25 Common Myths of Society
By Adwaith Shamjith, Grade 7
Every day as we progress through our own individual lives, we are always tied to these beliefs or superstitions, whether they connect with you or if it is almost like an unwritten rule or statement that is always stated to be the truth. However, many of these mythological stories that we adhere to are mere representations of how society can twist the truth. In this article, we will be taking a closer look at how real fiction is distorted from fact, and just how surprised you may be...
Bulls don't charge at matadors because of the red capes that they wave. Although it may seem so, it has been proven that bulls, like other cattle, are colorblind to red and green, and actually get intimidated by the movement of the cape, triggering the famous bull charges that we commonly see.
You may hear some of your older relatives exclaim that it is only possible to use 10 % of your brain's capacity. Humans use almost every single part of the brain almost all of the time, and so if it ever comes to one of your relatives making this statement, most likely, that relative will be a major Hollywood fan.
As everyone well knows, George Washington led the US army to victory against the British and was the U.S.A's first president. You may have also heard that his chompers were wooden! While this is once again a false interpretation, George Washington did suffer from dental problems, to the point where he had dentures contemplating ivory, gold, lead, and even other human teeth. The historians from the Washington Library proclaim that the ivory dentures' stained looks must have been the reason for the development of this "wooden teeth" belief,
Perhaps since you started kindergarten, your parents, teachers, and your doctor must have stated the importance of drinking eight glasses of water a day. Surprisingly enough, there is no hard and fast rule. In fact, it matters solely on factors such as your overall health status, your exercise levels, and where you live.
Your muscles won't cramp if you swim directly after eating because even though your body does need additional blood for digesting purposes, it isn't enough to prevent the muscles in your arms and legs from properly working.
Everyone in Christopher Columbus's time thought that the world was flat! Wrong! By 300 BC people realized that the Earth was spherical, with Aristotle first making the declaration, even if gradually, and still, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue fully aware of this.
For dog owners, this section is something you probably already know, so for other readers, let's understand that dogs can differentiate between colors, and that they don't see the world in black and white.
Insignificant is the word you would use for the difference between boiling water with salt and boiling water without salt. Contrary to popular belief, the temperature of salt water will get warmer faster than pure water, but it still doesn't mean that salt water boils faster.
Going to space is an experience like no other-- what with the gravity reduction and the space suits and whatnot. If you happen to glance at Earth due to you being homesick, be prepared to see many man-made structures, and not just the Great Wall of China! You can see highways, airports, bridges, dams, and even parts of the Kennedy Space Center. Also, the farther you travel away from Earth, the more likely it will be that you can only view the Great Wall through radar images.
Napoleon Bonaparte is known for many things-- being the greatest military general ever ( yes, he is) , leading France to its prosperous state today, and even being a short man. That is false of course, as at the time, he was 5'5'', considered average height. Blame James Gillray, a British cartoonist who made squat caricatures of Napoleon in the early 1800s, for this rude misconception.
Hollywood shows, crime thrillers, and police dramas delight thousands or maybe even millions of fans in the United States and are known and viewed worldwide. However, these shows can portray countless misconceptions, such as the 24 hour wait before filing a report about a missing person. It is however strongly denied by the Child Find of America, and even stressed, that reporting a missing person ASAP is the best shot of locating them.
Adam and Eve ate a forbidden fruit in the Bible, specifically broadcasted as an apple, and this is a misinterpretation as the Hebrew Bible was translated into Latin, and the term "malus" meant both "evil" and "apple". So remember; an apple a day keeps the doctor away. The apple was not the forbidden fruit.
For all those knuckle-crackers out there, if you crack your knuckles too much, you will contract arthritis! Ha ha, just kidding. Relax. You're just collapsing gas bubbles in your hands. No harm! Except, you may weaken your hand grip, and people won't really find you a popular buddy.
Georgia is well known for its peaches, due to the importance of this fruit given in that state. However, when surveying the other states in the USA, Georgia doesn't even fall in the top three! California leads with 541,000 tons of peaches, followed by New Jersey and PA( according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center in 2017).
When your child is acting up and they have recently consumed a sweet food, you naturally blame the sugar for this unacceptable behavior. Sugar in children's diets are ineffective to their behaviors, so if your child is choosing a time to misbehave, blame it on their attitudes and egos.
Touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing are the 5 senses that humans have. It is common society thinking that we only have 5 senses, due to the common representations shown throughout. Humans have been shown to have between 14 and 30 senses in total, and those are the bases of your senses, ones that can easily be described and distinguished.
If you ever happen to watch any documentaries about rainforest exploration, or happen to go on a safari into a rainforest, you will likely see a chameleon changing a variety of colors. Through circumstance, when predators approach or when a fly flies too close, they change color to blend in with their surroundings. Or so we thought. In fact, the only reason that they change their body is to regulate their internal thermometers, and to communicate with fellow chameleons, but never to blend in with their natural habitat.
The Declaration of Independence was actually signed on August 2nd, 1776 and not the trademark July 4th, 1776 as we all presumed. Even though that was the approval date of the Declaration, the Founding Fathers decided to bring it into reality a month later. So the next time you get hyped on July 4th, remember to tone it down, and to save that energy for August 2nd.
By now, you might be wondering how stupid we humans can be. After all, we got so many facts jumbled up when it could have been easily brought to the public beforehand. Believe it or not, our path through our misunderstandings continue, as we decode the banana and the tree. There isn't such a thing as a banana tree, mostly because the plants that bananas grow on are more related to lilies and orchids than your usual and standard tree.
Canine owners and lovers can relax as this surprising fact will be a no-brainer. Canines don't sweat through their tongues. Instead, they have merocrine sweat glands on their paw pads with similar functioning to human sweat glands. They also have sweat glands throughout their bodies. The only reason why a dog pants is because it evaporates moisture from tongues all the way to their lungs, which cools them down.
You are walking with an ice cream or a cookie of a lifetime that is so precious in your eyes, because you will never get to eat that kind of ice cream/cookie ever again. Suddenly, you fumble your food on the ground. In a split second, you nab it and eat it right away, stating to your protesting parents that there is a "5 second rule". This ideology is so common, even most adults sometimes follow it. However, researchers at Clemson University will tell you that a significant amount of bacteria will transfer to the food within five seconds, after they left bologna and bread on a surface contaminated with salmonella bacteria and inspected it after 5 seconds.
If you ask a kindergarten student about what they believe a desert is, they will say, " HOT, HOT, SUPER DUPER HOT". Even some people who are in adulthood might believe that deserts are defined as being extremely hot. However, any people who seriously know and study geography will correct you, stating that even Antarctica is a desert, because it receives minimal to none precipitation. Therefore, the next time someone asks you to define " desert", state that it is an area that receives minimal rainfall.
Fortune cookies, which are those cone-shaped cookies filled with messages you receive at the end of Chinese meals, are not Chinese, but rather Japanese. Suyeichi Okamura was a Japanese immigrant who ran a bakery in Northern California during the early 1900s, and was sent to an internment camp during WWII, resulting in Chinese Americans to continue the business and stamp their reputation of this sweet.
The sun isn't yellow, orange, or even red! It is all the colors mixed together, but the yellow, orange, and red color wavelengths are longer and reach our eyes, while the green, blue, and violet color wavelengths spread around the sky, resulting in a blue sky.
All good things must come to an end, right? Astonishingly, you are incorrect. Not every living creature has an expiration date. In fact, this jellyfish, known as the Turritopsis dohrnii, reverts back to a juvenile after adulthood, so it lives yet another life, and the process continues for infinity!
Which myths surprised you the most when you heard they weren't true? Are there any superstitions where you thought
"Oh, we are so stupid"? If so, please send me an email at 28shamjitha@student.wcasd.net