Tech Insider

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MYTH: Blonde and red hair colors are going extinct.

redhead girls by flickr user e3000
flickr user: e3000

Blondes and redheads are not "going extinct."

Genes rarely die out, and recessive genes, like those that lead to red or blonde hair color, can be carried from generation to generation without creating the hair color. (As much as 40% of some populations, for example, carry a gene that leads to red hair color.)

When two people with the correct recessive genes have a baby, there's a good chance the kid will have red or blonde hair color — even if the parents don't have red or blonde hair themselves.

Sources: John McDonald/University of Delaware, BritainsDNA

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MYTH: Pregnancy gives you "baby brain" and makes you dumb.

pregnant
Flickr / Frank de Kleine

Hair and fingernails do not keep growing once someone dies.

Instead, the skin dries out and shrinks, giving the appearance of further growth.

Sources: Lecture Notes: Dermatology, Tech Insider

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MYTH: Hair and nails keep growing after death.

Pulling Hair by Alaina Abplanalp Photography
Alaina Abplanalp Photography

Hair and fingernails do not keep growing once someone dies.

Instead, the skin dries out and shrinks, giving the appearance of further growth.

Sources: Lecture Notes: Dermatology, Tech Insider

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MYTH: Humans can't grow new brain cells.

mri brain scan
Vimeo/JonO

It's a common old canard: Creative people are right-brained, while the logically-minded are left-brained. False.

It's true that different hemispheres of your brain are more engaged in certain tasks (the left side is dominant in language, for example), but studies have never found overall left- or right-brain dominance in individuals.

Sources: Business Insider, Psychology Today

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MYTH: Some people have photographic memories.

camera eye slalit
flicker user: slalit

Sperm whales have the largest brain of all animals — significantly larger than a human's — but they aren't the smartest creature on Earth.

Humans don't even have a particularly impressive brain-to-body-mass ratio.

The winner in that category among mammals is the humble tree shrew, though that's largely because its body is so tiny.

Sources: Business Insider, Scientific American, Washington University

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MYTH: People only use 10% of their brain.

brain
Getty Images/Matt Cardy

It's a common old canard: Creative people are right-brained, while the logically-minded are left-brained. False.

It's true that different hemispheres of your brain are more engaged in certain tasks (the left side is dominant in language, for example), but studies have never found overall left- or right-brain dominance in individuals.

Sources: Business Insider, Psychology Today

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MYTH: "Left-brained" people are creative. "Right-brained" people are analytical.

brain
Flickr / Shaheen Lakhan

Sperm whales have the largest brain of all animals — significantly larger than a human's — but they aren't the smartest creature on Earth.

Humans don't even have a particularly impressive brain-to-body-mass ratio.

The winner in that category among mammals is the humble tree shrew, though that's largely because its body is so tiny.

Sources: Business Insider, Scientific American, Washington University

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MYTH: The bigger your brain is, the smarter you are.

Sperm whale
AP

Sperm whales have the largest brain of all animals — significantly larger than a human's — but they aren't the smartest creature on Earth.

Humans don't even have a particularly impressive brain-to-body-mass ratio.

The winner in that category among mammals is the humble tree shrew, though that's largely because its body is so tiny.

Sources: Business Insider, Scientific American, Washington University

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MYTH: It takes 7 years for gum to digest if you swallow it.

sembrandogirasoles   bubblegum
flickr user: sembrandogirasoles

That doesn't mean drugs are good for your brain.

Many drugs (illicit and otherwise) can significantly alter your brain's structure and disrupt its function. But none will turn a healthy brain into a stack of Swiss cheese.

Sources: Business Insider, Scientific American

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MYTH: Your microwave can give you cancer and disrupt your pacemaker.

Microwave
Flickr

In 2009, scientists found that you actually have more like 86 billion brain cells.

It's tempting to round up, but this difference is significant when you consider the fact that 14 billion neurons might represent the entire brain of another creature.

Sources: Business Insider, The Journal of Comparative Neurology

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MYTH: Shaving makes your hair grow back thicker.

man shave straight razor
Shutterstock

The theory behind this seems to be that digesting food will draw blood to your stomach, meaning that less blood is available for your muscles, making them more likely to cramp.

But there's no evidence to support this claim.

In fact, many sources say there are no documented cases of anyone ever drowning because they've had a cramp related to swimming with a full stomach.

Cramps do happen frequently when swimming, but they aren't caused by what's in your stomach. If you do get one, the best policy is to float for a minute and let it pass.

Sources: Business Insider, Washington Post, TodayIFoundOut.com

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MYTH: Drugs make "holes" in your brain.

drugs heroin
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Vitamins sound like a great idea: One pill that can provide you everything you need to be healthy!

If only they worked.

Decades of research on vitamins hasn't found any justification for our multivitamin habit, and in some cases, vitamins have actually been associated with an increased risk of various cancers.

Sources: Business Insider, Scientific American

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MYTH: Humans have 100 billion brain cells.

neuron
A neuron, connected to many others.
Flickr/ZEISS Microscopy

The theory behind this seems to be that digesting food will draw blood to your stomach, meaning that less blood is available for your muscles, making them more likely to cramp.

But there's no evidence to support this claim.

In fact, many sources say there are no documented cases of anyone ever drowning because they've had a cramp related to swimming with a full stomach.

Cramps do happen frequently when swimming, but they aren't caused by what's in your stomach. If you do get one, the best policy is to float for a minute and let it pass.

Sources: Business Insider, Washington Post, TodayIFoundOut.com

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MYTH: You need to wait an hour after eating to swim or you can cramp and drown.

diving board swimming pool
REUTERS/Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud

The theory behind this seems to be that digesting food will draw blood to your stomach, meaning that less blood is available for your muscles, making them more likely to cramp.

But there's no evidence to support this claim.

In fact, many sources say there are no documented cases of anyone ever drowning because they've had a cramp related to swimming with a full stomach.

Cramps do happen frequently when swimming, but they aren't caused by what's in your stomach. If you do get one, the best policy is to float for a minute and let it pass.

Sources: Business Insider, Washington Post, TodayIFoundOut.com

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MYTH: Taking your vitamins will keep you healthy.

vitamins supplements
Flickr

Yogurt is often marketed as helping digestion and slimming our figure because of probiotics — the idea that "good bacteria" living in the yogurt will shack up in our guts.

Bacteria are well-connected to our metabolism and obesity rates, among other things, so the connection seems logical.

However, we don't yet understand how the millions of bacteria already in our bodies work together, let alone when yogurt is added into the mix.

This is not to say that yogurt is unhealthy, just that its benefits are oversold. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of yogurt is packed with sugar, which we do know contributes to obesity and other problems — so if you enjoy the dairy product, find some that isn't full of empty calories.

Sources: Business Insider, Tech Insider

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MYTH: Everyone should drink eight glasses of water a day.

glass of water
Flickr/Stockphotosforfree

Not really.

You lose body heat through anything that's uncovered, and your head is more likely to be exposed than other areas of your body.

"Most of the time when we're outside in the cold, we're clothed," Dr. Richard Ingebretsen told WebMD Magazine. "If you don't have a hat on, you lose heat through your head, just as you would lose heat through your legs if you were wearing shorts."

Sources: Business Insider,"Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health," WedMD Magazine

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MYTH: Carbonated water isn't as hydrating as flat water.

froth bubbles
Keith Williamson via Flickr

Just because water is fizzy and refreshing doesn't mean it's bad for you.

In one of many studies that bust this myth, researchers made men bike on several occasions until they sweated off 4% of their body weight — then immediately handed them a drink.

One time the cyclists got flat water, another time carbonated water, yet another sugar water, and during a final trial everyone drank carbonated sugar water.

The results? Carbonation did not make any difference when it came to rehydrating.

Source: International Journal of Sports Medicine

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MYTH: Yogurt will help put your digestive system back in order.

greek yogurt oikos
Flickr/Howard Walfish

Not really.

You lose body heat through anything that's uncovered, and your head is more likely to be exposed than other areas of your body.

"Most of the time when we're outside in the cold, we're clothed," Dr. Richard Ingebretsen told WebMD Magazine. "If you don't have a hat on, you lose heat through your head, just as you would lose heat through your legs if you were wearing shorts."

Sources: Business Insider,"Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health," WedMD Magazine

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MYTH: You lose 90% of your body heat through your head.

beanie
Flickr/hounombrellonelculo

Not really.

You lose body heat through anything that's uncovered, and your head is more likely to be exposed than other areas of your body.

"Most of the time when we're outside in the cold, we're clothed," Dr. Richard Ingebretsen told WebMD Magazine. "If you don't have a hat on, you lose heat through your head, just as you would lose heat through your legs if you were wearing shorts."

Sources: Business Insider,"Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health," WedMD Magazine

Myths_space
Skye Gould/Tech Insider
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MYTH: The sun is yellow.

Sun
NASA

The moon sometimes looks so close you could reach up and up and grab it.

In reality, the moon orbits at a distance of about 239,000 miles from Earth. If you could somehow hop in a Boeing 747 and cruise to the moon at full speed, the journey would take about 17 days.

The moon is far, far away.

Sources: Tech Insider, Boeing

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MYTH: Nothing can go faster than light.

nuclear reactor
Blue Cherenkov radiation in a nuclear reactor, where neutrons travel faster than light through the surrounding water.
Argonne National Laboratory

It's possible to stand an egg on its head on any day of the year — not just on the Spring Equinox.

The trick just requires a well-textured egg shell and a skilled hand.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: The Asteroid Belt is dangerous.

asteroid
NASA

The moon sometimes looks so close you could reach up and up and grab it.

In reality, the moon orbits at a distance of about 239,000 miles from Earth. If you could somehow hop in a Boeing 747 and cruise to the moon at full speed, the journey would take about 17 days.

The moon is far, far away.

Sources: Tech Insider, Boeing

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MYTH: Going past the edge of space makes you weightless.

spacewalk
NASA

It's possible to stand an egg on its head on any day of the year — not just on the Spring Equinox.

The trick just requires a well-textured egg shell and a skilled hand.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: The moon is very close to the Earth.

earth moon space jaxa hayabusa crop
A photo of Earth and the moon from space. That tiny speck at the bottom left is the moon.
JAXA

The moon sometimes looks so close you could reach up and up and grab it.

In reality, the moon orbits at a distance of about 239,000 miles from Earth. If you could somehow hop in a Boeing 747 and cruise to the moon at full speed, the journey would take about 17 days.

The moon is far, far away.

Sources: Tech Insider, Boeing

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MYTH: You can only balance an egg during the Spring Equinox.

Standing Egg Spring Equinox   Christopher Hsia
flickr user: Christopher Hsia

This is true of satellite phones, which the military uses every day, but your mobile phone works in a much different way.

Mobile phones broadcast a wireless radio signal and constantly look for, ping, and relay data to and from land-based cellular towers. When you make a call, the nearest tower connects you to another phone via a vast network of tower-to-tower connections and buried cables.

At best, a satellite might be involved in a call around the globe — but 99% of communications data travels through undersea cables.

Source: Global Data Systems, Tech Insider

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MYTH: A nuclear weapon could destroy an asteroid.

asteroid broken up
Reuters/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout

Physicist Enrico Fermi once famously asked "where is everybody?" after seeing a New Yorker cartoon featuring a flying saucer.

But Fermi was questioning the feasibility of travel between stars — not the actual existence of aliens.

The "Fermi" paradox, which explores the contradiction that intelligent aliens are inevitable but we haven't seen them, does question alien existence. And Fermi didn't do that work.

Astronomer Michael Hart and physicist Frank Tipler were the ones who actually fleshed out the idea in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The Fermi paradox might be more accurately called the 'Hart-Tipler argument against the existence of technological extraterrestrials,' which does not sound quite as authoritative as the old name, but seems fairer to everybody," astronomer Robert H. Gray wrote for Scientific American.

Sources: Tech Insider, Scientific American

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MYTH: When you call someone, the signal goes through a satellite.

Woman on cell phone
iStock

This is true of satellite phones, which the military uses every day, but your mobile phone works in a much different way.

Mobile phones broadcast a wireless radio signal and constantly look for, ping, and relay data to and from land-based cellular towers. When you make a call, the nearest tower connects you to another phone via a vast network of tower-to-tower connections and buried cables.

At best, a satellite might be involved in a call around the globe — but 99% of communications data travels through undersea cables.

Source: Global Data Systems, Tech Insider

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MYTH: There's a dark side of the moon.

dark side of moon
The far side of the moon.
WOtP on Wikipedia

Alcohol is a diuretic, so it's already going to make you pee a lot.

"Breaking the seal" the first time will not increase the amount of times you have to go to the bathroom — but drinking lots of alcohol will.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: The vacuum of space is cold.

astronaut
Getty

The "hair of the dog" is a myth — a mimosa or Bloody Mary in the morning won't make you feel better. At best, you're just prolonging the hangover.

Same goes for coffee after a night of drinking. Like alcohol, coffee is a diuretic, so it will dehydrate your body even more and likely prolong the hangover.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: Enrico Fermi developed the "Fermi paradox" about aliens.

et the extraterrestrial movie universal pictures
Universal Pictures

Excessive drinking can damage the connections between brain cells, but won't actually zap any of your neurons.

That said, children with fetal alcohol syndrome often have fewer brain cells, and excessive drinking over long periods of time can indeed damage the brain — just not in the way you may think.

Sources: Business Insider, NIH, New York Times

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MYTH: There are only 3 phases of matter: Solid, liquid, and gas.

plasma
Jared Tarbell on Flickr

Experts say this is bunk. "Alcohol is alcohol whichever way you slice it," pharmacologist Paul Clayton told The Guardian.

So why do people insist that tequila makes them crazy? Scientific research going back to the 1960s shows that we "learn" how to behave while drunk, and that our actual drunken behavior is a direct reflection of our expectations.

Many people may become violent while intoxicated, but people who have never associated drunkenness with conflict don't show the same behavior.

By that same token, if we expect that vodka will make us want to sing karaoke, we can perhaps turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sources: Business Insider, The Atlantic, The Guardian, "Drunken Comportment," Alcoholism Clinical & Experimental Research

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Myths_alcohol
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

Eating before drinking does help your body absorb alcohol, but it only delays the alcohol entering your bloodstream, it doesn't restrict it.

Your body absorbs the alcohol more slowly after a big meal, so eating before drinking can help limit the severity of your hangover. Eating a lot after drinking, however, won't do much to help your hangover.

Source: Business Insider

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MYTH: Breaking the seal means you'll have to pee more all night.

urinals, men's bathroom
Flickr/ Sean

Turns out it just energizes you.

The problem is the extra shot of energy can make you feel less intoxicated than you actually are, which might lead you to drink more alcohol than normal.

Sources: Business Insider, California State University

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MYTH: You can cure a hangover by drinking more.

bloody mary
Flickr/Viewminder

Alcohol is alcohol, and too much of it will make anyone feel sick.

"There is no evidence that drinking in a particular order alters how sick you get," Julia Chester, a behavioral neuroscientist at Purdue, told NBC.

However, people who switch from beer to mixed drinks (with senses and judgment already dulled) may be less likely likely to monitor their alcohol consumption and thus drink more.

This may be because your body metabolizes beer and mixed drinks faster than higher-concentration alcohol (like a shot of whiskey). Adding liquor to a stomach-full of beer could, in theory, create a sort of mixed drink that would metabolize faster than one or the other on its own.

But while "liquor before beer" seems partly true, we'll mostly chalk up "never sicker" to bad decision-making.

Sources: Business Insider, NBC News, Gizmodo

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MYTH: Drinking alcohol kills your brain cells.

yik yak college marketing tour students mascot fraternity alcohol booze party
Yik Yak YouTube

Sugar that's the color of dirt doesn't make it more "natural" or healthier than its white counterpart. The color comes from a common residual sticky syrup, called molasses.

Brown sugar retains some of that molasses. In fact, brown sugar is mostly white sugar with some molasses — so refining it further would give you white table sugar.

While molasses contains some vitamins and minerals like potassium and magnesium, there is not enough in your standard brown sugar packet that should make you reach for it if you're trying to eat healthier.

As far as your body is concerned, white and brown sugar are one-in-the-same.

Sources: Business Insider,"The dispensatory of the United States of America," Self Nutrition Data

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MYTH: Tequila makes our clothes come off and wine makes us sleepy.

tequila
Spring breakers drink tequila on a beach in Cancun in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo March 26, 2010.
Reuters

Turns out it just energizes you.

The problem is the extra shot of energy can make you feel less intoxicated than you actually are, which might lead you to drink more alcohol than normal.

Sources: Business Insider, California State University

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MYTH: Eating before drinking keeps you sober.

pizza slices
Business Insider

Sugar that's the color of dirt doesn't make it more "natural" or healthier than its white counterpart. The color comes from a common residual sticky syrup, called molasses.

Brown sugar retains some of that molasses. In fact, brown sugar is mostly white sugar with some molasses — so refining it further would give you white table sugar.

While molasses contains some vitamins and minerals like potassium and magnesium, there is not enough in your standard brown sugar packet that should make you reach for it if you're trying to eat healthier.

As far as your body is concerned, white and brown sugar are one-in-the-same.

Sources: Business Insider,"The dispensatory of the United States of America," Self Nutrition Data

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MYTH: Mixing energy drinks with alcohol makes you drunker.

Red Bull cans
Reuters

Eating sugar in moderation won't give you diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association, while it recommends that people avoid soda and sports drinks, is quick to point out that diabetes is a complex disease, and there's not enough evidence to say that eating sugar is the direct cause.

However, both weight gain and consuming sugary drinks are associated with a heightened risk, and (large) portion size seems to be most crucial when it comes to sugar and diabetes.

Sources: Business Insider, Tech Insider, American Diabetes Association, PLoS ONE

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MYTH: Beer before liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear.

liquor shots binge drinking drunk
Getty Images

If you decide to wade into this one at the dinner table, we'd recommend calmly explaining that this idea started with a now thoroughly-debunked — and retracted — study of only 12 children that appeared in 1998 in The Lancet, which claimed there was a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

That study was not only flawed, but it also sneaked in false information to try and make its point.

Since then, numerous studies that have analyzed data from more than a million children have shown that there's no connection between vaccines and autism.

Fears about that connection persist because of public figures making (unknowingly or otherwise) false claims about vaccines. This has led to scary diseases like measles coming back and to vaccination rates in some wealthy Los Angeles neighborhoods that are similar to those in Chad or the South Sudan.

Sources: Business Insider (1, 2, 3), PBS, The Lancet

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MYTH: Memories lost during alcohol-induced blackouts can be remembered.

Hangover
BI

In "Fed Up," a documentary film that probes the supposed causes of America's obesity epidemic, you hear the alarming statistic that "One soda a day increases a child's chance of obesity by 60%."

Authors of the study this statistic comes from note their findings "cannot prove causality" — but that's not what sugar-shaming movie producers would have you think.

Drinking too much calorie-loaded soda is likely unhealthy, but it's not the sole factor driving a rise in childhood obesity.

The CDC advises parents to do what they can to protect against obesity by encouraging healthy lifestyle habits that include healthy eating and exercise, both of which will likely do more for a child's waistline than trying to completely cut sugar.

Sources: Business Insider. "Fed Up," The Lancet, CDC

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MYTH: The lines on a solo cup are for measuring alcohol.

solo cup
Flickr/Laura Bittner

The myth that MSG (monosodium glutamate) is bad for you comes from a letter a doctor wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968, where he coined the phrase "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and blamed a variety of symptoms including numbness and general weakness on MSG.

Further research has not backed him up.

The scientific consensus according the American Chemical Society is that "MSG can temporarily affect a select few when consumed in huge quantities on an empty stomach, but it's perfectly safe for the vast majority of people."

MSG is nothing more than a common amino acid with a sodium atom added. Eating a ton of food or tablespoons full of the salt could cause the general malaise attributed to the flavor enhancer, and the placebo effect is more than strong enough to account for the negative effects sometimes associated with MSG.

Sources: Business Insider (1, 2), Tech Insider

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Myths_health
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

In "Fed Up," a documentary film that probes the supposed causes of America's obesity epidemic, you hear the alarming statistic that "One soda a day increases a child's chance of obesity by 60%."

Authors of the study this statistic comes from note their findings "cannot prove causality" — but that's not what sugar-shaming movie producers would have you think.

Drinking too much calorie-loaded soda is likely unhealthy, but it's not the sole factor driving a rise in childhood obesity.

The CDC advises parents to do what they can to protect against obesity by encouraging healthy lifestyle habits that include healthy eating and exercise, both of which will likely do more for a child's waistline than trying to completely cut sugar.

Sources: Business Insider. "Fed Up," The Lancet, CDC

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MYTH: Brown sugar is healthier than white sugar.

Sugar Cubes
Flickr/Howzey

Fortunately, this isn't true either.

Cracking your knuckles may annoy the people around you, but even people who have done it frequently for many years are not more likely to develop arthritis than those who don't.

Sources: Business Insider, Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

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MYTH: Sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyes.

poltergeist tv girl
"Poltergeist"/MGM

A tiny and largely misinterpreted study in 2002 recently fanned the flames of this myth, but limiting your caloric consumption may actually hurt your immune system more than helping it — it would certainly be a bad idea to not eat during the six- to eight-day duration of a cold.

Instead, doctors say to go ahead and eat if you can. The more accurate expression would be "feed a cold, feed a fever." And make sure to drink plenty of fluids.

Sources: Business Insider, BBC, Scientific American

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MYTH: Vaccines cause autism.

A measles vaccine is seen at Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, California February 5, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Measles vaccine is seen at Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles
Thomson Reuters

The myth that MSG (monosodium glutamate) is bad for you comes from a letter a doctor wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968, where he coined the phrase "Chinese restaurant syndrome" and blamed a variety of symptoms including numbness and general weakness on MSG.

Further research has not backed him up.

The scientific consensus according the American Chemical Society is that "MSG can temporarily affect a select few when consumed in huge quantities on an empty stomach, but it's perfectly safe for the vast majority of people."

MSG is nothing more than a common amino acid with a sodium atom added. Eating a ton of food or tablespoons full of the salt could cause the general malaise attributed to the flavor enhancer, and the placebo effect is more than strong enough to account for the negative effects sometimes associated with MSG.

Sources: Business Insider (1, 2), Tech Insider

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MYTH: Sugar causes diabetes.

Client Viola Sanon has her  finger pricked for a blood sugar test in the Family Van in Boston, Massachusetts, August 9, 2010. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Client Sanon has her finger pricked for a blood sugar test in the Family Van in Boston
Thomson Reuters

Your body naturally removes harmful chemicals through the liver, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract — there's nothing about juice that will hurry that process along.

Juicing mainly just removes digestion-aiding fiber from fruits and vegetables. Also consider that many sugary fruit juices are as bad for you as sodas.

And while some juices are just fine, they don't provide anything that you wouldn't get by eating the whole components instead.

Sources: Business Insider (1, 2, 3)

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MYTH: Chinese food with MSG will make you sick.

Mission Chinese Food, chinese restaurant
Flickr/acedout

Fortunately, this isn't true either.

Cracking your knuckles may annoy the people around you, but even people who have done it frequently for many years are not more likely to develop arthritis than those who don't.

Sources: Business Insider, Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

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MYTH: Children who drink soda are at a greater risk of becoming obese.

diet coke soda pouring out frankieleon flickr ccby2
frankieleon/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

A tiny and largely misinterpreted study in 2002 recently fanned the flames of this myth, but limiting your caloric consumption may actually hurt your immune system more than helping it — it would certainly be a bad idea to not eat during the six- to eight-day duration of a cold.

Instead, doctors say to go ahead and eat if you can. The more accurate expression would be "feed a cold, feed a fever." And make sure to drink plenty of fluids.

Sources: Business Insider, BBC, Scientific American

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MYTH: Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis.

cracking knuckles   flickr user orijinal
flickr user: orijinal

The color of your snot can't indicate a bacterial versus a viral infection. It varies from clear to yellow to green with a variety of illnesses and lengths of infection.

Whatever your snot's color might be, if you're not feeling well and haven't been for days, it's time to see a doctor.

Sources: Tech Insider, Medline Plus, Cleveland Clinic, Medline Plus

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MYTH: Starve a fever, feed a cold.

allergies sick tissues cold
Flickr/Laura Taylor

Your body naturally removes harmful chemicals through the liver, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract — there's nothing about juice that will hurry that process along.

Juicing mainly just removes digestion-aiding fiber from fruits and vegetables. Also consider that many sugary fruit juices are as bad for you as sodas.

And while some juices are just fine, they don't provide anything that you wouldn't get by eating the whole components instead.

Sources: Business Insider (1, 2, 3)

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MYTH: Green snot means a bacterial infection and yellow snot a viral one.

blowing nose sneezing snot
Skye Gould/Tech Insider

The color of your snot can't indicate a bacterial versus a viral infection. It varies from clear to yellow to green with a variety of illnesses and lengths of infection.

Whatever your snot's color might be, if you're not feeling well and haven't been for days, it's time to see a doctor.

Sources: Tech Insider, Medline Plus, Cleveland Clinic, Medline Plus

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MYTH: A juice cleanse will detoxify you after an eating binge.

Juicing
Vitamix

There's no evidence that going outside with wet hair when it's freezing will make you sick — provided you avoid hypothermia.

But there is a scientifically sound explanation for why people catch more colds in winter: We spend more time in close quarters indoors, it is more likely that we'll cross paths with a cold-causing virus spread from another person during the winter.

Sources: Business Insider, LiveScience, CNN

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MYTH: All people with Tourette's syndrome yell swear words.

Crazy Person Insane
Flickr/suuswansink

Only a small percentage of people with Tourette syndrome randomly yell out swear words.

It actually encompasses a lot more than that, including involuntary movements and different sound tics.

The swearing tic is called coprolalia.

Source: Child Mind Institute

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MYTH: Being cold can give you a cold.

women coffee cold new york city
People wait to cross 5th Avenue at Central Park as it snows in the Manhattan borough of New York January 26, 2015. Winter Storm Juno has brought blizzard warning for New York and much of the North East United States.
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

There's no evidence that going outside with wet hair when it's freezing will make you sick — provided you avoid hypothermia.

But there is a scientifically sound explanation for why people catch more colds in winter: We spend more time in close quarters indoors, it is more likely that we'll cross paths with a cold-causing virus spread from another person during the winter.

Sources: Business Insider, LiveScience, CNN

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MYTH: Being stressed will give you high blood pressure.

stress
Sarah G.

Stress doesn't play a large role in chronic high blood pressure.

Acute stress can temporarily increase blood pressure, but overall it's not a main cause of hypertension. Things like genetics, smoking, and a bad diet are much bigger factors.

Source: British Medical Journal

Science Animals Psychology
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