Ringworm (think circular skin infection) is not a worm. It’s caused by a fungus.
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/Ringworm-of-the-Skin-Topic-Overview
Contrary to popular opinion, we do NOT need to drink 8 -10 glasses of water a day to maintain our health. If you’re thirsty, get something to drink. And yes, caffeinated beverages (coffee, tea, etc.) are OK and do provide the old bod with fluids.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp
http://dms.dartmouth.edu/news/2002_h2/08aug2002_water.shtml
[Stated “fact”: Drinking cold water with – or after - meals will cause cancer.] An e-mail goes on to state that cold water will solidify the oily stuff we eat and this will wind up lining the walls of the intestine to yep, cause cancer. Without going into detail here, the short answer is… don’t believe everything you read in e-mails. Drink whatever temperature beverage you prefer. It’s OK…
http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/coldwater.asp
[Stated “fact”: 11% of the world’s population is left-handed.] Well… maybe. Pick a statistic – 8 – 15%, 2 – 30%, 15%, about 10%, 13%... If you think about it, it would be really difficult to determine this with a high level of accuracy, wouldn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handed
http://www.handanalysis.com/lefthand_1.html
http://www.left-is-right.com/book.html
http://www.lefthander.com/being.htm
http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/faq.html#percentage
[Stated “fact”: Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.51 years.] Yep, it’s true… By the way, the U.S. ranks 46th with an estimated average lifespan of 77.85 years.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
The oldest mummy in North American was discovered in 1940 in a cave in Churchill County, Nevada. Radiocarbon tests of hair, bones and the mats in which the mummy was wrapped provided dating to around 7400 B.C.
http://www.archaeology.org/9609/newsbriefs/nevada.html
[Stated “fact”: The sound you hear when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head.] Nope. It’s most likely just the ambient noise (sounds around you) resonating inside the shell.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question556.htm
http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon971226/skinnyon.html
There is no danger in swimming right after you eat.
http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/hourwait.asp
http://www.alisonosinski.com/pooltips/21.htm
[Stated “fact”: Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their body.] There is evidence that at least from about 1500 BC onward, priests would remove – not necessarily “pluck” – all their body hair.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/priests.htm
http://www.pbs.org/empires/egypt/newkingdom/priests.html
There are 6,912 different living languages (spoken as a primary language by at least one person) in the world today.
http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=area
The hyoid bone in our throat is the only bone not connected to any other bone in our body.
http://www.gbmc.org/voice/anatomyphysiologyofthelarynx.cfm
According to a 2003 survey, Americans as an average, spend more than 100 hours per year commuting to work. Since most of them will also be going home after work, we would probably be safe to add at least another 100 hours to the total work-related travel time.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/004489.html
Related to the above work commute times, New York comes in at the top of the heap with an average 30.4 minute one-way commute to work. South Dakota is at the bottom of the list with a time of 15.2 minutes.
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2003/pdf/R04T040.pdf
Being outside in cold weather – and getting cold - will not cause us to catch a cold. Colds are caused by one of a wide variety of viruses, not temperature. And just in case you’re wondering, temperature has no effect on our body’s immune system.
http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/061212_cold_cold.html
Yes, eating chicken soup when you are feeling yucky is a good thing to do. “Studies have found that the broth actually contains anti-inflammatory properties that help reduce congestion.”
http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=myths_chicken_soup_03.jpg&cat=myths
So far no one has figured out precisely what causes hiccups. And no, there is no single cure for hiccups that works for everyone. Hiccups happen…
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_118.html
Charles Osborne from Anthon, Iowa holds the record for the longest bout of hiccups. His lasted from 1922 until February of 1990. Wow…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiccup
For those of you who are getting tired of reading these facts and would like to see some boobies, you may click here:
http://www.oceanlight.com/html/boobies.html
51.2 percent of the babies born in the United States are male.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_sex_rat_at_bir-people-sex-ratio-at-birth
Also in the United States, 46.2 percent of grandparents are responsible for caring for their grandchildren.
As of 2005, 15.5 percent of the people in the U.S. had moved within the past year.
The sound you hear when you crack or pop your knuckles is caused by gas being released from the fluid in your joints, not by bone noise or anything like that.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/joint.html
In 2005, fisherman ranked as the most dangerous occupation with a fatality rate of 118.4 per 100,000. That’s 30 times higher than any other occupation. Loggers ranked second. As far as total fatalities are concerned, construction workers topped the list with 1,186.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/16/pf/2005_most_dangerous_jobs/index.htm?cnn=yes
Generally speaking, people fear spiders more than they fear death.
http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/most-common-phobia.html
http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/healthy_fear_or_irrational_phobia_
The fear of public speaking ranks right up toward the top in our list of major “social phobias”. No surprise there, huh?
http://www.therapistfinder.com/c_phobias.aspx
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in American. It’s estimated that they affect up to 40 million American adults each year.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adfacts.cfm
The little lump of flesh just forward of your ear canal right next to your temple is called a tragus.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tragus
The vertical groove that connects your top lip to the bottom of your nose is known as the philtrum.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/philtrum
Washing your hands for only 10 seconds is enough to get rid of the common buggies that cause most of our discomfort.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050311_soap_wash.html
[Stated “fact”: If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.] Considering that we’re also starting out with a population in the area of 1.3 billion people, you’d be far ahead to find something better to occupy your time.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html#People
[Stated “fact”: Women blink nearly twice as much as men.] Don’t think so. The average human blinks about 15-20 times a minute. This can increase dramatically under stressful conditions and vary considerably depending on numerous factors. (You wouldn’t believe how many people have spent a whole bunch of time studying and measuring eye blinks…)
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/eyeblink.htm
[Stated “fact’: You share your birthday with at least 9 million people in the world.] Geez, considering that there are over 6.5 billion people on this planet and only 365 days in the year, I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet…
(No reference required)
The white area at the base of your fingernail is called a lunula.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lunula
Babies are born with 270 soft bones, some of which fuse together so that by the time we’re an adult we usually wind up with 206 hard, permanent bones.
http://www.innerbody.com/text/skelov_new.php
“About every seven years, your body replaces the equivalent of an entirely new skeleton.”
http://www.innerbody.com/text/anewutrv_new.php
The average person’s small intestine can be between 18 and 23 feet long.
http://www.innerbody.com/text/dige10-new3.html
Our heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times in an “average” lifetime.
http://www.innerbody.com/text/card05-new.html
“The human body contains up to 10 pints of blood. Red blood cells are formed at a rate of 2 million per second.”
http://www.innerbody.com/text/bloodno-new2.html
Our heads have about 100,000 hair follicles, each of which of course, is capable of producing a hair several (about 20) different times throughout our lifetime. It appears that a lot of my follicles took early retirement.
http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_23.htm
Here’s a fairly common belief: Cutting your hair – such as in trimming off the split ends – will cause your hair to grow faster. Truth: Cutting or trimming your hair will have no effect on its rate of growth. Your follicles are going to push out hair at whatever rate they darn well please.
http://www.clairol.co.uk/Hair_Growth215.jsp
For more really good info on hair and hair care, you might want to take a look at:
http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_1.htm
The world’s human population is increasing at a rate of over 6 million a month. Whew…
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html
The population of the U.S. increases by one person every 11 seconds. This takes into account births, deaths and immigration.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
In 1900, the U.S. population was slightly over 76 million. Right now (10/06) we’re over the 300 million mark.
http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/1990s/popclockest.txt
Contrary to what you may have heard, it’s not impossible to sneeze with your eyes open – it’s just really difficult to do. Apparently some folks can do this easier than the rest of us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneeze
[Stated “fact”: Babies are born without kneecaps.
They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.] Not
quite true. Babies ARE born with kneecaps only they’re made of
cartilage. Since they don’t ossify (turn to bone) until later, they
won’t appear on an x-ray.
http://www.thedoctorslounge.net/pediatrics/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5896
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may97/861940964.An.r.html
[Stated “fact”: Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.] Not quite. A baby’s eyes are about 75 percent the size of the adult eye. Next - there seems to be no direct scientific correlation between aging and the size of our nose and ears. I’ve seen a few aging whoppers in my time so I’d bet a nickel it depends more on genetic tendencies than anything.
http://www.uic.edu/com/eye/LearningAboutVision/EyeFacts/BabyEyes.shtml
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/Mar2003/1048719208.Dv.r.html
[Stated “fact”: Your stomach has to produce a new
layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself.] More
correct – the stomach continually produces mucus and based on studies of
rodents, there is a good chance that the mucus is replenished daily.
That would be about 4 liters a day…
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-03/856841521.An.r.html
It currently (as of 2005) costs about $190,980 for a two-parent, middle income family to raise a child to the age of 18.
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Crc/crc2005.pdf
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