15 Common Myths Completely Busted

Whether you want to accept it or not, everything you think you know is a lie. A carefully constructed lie that's been holding you back your entire life. You're basically living in The Matrix.

Now is the time to free yourself, by taking in these excellent 15 busted myths we learnt from David McCandless’ Knowledge Is Beautiful. 

Related: You've been using Emoji completely wrong and you didn't realise

---

Sharks don’t get cancer

Despite what films will tell you, sharks aren’t really superhuman creatures of the deep and they can in fact get cancer. Particularly skin cancer.

Different tongue parts

You know the idea that the tongue is split up into different sections for different tastes like bitter, sour and sweet etc. Utter rubbish, this is not a thing.

You shouldn’t wake sleepwalkers

Rousing a sleepwalker will cause nothing more than a little confusion, if anything, not waking somebody that’s sleeping walking is more dangerous as they could end up seriously hurting themselves.

Black holes

Despite their incredibly misleading names, Black Holes aren’t actually ‘holes’. They’re actually massively dense objects with stupidly strong gravitational pulls. Still absolutely terrifying though.

Great Wall Of China

No, you can’t see it from space. Now stop asking.

Missing persons reports

Contrary to what cinema will have you believe, you can in fact file a missing persons report without having to wait 24-hours for the police to accept it.

Bats are blind

Nope. Bats can actually see. And they can use echolocation like Daredevil. They’re basically superhero rodents with wings.

Don’t eat and swim

Whether it was your mum that told you or the opening song in Grease, it’s wrong. Swimming on a full stomach won’t give you cramp. It will however make you short of breath. 

We have 5 senses

This one’s just plain lazy. We actually have a ridiculous amount of senses ranging from balance to pain and hunger. It’s closer to 20 really, which makes that kid from The 6th Sense look a bit rubbish now.

The Three Wise Men

At no point in the New Testament does it say there was a specific number of wise men at the birth of Christ. Nowhere.

Satan rules hell

Again, this is never mentioned in The Bible. Go figure.

Alcohol kills brain cells

OK, so if you’re going to drink alcoholic levels of booze you’re going to find yourself in a bit of a state. But unless you’re relying on alcohol to provide calories to your body then it won’t start cannibalizing your brain power. So don’t feel too guilty about that odd pint.

Caffeine dehydrates you

Caffeine does indeed have a diuretic quality to it but generally speaking we consume it as part of a caffeinated drink. As such this dehydrating effect tends to be offset by the amount of water the drink contains.

No sex before the game

Tell this one to Fergie. There’s no scientific evidence to back this one up, in fact, it could actually improve performance by boosting testosterone. 

Left and right brain

You might have spent a lot of timing messing around with long and tedious tests but the idea of a biological left or right brain balance doesn’t exist. That’s not to say that the stereotypes don’t though.