Knowledge changes over time, so don’t be surprised when facts you thought were true turn out to be outright false.
Having said a lot, but still have to remind you, the world – to be more precise, our understanding of the world – is always changing. At this point your knowledge may be correct, but over time it will be catastrophically wrong that if not regularly updated, it is impossible to know.
Here are such facts. They were true in the past, but they are completely wrong now.
The largest creature on Earth is not a blue whale but a fungus.
The blue whale is truly an animal of tremendous size. 30m long, weighing hundreds of tons, it has no rival in the animal world both underwater and on land. Even a whale’s heart weighs more than a ton.
However, the largest creature on Earth is not a blue whale. That title belongs to a species of fungus , Armillaria ostoyae.
From the outside, Armillaria ostoyae is nothing out of the ordinary. But if you look at the structure, this fungus has an extremely special root system, when each mushroom is linked together through a set of roots. That is, a mushroom growing at one end of the forest will share the same roots as the mushroom growing at the other end. And because they share the same roots, just one mushroom is enough to feed an entire family.
Because of this ability, a population of Armillaria mushrooms, although made up of many fungi, is still recognized as a single organism – rather, the “grand body” of Armillaria.
On Earth there are many such “great bodies” , one of which is “mushroom individuals” found in Malheur National Forest, Oregon (USA) which is considered the largest on the planet. This “big body” is up to 10 square kilometers – equivalent to 0.14% of the forest area.
Cockroaches will also “go up” if a nuclear disaster breaks out.
Cockroaches are very tough, very persistent creatures. They can go without food for months, even losing their head, and still live for at least 2 weeks (the reason they die is just because they don’t have a mouth to drink water).
Also because of its impressive survivability, for a very long time, humans believed that cockroaches could survive even nuclear wars. However, in 1963, two scientists Mary Ross and DG Cochran tried to test the tolerance of cockroaches to radiation, and the truth was not as we thought.
As it turns out, cockroaches will also “go up” if a nuclear disaster breaks out. However, cockroaches’ radiation tolerance is also 10 times stronger than ours, so don’t take them lightly.
Tooth decay is the most common disease.
Who in the world has not caught a cold at least once, especially when the weather turns cold. However, if you think this is the most common disease in the world, you are wrong.
As it turns out, there’s an extremely common illness that you can get at any time, no matter how cold or hot it is. That’s… tooth decay.
According to research by Professor Marcenes from Queen Mary University (London, UK), at least 2.5 billion adults and 621 million children around the world are suffering from tooth decay. If calculated as a percentage, this number is equivalent to 41% of the world’s population.
The title of the largest pyramid in the world actually belongs to the Great Pyramid of Cholula.
The symbol of Egypt is the pyramid, so everyone thinks that the largest pyramid in the world must be theirs. In fact, there are a number of previous texts that say so.
But over time, scientists came to a different conclusion. The title of the largest pyramid in the world actually belongs to the Great Pyramid of Cholula (or Tlachihualtepetl) of Mexico. Cholula is twice the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza of Egypt in volume. As for the bottom area, the difference is 4 times.
In fact, there are many four-legged animals that can’t jump either, like hippos, rhinoceros, or sloths.
Elephants are a strange animal. Although they have 4 legs with knees and huge muscles, they cannot jump. To lift a body that weighs tons, that alone is not enough.
But it turns out that elephants aren’t the only animals that suffer. In fact, there are many four-legged animals that can’t jump either, like hippos, rhinoceros, or sloths. However, it is slightly different in that if these two species run at high speed, sometimes all 4 of their legs do not touch the ground.
Disinfection is a function everyone assigns to soap – and in fact we also have soaps that are advertised as killing bacteria. However, in reality, the way soap works is to wash away bacteria.
When washing hands, soap has the ability to break down the bonds in body oils, making them easier to wash off. The longer you wash your hands, the less oil is left on your hands, and so are the bacteria hidden in them.
Many people also remember the old days when parents used to scare us not to swallow gum, because they will accumulate and cause intestinal obstruction.
But the truth is that the acid in the intestines cannot break down the rubber. So the candy residue will be treated by the body like any other foreign body: it passes through the entire digestive system through peristalsis, and out of the body when we go to the toilet after 1-2 days.
This is also what bothers many people. However, this is actually a misconception.
When shaving off the outer part of the skin, what is left is just the roots of the hair, which are darker and harder, so we have the impression that they grow back thick. But in fact, the growth rate is not affected by shaving.
However, this feeling can also be true sometimes. Be aware that body hair has a different growth time – depending on hormone levels. Regular shaving can sometimes coincide with hormonal changes, making it feel like they are growing out faster than usual.
This is the concept of the people in the past, and science has now proven it is not true. Warts (skin warts) are caused by papillomaviruses, which can be spread by contact with an infected person, but are not related to the actual toad.
The truth is that you can see the nails and hair of the dead grow longer after a while. However, that is only a visual effect, caused by the skin dehydrating and shrinking, pushing out the remaining nails and hair.
The Great Wall is compared with one of the 7 wonders of the modern world today, due to the scale of the work is very large (up to 7000km long). However, seeing from space is still impossible.
An English proverb has the phrase “Blind like a bat” – meaning blind as a bat, based on the concept that this animal has a useless eye.
But actually, all bats (more than 1,100 species) have pretty good night vision, though not as well as other predators like owls. However, they mainly use ultrasound to locate, so they “see” at night better than any other animal in the world.
An object can conduct electricity when inside a molecule there are positively and negatively charged particles. But you know what, water doesn’t have that – at least with pure water. In other words, water cannot conduct electricity.
But if so, how to explain electric shock accidents caused by wet hands? Actually, what conducts electricity in this case is impurities mixed in water.
Antibiotics can only treat bacteria. Colds are caused by viruses, so antibiotics won’t work.