10 LIES I THOUGHT WERE TRUE:
1.) Cracking your knuckles will give you arthritis:
Cracking your knuckles (or any of your joints) can have therapeutic benefits. When you crack one of your joints you are pulling the bones that are connected at the joint apart from each other. This process stimulates your tendons, relaxes your muscles, and loosens your joints. Chiropractors do this for spinal joints when your back is sore and stiff, but you can do this on your own for your knuckles, toes, knees, neck, etc." I crack my knuckles ALL THE TIME. Call it a nervous habit, call it keeping my hands occupied, whatever. All I can say is it relaxes me and I like it.
Last year, I was talking to my doctor about a problem I was having with my thumb. I asked her if I was getting early on set of arthritis due to cracking my knuckles. She laughed at me and pointed me to a scientific study about knuckle cracking.
Unfortunately, there can be too much of a good thing. Cracking your knuckles will never lead to arthritis (despite what your mom keeps telling you), but scientists have discovered that it can cause tissue damage in the affected joints. Knuckle-cracking pulls your finger bones apart which stretches your ligaments. Too much stretching of your ligaments will cause damage to your fingers akin to the arm injuries sustained by a baseball pitcher who throws too many pitches. In addition to making your hand really sore, this ligament damage can also result in reduced grip strength.
Is this better or worse then arthritis? I am not sure. But what I do know is that I wasted 20 years of my life worrying I was going to have arthritis before 40. Thanks Mom.
2.) Swallowing gum will last for 7 years
This is probably one of the most highly believable myths a kid hears. If this was in fact true, I would have so much gum in my stomach, it would probably take to the year 2187 to remove from my body. While it is true that gum can't be digested, the idea that it will just stick to your stomach wall, essentially sitting in a vat of hydrochloric acid, is rather ridiculous. It simply passes through your digestive tract, alongside any other food, your allowance, action figure accessories, or any other objects which can't be digested. I will tell you, before anyone starts ingesting all the gum they can: There is a small risk of large quantities of gum sticking to each other, causing a blockage in the digestive tract that no amount of Long John Silvers would be able to dislodge. Food for Thought (see what I did there?)
Surveys have suggested that as many as 40% of parents tell their children that if you leave the house with wet hair, you will get sick. However, wetness really has nothing to do with it; far more important is being exposed to a cold virus. A link has been found to cold weather drying out your nasal lining, making you more susceptible to 1 of the 200 or so viruses known to cause colds. Coupled with a tendency to stay indoors, close to other people who may be carrying the virus, and you have a potent cold-inducing combination through the winter months, but wet hair really has nothing to do with it. I think my parents were just embarrassed to be seen with me looking like I got off the set of Oliver Twist.
4.) Swimming after you eat gives you cramps
I am sure everyone has heard this before. I actually did some research on this because I wanted to see where the idea came from. Apparently, eating diverts blood away from the muscles to the stomach, thereby increasing the chances of cramps and drowning. The motive for telling people this is clearly to save lives, but the logic is fundamentally flawed. Cramps are often caused by muscle fatigue, dehydration and other factors, such as lack of sodium. However, none of these factors have any correlation to eating just prior to exercise, and in some cases, it could even be argued that replenishing your energy whilst exercising could actually reduce the risk of cramping. Take that Jillian Michael s, you psycho hose-water bee-otch. (Did I mention I don't really care for her?)
This is possibly the oddest of our entries, primarily because I am one of the tallest people you probably know. How this myth even got started is something of a mystery. However, a possible explanation would be that parents try to deter kids from drinking something which makes them hyperactive. Mine also use to tell me that when the Ice Cream Truck has a song playing, it means they are out of ice cream. I assume this was for the same reason. Whatever the explanation, the bottom line is this: coffee will not influence height. Numerous studies have been done into the effects of coffee on the body. Some suggest it reduces the risk of certain cancers. Others say it may reduce the risk of type-II diabetes or increase male fertility. Nowhere has it been shown that drinking coffee stunts your growth.
6.) Walt on Ice (coming soon to Madison Square Garden)
Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966, but a rumor has long persisted that his body was cryogenically frozen and is held in storage under Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride, ready for the day when science will come up with the cure for lung cancer. The origin of this urban legend, so far, is unknown.
In reality, Disney’s body was cremated soon after his death. Legal documents exist that indicate his ashes were interred two days after his cremation in a marked vault at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. The first instance of cryonic preservation occurred a full year after his death.
This actually made me sad. I really wanted this to be true.
7.) Sewer Gators
Oddly enough, there is a grain of truth behind this legend. "The documented capture of an eight-foot alligator at the bottom of an East Harlem manhole in 1935 (though no one at the time assumed it actually lived down there). It was theorized at the time that the creature must have tumbled off a steamer visiting the northeast 'from the mysterious Everglades, or thereabouts,' and swam up the Harlem River. It met an unfortunate end at the hands of the teenage boys who found it."
I wish I would have known this back when I was 5. I wouldn't have been so scared to sit on a toilet. Thanks Dad.
8.) Daddy Long Leg Spiders
A widespread myth holds that daddy longlegs, are the most venomous spiders in the world. We're only safe from their bite, we are told, because their fangs are too small and weak to break through human skin.
It turns out that the notion is false on both counts. According to entomologists at the University of California, Riverside, the term "daddy longlegs" live in moist, dark places and eat mostly decomposing vegetable and animal matter. "They do not have venom glands, fangs or any other mechanism for chemically subduing their food," the UC entomologists write on their website. "Therefore, they do not have poison and, by the powers of logic, cannot be poisonous from venom. Some have defensive secretions that might be poisonous to small animals if ingested. So, for these daddy longlegs, the tale is clearly false."
I think the person I am most disappointed with over this issue is Jason. For somebody so deathly afraid of spiders, I thought you would have known about this.
9.) Waking a sleepwalker
- Ever hear that you can kill a sleep walker from waking them? The chances of killing a sleepwalker due to the shock of sudden awakening, however, is about as likely as somebody expiring from a dream about dying. While it is true that waking a sleepwalker, especially forcefully, may distress them, it is an absolutely false statement that someone would die from shock, says Michael Salemi, general manager at the California Center for Sleep Disorders. "You can startle sleepwalkers, and they can be very disoriented when you wake them up and they can have violent, or confused reactions, but I have not heard of a documented case of someone dying from being woken up." Sleepwalking's hazard is more closely linked to what the sleepwalker may encounter when roaming about in a nocturnal reverie.
Imagine my embarrassment when I got this question wrong in the middle of my Psychopathology class. Kudos, Mom.
10.) 5 Second Rule
In households, restaurant kitchens, and almost anywhere people prepare or consume food, you'll occasionally hear someone call out "five-second rule." This refers to the concept that if food hits the floor and you snatch it up in less than five seconds, it's safe to eat."
Yes, someone really has conducted a scientific study of the five-second rule. It was the project of high school senior Jillian Clarke during a six-week internship in the food science and nutrition department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jillian swabbed the floors around the University in the lab, hall, dormitory, and cafeteria to see how many organisms could detected. The floors were so clean, from a microbiological point of view, because floors are dry, and most pathogens like salmonella, listeria, or E. coli can't survive without moisture.
To control the study, cookies and gummi bears were placed on both rough and smooth sterile tiles covered with measured amounts of E. coli, which did show a transfer of germs before five seconds. "All bets are off when it comes to carpet, damp floors, gum, or ice cream, as these were not included in the study."
Clarke also conducted a survey in which 70% of women and 56% of men said they were familiar with the rule. Women were more likely to invoke it. Not surprisingly, people are inclined to eat dropped cookies and candy more often than dropped broccoli and cauliflower.
For her work, Clarke was awarded an Ig Nobel prize in 2004 at Harvard University. Ig Nobel prizes recognize "research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think." Also honored at the ceremony was the inventor of karaoke music.
I honestly just found this article funny, and had to include it. Also, this was the board game Donna got for the family to play on Christmas. The slogan on the front of the box........priceless
No comments:
Post a Comment