[s]Goal: 100,000 New Goal: 200,000[/s] New Goal: 250.000

[Smiley73]

The phrase "sleep tight" did not originally refer to a supposed Medieval or early modern practice of tightening feather mattresses with ropes.^[106] The word "tight" here simply means "soundly".

[Smiley73]

Swallowed chewing gum does not take seven years to digest. In fact, chewing gum is mostly indigestible, but passes through the digestive system at the same rate as other matter.

 

I was paranoid for aaages after I did that...

 

eating diet coke and mentos at the same time is also safe

[Crimson_Ayla]

*looks for Higgs bosons*

[Crimson_Ayla]

Swallowed chewing gum does not take seven years to digest. In fact, chewing gum is mostly indigestible, but passes through the digestive system at the same rate as other matter.

 

I was paranoid for aaages after I did that...

 

eating diet coke and mentos at the same time is also safe

 

I'm also very glad of that :)

[Smiley73]

It is commonly claimed that the Great Wall of China is the only human-made object visible from the Moon. This is false. None of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing any specific human-made object from the Moon, and even Earth-orbiting astronauts can barely see it. City lights, however, are easily visible on the night side of Earth from orbit.^[122] The misconception is believed to have been popularized by Richard Halliburton decades before the first moon landing. Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt has been quoted as saying that "the Great Wall is almost invisible from only 180 miles up."

[Smiley73]

*looks for Higgs bosons*

 

what are those again?

[Smiley73]

The notion that goldfish have a memory span of just a few seconds is false.

[Crimson_Ayla]

The particles that give things mass. If they ever find it :)

[Smiley73]

• Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, occasionally unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment. This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.^[135] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late nineteenth century.^[136]

[Crimson_Ayla]

• Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, occasionally unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment. This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.^[135] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late nineteenth century.^[136]

 

Nasty photographers.

 

*balefirey*

[Smiley73]

Houseflies do not have an average lifespan of 24 hours. The average lifespan of a housefly is 20 to 30 days.^[143] However, a housefly maggot will hatch within 24 hours of being laid

[Smiley73]

According to urban myth, the daddy longlegs spider (Pholcus phalangioides) is the most venomous spider in the world, but the shape of their mandibles leaves them unable to bite humans, rendering them harmless to our species. In reality, they can indeed pierce human skin, though the tiny amount of venom they carry causes only a mild burning sensation for a few seconds.^[145] In addition, there is also confusion regarding the use of the name daddy longlegs, because harvestmen (order Opiliones, which are not spiders) and crane flies (which are insects) are also known as daddy longlegs, and share (also incorrectly) the myth of being venomous

[Smiley73]

• Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, occasionally unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment. This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.^[135] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late nineteenth century.^[136]

 

Nasty photographers.

 

*balefirey*

 

yeah not nice, I'm pretty sure that that can't be done these days though

[Smiley73]

The flight mechanism and aerodynamics of the bumblebee (as well as other insects) are actually quite well understood, in spite of the urban legend that calculations show that they should not be able to fly. In the 1930s the French entomologist Antoine Magnan, using flawed techniques, indeed postulated that bumblebees theoretically should not be able to fly in his book Le Vol des Insectes.^[152][153] Magnan later realized his error and retracted the suggestion. However, the hypothesis became generalized to the false notion that "scientists think that bumblebees should not be able to fly."

[Smiley73]

• Sharks can actually suffer from cancer. The myth that sharks do not get cancer was spread by the 1992 book Sharks Don't Get Cancer by I. William Lane and used to sell extracts of shark cartilage as cancer prevention treatments. Reports of carcinomas in sharks exist, and current data do not allow any speculation about the incidence of tumors in sharks.^[154]

this is mean as well

 

 

 

[Smiley73]

It is not harmful to baby birds to pick them up and return them to their nests, despite the common belief that doing so will cause the mother to reject them

[Smiley73]

Bulls are not enraged by the color red, used in capes by professional matadors. Cattle are dichromats, so red does not stand out as a bright color. It is not the color of the cape but its movement that irritates the bull and incites it to charge.^{[157][158][159]}

[Crimson_Ayla]

I should hope not. Its disgusting.

 

The lemming thing.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Crimson_Ayla

[Smiley73]

• Ostriches do not hide their heads in the sand to hide from enemies.^[160] This myth was probably promulgated by Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), who wrote that Ostriches "imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed."^[161]

[Smiley73]

A common misconception about chameleons and anoles is that they change color primarily for camouflage. In reality, they usually change color to regulate temperature or as a form of communication.^[164] Some species, such as the Smith's Dwarf Chameleon, do use color change as an effective form of camouflage.^[165]

[Smiley73]

It is a myth that older elephants, sensing when they are near death, leave their herd and instinctively direct themselves towards a specific location known as an elephants' graveyard to die

 

it os a nice myth anyway, it was part of one of the Sinbad stories

[Smiley73]

Humans did not evolve from chimpanzees. The two modern chimpanzee species are, however, our closest living relatives. The most recent common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived between 5 and 8 million years ago.^[174] Finds of the 4,4 million year old Ardipithecus indicate the ancestor would have looked like small, long limbed chimpanzees with rather short snouts and were moderately competent bipedal walkers. Contrary to the idea of chimpanzees as being merely "primitive", they too have evolved since the split, becoming larger, more aggressive and more capable climbers.^[175] Together with the other apes, humans and chimpanzees constitute the family Hominidae. This group evolved from a common ancestor with the Old World monkeys some 40 million years ago.^[176][177]

[Crimson_Ayla]

It is a myth that older elephants, sensing when they are near death, leave their herd and instinctively direct themselves towards a specific location known as an elephants' graveyard to die

 

it os a nice myth anyway, it was part of one of the Sinbad stories

 

I like those stories

[Smiley73]

Evolution is not a progression from inferior to superior organisms, and it also does not necessarily result in an increase in complexity. A population can evolve to become simpler, having a smaller genome, but biological devolution is a misnomer.^[178][179]

[Smiley73]

According to the California Academy of Sciences, only 59% of U.S. adults know humans and dinosaurs did not coexist.^[180] However, the last of the non-avian dinosaurs died 65.5 million years ago, after the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, whereas the earliest Homo genus (humans) evolved between 2.3 and 2.4 million years ago. This places a 63 million year expanse of time between the last dinosaurs and the earliest humans.