In the early 2000s, more precisely in 2003, the first episode of the TV series called MythBusterswhich aired until 2018, in which the conductors and their assistants used science, physics, chemistry, mechanics and more to dispel myths more or less known taken from the world of science, cinema, and popular beliefs.
Over the years we’ve learned which action scenes from our favorite movies were realistic and which instead seasoned, sometimes deliciously exaggerated, with Hollywood fury, but also the secrets behind the physics that govern the actions we perform in our daily lives and in general we have learned to analyze with a more critical eye what we perceive with our senses: this is exactly what we will try to do together in this special, going to verify or debunk some of the most well-known clichés.
“Like Red for Bulls”
It’s certainly not the first time you’ve heard of the “red for bulls“, which indicates something capable of causing uncontrollable anger. But where does this expression come from?
All of this naturally refers to the bullfights, where the Matador waving a red flagcalled crutchto entice the bull to attack and strike, but in reality the fury of the animal is not to be attributed to the color of the cloth, but to its movement.
Numerous tests have been conducted to verify this hypothesis, in which drapes of different colors have been used, kept stationary or in movement, and it has been found that the animal was more sensitive to motion than to color.
The discovery that bulls cannot distinguish between red and green further weakens the correlation between this famous cliché and reality.
“Don’t crack your fingers or you’ll get arthritis!”
How many times, during a more or less long conversation, do you receive unsolicited advice regarding your health and habits? And this is not always kindly granted free of charge by a doctor, but also by people who have built their own expertise on sources that are sometimes a bit questionable.
If you are a serial finger cracker, in particular, among the suggestions it is probable that you have heard that this gesture could cause arthritis: not a small bogeyman, given that we are talking about an inflammation that can lead to rather severe pain in the hands.
Well, even in this case you can safely overlook the advice, since there are no studies to confirm such a rumor.
What you hear when you crack your fingers, in fact, is the noise generated by the explosion of a gas bubble forming in the synovial fluidwhich is located around the joints of the hands.
This mechanism does not lead to the inflammatory processes typical of arthritis, but it has been observed that it can lead to a slight decrease in grip strength in people who have the habit of doing this gesture very often.
So yes… denied but not too much!
“The dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid”
Perhaps one of the most famous clichés we have ever heard concerns the end of the age of the dinosaurs, an event so powerful and sudden that it caused anmass extinction of almost all the species living on our planet about 65 million years ago.
In fact, about 80% of animal and plant species were wiped out by the impact of a gigantic meteorite with the earth’s surface and the consequent long global winter caused by the concentration of dust and debris ejected into the atmosphere, but it would be wrong to think that all dinosaurs disappeared in that circumstance.
The smaller species in fact underwent aevolution in modern birds, a fact testified by the fossils found by paleontologists above the layer of debris identified as the one formed after the impact of the asteroid. At the same time, mammals had the opportunity to evolve into larger and more complex species as they no longer preyed on dinosaurs.
So yes, there actually was a massive extinction on Earth, but not as total as we used to believe.
“Stop burying your head in the sand like ostriches!”
People accused of being a bit too much of a giver may have already heard yells at phrases like “stop sticking your head in the sand like ostriches!“.
The metaphor of the ostrich that hides the head in the sand for fear it is quite known and used; yet, even in this case, the basis on which this idea rests has no basis in reality: ostriches, in fact, are known to be far from giving up if attacked.
Indeed, with their large size and long legs they are not afraid if necessary face predators as expert and fearsome as the lions themselves; their long levers, then, are certainly helpful to escape in case of need, not just to strike.
It happens, however, that in some circumstances they understand that the battle is now lost and in that case they tend to squat down and pretend to be dead. With a coloration of the head and upper neck in some cases similar to that of the ground, they can give us the illusion that they are burying their heads in the sand, but they are not: more than a scientific basis, therefore, a sort of illusion optics.
“Like Cheese for Mice”
One of the most widespread clichés in cartoons, and beyond, concerns the undisputed love of mice for cheese.
What have we always seen used to catch a mouse? A nice piece of gruyere. Well, this unconditional love that we have seen narrated so much in our childhood actually has no particular comparison in reality: mice tend to eat anything with nutritional value and, from some studies, it even turned out that if they had to choose between a sweet food, such as a fruit, and cheese, they would choose the fruit!
This myth that small rodents love cheese could have its roots in the Middle Ageswhen food was stored in different ways: meat was hung from the ceiling, grain was stored in silos, while cheese was wrapped in simple cloths and left in most accessible points to mice and other small animals. For this reason, we could say that their preference was actually dictated by… comfort.
We usually offer you articles such as the one on the consequences of a flat earth, insights in which we enjoyed providing you with ideas for speeches based on surprising scientific facts. Today, however, we have probably given you some ideas to become a troublemaker during dinners with friends, but at least you’ll be an informed troublemaker!