How many times have you heard from your mother and grandmother, “Do not go out without a hat, you will catch a cold”, or “Do not read in the dark, you will get your eyesight impaired”. Although these pieces of advice are well-intentioned, in fact, science has proven that they are nothing more than myths about the human body.
Here are the top 10 prejudices and myths about the human body:
1. If you touch a toad, you’ll get warts
Warts are caused by a virus in people known as the human papillomavirus. It cannot be transmitted from animals, and certainly not from toads, whose bumps are glands, not warts.
2. You must not wake a sleepwalker
When a person suffers from lunacy, he or she walks and performs various actions in their sleep.
If you wake a sleepwalker, they may feel muddled and disoriented, but it is still better than the injury they can get, stumbling over various objects and walking in dangerous places. Therefore, it is better to gently wake them up and help them get back in bed.
3. You can catch a cold if you go out in a damp, cold weather
There is no evidence to support this statement. Viruses are more common in lower humidity in winter. In addition, in cold weather, people spend more time indoors, where it is easier for these viruses to spread. The only thing that is scientifically confirmed is that the cold reduces our resistance to infection we caught.
4. Hair and nails continue growing after death
Neither one nor the other continues growing. But after the death, the cuticle and the skin get wrinkled, making it seem as if the hair and nails lengthened.
5. After shaving, the growing hair is thicker and darker
Unshaved hair has a conical shape and that is why it does not look as thick as the shaved one. In addition, unshaved hair is more exposed to the sun, which brightens it. That is why cut hair seems darker at first.
6. Men think about sex every seven seconds
If this was true, men would find it pretty hard to focus on any important things, such as work. Although there is no way to check this, scientists argue that this statement is an exaggeration.
7. Different areas of the tongue are responsible for different tastes
The idea that the taste buds on the tongue correspond to sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes ingrained in most people’s minds long ago. However, it is not like this.
Each area of the tongue can feel each taste. The myth that there was a tongue map came from an inaccurate translation by a German newspaper of the theory proposed by a professor at Harvard University.
8. We use only 10 % of our brain
William James, a psychologist, who lived in the 1800s, once metaphorically suggested that we used only 10 percent of our brains. This phrase turned into a rumor that the rest of the brain was not used.
In fact, the inactive neurons are the same important at any given time as the active ones, and 10 percent comes from different areas of the brain.
9. If you squint your eyes, they will remain like this
When you look at your nose, it creates a normal convergence, i.e. the number of rotations of the eye in relation to each other, in order to see the object.
In the case of squint, one eye looks straight and the other looks away. Most often it occurs in children and is caused by diseases of the nervous system, injuries, and other diseases. In adults, it occurs in extreme situations, such as stroke or Graves’ disease.
10. Reading in the dark impairs your eyesight
Reading with a flashlight in the dark will not affect your vision, but it will make reading difficult.
There are two types of eye receptors: rods and cones. Cones allow us to read and see colors, while rods capture movement in the peripheral vision and allow us to see in the dim light.
When you switch off the light, only the rods are activated, so reading becomes more difficult. Thus, it will not do any harm but will cause a greater eye strain.
You probably believed some of these myths about the human body before reading this article. Did you?