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  • 10) The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space.

  • To see something on Earth from space, it would have to be pretty big, which the great wall

  • of China all 5,000 miles of it certainly is. But, it’s only 30 feet across at its widest.

  • Here’s a photo taken from the International Space station, 200 miles above Earth. Can

  • you spot the great wall amid the mountain tops?

  • Here, right? No, that’s a river, the wall is actually here. Even if you guessed the

  • right lines buy pure luck, this photo was taken with a zoom lens, so from the window

  • of the space station it looks more like thiswhich pretty clearly makes the Great Wall

  • count asnot visible.’ As for the man-made part of this misconception

  • our glorious man-made cities blasting light into the void certainly are visible.

  • 9) Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis. Socially obnoxious? Yes. Gives you arthritis

  • later in life as karmic punishment? No. 8) People Only Use 10% of their Brain

  • If you haven’t seen a medical drama in the past oh, 30 years, you might not be aware

  • that doctors now have machines that can see inside peoplesbrains and, contrary to

  • popular, belief 90% of the neurons don’t sit all day around doing nothing.

  • While scientists don’t yet know exactly what each part does, they do know that all

  • the bits matter. So if you think someone could scoop out 90%

  • of your brain and you’d still be just fine, then perhaps you really do only use 10% of

  • it. 7) Eskimos have Hundreds of words for snow

  • This one is technically correct, but misleading. Some languages, such as German, like to make

  • compound words by running several smaller ones together which is why German words are

  • sometimes absurdly long. Inuit languages use compound words as well

  • so rather than sayyellow snowas you would in English an Inuit speaker combines

  • the two words into one, but it’s not really a new word, just a quirk of grammar.

  • So technically Eskimos do have 100s of ways to describe snowbut then so does every

  • language. 6) You Need 8 Glasses of Water a Day

  • While doubtless some people would benefit from drinking more water and drinking less

  • crap there is no scientific evidence that 8 glasses of water a day is the required amount

  • and some evidence that it might be too much. And while were talking about water

  • 5) Tap Water is Bad but Bottled Water is Good If you live in a paradise free from Government

  • regulations like, say, Somalia, then you might have good reason to prefer bottled water over

  • tap. But modern, functioning countries have something called health regulations which

  • cover both kinds of water. Also, water is extremely dense making transporting

  • it from those pristine mountain tops and glaciers enormously expensive which is why bottled

  • water companies don’t bother. ‘Bottledwater is often just local tap

  • water with a fancy label and an enormous markup. 4) Gum takes seven years to pass through your

  • digestive system. This is pretty easy to disprove yourself but

  • it’s understandable why most people don’t try the experiment.

  • 3) Blood in Your Veins is Blue The idea here is that the blood in veins is

  • blue and it only turns red when exposed to the oxygen in the air.

  • Thinking this isn’t unreasonable, after all your veins look blue and medical diagrams

  • show arteries as red and veins as blue, but it’s the same mistake as thinking that mountain

  • dew is green because it’s in a green bottle. Pour it out and you discover that Mountain

  • Dew is really piss yellow, which is probably the reason it’s in a green bottle to begin

  • with. The next time you get blood withdrawn from

  • a veins take a look. What color it is? Red. How much oxygen is inside a good syringe?

  • None. Unless youre a Horseshoe crab or Plavalaguna

  • youre blood isn’t blue. 2) Fan Death

  • This misconception is a specialty of South Korea. Here the belief is that if you spend

  • too much time with a rotating fan in a confined space, it will use up all your oxygen and

  • youll asphyxiate to death. Exactly how the fan made of lifeless, anaerobic

  • plastic, competes for your oxygen is unclear, but hilariously South Korean fan manufacturers

  • who surely must know betterinclude timers on fans to prevent them from running

  • too long. 1) People Swallow 8 Spiders a Year While Sleeping

  • Supposedly while youre in bed, helplessly unconscious with your gob wide open, each

  • year eight spiders find their way into your mouth and you reflexively swallow them.

  • This is plainly ridiculous: spiders love warm, moist places so eight is far too low an estimate.

10) The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space.

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