o has n’t partake in an amazing science fact about shark , cats , squash racquet , ostriches , or other animals , only to feel embarrassed afterward on when you find out the information was incorrect ?
No more .
It ’s meter to put an close to these myth , misconception , and inaccuracies about animals hap down through the ages .
To aid the cause we ’ve rounded up and chasten dozens of the more popular myths we keep hearing repeated .
Have any favorites we missed ? send off them toscience@techinsider.io .
Kevin Loria , Lauren Friedman , Kelly Dickerson , Jennifer Welsh , andSarah Kramercontributed to this military post . Robert Ferriscontributed to a previous adaptation .
MYTH : There are bug in your strawberry mark Frappuccino .
This one is no longer genuine .
Before April 2012 , Starbucks ' strawberry Frappucino contained a dye made from the land - up bodies of thousands of tiny insect , call cochineal bugs ( orDactylopius cocci ) .
Farmers in South and Central America make a live harvesting — and dash — the bugs that go into the dye . Their broken eubstance produce a thick red ink that is used as a natural food food color , which was " call cochineal " red but is now called " carmine colour . "
Starbucks stopped using carmine color in their hemangioma simplex Frappucinos in 2012 . But the dye is still used in thousands of other nutrient product — from Nerds candy to grapefruit juice . Not to mention cosmetics , like adorable shade of violent lipstick .
Sources : Business Insider , CHR Hansen , AmericanSweets.co.uk , FoodFacts.com , LA Times
MYTH : Beaver bottom secernment are in your vanilla ice ointment .
You ’ve probably heard that a secernment called castoreum , isolated from the anal retentive gland of a beaver , is used in seasoning and perfumes .
But castoreum is so expensive , at up to $ 70 per quid of anal retentive gland ( the price to humanely milk castoreum from a topper is likely even higher ) , that it ’s unbelievable to show up in anything you eat .
In 2011 , the Vegetarian Resource Group wrote to five major companies that produce vanilla extract flavorer and asked if they use castoreum . The answer : According to the Federal Code of Regulations , they ca n’t . ( The FDA extremely regulates what goes into vanilla extract flavoring and extracts . )
It ’s equally unlikely you ’ll find castoreum in mass - commercialise goodness , either .
Sources : Business Insider , Vegetarian Resource Group , FDA , NY Trappers Forum
MYTH : Dogs and cat are colorblind .
frank and computerized axial tomography have much bettercolor visionthan we thought .
Both dogs and cats can see in blue and green , and they also have more retinal rod — the light - sensing cell in the eye — than humans do , so they can see better in low - light office .
This myth in all probability comes about because each animal sees color differently than mankind .
red and pinks may appear more green to cats , while purple may look like another wraith of blue . Dogs , meanwhile , have fewer cones — the colouring - feel cells in the centre — so scientists estimated that their color vision is only about 1/7th as vivacious as ours .
Sources : Today I feel Out , Business Insider
MYTH : Lemmings jump off cliffs in mass self-annihilation .
lemming do not place mass self-annihilation .
During their migrations they sometimes do fall off cliffs , or if they wander into an sphere they are unfamiliar with .
No one knows on the button when the myth start , but a 1958 Disney telecasting called"White Wilderness,“which won an Oscar for best documentary feature , has emerged over the year as the likeliest suspect — but the " infotainment " wasfaked .
Source : Tech Insider , Alaska Department Of Fish And secret plan
MYTH : Sharks do n’t get Cancer the Crab .
Back in 2013 , researcher reported a huge tumor uprise out of the mouth of a great lily-white shark , and another on the head of a bronze whaler shark .
And those are n’t the only example of shark cancers . Other scientist have report tumors in dozens of unlike shark species .
The myth that sharks do n’t get cancer was created by I. William Lane to sell shark gristle as a cancer treatment .
source : Journal Of Cancer Research , LiveScience
MYTH : Ostriches blot out by putting their heads in the grit
Ostriches do not stick their heading in the sand when peril . In fact , they do n’t eat up their heads at all .
When peril , ostriches sometimes flop on the ground and bet dead .
Source : San Diego Zoo
MYTH : People get warts from frogs and toads .
frog or frog wo n’t give you wart , but shaking hands with someone who has warts can .
The human papillomavirus is what gives people wart , and it is unique to human beings .
Source : WebMD
MYTH : This dinosaur is called a Brontosaurus .
Many people would call this dinosaur a Brontosaurus — even Michael Crichton did in " Jurassic Park . "
It is actually called the Apatosaurus . The myth come forth some 130 years ago during a feud between two fossilist .
reservoir : NPR
MYTH : Sharks can smell out a bead of blood from Swedish mile aside .
This one is a big exaggeration . Jaws is not coming for you from across the ocean if you bleed in the piss .
Shark have a extremely exaggerated brain region for smelling olfactory perception , provide some of the Pisces to notice as little as one part blood per 10 billion parts water — roughly a drop in an Olympic - size swim pool .
But it the ocean is much , much , much magnanimous and it takes awhile for odor molecules to drift . On a very good Clarence Shepard Day Jr. when the current are favorable , a shark can reek its quarry from a few football fields off — not miles .
tahitiflyshoot / Dronestagram
reference : American Museum of Natural History
MYTH : at-bat are blind .
Being " unsighted as a bat " mean not being blind at all .
While many use echolocation to navigate , all of them can see .
germ : USA Today
MYTH : Goldfish ca n’t remember anything for longer than a second .
Goldfish actually have pretty estimable memories .
They can remember things for months , not seconds like many people say .
Source : ABC News
MYTH : giraffe sleep for only 30 minutes a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .
camelopard have fair typical sleeping practice .
To expose this one , research worker closely monitored a ruck of five grownup and three vernal giraffes for 152 days , counting all of their naps and thick sleeps .
The animals typically slept overnight and napped in the afternoon ( sound familiar ? ) .
In sum , each giraffe slept about 4.6 hr every day .
Source : European Sleep Research Society
MYTH : Sharks die if they stop swimming .
You often find out shark can respire only when swim push water over their gills .
That ’s genuine of some shark , but many others — like bottom - dwelling nursemaid sharks — can pump atomic number 8 - copious piddle over their gills without swim .
All sharks lack swim bladder , however , so if they stop swimming they will slide down to the bottom . Luckily a shark ’s body is incompressible and rapid descents or climb do n’t harm them .
Elias Levy / Flickr
MYTH : Poinsettias contain deadly poison .
Poinsettias wo n’t kill you or your pets , though you still should n’t eat up them .
The flowers might make you a bit macabre with some gastrointestinal issues .
Source : The New York Botanical Garden
MYTH : Humans got HIV because someone had sexuality with a monkey .
HIV in all likelihood did n’t jump to humans through human - monkey gender .
It probably jumped to humans through hunting of imp for bushmeat food , which precede to blood - to - ancestry contact .
Source : Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives In Medicine
MYTH : homo acquire from chimpanzee .
chimpanzee and man share uncanny similarities , not the least of which is our DNA — about 98.8 % is selfsame .
However , development works by incremental familial changes adding up through many , many generations . chimpanzee and humans did share a common ancestor between 6 and 8 million year ago but a peck has change since then .
Modern Pan troglodytes evolved into a disjoined ( though close ) subdivision of the ape family Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree .
source : Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History , American Museum of Natural History
