14 Widely Believed Fact That Sounds Really Smart But is Completely Untrue

Our lives are filled with facts we heard, read, or watched over the internet. Not most of them are true by the way. We are going to reveal some of the widely known facts are dangerously untrue.

1. Depression Is Caused by a Chemical Imbalance: Many companies center on the very fact that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance of serotonin—however, this is often simply untrue. Depression is more complex than that.

It is caused by faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, stressful life events, abnormal neural circuiting, and so on. Serotonin imbalances have little to try to to with it.


2. Cavemen had small brains: For reasons that aren't understood, the typical brain size has decreased everywhere within the world since we were cavemen. Did our brains become more efficient? Or did we not got to be as smart because human groups became more cooperative?

Domesticated animals like dogs have smaller brains than wild relatives like wolves because we do a number of their thinking for them; some have hypothesized that this is often what happened to us.


3. The Flight of Bumblebees Doesn’t Follow the principles of Aerodynamics: “The Bee Movie” popularized this one. The laws of physics and aerodynamics aren’t concepts which will simply be avoided—they are an important part of any quite flight. And bees’ flight does follow them.

Now, if one assumed that bumblebees fly like airplanes (which they don’t), then sure, they shouldn’t be ready to fly. But the reality is, bumblebees fly by rotating their wings rapidly, forming pockets of low atmospheric pressure, which successively creates a kind of mini-whirlwind that lifts the bee off the bottom . to the present day, it’s the foremost effective utilization of aerodynamics that we’ve ever seen.


4. Everest is that the Tallest Mountain On Earth: While it's the tallest above water level, it's not the tallest when measured from base to summit—as many geologists agree it should be. This disparity is caused by the natural bulges and dips of the world which will either make a mountain appear taller or shorter.

The technical tallest mountain, then, is Mauna Kea (pictured above) in Hawaii, which stands nearly a mile taller than Everest.


5. There's no safe dose of radiation. Of course, there is. That means if you hug a reactor core after it’s been operational, yeah, you're getting to die. But on the opposite hand, an equivalent core—before it’s been in operation—it essentially harmless. Just don’t lick it. Radiation may be a catch-all term that covers everything from the infrared from candlelight to the DNA cracking power of ionizing radiation. Only certain sorts of radiation can cause cancer and no radiation is dangerous unless you're exposed to enough of it, for long enough, to overwhelm our natural defenses. That’s right—we evolved around radiation, and our cells routinely repair its damage. So stop worrying such a lot, or rather, worry about the proper things: The radon emitted from coal-fired power plants kills 10,000 times as many of us per kilowatt-hour as does the nuclear industry.


6. We only use 10% of our brains: Yeah, right, survival led us to develop an enormous fat energy-hungry organ that’s 90% useless! Brain scans put this popular myth to rest, but even before we had them, it had been pretty obviously wrong — survival is ruthless about eliminating what we don’t use.


7. Sharks Die once they Stop Swimming: While this is often true of some sharks, the overwhelming majority are still ready to pump oxygen over their gills without the help of momentum.

They all lack specialized bladders, however, so if they stop swimming they’ll sink. Luckily, their bodies are immune to rapid pressure changes, so although they appear as if they’re dying, they’re just taking a touch break.


8. Geckos stick with walls and ceilings because their toes have suction cups that use atmospheric pressure difference to stay to them: Nope. Here’s a clue: it’s got something to try to to with charges! The physics behind the gecko’s gravity-defying ability is slightly more intricate than suction cups. Basically, a lizard’s toes have flexible ridges which are covered in fine hairy structures called setae and every one of those setae again splits into many even finer hairs called spatulae and it's these spatulae which are liable for the gecko’s superhumanly abilities.

The spatulae produce to Van der Waals force between the gecko’s toes and therefore the wall molecules that help it stick. Of course, this force is sort of weak (compared to the inter-atomic forces that produce to chemical bonds) but as long as there are a few a billion spatulae within the gecko’s toe, they suffice to stay our lizard a friend from sliding or falling the wrong way up from the ceiling.


9. Bananas are filled with potassium: Well that's true…of virtually all fruits and vegetables. Indeed, nearly all green leafy vegetables have more potassium, by weight, than bananas. This was propaganda of economic origin. It’s worth remarking that a serious contributor to high vital signs within the Western world is that we eat far, far less potassium than we are evolved to eat, alongside much more sodium, and our bodies have trouble handling the imbalance. this is often well-supported and understood, except for reasons beyond my understanding, under-reported in medical media. Skip the calorie-laden yellow guys and eat your greens.


10. Humans are the sole animals that laugh: Chimps laugh, many thanks considerably, and actually wish to tickle each other into laughing. Even mice are found to form a high-pitched sound which will be laughter!

11. Carrots are good for your eyesight: this is often actually British military propaganda from WWII. Carrots are indeed rich in vitamin A, any deficiency of which may cause blindness, but that doesn't make the vegetables especially good for the peepers. Rather, early in World War II, the RAF had started using radar to detect German night bombers over English channel, and to disguise the very fact, told the papers that their star ace, “Cat’s Eyes” John Cunningham owed his prowess to a lifelong love of carrots. No, it had been the fresh onboard radar.


12. Photographic Memory Is Possible: There’s no scientific evidence for a photographic memory—most of the old evidence that led to the present idea was simply the results of mnemonic devices or questionable subjects. the sole successful experiment proving this concept was performed in 1970, where the experimenter was the subject’s husband. Furthermore, he refused to repeat the experiment afterward.


13. Humans Evolved From Chimps: this is often a standard one, and yet it's no factual basis. Humans and chimps actually both evolved from a standard ancestor that lived around 8 million years ago. Eventually, the genetic lineage would have split two ways, giving rise to the precursors of hominids and modern apes.


14. The world revolves around the Sun: Rather, the Earth, alongside the remainder of the planets, revolves around the center of mass of the solar system—the barycenter. the precise location changes constantly, but thanks to its proximity to the Sun, we usually just equate the 2.


Have you heard any fact that sounds really smart but is completely untrue.