We all have knowledge or ‘facts’ from who knows where. But is it really knowledge? A lot of people just believe things just because they have ‘heard of them’. Most people don’t think about this but here are some concepts which are generally understood by people, but are completely wrong, and hence are called “Myths“.

Number 10

MYTH: Vaccines can cause autism or other diseases.

This is a serious topic, so let’s clear it up first. Vaccines do not cause any diseases. People believe this as it was published in a well-known medical journal, but it turned out the research was a fraud and then removed. But people still believe this and it hurts many families. It has been found that there is no link between autism and vaccines.

For example, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries who have not eradicated polio yet because some people still believe in this ‘scientific fraud’.

Number 9

MYTH: Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice.

How often have you heard this on TV? Probably often enough to make you believe it. There is no law that states lightning cannot strike the same place twice. In fact, lightning will always try to hit the tallest object multiple times in a field before searching for a new target. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning about 100 times a year.

Number 8

MYTH: People burst in space without space suits.

Ask anyone what happens if a person goes into space without a space suit. 98% of people will say something like “they’ll blow up”, “they’ll explode” or “pop like a balloon”. Some teachers even tell kids something about internal and external pressure and why people ‘pop’.

People don’t ‘pop’ in space, they’ll live as long as they have oxygen, and when they run out, they still won’t blow up. They’ll simply die of asphyxiation i.e. die from lack of oxygen. This ‘popping’ belief is common due to science-fiction movies

Number 7

MYTH: Meteors are hot because of friction.

If you’re anyone like me, you probably wrote in your science tests that meteors are hot because of the friction experienced by it. Who can blame us? Textbooks are imperfect and sometimes, we are taught wrong as well.

What causes the heat is the phenomenon called “Ram pressure”, if you’re interested. Simply put, the heat is due to the speed of the meteor which causes the air in front of it to compress rapidly and the air heats up, which then heats up the meteorite. Again, it has nothing to do with friction.

Number 6

MYTH: Bats are blind.

9 out of 10 people think bats are blind. Since bats are nocturnal and only move in the night, people think they have no need for vision since they can find their paths with echolocation. Just because they don’t have much need of it does not mean they’re blind. They actually have pretty good eyesight. They just don’t use it much because of darkness and all.

Number 5

MYTH: Goldfish have a terrible memory span. They can only remember for 3 seconds.

Poor goldfish, some people even use the phrase “as dumb as a goldfish” to call someone an idiot. Please stop disgracing the poor fish, goldfish do not have an attention span of 3 seconds as most people think. They can remember things for months, even up to 5 months, as showed by many scientific studies where they studied fish habits.

Number 4

MYTH: Some people have photographic memories.

You probably know someone who can memorize notes almost without effort. You end up saying that he has a photographic memory. Some people take the ‘photographic’ too literally and think some people can actually store them as ‘visual memory’. In reality, there is no such thing as a photographic memory. Yes, some people can memorize better but that’s because they can efficiently use their brain.

Many experiments have been carried out for photographic memory. One experiment was that a single picture was divided into two pictures from random places such that both pictures seemed completely separate. Many people with normal and ‘photographic memory’, or so they say, were brought. None could form a complete picture with their brain. Only a single person with some kind of ‘brain disorder’ managed to form a complete picture but his memory wasn’t exactly good.

Summary; there is no such thing as a photographic memory.

Number 3:

MYTH: Bulls hate the color red.

Bulls can only see 2 colors; Red and Green. It isn’t the color red that intimidates them; it’s the movement of the cloth. You can wave a green or any cloth in front of a bull and it will still charge. You can wave 10 different cloths in front of a bull, but the bull will concentrate to hit the one which is moving. This myth is made popular due to bullfights and of course, cartoons.

Number 2:

MYTH: Cockroaches can withstand nuclear blasts.

Okay, this is not completely false, but still wrong to an extent. If you think that if the world blows each other up with nuclear weapons and cockroaches will be the last things standing, is completely wrong. They can withstand radiation for days, months even when the same radiation can kill a human in 10 minutes. But the amount of radiation emitted from a nuclear bomb is enough to kill even cockroaches.

Hence, this is not completely false, but still something to think about. But keep in mind, cockroaches cannot and will not ‘inherit the earth’ as is popularly believed.

Number 1:

MYTH: Chameleons change colors to ‘blend in’ with the environment.

Surprised? This is what common sense would and should accept. But this is simply not true. For camouflage, their own color is enough to hide from predators but the chameleons mainly change their colors as a form of communication, signaling and showing its intentions to other chameleons. Yes, very few species do use this for camouflage (Smith’s dwarf chameleon) but most species do not.