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10 Facts That You Thought To Be True

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… but really aren’t. And that’s perfectly fine. Over the course of time, humanity has been constantly evolving, and that refers to the knowledge we possess. Back in the B.C. times, people thought that rain was a sign that the sky was going to collapse on them. That obviously isn’t true, and funnily enough, neither are the things that are on this list. But given the constant change in our perception, maybe ten years from now someone will be writing an article proving that, in fact, they are true. But let’s not get into that. For now, here are 10 Facts That You Thought To Be True (but unfortunately aren’t).

1. Lightning Doesn’t Strike The Same Place Twice

Lightning Storm Unleashed

We’ve all heard this expression before, though I can bet that it had a much more metaphorical sense to it. Scientifically, however, there is absolutely no foundation that would prove the statement to be true. Nature doesn’t abide by any rules, especially a powerful force like the lightning. If it wants to strike the same place twice, it will do it and it’s done it before. Lightning hooks to the nearest electricity conductor, making tall buildings and constructions like the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower sure targets. And there are people out there who can vouch that they have definitely been struck more than once.

2. Bats Are Blind

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Bats Are Blind

This common misconception has spawned one of the most used retaliations: have you ever heard of the expression “blind as a bat?” Couldn’t be falser. Unless you’re insinuating that the certain someone the expression is aimed for needs some eyesight improvement, in which case you’ve hit the nail. Out of over 1200 total bat species, none of them are sightless. Truth be told, there are some that that don’t really see particularly well, but they have their infamous “echolocation” systems to guide them around through the power of high frequency sounds.

3. Red Is a Bull’s Greatest Enemy

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Red Enrages Bulls

Except, it’s not the color, it’s the flag. Like most other animals, bulls are what we call “color blind.” The crew of Myth Busters made it their quest to disprove this particularly intriguing myth, and they were successful in their attempts. It turns out that the bull helping with the experiment charged towards the waved flags, regardless of their colors. It’s safe to assume that the red flag is more of a symbol in bull fighting rather than a scientific means to an end.

4. America Was Discovered By Christopher Columbus

Facts That You Thought To Be True: America Is Columbus'

Then why is it named America? Because it’s named after another one of history’s greatest explorers: Amerigo Vespucci. And because Christopher Columbus never actually set foot on North American land. Most of his voyages circled around Caribbean islands and he definitely made plenty of important discoveries. However, America wasn’t just a deserted land prior to his so called discovery. The continent was inhabited by indigenous folk, and long before Columbus was even born, the first people to set foot on American land were the Vikings of the 11th century. Who’s pro changing America’s name to Vikingia? 

5. Sushi Is Raw Fish

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Sushi Is Raw Fish

For many people, sushi is a delicate type of dish. After all, how many people are readily willing to experience the taste of raw fish? If this is your case, then you don’t have to worry about sushi. That’s because what sushi really refers to is a type of dish served with vinegar rice. The Japanese meal that consists of raw fish is sashimi, something entirely different from sushi. Moreover, so many people still believe this to be true and, in turn, avoid consuming sushi, that new types have been intended, marketed solely for westerners so they won’t have to worry about eating raw fish again.

6. Coffee Is Made From Beans

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Coffee Is Made From Beans

This one is a definite shocker. But don’t worry, it’s not too far away from truth either. Coffee is actually made from the seeds of a type of fruit called “coffee cherries.” They’re red, strongly resembling grapes, and underneath a layer of bitter skin lays delicious, sweet flesh. As for the “beans” we’re all so fond of, in their natural form they’re a blue-green hue, gaining the well known brown shade after being roasted.

7. China’s Wall Is Visible From Space

The China Wall Is Visible From Space

The Great Wall of China is seemed as one of the greatest man made constructions in history, and this statement has been backed up by the claim that it can be allegedly sighted from outer space. Well, surprise, it’s not. It’d be a wonder if it were barely visible. In fact, astronauts would need vision 17,000 times better than your average human’s to be able to see it. That doesn’t mean that nothing else is visible from space. Several astronauts claimed that, upon looking at the shadowed side of Earth, they were able to clearly see city lights and distinguish cities from the outer, less populated areas. Some say that, with the aid of binoculars, they were able to see large buildings, roads, airports, dams and even large sea and air vehicles.

8. Mount Everest Is The World’s Tallest Mountain

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Everest Is World's Tallest

The delicate bit about this statement is the wording. While at 8,850 meters, Mount Everest definitely possesses the highest altitude on Earth, it’s not the tallest. When we talk about how tall a mountain is, we need to refer to the meters both below and under the sea level. On the other hand, altitude only refers to the distance above the sea level and the mountain’s summit. Going by this criteria, the tallest mountain in the world is actually in Hawaii, and it’s called Mauna Kea. While its altitude is half Mount Everest’s, given how 60% of the mountain is below sea level, it sums up a total of 10,100 meters from base to summit, making it the true tallest mountain in the world.

9. Fortune Cookies Are Chinese

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Fortune Cookies Are Chinese

Odd, isn’t it? Apparently, they’re an American invention, although how they came to be created is up to debate. Some say it was a Cantonese immigrant from 1918 who took pity on the poor and started spreading around cookies with inspirational, Biblical based messages in them. Others say that it was a Japanese man who wanted to thank his new employer at San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden for taking care of him, by slipping a small note of gratitude in his cookie. Whichever will prove to be the real story, we can be sure of one thing: fortune cookies were never a Chinese thing.

10. People Thought The Earth Was Flat

Facts That You Thought To Be True: Flat Earth

Some believe that before Christopher Columbus made the legendary discovery of American land (which he didn’t, as we’ve just established), people thought that the Earth was flat. Wrong. Contrary to popular belief, Columbus wasn’t the first man to set sail and explore the world beyond European borders. Many before him have traveled the seas and oceans, and have concluded that the Earth was indeed round. More than that, this claim was made even longer prior to the 15th century: Greek philosopher Pythagoras suggested Earth’s roundness back in the 6th century B.C. It’s true, however, that there was a point in time between the 18th and the 20th centuries when this claim was up to debate, but it was mainly kept between religious and secular groups.

How did this list affect your views on the world? Changes in perspective and even universally accepted realities have been a common recurrence in the course of humanity’s existence. They happened before and they definitely still will. This is why all of these were  10 Facts That You Thought To Be True.

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

3 Random Major Scientific Falsehoods Thought Facts

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Knowledge keeps accumulating for the human race. And as it does, what was hard fact yesterday becomes questionable tomorrow or it becomes downright false. Such is the way of incremental progress.

Add to that the effect of popular, opinion altering influences like popular media or authoritative sources and the problem becomes even more complicated.

 This has happened in all ages of history, so it doesn’t have anything to do with how technologically advanced, modern, or “civilized” a population is, much to our inflated modern egos.

In fact, it can be argued that the Age of Speed, coupled with the boost in information, has in fact brought about the Age of Information Overload and consequently, much more false information flying around from “respectable” sources than it used to.

So in the interest of pointing out a few such instances, here’s 3 random major scientific falsehoods thought facts, in some cases even today.

1. Humans Pop In Vacuum

3 random major scientific falsehoods thought facts - eyes pop out in vacuum, like depicted in this scene from Total Recall.

A common myth, probably popularized by the in-its-time very popular movie “Total Recall”, is that if humans are exposed to a very low pressure atmosphere, or the vacuum or space, their eyes will pop out of their skulls in the matter of seconds.

In other sci-fi depictions, the whole human explodes due to differences in pressure or some such.

In reality, as confirmed by very brief accidental exposure of astronauts to the vacuum of space and by scientific analyses on the subject, you can survive for 15 seconds without any side-effects at all. After that, for the next 5 seconds, you become confused. After 20 seconds you become unconscious due to lack of oxygen. Over 80 seconds, you will certainly die, due to the loss of oxygen and other gases from your body, as well as the outer layers of cells that have collapsed and died.

But you won’t go pop.

2. Lightning Never Strikes Twice…

Sketch of a lightning rod system.

…in the same place. That’s what immediately came to your mind when you saw the first part, right?

Because this belief had become so ingrained into the collective consciousness, that cultures all over the world held it to be a true fact. So much so that it became a proverb.

Which is weird. Considering… you know, ummm lightning rods? Which are designed to attract lighting so that it doesn’t hit other things that you might care about? Like your barn or some high tech alien searching satellite dish you have installed.

So, this one’s easy. If the lightning does strike a lightning rod more than once during the same storm, it must mean that there are certain principles that govern where lightning strikes (hint: it loves metal). So, you can not only expect it to strike twice in the same place, you can even direct it (sort of) to where you want it to strike repeatedly. Nifty, huh?

Oh, and of course, the end-all argument is that even Iron Maiden had doubts about this. As they kept repeating on the chorus of “Lightning Strikes Twice” (hint in the title here too): “Maybe lightning strikes twice/ Maybe lightning strikes twice/ Maybe lightning strikes twice … etc.”

3. Sunflowers Follow The Sun

One of the 3 random major scientific falsehoods thought facts - sunflowers follow the sun - is contradicted by this picture of sunflowers facing east, away from the sun.

That’s why they’re called sunflowers!

Yes, but unfortunately it’s another case of a misconception that stuck.

Heliotropic plants are plants that orient their flowers or their seeds to aim at the sun as it progresses across the sky. Sadly, despite their names, sunflowers are not heliotropic plants.

As can be seen in many time-lapse videos of a sunflower field from sunrise to sunset. And also confirmed by many botanists who somehow can’t manage to eliminate this belief.

The only time in its life at which a sunflower moves is during its growth, when the bud slowly changes its orientation as it grows. However, once it’s figured out that the sun rises from the East and the plant has finished growing, it will remain pointing in that direction for the rest of its life.

Ergo, all sunflower plants do point towards where the sun rises in the morning, but they can’t be bothered to follow it around all day. Imagine all the contortionist skills that would involve.

Image source: 1, 2, 3.

Three Theories on How the Universe Will End

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There are countless of theories about how the world will end. There actually at least three every year, but until now none of them have come to past, and with every prediction, human-kind becomes less interested in this subject. Nevertheless, science has some fascinating answers for the question: “How will the Universe end?”. It has nothing to do with a thousand-year old calender, or alien invaders. Let’s take a look at the most plausible ones:

1. The Heat Death of the Universe: The 2 Theories

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The firs theory on how the universe will end is the one about the Head Death. As you may know, the Universe is continuously expanding, and in this situation two things may happen. The first of them is called the Big Crunch, and the second, is the Heat Death of the universe. In the second case, gravity will not be strong enough to overcome the expansion, so the Universe will continue to expand until galaxies drift apart and create huge gaps between one another. This theory is actually sad. Like all things that abide by the thermodynamic system, the Universe will also turn into a cold, dark, boring mist. As the galaxies move further away from each other, they will lose heat and energy. Stars will die and there will be no energy left to produce new ones. In the end, everything will go black, and only particles and matter will be left floating around and bouncing off of one another.

Heat Death Via Black Holes:

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There is also a variation of the Universe Heat Death which is connected to black holes. It is believed that most matter in the Universe is orbiting black holes. In theory, everything that enters the orbiting range of a black-hole will be sucked inside and cannibalized. If the Universe were finite black holes would devour everything, and all that would be left would be gravity wells in an abyss and black holes that consume each-other and become larger. But not even black holes live forever. Once they lose their energy, they evaporate and emit “Hawking radiation”, so the universe would become a huge distribution of hawking radiation particles.

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2. The Big Rip

Most theories about the end of the world start with the world BIG (see the Big Bounce, the Big Crunch, and even the Big Bang). Anyway, the Big Rip is one of the scariest prospects, because unlike other theories that occur after all the stars have died out in the Universe, this will happen in 16million years, when life will supposedly still exist on different planets. At this point in time, a force called “dark energy will cause an accelerated expansion of the universe (which is in an unstable state), and the universe will simply rip itself apart into nothingness. This universe-wide cataclysm, will destroy, burn, and tear apart everything that we know and transform them into particles of atomic dust.

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3. The End of Time

This is undoubtedly my favorite theories of all, but I can’t quite wrap my head around. If there is one thing in this world that we would never imagine ending, it would be time. According to scientists, time might also end, but if it loses momentum, or freezes, how will we be able to discern one moment from the other? When calculating the end of the world, scientists were always phased by calculations involved, so they theorized that time itself might eventually stop. No explosions, crunches or rips, everything will simply come to a halt. That’s basically how the Universe will end. 

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“Then everything will be frozen, like a snapshot of one instant, forever.” But it wouldn’t really be forever, since time wouldn’t be moving forward at all. It would just be that one instant in time. You’d never die. You’d never grow old. It would be a kind of pseudo immortality. But you’d never know. (Source: Listverse)

Most Fascinating Mysteries of the World -part 2-

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A while back, we  decided to talk about some of very interesting mysteries that have yet to be deciphered by scientists, in an article entitled “Most Fascinating Mysteries of the World -part 1-“. We could not leave it at that, especially considering that there are so many, other mysteries, waiting to be uncovered by humankind. We give to you four other mysteries of the world, which you may, or may not have heard of, but which will definitely catch your interest. So without further ado, we give to you, the sequel to our first post, and one which we hope, will make you want to learn even more about the inexplicable phenomena that occurred throughout history, and also in modern times.

1. Mary Celeste 

According to stories, Mary Celeste was a brigantine ship, which was discovered in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing unusual up until now, right? Wrong. The ship was found without a crew, but in perfect working condition. One year later, two boats were discovered in Spanish waters. The first had a body of a man with an american soldier, and the other one held seven dead bodies in it. Legend has it that the boat was cursed, because the captain died after no more than one day on board of it.

maryceleste-2

Most Fascinating Mysteries of the World -part 2-

Mary Celeste’s story is the greatest mystery in the history of the Navy. Some say that it was nothing more than a pirate ship, while others prefer to believe in fantastic explanations. The first name of the ship was Amazon, and it was apparently involved in a series of accidents. In the end it became property of some Scottish folk during 1860-1870. In the end, the ship was claimed by Americans for the price of 3000 dollars. Since then, its crew and captain where nowhere to be found, and 130 years later, people still do not understand why.

2. Jack the Ripper 

There have been so many movies and stories about Jack the Ripper that it is almost impossible to discern truth from fiction. What we know for sure is that during 1888, London was terrorized by Jack the Ripper, who was apparently a serial killer from Whitechapel. The name was first used, after the murderer sent a letter to the press, which he signed under this name. All of Jack’s victims were prostitutes. They would usually be found with their throats cut open, and bodies mutilated.

Most Fascinating Mysteries of the World -part 2-

The horrid thing about this case is that, in most situations, the bodies were left to be found only minutes after their death. It was speculated that prince Albert Victor was behind the murders, but not enough evidence was gathered during that time to fuel a conviction. Investigations started again in modern times, but they still did not manage to shed some light on the case.

3. Tao Hum 

Apparently, Tao Hum is a humming sound which can be sensed in quiet areas, where people experiment a sensation similar to the sound of a Diesel motor-cycle. It is basically an annoying sound that people hear when they sit in silence for too long, and we are positive you have also experienced it. There is nothing horrid or jaw-dropping about this mystery, but the truth is that scientists have no idea why so many people experience it.

Most Fascinating Mysteries of the World -part 2-

In areas where it was first encountered, specialists found no trace of eletromagnetic waves, or sound signals that might explain the symptoms, of Tao Hum, which usually included nausea, dizziness, or headaches. In 1994, a study was conducted on people susceptible to this sound, but no conclusion was drawn. Similarly, in 2005, there was an attempt to record the sounds on an aparatus, but they still didn’t understand what exactly it is. We may never know.

4. The Zodiac Murderer

Since we have already discussed about one of the most popular bloody mysteries of the world, why not continue our list, with a similar case, that of the Zodiac murderer? This particular individual has also inspired many bloody movies. According to stories, the Zodiac murderer operated in California, for 10 months, during the 1960′s. His first two victims were shot near Benecia, and the next two near Vallejo. One of the victims miraculously escaped even if she/he was shot in the neck and head. Nearly an hour after that crime, the police received a call in which the criminal confessed to his crimes. One month later, three letters reached the press. The deciphered messages sounded something like this:

Most Fascinating Mysteries of the World -part 2-

I like killing people because it is very entertaining, it is more fun than killing wild animals in forests because man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill. It is even better than when you have sex with a girl. The best part is when I die, and I will be reborn in paradise and those who have killed will become my slaves. I will not tell you my name because you will try to slow down or I stop my collecting of slaves for the afterlife”

 

Some of his messages were never deciphered, while others held valuable information about the Zodiac Killer’s next victims. The only suspect that the police had was Arthur Leigh Allen, but there was not enough evidence to convict him. To this day, authorities do not know who the zodiac Killer is. Talk about fascinating mysteries of the world.

Top Five Most Terrifying Humanoid Robots

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I consider myself somewhat of a robot fan, and there are few automatons you could show me that I wouldn’t think are pretty damn cool in some capacity or another. However, there are some robots out there that, no matter how awesome you usually think robots are, are absolutely, seat-wettingly scary. The vast majority of these tend to be humanoid, skirting the phenomenon of the Uncanny Valley with varying degrees of unsettling success. No matter much closer they might bring us to having a completely realistic human robot, there’s simply no excuse for taking some of these android abominations out in public. [Read more…]

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