15 fact you learned in school that are no longer true: You don’t want your kids to think you’re

dinosaur-
bring your knowledge up to date with these new facts.

Dinosaurs are not extinct: Kindergartners will laugh at you if they find you still believe dinosaurs died out
65 million years ago. They’ll point out the blue jays, pigeons, hummingbirds, and seagulls flying around
your neighborhood with their dinosaur genes. As paleontologist Steve Brusattle, author of the book The
Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, told Reader’s Digest. “Today’s birds evolved from dinosaurs, which makes
them every bit as much of a dinosaur as T.rex or Triceratops.”

Women suspected of being witches were not burned at the stake: First, no one was burned during the
Massachusetts Bay Colony witch scare in 1692. In Europe, convicted witches were sometimes burned,
but in England, they were hanged, and that’s the tradition the colonists followed after a group of young
girls started having “fits” that the doctor blamed on supernatural afflictions. In all, almost 200 people
were accused of being witches; 19 were convicted and hanged. One person was crushed to death under
stones. Another myth about the Salem witch trials is that all the accused were women. Five of those
executed (including the elderly farmer who was pressed to death) were men; plus, the accusations
affected people from all circumstances and social positions.

There are more than three states of matter: You may have learned about three-liquid, solid and gas.
Those are the most common states of matter that were find here on Earth, but beyond our atmosphere,
there’s fourth’s state-plasma- and it might be the most common in the universe. When you add enough
energy to an atom, its electrons can get away from its nucleus and reacted with different nearby
nucleus, creating plasm, which consist of highly charged particles with very high kinetic energy. Gases
like neon are goaded into plasma state by electricity to make glowing signs; stars are basically huge balls
of plasma. But that’s not the only extra state of matter: In 1995, scientists created one called the Bose-
Einstein condensate, where natter is super-cooled to almost absolute zero, causing molecular motion to
practically stop. Nobody know whether Bose-Einstein condensates exist in nature, but they can be make
in lab. Researcher are also investigating other states of matter, so the number could keep growing,
according to Gizmodo.

We either have eight or 13 planets in our solar system: My sixth-grade science teacher taught us “Mary’s
Violet eyes make john stay up nights plenty” (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
Pluto)-but then, in the 1990s, scientist found a doughnut-shaped region of the solar system out beyond
Neptune that’s filled with asteroids, comets, and icy objects. They called it the Kuiper Belt and redefined
poor little Pluto as a Kuiper Belt object instead of a planet. While many ex-schoolchildren felt betrayed
at the time, Pluto wasn’t the first planet to get demoted-it had already happened to a body called ceres
tat orbits between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres was called a planet too when it was fist identified in 1801,
but over time astronomers realized it was part of an asteroid belt and revoked its planethood. But the
story doesn’t end there-both Ceres and Pluto got bumped back up into a new category in 2006 when the
International astronomical Union declared them dwarf Planets.
We don’t really know all the planets in our solar system: According to NASA, there are three other
officially dwarf planets circling our sun (all in the Kuiper Belt. With Pluto) and possibly hundreds more
that haven’t been identified yet. And then there’s more the mystery of Planet X- so far, it’s only
hypothetical, but researchers at Caltech think it could be the size of Neptune and follow an orbit that’s
circling the sun way out beyond Pluto. The final tally as of now, according to phys.org, is eight planets
and five dwarf planets.

Neanderthals may have been as smarts as humans: New research suggest that Neanderthals were not
hulking with whom they coexisted and interbred. In fact, they produced cave paintings in Spain about
200000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe, according to an article in Nature. They also used
tools and make jewellery. So why did they go extinct? A 2017 study published in the journal Nature
Communication suggested that they might simply have been outnumbered by waves of Homo Sapiens
that filtered into their territory from Africa, beginning around 50000 years ago: tow species can’t occupy
the same ecological niche without or changing or dying out.

There isn’t such a thing as being left-brained of right-brained: I’ve always thought l’m left-brained,
because of my analytical and logical nature, but it turns out that no studies have been able to show
different areas of brain activity among people with different personality traits. Different part of brain
definitely has different purposes-we know that from studying people who’ve suffered brain injuries or
strokes, according to the Harvard Health Blog. Researchers still think control of language is located on
the right side of the brain in most people, for example, and the back of the brain processes visual
information.

Napoleon Bonoparte wasn’t that short: He was actually about average height for his time-approximately
5 feet 7 inches- but cartoons published in England depicted him as short, according to a 2016 column by
Tristin Hopper in the Canadian newspaper the National Post. When he died, the people present said he
measured 5 feet 2 inches, but that was because of a difference between French and British units of
measurement. However, he had already been depicted for years as a small, petty, childish person in
British cartoons.

You have more than five senses: The big-touch, smell, sight, and hearing-are our most basic senses, but
we’re taking in information through a wealth of other mechanisms. Proprioception tells us where our
bodies are in space, allowing us to stay balanced, according to Live Science. Kinesthetic receptors detect
stretching in muscles and tendons, which helps us keep track our Various body part. We also have
receptor to keep track of how much oxygen is flowing through our arteries.

A swallowed piece of gum doesn’t take seven years to digest: Nobody knows where this myth came
from, but it’s been passed along through generations of school-aged kids gulping down their gum to
avoid getting busted chewing it in class. Paediatric gastroenterologist named David Milov told Scientific
American that it’s definitely not true-although he does state that he occasionally comes across a hunk of
chewed gum in the digestive tract during colonoscopies or endoscopies or endoscopies. But “usually it’s
not something that’s any more than a week old.” Most gum passes right through the digestive system,
so this stomach-churning myth is one of the lies you were told as a kid that you still believe.

Hair and fingernails don’t continue to grow after a person dies: Once oxygenated blood stops circulating
at death, the cells that produce new hair and fingernail tissue can no longer function. The idea that hair
and nails keep growing is a misinterpretation of what actually happens to a corpse in the hours and days
after a person dies, according to the BBC. The skin dries out and retracts at the fingertips, making nail
longer. Men’s facial skin also get dehydrated, which can extend stubble and make it appear to have
grown longer.

We use way more than 10 per cent of our brains: Although it sometimes seems like we’re not running
on all cylinder, brain scans show activity throughout the organ, even when we’re resting. Nobody’s sure
where the idea came from that 90 per cent of our brain tissue us going unused, but any neurologist will
tell you that’s definitely wrong.

ROYGBIV is not the lineup of colours in the rainbow: You probably remember learning the “ROYGBIV”
initialism to represent the colours of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, green, Blue, Indigo. The rainbow
LGBT Pride flag also only has six colours-and many people are left to wonder why indigo, which seems to
be just an arbitrary combination of two of the other colours (blue and purple/violet), found its way into
the rainbow. Well. For that we can thank Sir Isaac Newton, a superstitious sort who believed that the
number seven had a cosmic significance, per occult beliefs of the time. So he believed that seven
colours, no more, no less, had to come together to make white, and chose indigo to join the other
colours, potentially because of the popularity of indigo dye at the time.

The “I before E, except after C” rule does not always apply: In fact, there are so many instance where it
doesn’t apply that even using the rule might seem silly when you stop to consider it. The rule, recited to
elementary schoolers, work in words like friend, believe and receive but doesn’t in many, many other
cases. In fact, estimates approximate that the rule is wrong 75 per cent of the time-words like weird,
glacier, and science break the rule outright. Even the “…except wen it says ‘A,’ as in ‘neighbor’ and
‘weigh’ addendum doesn’t help much.

The Great Wall of China is not the only manmade structure visible from space: This is untrue on multiple
counts. For one thing, in 2003, Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei went up into space and subsequently
claimed that he couldn’t see the Great Wall. Other space explorers have claimed that you can see it, but
only under certain conditions, such as when there’s snow on it so that it stands out more from the
surrounding land. Not to mention, you can see plenty of other manmade structures from space,
including the pyramids and even some roadways and bridges.

10 strange urban legends that turned out to be true

You’ve probably heard that all legends have a basis in fact. That may not be true. These bizarre urban
legends are-or were at least inspired by truth.

The Puebla Tunnels: Citizens of Puebla City, located in the southeast of Mexico, told folktales about a
mysterious network of tunnels hidden beneath the city.

For hundreds of years, no such tunnels were ever found, so people assumed that they were nothing
more than the stuff of legends.

But then in 2015, a construction crew discovered a very real tunnel beneath the city.

Crew began excavating the site and eventually discovered around six miles of tunnels snaking under
Puebla’s streets.

The tunnels, which are believed to have been constructed from the 16 th century all the way through the
19th century, have opened as a tourist attraction today.

The Alice Killing: The story of the Alice Killings id one of Japan’s most famous urban legends, as well as
one of its newest.

The legend revolved around a series of killings that supposedly occurred between 1999 and 2005.

The victims had no relationship to one another, and the killing seemed unrelated in every way. But they
shared a hunting similarity.

A single paying card was found by each body the word “Alice” written in the victim blood.

For an unsubstantied urban legend, the specifics of these murder are very consistent, right down to the
names (and grisly detail) of the murder victim.

The Uniformity of this legend, as well as its popularity, is most likely thanks to internet.

There is no evidence, however, that these killing took place at all, and whether or not they did is hotly
debated.
Truth is. Thought, that there was a serial killer who identified his murders with paying cards.

But the operated in Spain of japan.

Luckily, this Playing Card killer was caught in 2003 and sentenced to 142 years in prison.

Cropsey of Staten Island: According to this creepy tale, “Cropsey” lurked beneath the abandoned
Willowbrook State School for children.

In some version of the tale, Cropsey was an ex murderer; in other, he was a monstrous boogeyman.

In both, he was a murderous creeper hunting for lost children.

And, sadly, he was based on a real murderous creeper.

His mane was Andre Rand, and he worked as a janitor at the Willowbrook State School before it shut
down in 1987.

After that, he continued living on the grounds of the school and is suspected to be responsible for the
disappearances of several children.

Though this was never proven to be true, he was found guilty of kidnapping in 1988 and again in 2004.

There is even a documentary called Cropsey that examines the truth about the man and the myth.

The Dog Boy: This Arkansan-based urban legend about a werewolf-like dog man roaming around the
town of Quitman merely embellishes a true tale.

In 1954, a boy name Gerald Bettis was born.

The rumors around town held that he was cruel and sadistic, and that he liked to capture stray animals
and do twisted experiments on them,

His cruelty only grew as he got older, and he was abusive to his aging parents.

In 1981, his father was found dead in the family home, and his death is surrounded in mystery, the
newspapers said it was illness, but many townspeople believed it was murder.

Bettis then kept his mother basically imprisoned in the house until adult protective services placed her in
protective custody.

His mother testified against him in court and he went to prison, where he died in the 1980s.

People say that his spirit still haunts the house where he grew up and where his father died.
In many versions of the legend, his ghost walks on all fours and is shaggy like a dog, while in other he
appears as a towering nan wearing a brown jacket and bow tie.

The Bunny Man: We will start with the legend behind this one.

The unsubstantiated legend holds that, in 1904, a bus crashed while transferring patients from asylum in
Fairfax County, Virginia.

The patients escaped, and all but one was eventually re-captured.

Shortly after the bus breakdown, dead bunnies started appearing around the area, may hanging from
the Fairfax Station Bridge. Yikes.

But none of that has been proven true, and historians claim that it actually can’t be, because there were
no asylums in Fairfax County in 1904.

What is true is that in 1970, a pair of mysterious and scary incidents occurred in that area involving a
man dressed in a bunny suit.

A young couple was taking a nighttime drive when a man dress in a white bunny suit hurled an ax at
their car (while it broken their car window, neither of them was hurt). Only two weeks later, another
Fairfax County man discovered an ax-wielding guy in bunny suit chopping up the porch of recently built,
unoccupied house.

He was gone by the time the police arrived.

The real-life Bunny Man was never apprehended, and Fairfax Station Bridge has been all but renamed
Bunny Man Bridge.

The name is so popular that even Google Maps uses it.