The Lie: Lemmings commit suicide en masse. The Truth: Lemmings are stupid, not depressed. The myth of lemming suicide goes back a long way - at least to Freud, who in Civilization and Its Discontents (1929) examined the human death instinct in the context of the purported mass suicide of lemmings. But suicidal lemmings didn't fully enter the pop culture lexicon until Disney made the "documentary" White Wilderness in 1958. Disney shipped dozens of lemmings to Alberta, Canada (where they do not live), herded them off a cliff, filmed the poor creatures falling to their deaths, and passed it off as nonfiction. Ah, the magic of Disney. In fact, lemmings aren't suicidal. They're just dumb. When the tundra gets crowded, they seek out new land. Sometimes they fall off the cliffs. |
The Lie: When elephants get ready to die, they go to elephant graveyards. The Truth: When elephants are ready to die, they just fall down and do it, just like the rest of us. |
The Lie: Throwing rice at weddings causes birds to explode. The Truth: Throwing rice at weddings causes birds to have something new and delicious and totally undangerous to eat. In fact, there are many species of birds in Asia who survive primarily on uncooked rice, which they take from fields. The myth had its start in a 1988 Ann Landers [wiki] column in which she discouraged readers from the practice. The USA Rice Federation (motto: "Proving There Is a Federation for Everything") immediately debunked Landers's story, but, surprisingly, Ann Landers had a broader readership than the USA Rice Federation. |
The Lie: Chewing gum stays in your digestive system for seven years. The Truth: Chewing gum, like anything else, stays in your digestive system for an average of about 20 hours. Like a lot of indigestible things people eat (fingernails, lettuce, Froot Loops), chewing gum gets passed through the gastrointestinal tract as roughage. |
The Lie: If you don't wait an hour after eating to get in the swimming pool, you will get a cramp and die. The Truth: Exactly 0 deaths have ever been attributed to entering a pool too quickly after eating. |
The Lie: Walt Disney is cryogenically frozen. The Truth: Walt Disney [wiki] was the opposite of frozen. His body was cremated two days after his death in 1966. |
The Lie: The original Harlem Globetrotters are from Harlem. The Truth: Not a single one was from New York. Almost all of the original Globetrotters were from Chicago, where the team was founded in 1926. They took on "New York" to seem more cosmopolitan as they toured the Midwest and changed it to "Harlem" in 1930. |
The Lie: Adam and Eve ruined everything for the rest of us by eating an apple. The Truth: Adam and Even ruined everything for the rest of us by eating an unnamed fruit. The exact wording: " ... the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden" (Genesis 3:3). |
The Lie: Mussolini made the trains run on time. The Truth: When seeking to explain why masses of people will sometimes support evil regimes, you often hear folks say, "Well, Mussolini [wiki] made the trains run on time." Poor example. If you're taking an indefensible position, well, Hamas does provide schools and medical care to Palestinians. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, who conscript child soldiers and lead the world in suicide bombings, did give aid to Sri Lankans in the wake of the 2004 tsunami. But Mussolini never made the trains run on time. During World War I, the Italian rail system became woefully inconsistent, and it's true that by the time Mussolini took power in 1922, the trains were more punctual - but mostly because of construction work done in the years before he took power. |
The Lie: The Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space. The Truth: Thousands of man-made objects are visible from space. Furthermore, the Great Wall of China is not among them. To quote austronaut Jay Apt, "Although we can see things as small as airport runways, the Great Wall seems to be made largely of materials that have the same color as the surrounding soil." |
The Lie: Van Gogh cut off his left ear and mailed it to a prostitute. The Truth: He only chopped off the bottom half of his left ear - somewhere between a Tyson-Holyfield fight and a full-fledged ear-ectomy. And he didn't mail it to a prostitute. Some claim he gave it away to a prostitute named Rachel (hey, we never said he was well adjusted), but he never mailed anything. Given his complete financial distress (in his lifetime, he only sold one painting), Vincent could hardly afford the postage. |
The Lie: Hair grows back thicker and darker after you shave it. The Truth: Sadly, it does not - although balding men surely wish it did. hair may seem to grow back thicker because short hairs tend to feel and look dark and coarse, but it's an illusion. Nor does your hair keep growing after you die. Nor does 100 strokes with the brush before bedtime improve the health of your hair. Nor can any fancy-pants shampoo repair your split ends (someone had to say it). |
The Lie: You only use 10 percent of your brain. The Truth: You, beloved and brilliant mental_floss reader, use all of your brain. And so does everyone else. PET and MRI scans of the brain show that while you don't use all of your brain all the time, you use all of it some of the time. Frankly, we're offended on your behalf that anyone would ever say that your well-flossed, knowledge trap of a brain was only functioning at 10 percent capacity! Maybe those idiots think Van Gogh mailed his ear to a hooker, but not you! Again, even those idiots use all their brains as well, but we're on a roll here. It's totally bull! Incidentally, if you've ever wondered why we say "bull" rather than "cow" or "hog" or "three-toed possum" ... |
From mental_floss' book Scatterbrained (highly recommended!) published in Neatorama with permission. Be sure to visit mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog! |
Where did the data come from that Disney engineered that video? Without a source listed, there is no proof. No proof = no belief.
And we did a computer job for the guy working on "thawing" Disney, so that one MIGHT BE out to...
A great read though! Thanks!
Don't let your daughters SHAVE their legs. Big no-no.
They'll regret it forever!
;)
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm
and I have a pool and have never waiting anymore than 15 minutes after eating to jump back in, and I'm still alive :)
But I still stick to the Disney cryogenic freezing due to first-hand experience on the computer of the guy working on "thawing" the Disney body. As I recall the governement gave him more funds than Disney did... :-)
First - The rice you throw at weddings isn't merely uncooked, its dried. The idea was that the birds would eat a lot of dehydrated at once, more than they could find in the same period of time in the field, and then when they drank, it could result in gastronomic distress that could injure them. Don't know if its true, but I don't trust Landers or the growers as a source of info on this.
Second - brushing your hair spreads oil from you scalp down the length of the hair shaft - which gets precious little in this wonderful historical period of hygiene. On the other hand, the wrong brush of comb will break more hairs than it lubricates, so only the right brush will improve condition, and only if you brush before shampooing, not afterwards.
Would love to hear your opinions on this -
SalvoSensu
Mel
Doesn't brushing stimulate the scalp, increasing blood flow to follicles?
Your article should be 'lies your crappy article told me'.
Disney's White Wilderness was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings and has no outlet to the sea. Lemmings were imported for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to produce a "migration" sequence; afterwards, the helpless creatures were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water.
He was in love with that woman and wanted to give her something and since he was broke and didn't have any belongings to give her, *he gave her a part of himself*.
Yea they are the founding fathers of terrorism and use people's sufferings as a tool for them to make money and gain power, yet they have a powerful propaganda machine (as most other terrorist arganizations have) which portrait them as freedom fighters.
Tiger's actually rob aid intended for poor people, but yet claim they give charity. Pretty much like Musolini ran trains on time :-)
For example, one may use all of his/her brain to further their knowledge and understanding of the way the universe works. However another may use all of their brain to absorb what ever tripe is being dished up on today's episode of Springer.
And perhaps there are some "world leaders" out there that should dedicate at least some of their brain to absorbing the dictionary.
I still chuckle to myself when ever I think of "misunderestimated".
give it a break,
tiger may lead the suicide bombing but with the lowest civilian casulty, they always aim at political and financial targets of the Government of SL to stop them from bombing tamil people. the government borrows money from IMF to fund the war,
Sri-lankan army has under age soldiers, one was recently caught by the tigers, he has been in the army 3 years , according to his DOB he is 19. of course when they sign up the government doesnt care.
just like in WWII when UK/US didnt care, and its in the records.
at a receruitment drive in WWII, a kid goes up to sign up and the recruiter goes how old are you? the kid goes 16, then the recruiter says, come back tomorrow and lets see if you are 18,
and at the end of the day "one persons terrorist is another persons freedom figheter"
1) Van Gogh sold more than just one painting, although he sold them at prices that are ridiculous by current standards. He also gave some away to pay bills, which is comparable to selling.
2) Brushing your hair is good for blood circulation and has a (minuscule) positive effect.
Get your hair cut, and you'll get a job.
I had long hair for a few years. My parents insisted that I get it cut so that I could get a new job. Five years ago I got it cut, for a job interview. I didn't get it (I was qualified enough). furthermore, I'm still doing the same job as before. Friends who still have long hair are able to change jobs almost yearly, and each is better paid than the last.
"Doing IT will make you go blind". Well I've been doing it many times a day and have to tell you I still have perfect 20/750 vision. :)
Garden is human body. middle is you know where... dig that? They ate each other and got a strange new deceise of that time. :D
Just because the explanation wasn't complete...doesn't mean it isn't a factual statement.
You eat tainted food...you go out swimming...you suffer gastric distress...you do not have the ability to swim while you are vomiting and doubling over...you drown.
"Nor does your hair keep growing after you die."
Actually, your body keeps doing what it's doing (if u are left alone naturally). Even though your brain dead and stop breathing, most of your cells in your body are still living, which means if hair cells are still working, your hair is still growing. You can grow upto 1/100th an inch a day, and upto fourteen days after your dead before your hair cells will all die out.
Ask any med student.
I agree that the body is the garden. I intujitively feel that the "tree" is the male genitals. The fruit is what you get from that "tree". Having participated in fellacio and cunnilingus, Adam and Eve had a heightened awareness of their differences compared to the "I never thought about it" exsistence they had been living. Thus began the age of man second guessing and questioning everything. Ergo, the fall from grace (after all, ignorance is bliss...).
The fruit and adam and eve are the mutation of higher-consciousness and the eventuality of many paths of evolution converging on a significant threshold at which functional patterns in behavioral morphology within the context of the species began to act autonomously from the influence of genetic inflection.
Oh and “one persons terrorist is another persons freedom figheter(sic)†- I'd always assumed that terrorists attacked innocent people whilst freedon fighters attacked the large scale military targets that were threatening them. Next time a 'freedom fighter' decides to blow up a commuter train I'd be inclined to re-classify them as a terrorist!
I had a friend back in my high school years who refused to shave, even after he started growing facial hair. It was very soft, thin, light-colored, and ugly-looking. We eventually pinned him down and shaved it off for him. *evil grin* Finally, it grew in normal-looking, dark, and thick.
Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that when you first started shaving, your facial hair was still developing, no?
who gives a shit.. it was a romantic idea to yoke the masses and it worked
oh and i ate an apple before swimming and i died
November 7th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
as to the fruit
who gives a ****.. it was a romantic idea to yoke the masses and it worked
oh and i ate an apple before swimming and i died"
Yeah well I ate your mum out and then she died from syphilis.
Who's yo daddy?
if there was a council of aliens who authored this, why would they have any interest in seeing if adam could overcome his temptations?
who would have created these supposed aliens?
Xenu. Duh.
So you are wrong again!!!
More REAL facts about myths can be seen at this list here:
http://www.maximonline.com/articles/index.aspx?a_id=4020&src=mx1122
"Where did the data come from that Disney engineered that video? Without a source listed, there is no proof. No proof = no belief."
Tell that to all the religious freaks in the world, will ya?
looks like there's hardly anything you got right.
i think you should delete it for the sake a human kind.
i know i wasted at least half an hour reading it and all the comments and i'm sure glad i read those comments because then i might actually have gone on believing some of the bull sh*t you've written here.
pity most people crap/piss themselves when in a bad accident.
as for adam and eve, i like the oral sex explanation above, but most of the bible is allegory, and only makes sense in this way. As for apples, they don't keep the doctor away. in fact, I'm allergic to them, so they do the opposite.
and biblical literists can go comfort themselves with the fact that if A and E were the first two people on earth, then we're all seriously inbred. After all, cain and abel must have been doing their sisters, or Eve.
As for the people who think you'll die after going into the swimming pool STRAIGHT AFTER you eat, I had a couple of pieces of pizza at the pool, and I went STRAIGHT IN THE POOL AFTER EATING. I'm alive. Nothing bad happened to me. *big evil grin*
Should check the nearest bible for this one. :p
sorry bout spellings
I heard that apple story, but I don't know where it came from...