Better Check Your Facts!

1. Tourettes Syndrome usually does not involve yelling swear words. Only about 10 percent experience vocal tics. Source.

2. The assumption that glass is a liquid, borne from the fact that antique windows are often thinner at the top than at the bottom, is incorrect. The thinning effect was created as the glass was produced, the glass was then placed with the thicker side down to help waterproof the window. Glass is neither a liquid nor a solid, but a state in between known as an amorphous solid. Source.

3. Pencil lead was never made of real lead. It has always been graphite. Instead, the lead poisoning from pencils came from the lead-based paint. The core of a pencil is probably called lead because that's what graphite was mistaken for when it was first discovered, a form of lead. Source.

4. The average human being normally does not swallow any spiders in their lifetime, contrary to popular belief of eight spiders per year. Source.

5. Chameleons change color because of mood, temperature, light, and for communication purposes, not primarily for camouflage. Source.

6. There is no such thing as Left brain vs. right brain in terms of logic vs. creativity or emotion vs. analysis. The hemispherical breakdown in the brain pertains mostly to control of a specific side of your body in terms of motor function, but things like analytics, creativity, and other higher functions are spread out between both hemispheres. Source.

7. It is a myth that if you are being held at gun point to take money out of an ATM type in your pin backwards to alert the police. Source.

8. Carrots don't give you good eyesight. This was propaganda spread by the British soldiers in WW2 to hide from the Germans the fact that they had invented radar and could detect incoming air-raids much earlier. Source.

9. Carrots are bad for rabbits. The misconception that rabbits loved them started with the popularity of Bugs Bunny cartoons. Source.

10. The old Churchill quote about Lady Astor saying if she was married to him she would poison his drink and Churchill replies "Madame, if I was married to you, I'd drink it." That was not said by him, it was said by his friend. Source.

11. The tongue map that shows different parts of the tongue being responsible for different tastes is actually a myth. All taste sensations come from all regions of the tongue. Source.

12. It is a myth that people in the middle ages thought the world was flat. They didn't. They have known it was spherical for thousands of years. The Greeks even calculated its circumference 300 years BCE. Also, Queen Isabella didn't think Columbus would sail of the edge of the Earth. She thought the earth was bigger than he said it was. She was right, and he was wrong. Source.

13. Gladiators did not fight to the death. Sure they would fight and sometimes one would die, but they didn't fight until one of them was dead. Sometimes it would just be until one was injured or one was too tired to go on. Gladiators were too expensive and valuable to have one killed at the end of every fight. Source.

14. The notion that goldfish have a memory of a few seconds is nonsense. In fact they can be trained to react to light signals and perform tricks. Source.

15. The Sugar Rush or hyperactivity in children as a result of sugar intake is a myth. The hyperactivity you feel after ingesting sugar is just a placebo. Source.

16. Mac computers aren't immune to viruses and they're definitely not immune to malware. Source.

17. Contrary to movies and popular belief, if asked Are you a cop? an undercover police officer does not have to tell the truth. Source.

18. Bulls are color-blind and to them it doesn't matter if the matadors cape is red or any other color. Its the flapping it in their face that makes them charge it. Furthermore, they are aggressive in the arena because before they are let loose, they are neglected, starved, and abused extensively. Source.

19. MSG is not that bad for you. The public's misconception of MSG is based off of one anecdotal and unscientific study. Source.

20. You most probably weren't the fastest sperm cell. The egg has an outer protective layer that takes several sperm to wear down before fertilization. Honestly, you were probably one of the slowest cells who arrived too late to do any work but still won the lottery. Also, the egg actually has a number of chemical barriers that select sperm with certain attractive chemical markers. The egg actively chooses which packet of DNA makes it to fertilization. Source.

21. Napoleon was not short. He was average height. There are two factors in this myth. One is the English, and the other is his bodyguard. The English used a different foot than the French did, which meant the 5'2" French measurement was closer to 5'6" English, which is average height. Secondly, he was often seen next to his bodyguards. Military guard units of the time generally consisted of the tallest men available. This means he was seen around guys who were significantly taller than him all the time. It is going make you look short. Source.

22. Medical doctor Donald Unger cracked the knuckles of his left hand every day for more than sixty years, but he did not crack the knuckles of his right hand. No arthritis or other ailments formed in either hand, earning him the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine. Source.

23. Toilets in the Northern and Southern hemispheres don't flow in opposite directions due to the Coriolis Effect. Its simply not powerful enough at such a small scale to have any impact. Source.

24. You cannot really see the great wall of china from space with the naked eye. Source.

25. Men do not think about sex every six seconds, but an average man thinks about sex 19 times a day, according to an Ohio State study. Source.