Myths are facts we believed were true but it’s not so. There are numerous of such examples of myth, but here is a collection of the most prevalent ones. Facts that will blow your mind away are waiting to be discovered, so let’s get started with the five myths we all have experienced.
- You always ate tangerine NOT orange
The look-alikes tangerine and orange belong to the citrus family of fruits. Preyed upon by myths, all our lives we ate tangerine, calling it orange. The basic difference between these fruits is their shape. Tangerines are relatively smaller than oranges, and thus they are also known as baby oranges. Tangerines are not rounded like oranges, and are somewhat flattened. Oranges are firm to touch, but tangerines are relatively soft. Tangerines are easier to peel than oranges.
2. Milk is NOT good for cats
Most of the mammals lose the ability to digest milk when they grow up. The sugar found in milk, called Lactose, is broken down by an enzyme known as Lactase, which is naturally produced in the intestines of kittens. They do so because digesting milk is important when they are young, as they depend upon the milk produced by the mammary glands of their parents. But as they grow up the production of lactase decreases because they consume other foods too. The milk of very mammal species has different amounts of nutrients in it. While cat milk is important for the survival of the kitten, cow’s milk is not. Cow’s milk contains a lot of lactose, which is beyond the capacity of an average cat to handle. When undigested lactose passes through the large intestine, the cells secrete a lot of extra water to deal with it, which causes diarrhea in them. The gut bacteria may also end up fermenting the lactase, which can cause gas and consequently bloating. Although kittens have the ability to break down sugar, it’s not good for them as well. Now that the myth has been debunked, next time you want to be kind to a cat, do not offer milk.
3. Black Hole is NOT as deadly as you think
The myths of enormous black holes being death traps has created ripples of speculation all around the world for eons. Small black holes have narrow horizons, so the gravity increases as you move down. Nearing with your hands towards the black hole will result in experiencing higher gravity on your fingers than your elbow, which might result in spaghettification, lengthening of hand. But in massive black holes which are billions of times heavier than our sun, there is a much wider horizon. So, the force on the top of your head and at your heels is nearly the same, hence we can travel all the way to its core, without turning into noodles of your earlier self.
4. MOONWALK isn’t Michael Jackson’s invention
The myth that moonwalk is invented by the legendary Michael Jackson has flooded our minds for ages. Whereas Bill Bailey performed moonwalk for the first time in his tap dance, Marcel Marceau performed it later. Michael Jackson performed a moonwalk for the first time in 1983. But he had learnt it from Casper Candidate and Cooley Jaxson, who had already performed it in the 1970s, much after Marcel Marceau. Thus, it’s really difficult to find who invented moonwalk, but that definitely wasn’t Mr. Jackson.
5. RED colour doesn’t annoy BULLS
The fear of getting attacked by a bull while wearing red dresses has been quite a thing since childhood which is just an amplified myth. The bull fights, where the matador invites the bull to attack using a red cloth, called muleta has increased our beliefs in this myth. But science finds no such evidence of bulls getting annoyed with red colour. Rather it’s the movement of the matador that aggravates them to attack, irrespective of the colour. Bulls have two different cells on their retina to detect colour, one of which detects colour in the blue-violet region, while the other detects colour in the yellow-green region. But there is no proof of bulls getting irritated at the sight of any colour, till date. So, the next time you wear red while going for a walk, do not worry if you pass by a bull, you are as safe as others wearing blue or white.
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html
https://rtdjournal.com/5-strange-animal-phenomena-and-the-science-behind-them/
