40 False Facts You Probably Still Believe

Some false facts are so stubborn, they seem to have a permanent home in our brains. They get passed around in classrooms, family conversations, trivia nights, and now all over the internet, where a catchy lie can travel faster than the truth ever could. Say something often enough, and people start treating it like gospel.

That’s how a lot of myths survive: a little bit of bad science here, a half-remembered history lesson there, and a viral post that makes everything sound more convincing than it really is. Some of these claims are harmless bits of trivia. Others shape the way we think about history, animals, food, health, and the world around us.

To round up these completely false “facts” you may still believe, 24/7 Tempo looked at a mix of debunked myths, common misconceptions, and long-running misunderstandings. Many have already been corrected by experts, researchers, and historical records — but they keep hanging around because they’re memorable, surprising, and just believable enough to stick.

In many cases, it all started with one misunderstanding, one exaggerated story, or one shaky source that somehow took on a life of its own. Before long, the rumor had been repeated so many times it sounded like truth. These are the “facts” that aren’t facts at all.

Although it's technically true that adding salt can make water boil faster, the amount of salt that home cooks usually add is nowhere near enough to make a noticeable difference. It would take a pot of water with over 20% salt to achieve a noticeably quicker boil.

Rising 29,032 feet above sea level, Mount Everest is indeed the highest mountain in the world; but from base to pinnacle, Hawaii's Mauna Kea is taller, at 33,480 feet. The Hawaiian mountain just happens to be 60% underwater.

A prevailing myth since the early 20th century has been that humans only use a fraction of their brains. In fact, we use virtually every part of them unless they've been damaged by disease or physical trauma.

While the nation's first president did indeed have false teeth, they weren't wooden. His dentures were likely fashioned from a combination of teeth pulled from slaves, hippopotamus or elephant ivory, and metal alloys including brass.

Although drinking alcohol can cause damage to dendrites in the brain, which receive nerve signals, it doesn't kill brain cells. The amount of alcohol needed to kill a brain cell would kill the person drinking it.

Although the Great Wall is indeed long, it is also relatively thin, making it virtually invisible from space. Very few man-made structures can be seen from space with the naked eye, but city lights are detectable at night.

All bivalve mollusks (including clams, mussels, and scallops as well as oysters) are capable of producing pearls, however, only certain mollusk groups create nacre, the substance that gives gem pearls their characteristic luster.

When kids start bouncing off the walls after they've had too much Coke or birthday cake, it's common to blame a "sugar high." The relationship between sugar and hyperkinesis was first proposed in a 1978 study that has since been discredited. Several double-blind follow-up studies have shown no relationship at all.

Aristotle was the first to state that humans have five senses, but in the thousands of years since his time, scientists have discovered many more. Some neuroscientists believe we have up to 33 senses, including the abilities to feel pain and temperature and to sense balance, direction, weight, and the passing of time.

Columbus didn't need to prove the Earth was round. People had begun accepting this fact in the fifth century B.C., thanks to the work of scientists, astronomers, and mathematicians. Columbus was only trying to gauge the size of the oceans in order to open up new trade routes.

Although founding father Benjamin Franklin did criticize the bald eagle as a bird of questionable moral character for stealing prey from other birds, he never suggested the turkey as its replacement. He actually proposed an image of Moses commanding the sea to destroy a pharaoh in a chariot, accompanied by the words "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God."

Birds don't have a particularly strong sense of smell, so human handling will not deter a mother from taking care of her chick. This tale likely came about as a way for parents to prevent their children from meddling with vulnerable creatures.

Multiple studies done on dairy consumption in people who have colds showed no increase in mucus production as a result of drinking milk. The milk can, however, coat existing mucus and saliva, making it feel thicker - which may cause people to think they are producing more.

In November of 1620, the Pilgrims made their first landfall on the tip of Cape Cod, in what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts, before sailing to Plymouth a month later. It wasn't until 1741 that a 94-year-old church elder claimed that the boulder now known as Plymouth Rock was the Pilgrims' exact landing spot.

According to parents everywhere, swimming directly after eating can cause severe, paralyzing cramps, because it interrupts the blood flow and oxygen that are being diverted to your stomach for digestion. The truth is, swimming after eating is as safe as swimming any other time, and there have been no documented deaths due to swimming on a full stomach. The myth was first recorded in a 1911 Boy Scouts handbook.

The maritime Morse code distress signal that entails a continuous string of three dots, three dashes, and three more dots was adopted internationally in 1906. It was originally not associated with any letters, but because three dots form an S and three dashes form an O in international Morse code, people began calling the signal SOS out of convenience. "Save our ship" is a mnemonic that was likely developed to help sailors remember the new signal.

Dogs aren't completely color blind; they have two types of color-sensing cones, as opposed to the three that most humans have. Dogs have dichromatic vision and can detect shades of blue and yellow. It's similar to having red-green colorblindness.

A banana plant may grow as tall as a tree, but it's actually a large succulent herb whose trunk never grows woody, as tree trunks do. The main growth stem of the banana plant is an underground rhizome, and the shoots that grow vertically from the rhizome are pseudostems that die back after the bananas are harvested.

Bulls cannot discern the color red. When they charge a matador, it's because they view the swift motions of his muleta, or cape, as a threat. The muleta is traditionally red to mask the color of the bull's blood spatter.

Unfortunately, urinating on jellyfish stings can aggravate them even more. In order to deactivate the toxin-releasing organelles that are left on the skin by the jellyfish, it's best to wash the sting with sea water first, then with vinegar or a paste made from baking soda and sea water.

The popular depiction of Vikings in horned helmets can be traced to a 19th-century German cultural revival. Art depicting horned Vikings may have existed prior to the 1870s, but the image was solidified in history when costume designer Carl Emil Doepler utilized horned helmets for a festival featuring the operas of Richard Wagner.

The idea was made popular by former physician Andrew Wakefield in 1998, when he published a forged scientific study linking autism to the MMR vaccine. His study has since been discredited, and Wakefield's medical license has been revoked.

Napoleon is recorded as having been 5'2"; but the French measurement translates to about 5'6" in U.S. customary units, which was an average adult male height during Napoleon's time. The misconceptions about his short stature can also be attributed to the political cartoons of British cartoonist James Gillray.

Chameleons are capable of changing their skin color, but it has little to do with camouflage. They use color changes to communicate their mood to other chameleons and to help regulate their temperature.

The terminal velocity of a penny dropped from a skyscraper would be about 25 mph. Due to a penny's shape, air resistance would prevent it from reaching speeds high enough to harm a person or do much damage to anything it hits.

Although bagpipes are now synonymous with Scotland, they likely originated in the Middle East. Ancient text and representations of the bagpipe have been found in Egypt and Turkey. The instrument likely made its way to Rome before spreading into Western Europe.

The skilled laborers who built the pyramids lived in a bustling town built specifically to house and feed them. Excavated animal bones and bread jars show that they were fed very well, and some workers were honored by being entombed near the site of the pyramids.

According to an experiment conducted at Stanford, a coin is actually slightly more likely to land facing the same direction it started in. The odds are about 51-49 that a tossed coin will land in its original position.

While it's true that the human digestive system can't break down gum, swallowed gum won't remain in the stomach. It will pass through and be excreted, similarly to insoluble fibers like wheat bran and corn.

Although being burned alive was a common fate for women accused of witchcraft during the Medieval ages in Europe, the accused in Salem were generally hanged or died while in prison.

Twinkies have a shelf life of about 25 days. They are known to become chewy after that time, and people who have experimented with keeping Twinkies around for years have reported mold, discoloration, and shriveling of the aged specimens.

It's true that certain areas of the tongue - namely the edges and tip - are more sensitive to taste, but that sensitivity isn't dependent on the type of taste. All areas of the tongue that can detect taste will detect sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami with generally equal aptitude.

Despite their name, peanuts are not nuts, but rather legumes that grow underground. They are members of the pea family and are closely related to clover, chickpeas, and fava beans.

Any part of the body that is unclothed in the cold will lose heat. It just so happens that people are more likely to go outside without hats than without shirts or pants, and therefore are likely to lose more heat from their heads. The human head, however, doesn't lose heat any more readily than the rest of the body.

The consensus among historians is that the French queen never uttered those famous words. Long before the rumors of her callous remark began circulating, similar rumors surrounded the Spanish wife of King Louis XIV, who was accused of saying that the French people could eat "the crust of the pâté."

Although toads are covered in bumpy glands that can secrete various protective substances, they can't give humans warts. Warts are caused by the human papillomavirus, which can only be spread by other humans and surfaces that someone with an active infection has come into contact with.

Although most living things do die, there is a species of jellyfish that has remarkably attained immortality. Adult Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish can revert to an embryonic-like state (called a polyp) if they are injured or starving. The polyp will eventually release a colony of baby jellyfish that are genetically identical to the original.

According to Harvard Medical School, cracking your knuckles is not a particularly harmful habit - as long as you don't take it too far and injure a tendon or dislocate your finger. It has not been shown to contribute to the development of arthritis.

Alcohol acts as a vasodilator, causing capillaries near the skin to fill with blood. While this can make someone feel warmer, the movement of blood to the surface actually causes heat loss and decreases core body temperature.

MSG is a salt of the naturally occuring amino acid glutamate (which is present in everything from breast milk to tomatoes to walnuts). Although many people claim that MSG gives them headaches, a 2016 systematic review of human MSG studies concluded that there is no significant evidence linking MSG with headaches.