January 26, 2007 at 6:51 am
· Filed under Myths in Science

There are several variations on this folkloric statement, and they’re all quantifiably false. Astronauts can spot the Great Wall from low-Earth orbit, along with plenty of other things like the Giza pyramids and even airport runways. But they can’t see the Wall from the Moon.
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January 26, 2007 at 6:31 am
· Filed under Myths in Science

There is no evidence that animals possess a mysterious sixth-sense allowing them to predict natural disasters. Their keen senses of smell, hearing, and sharp instincts alone are enough to send them scattering for the hillsides during a hurricane or tsunami. And even so, animals often die during natural disasters, so if they do have some sort of sixth sense, it’s not worth much.
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January 26, 2007 at 5:38 am
· Filed under Myths in Science
Though hair and fingernails appear to keep growing after death, this is merely a morbid optical illusion at work. In death the human body dehydrates severely, retracting enough skin to expose more nail and hair.
IMAGE CREDIT: www.rosannas.com
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January 26, 2007 at 5:00 am
· Filed under Myths in Science
Despite a habit of licking things no human would dare, Fido’s mouth is often touted as scientifically more sterile. Truth is, oral bacteria are so species-specific that one can’t be considered cleaner than the other, just different.
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January 26, 2007 at 4:52 am
· Filed under Myths in Science
Not only is the Earth’s rotation too weak to affect the direction of water flowing in a drain, tests you can easily perform in a few washrooms will show that water whirlpools both ways depending on the sink’s structure, not the hemisphere.
IMAGE CREDIT: Morguefile.com / William Roesly
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