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31 Common Myths, Debunked

Dropping a coin from the Empire State Building won’t actually kill anyone

31 Common Myths, Debunked

August 31, 2023

Researchers from all branches of science build on one another, continuously questioning assumptions in order to provide an irrefutable understanding of how the world actually works. And so, it’s hardly surprising that the preponderance of published study conclusions are later revealed to be wrong. For example, many of our most treasured sayings and adages don’t really have a basis in reality.

We’ve all heard the urban legend that a coin dropped from the Empire State Building can kill a person, but science says it’s complete nonsense (still probably don’t do it though). More on that, as well as 30 other strange stories that we still believe for whatever reason, below…

31

MYTH: ATe SO MUCH YOU FeeL SICK? POP An ANTACID. FACT: ANTACIDS mAKe YOU FeeL even FULLER. Eating causes your stomach to produce hydrochloric acid to break down food, and the more you eat, the more your stomach produces. Antacids contain bases to neutralize all that acid, but the ensuing chemical reaction releases carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide will make you even more bloated and gas-filled than you were before. CRACKED.COM no-turkey-doesnt-make-you-sleepy-the-science-of-thanksgiving-feasts/ — 24 Food And Cooking Myths

30

MYTH: YOUNG SINGLES ARe CONSTANTLY GETTING LAID. FACT: HALF OF YOUNG SINGLES HAD no sex in THE PAST YEAR. Meanwhile, 50 percent of young married couples report having sex two or three times per week. And over 75 percent of senior citizens report being sexually active, and a current epidemic of STDs among the elderly seems to back this up. CRACKED.COM — Sex Myths You've Probably Believed Your Entire Life

29

Death By Penny Drop agh GRACKED.COM No, dropping a penny off the Empire State Building won't kill someone, 6th grade bully on a field trip. Thanks to drag, that penny would top out at 25 miles per hour. Real New Yorkers know it's the lazily installed window A/C units you have to look out for. — Reader's Digest

28

Swedish Meatballs

CRACKED COM Swedish meatballs are actually Turkish- The dish was introduced to Sweden by their monarch, King Charles XII, who had developed a taste for it while travelling throughout the Ottoman Empire.

27

It's nonstick anyway, duh

When cooking with a nonstick pan, don't use cooking spray. Aside from oil, cooking sprays also contain lecithin, an emulsifier that could build up on your pan and makes it stickier in the long run. — 26 Food And Cooking Common Misconceptions

26

Lobsters

MYTH Lobsters are monogamous. TRUTH Female lobsters spend up to two weeks with a mate. CRACKED.COM — Mental Floss

25

Artists who depict God as looking human are misinterpreting what in God's image (Gen. 1:27) means. Tselem demuth actually means something closer to having God-like attributes. CRACKED.COM — 40 Myths (That've Been Around Forever) We All Believe

24

Iron Eyes Cody

Iron Eyes Cody was the tortured face of Native American sadness. But he was Sicilian. Children of the '70s and '80s probably remember the series of PSAs starring Chief Iron Eyes Cody. In them, he was a sad old chief shedding a single tear over pollution in America-the very land his noble people had held stewardship over for eons. But the truth is, Iron Eyes wasn't even a little bit Native American. Не started out as Espera de Corti, the son of Sicilian immigrants. Не wound up playing the noble Indian in over 200 films. All he had to do — 21 Historical Figures Everybody Gets Wrong

23

They've always been there

The common understanding is that during WWII, suddenly women the showed that they could do the work traditionally done by men. But whenever America went to war the women picked up the slack: here the ice-women cometh, who were in 1918, during WWI. — 26 Side By Side Comparisons That Fix Your Image Of History

22

Police Brutality

CRACKED.COM MYTH: Cops manhandling a suspect in a movie or TV show? It's okay if it's the good guys doing it. REALITY: No, it really isn't. A study of 26 crime series (from How To Get Away With Murder to Mindhunter) showed that abuse of power is often portrayed as acceptable, forgivable, and even virtuous, as long as it's the heroes doing it. In reality, this type of conduct is an example of injustice itself. It's also a dangerous belief, as most people think they're the good guys.

21

YOU CAN CATCH AN STD FROM A TOILET SEAT STD's have a hard time surviving outside the human body. They also cannot be contracted from urine, which is sterile. In order for an STD to infect you, it must enter a cut, sore, or mucous membrane (mouth, rectum, vagina), which do not normally come in direct contact with the seat CRACKED.COM — 27 Sex Myths Too Many People Still Believe

20

SOCHI, RUSSIA, HOST OF THE 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS SOMETIMES Looks LIKE THIS BUT MOST OF THE TIME, ITLOOKS LIKE THIS: CRACKED.COM — 15 Countries We Picture Wrong Side By Side With Reality

19

MYTH: A cop has to prove that you were speeding to issue a ticket. : - TARGET - FACT: In Ohio, the officer can just guess. That's as of June 2010, when the Ohio Supreme Court decided that a trained officer doesn't need newfangled gizmos like radar guns to determine if a car was speeding. In accordance with the ruling, the visual estimate of an experienced police officer is enough to convict anyone of speeding. Without independent verification or evidence. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/ CRACKED.COM 06/02/ohio-supreme-court-speed-estimate-valid.html — 23 Widely-Circulated 'Facts' About The Law That Are Myths

18

MYTH: DOGS BE DON'T SWEAT. CRACKED.COM Dogs primarily use panting to cool down, by letting water evaporate from their tongue and nasal passageways, but they do have sweat glands. Although dispersed across a dog's body, the sweat glands in their feet are the only ones that are known to actively sweat. — Science Magazine

17

MYTH: YEARS OF sex Loosen THE VAGINA. FACT: NOPE. DO YEARS OF eATING Loosen THe MOUTH? Because the vaginal muscles are relatively similar to the muscles in your mouth. Unless you're older and have pushed out a handful of kids, there's no such thing as a permanently loose vagina. Or a permanently tight one-it loosens with arousal, then tightens again. CRACKED.COM — Sex Myths You've Probably Believed Your Entire Life

16

Cooking Myths

MYTH: ACCIDENTALLY useD TOO MUCH SALT? ADD A POTATO! FACT: POTATOES ARen'T MAGICAL SALT-SUCKERS. Potatoes added to overly salted soup will taste salty, but that's because they absorb the water. And if it's salty water, they'll absorb salt too. But potatoes don't specifically leach the salt out of your dish and make it less salty. The only way to decrease saltiness is to dilute your dish. CRACKED.COM https://saramoulton.com/201 2/07/saras-kitchen-revelations-oversalted-it-there-is-one-solution/

15

Medieval Lifespans

Medieval Lifespan i'm fine CRACKED.COM No, medieval people didn't all die before the age of 40. The average lifespan from that time is just that: an average. One that's heavily skewed by high child mortality rates. Plenty of people lived well past 30, allowing them to fully appreciate Steely Dan.

14

Have you tasted yam? Chances are, you probably haven't. Yams in America aren't actually yams. They're sweet potatoes. The confusion dates back to the time when the government tried to differentiate orange-fleshed sweet potatoes from the other kinds of sweet potato by calling it yam. To this day, Americans call orange-fleshed sweet potatoes yams. CRACKED.COM — 21 Debunked Food Myths

13

Coffee

CRACKED.COM For a more flavorful cup of coffee, don't use a coarse grind. The finer, the better. A finer grind means an overall greater surface area, which slows the water as it flows through the grounds. This gives it more time to bring out the flavor of the beans, resulting in richer tasting coffee. — 26 Food And Cooking Common Misconceptions

12

MYTH Opossums sleep upside down and hanging by their tails. TRUTH Only baby opossums can support their weight with their tail...and only for a few seconds. CRACKED.COM — 18 Animal Misconceptions We Learned From Movies & TV

11

This is not D. В. Cooper The hijacker purchased his ticket under the name Dan Cooper. It was a reporter that misheard the suspect's name who gave him the D.B. moniker. GRACKED.COM — 40 Myths (That've Been Around Forever) We All Believe

10

Elvis Presley was the ultimate '50s ladies' man. But Elvis was more into teens and pajama parties. Elvis sure loved the ladies, but he had one very specific type: They had to be young (like, school age). Не met his future wife Priscilla when she was 14 and he was 24. And when he wasn't dating them, Elvis liked to throw pajama parties with teenage girls where he would start pillow fights and teach them to style their hair and put on mascara. Elvis was pretty insecure, so he preferred younger girls because they didn't seem as threatening to him. — 21 Historical Figures Everybody Gets Wrong

9

People have an image of Romans always walking around wearing togas. In reality they were cumbersome, and heavy and not very popular. The average Roman wore lightweight tunics better suited to a Mediterranean climate. Togas were reserved for special occasions, such as weddings or for the Senate, much like a suit. GRACKED.COM — 26 Side By Side Comparisons That Fix Your Image Of History

8

Your wedding day will culminate in EARTH MOVING SEX. Not always. Not even often. Recent surveys have suggested that as many as 67% of newlyweds skip wedding night nookie because they are simply not up to it after such an eventful day. GRAGKED.COM — 27 Sex Myths Too Many People Still Believe

7

Pleading Insanity

MYTH: Want to get away with murder? Plead insanity. FACT: That's not a Get Out of Jail Free card. The Insanity Defense is attempted in less than one percent of all legal cases, and the defense is successful less than 25 percent of the time. Three states in the US don't even allow insanity as a defense. If the plea succeeds, you don't get to just go home. You get sent to a mental institution where you don't have a set sentence at all. They keep you as long as they see fit, which may be forever. CRACKED.COM http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crime/trial/faqs.html

6

MYTH: CONDOMS ARe 98% eFFeCTIve. FACT: THeY'Re JUST 82% eFFeCTIve OVERALL. They're 98% effective at preventing pregnancy when used perfectly. That means examining condoms for faults, squeezing the tip, using the right lube, and removing it while still erect. Factor in errors, and the failure rate jumps from 2% to 18%. CRACKED.COM — Sex Myths You've Probably Believed Your Entire Life

5

MYTH: EGGS ARE BAD FOR YOUR HEART. FACT: EAT YOUR eGGS. YOU'LL ве FIne. the Studies show that most people can eat an egg a day without it affecting their blood cholesterol in the least. The main culprits in heart disease are saturated and trans fats, and eggs are light in saturated fat and contain no trans fat. Further, studies show that when you eat high-cholesterol foods, your body compensates by making less cholesterol. CRACKED.COM http://www.dallasnews.com/life/healthy-living/2015/03/09/the-sunny-side-of-cholesterol — 24 Food And Cooking Myths

4

CHINESE FOOD IS FILLED WITH DANGEROUS MSG, RIGHT? ACTUALLY, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (MSG) IS PERFECTLY SAFE IN NORMAL AMOUNTS, AND IS A NATURALLY-OCURRING COMPOUND FOUND IN MANY FOODS! ITONLY GOTA BAD RAP BECAUSE ONE SCIENTIST ONCE ATE A TON OF CHINESE FOOD, GOT SICK, AND BLAMED THE MSG IN THE FOOD INSTEAD OF HIS UNHEALTHY EATING HABITS! CRACKED.COM — 21 Debunked Food Myths

3

For a mouth-watering, velvety cheesecake, bake it in a water bath. Because water boils and evaporates at 212°, the cheesecake will never get hotter than that in a water bath, giving it smooth, even heat. This results in less darkening, curdling, and cracking, giving the cheesecake a smooth texture you're sure to love. CRACKED.COM — 26 Food And Cooking Common Misconceptions

2

The story goes that Adam and Eve were banished for eating the forbidden apple, but actually there isn't any reference in the Bible that the fruit might have been an apple. The mistake might have occurred due to faulty translation from Sebrew.The Sebrew word tapuach which was erroneously translated to apple actually meant scented fruitwhich more likely may refer to an apricot or quince rather than apple which isn't indigenous to Jsrael. CRACKED.COM — 40 Myths (That've Been Around Forever) We All Believe

1

Shame on you, Disney

MYTH Lemmings commit mass suicide. TRUTH Disney faked a scene in their documentary White Wilderness, where the myth derives from. CRACKED.COM — Alaska

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