#20. Your Hair Grows Thicker If You Cut Or Shave It
When you shave, your hair might appear to grow more abundantly, but it doesn’t. It just gives that impression because a strand of hair has a blunter edge after it is shaved, si it appears thicker. But it doesn’t grow thicker, it is just different.
#19. An Undercover Police Officer Is Obligated To Tell You They’re A Cop If You Ask
Clearly, an undercover cop is not required to tell you they are if you ask them. They wouldn’t exist if they had to tell you they are undercover, it would be pointless, right? Also, an undercover police officer is able to partake in committing crimes to not be suspicious.
#18. Sugar Causes Hyperactivity In Children
Sugar does contain a lot of glucose, but giving sugar to little kids will not give a sugar high, in fact, sugar doesn’t make them hyperactive. Actually, consuming lots of sugar can lead to hypoglycemia, which will leave you feeling sad and tired.
#17. Chewing Gum Will Stay In Your Stomach For Seven Years
This one probably originated because adults didn’t want children to eat too much gum since it could possibly lead to some medical issues if they ate too much. But actually, if you happen to swallow some gum, it’s not going to stay in your body for seven years, but more like seven days, just like everything else you ingest.
#16. Your Hair Will Grey Sooner If You Dye It
Like the previous one, this one probably originated from parents not wanting their children to do weird things to their hair. The hair actually begins turning grey when the melanin pigment from which the hair gets its color starts to deteriorate due to old age or stress. But dying does not affect said pigment.
#15. You’ll Get Warts If You Touch A Frog Or Toad
Frogs and toads don’t have warts on their bodies. Those things that look like warts are actually parotid glands, they release a chemical that irritates the mouths of predators, it is a defense system. So no, touching one of these animals will not give you warts.
#14. There Are Left-Brained And Right-Brained People
Maybe you heard someone claim that they are left-brained or right-brained so that they either rely on logic(left) or in creativity (right). Following this idea, someone who is good at math would be left-brained and say, a painter, would be right-brained. But this is actually false, the brain’s hemispheres actually work together.
#13. Mother Birds Will Disown Their Young If Touched By Humans
If you ever happened to find a bird that fell out of its nest, some probably told you you shouldn’t touch it because it would be disowned by its mother. The truth is, the mother bird would never know if a human had touched one of her babies since they have poor smelling abilities.
#12. You’ll Catch A Cold If You Go To Bed With Wet Hair
You shouldn’t go to bed while your hair is wet because it can cause mold in your pillow, but it will not lead you to catch a cold, neither will being out in the cold without a jacket. What can cause you to get a colt, is a cold virus. The rhinovirus is the most common cold virus.
#11. Defibrillators Can Start A Stopped Heart
We have seen countless times how in films or television shows, a defibrillator is used when someone’s heart has stopped completely to shock it into pumping again. And while defibrillators are used to help hearts beat, they wouldn’t start up a stopped heart, they are just used to fix irregular heartbeats.
#10. The Great Wall Of China Is Visible From Space
While the Great Wall of China is amazingly large, it is not possible to view it from space. It is not visible even from the lowest orbit possible. This is because of its color and its shape. So if you see any pictures where the Great Wall of China is barely seen from space, you got to know that they were taken using a zoom lens.
#9. Red And Blonde Hair Is Going Extinct
It is impossible for genes to go suddenly extinct, and people with the genes that produce these hair colors are not a different species. These hair colors exist because of recessive genes that are carried across generations. And even if your don’t have blonde or red hair, you can carry this recessive gene and pass it down to other generations.
#8. Your Hair And Nails Continue To Grow When You Die
It’s not at all true that your hair and nails continue to grow after you die, it is just a rumor. The truth is, your cells no longer function when you die. So your hair and nails cells are not going to keep growing. What actually happens, is that the skin shrinks after you’ve been dead for some time, so it appears that nails and hair are longer.
#7. CPR Can Restart A Heart That Has Stopped Beating
Like with defibrillators, people think CPR can help to restart a non-beating heart. But also like defibrillators, it isn’t supposed to be used to do that. It is mostly used to ensure that a person’s lungs are getting enough oxygen by pumping into them, and in doing so, brain damage can be prevented.
#6. Standing By A Microwave Can Give You Cancer
While microwaves rely on radiation to heat up your food and radiation is very bad for you, using a microwave is a lot safer than a nuclear bomb. Turns out, microwaves use non-ionizing radiation, which can’t affect the cells in our bodies since it doesn’t have the power.
#5. You Can’t Adopt A Child If You’re Not Rich
To realize that plenty of families who have adopted children are not classified as “upper class” all you have to do is look around. Even though the adoption process is known to be a long one, that doesn’t mean that you need to be rich to do it. You just have to prove that you are financially stable enough to care for the child.
#4. Daddy Longlegs Are Extremely Venomous
It is widely believed that daddy longlegs are extremely venomous. But the reason we shouldn’t fear them is that their pincers are too small, short, and sharp to be able to pierce human flesh. So these spiders are harmless.
#3. There Is A Dark Side Of The Moon
Apparently, a lot of people believed Pink Floyd when they claimed that there is a dark side of the moon. But there is actually not a dark side of the moon. Something that does exist though, is what is known as the far side of the moon, which waxes and wanes light just like the other side.
#2. Adding Salt Makes Water Boil Faster
You might have noticed that pasta water seems to boil faster after you add a little bit of salt. But in reality, all the salt does is make the water salty. In reality, adding salt to the water could make the water take longer to boil, so you better keep this in mind next time you make some pasta!
#1. SOS Means Save Our Ship
Morse code is a character “language” that involves decoding dots and dashes. There are 26 English letters, some non-English letters, Arabic numerals, and some punctuation and prosings characters encoded in the International Morse Code. During war times, these messages were important, the code for SOS especially. Even though many believe that SOS stands for “save our ship”, the reason why it was used to ask for help, was because it was easy to transmit: three dots, three dashes, and three dots.
