Growing up, we learnt a lot of things, from our parents, our neighbours, friends and even teachers. Unfortunately for us, we need to unlearn a lot of it because all the above-mentioned people were just as ignorant as the rest of us, even the teachers at school.
1. Hindi is our national language.
It’s not. We have 22 official languages. Hindi is one of them. We don’t have a national language.
2. Chameleons always blend in with their backgrounds
Not always. They have the ability to change colours to hide from predators, or to cope with the temperature or the stress they are experiencing. But they don’t do it every second of their lives.
3. Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492.
You can’t discover a place if people already live there. Also, people from other parts of the world had already been there. It’s just that they didn’t have the dim idea of colonising the place.
4. We only use 10% of our brains.
While movies and vague Instagram pages continue to propagate this nonsense, it’s just not true. We use every part of our brain.
5. Swallowed chewing gums don’t get digested for years.
No, it’s mostly just sugar. You’ll digest it or poop it out the next day.
6. Camels use their humps to store water.
That’s just biologically impossible. Their mounds, however, are filled with fat so that they can travel days through the desert without food.
7. Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity when he was struck by lightning.
No. That would kill a person and thus, is a terrible way to discovering anything. Also, he wasn’t the first person to discover it. He was just one of the first people to study it.
8. The apple fell on Newton’s head making him discover gravity.
That has never been proven. Although, the falling of fruits from trees made him question the phenomenon, which led to him studying it further.
9. Thomas Alva Edison invented the light bulb.
No. And he didn’t perfect it either. He’s just the most famous guy who invented a version of the lightbulb.
10. There is no gravity in space.
That’s just not true. Without gravity, Earth won’t be revolving around the sun and the moon won’t be revolving around the Earth.
11. The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space.
It’s really not. You can’t see it from space. It’s minuscule compared to some of our planet’s natural wonders.
12. Our tongue is divided into taste zones.
It’s really not. Taste buds are randomly distributed throughout the tongue.
13. Napoleon was short AF.
He was 5 ft 7 inches. And that was a reasonable height, at least for that time.
14. Alcohol kills brain cells.
The amount of alcohol it would take to kill brain cells would just kill the person first. 151
15. Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis when you get old.
The ‘cracking’ is actually bubbles bursting in the synovial fluid that surrounds the knuckles. So, no arthritis!
16. All dinosaurs went extinct.
No. Quite a few of them lived and evolved. For instance, birds!
17. Neil Armstrong said, “One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind.”
While it’s not entirely wrong, the astronaut always insisted on using the actual quote.
One Small Step for a Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind.
Now, that makes more sense and provides better context, doesn’t it?
18. Elephants have graveyards.
Elephants have shown empathy and they mourn their dead but they are lighting funeral pyres until they grow opposable thumbs.
19. You can compress coal to make diamonds.
While there is a lot of technicalities involved but the sheer amount of pressure and temperature required to make that happen would be geologically impossible.
20. Milk (Diary) makes your bones stronger.
That is actually just a myth pushed by the industry to sell you milk. They do nothing for your bones.
21. Abraham Lincoln was a anti-slavery hero who abolished the practice.
He came to the anti-slavery party way, way too late. He had publicly and repeatedly said that he would tolerate slavery to preserve the Union.
22. Weed is a gateway drug.
This whole claim is rooted in racism and America’s war on drugs. It’s just not real.
23. Albert Einstein failed maths in school.
No, he wasn’t all that you were led to believe in all those inspirational posters. The genius that he was, he had learnt differential and integral calculus by the age of 15!
We all learnt something today. But then, you are gonna log out and watch the news on TV, aren’t you?
