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The Life and Mind of DamnBlackHeart
This is to help me stay actively writing. So expect to see rants, tips on writing, thoughts on subjects, me complaining of boredom, reviews, anime, movies, video games, conventions, tv shows and whatever life throws at me.
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I get annoyed when people don't know their stuff and they just assume that what they heard or seen people do (or say) is fact without questioning it or knowing why. These are the common things that I hear from misinformed people and I hope by reading my post that they're learn something knew and/or educate themselves with the real facts.
1. Cats CAN'T drink cow's milk. It's best to not offer cats our milk, as it can give them diarrhea. This is because some of them lack the enzyme to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk. And it also increases their chances of getting tape worm.
2. Geisha aren't whores. It's a often misconception by some that Geisha's are prostitutes, but nothing could be further from the truth. Geisha are refined and cultured girls and women who are highly trained in a variety of traditional skills. Besides playing the Shamisen, singing and dancing, the Geisha perform the Japanese tea ceremony, and are well versed in the art of conversation. Many learn to speak English in order to entertain Western guests. Though foreigners from the West believed that they were prostitutes because during the time (during WWII when American soldiers came back from Japan) there were other girls that dressed up and called themselves "geisha," but were in fact prostitutes. This confused the West in believing that they were all just fancy looking prostitutes and that concept of them was spread to other parts of the world and accepted as the truth.
3. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 never condemned any women to be burned at the stake. They were actually hanged; in addition, several men were convicted as witches, and one man refused to enter a plea, preventing his trial from starting, and was crushed to death under stones rather than give one.
4. It is not harmful to baby birds to pick them up and return them to their nests, despite the common belief that doing so will cause the mother to reject them. It's the same with cats, they won't reject their young just because of the human smell.
5. Bulls are not enraged by the color red, used in capes by professional matadors. Cattle are dichrpmats, so red does not stand out as a bright color. It is not the color of the cape that angers the bull, but rather the movement of the fabric that irritates the bull and incites it to charge.
6. Humans have more than five senses. Although definitions vary, the actual number ranges from 9 to more than 20. In addition to sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, which were the senses identified by Aristotle, humans can sense balance and acceleration, pain, body and limb position, and relative temperature. Other senses sometimes identified are the sense of time, itching, pressure, hunger, thirst, fullness of the stomach, need to urinate, need to defecate, and blood carbon dioxide levels.
7. Shaving does not cause terminal hair to grow back thicker or coarser or darker. This belief is because hair that has never been cut has a tapered end, whereas, after cutting, there is no taper. Thus, it appears thicker, and feels coarser due to the sharper, unworn edges. The fact that shorter hairs are "harder" (less flexible) than longer hairs also contributes to this effect. Hair can also appear darker after it grows back because hair that has never been cut is often lighter due to sun exposure.
8. Eight glasses of water a day are not necessary to maintain health. Consuming things that contain water such as juice, tea, milk, fruits and vegetables also keeps a person hydrated.
9. Warts on human skin are caused by viruses that are unique to humans. Humans cannot catch warts from toads or other animals; the bumps on a toad are not warts.
10. A penny dropped from the Empire State Building will not kill a person or crack the sidewalk. Due to terminal velocity the speed of a falling penny cannot exceed 30–50 miles per hour regardless of the distance from which it is dropped,as demonstrated on an episode of Mythbusters.
11. The idea that lightning never strikes the same place twice is one of the oldest and most well-known superstitions about lightning. There is no reason that lightning would not be able to strike the same place twice; if there is a thunderstorm in a given area, then objects and places which are more prominent or conductive (and therefore minimize distance) are more likely to be struck. For instance, lightning strikes the Empire State Building in New York City about 100 times per year.
12. The forbidden fruit mentioned in the Book of Genesis is commonly assumed to be an apple, and is widely depicted as such in Western art, although the Bible does not identify what type of fruit it is. The original Hebrew texts mention only tree and fruit. Early Latin translations use the word mali, which can be taken to mean both "evil" and "apple". German and French artists commonly depict the fruit as an apple from the 12th century onwards, and John's Milton's Areopagitica from 1644 explicitly mentions the fruit as an apple. Jewish scholars suggested that the fruit could have been a grape, a fig, wheat, or etrog. Likewise, the Quran speaks only of a forbidden "tree" and does not identify the fruit.
13. In truth, small meteorites are cold when they hit Earth – in fact many are found with frost on them. A meteorite has been in the near–absolute zero temperature of space for billions of years, so the interior of it is very cold. A meteor’s great speed is enough to melt its outside layer, but any molten material will be quickly blown off, and the interior of the meteor does not have time to heat up because rocks are poor conductors of heat. Also, atmospheric drag can slow small meteors to terminal velocity by the time they hit the ground, giving them time to cool down.
 DamnBlackHeart · Fri Mar 04, 2011 @ 06:12pm · 0 Comments |
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