15 Facts You Thought Were True — But Aren’t

5 – Goldfish,

• It’s the old saying “you have the memory of a goldfish”, that old 3-second short term memory myth – but there’s nothing even remotely true about this one
• Researchers have successfully taught goldfish to push levers, play fetch or even engage in rounds of soccers, some retaining their memories on how to do these things as much as a year later
• In one experiment, some goldfish were trained to hear a sound for feeding time, and they were then released into the sea – half a year later, the sound played over a loudspeaker and basically all the fish swam back to where they were released

4 – Bats,

• People always look to bats as the prime example of a species that adapted to blindness by developing their own sonar system – but they’re not blind, in fact, there isn’t a single species that is
• Some, like the fruit bats, don’t even have sonar – they just use giant eyes to scout around, and microbats use their eyes to avoid obstacles and calculate their current height
• It’s difficult to pin down when this myth started, but it’s shocking how many continue to believe it’s still fact

3 – Gum,

• If you accidentally swallow chewing gum, it doesn’t take years for it to pass through your system
• Research has found that although gum doesn’t get digested by your body like normal food, the longest it’ll stick around is about a week before it appears intact inside your feces
• On rare occasions, children who gobble down large amounts of gum might have colon blockage, or it sticks other objects to your intestines like coins or sunflower seeds
• Because this myth helps deter kids from swallowing gum, it’s generally better to let them believe this one might be true

2 – Coat,

• You’re a young kid, your mother tells you to wear a coat before you go out or you’ll catch a cold – but it doesn’t work like that
• Colds are a misnomer because they are, in fact, a virus but they just happen to appear during winter because you stay indoors more often and are thus more likely to come into contact with people infected
• It’s just a coincidence, but people hear the name and always jump to an obvious conclusion

1 – Sugar

• You give a kid a bunch of lollies, and later on they start going nuts jumping all over the furniture, breaking plates, jumping off balconies – it’s a not a sugar rush
• Based on a wide variety of experiments, researchers found that kids who regularly consume large doses of sugar are no more spaz than kids who survive on a sugar-free diet
• The reason they might get excited is because of the situation or company they’re in, not because of how many sweets they’ve gobbled down

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