Global education systems have been under criticism for several decades now. While the debate and numerous reasons and many angles to it, that’s not what we are here to talk about. Instead, we will discuss the five scientific “facts” that most of us learned in school. The reason for using facts in quotes is because these points that you learned in school are either things that recent finds prove to be untrue.
Everything from the meteorite causing the extinction of dinosaurs to Napoleon being a short person, there is so much discrepancy between reality and the facts we learned in school. However, in this article, we only explore the science part of it. So, read on to find out how many of these you have read and believed!
Bats Are Blind
We have all heard the idiom blind as a bat. And our teachers did tell us that bats use sound waves to navigate at night. So, does it mean that bats are blind? Research shows that bats at times prefer to use their eyesight over the sound. And a few bats do not echolocate as they have great ultraviolet light. In short, bats have a great and a sharp vision and are not blind!
If you are wondering about the origin of the idiom here, you go. Bats are nocturnal by nation and hunt at the dead of the night when there is barely any light. And they use their echolocation to find the exact location of the prey.
Camels Store Water in Their Humps
Camel is the king of the desert because it can go for several days without drinking water. And it does so because it stores water in its hump and uses it to stay hydrated in the desert. Instead, it is the red blood cells in a camel’s body that enable it to go for weeks without drinking water. As the camel’s red blood cells are oval, the animal can retain more water than other living beings.
Chameleons Change Color To Hunt
Well, this is not completely true. So, there’s some truth to it, but there is another primary reason why Chameleons change color. The color of a Chameleon depends upon numerous factors, including its stress levels. They also use it to warn other lizards of impending danger, while a few male Chameleons use it to woo female Chameleons. Who knew that our dear Mr. Chameleon had a romantic angle too? However, besides all this, the hunting aspect does apply too. What we are trying to say is that it is not the primary or the only reason!
There Are Only Three States of Matter
Solids, Liquids, and Gases are the three states of matter. And everything in this world exists in one of these three states is what we learned at school. However, scientists say that matter can exist in more states than these three.
This includes quark-gluon plasma, superfluid, Bose-Einstein condensates, Fermionic condensates, photonic matter, super solids, and plasma. However, the only reason why we learn only about solids, liquids, and gases in school is that we can observe in everyday life!
Nothing Moves Faster Than Light
Two hundred ninety-nine million seven hundred ninety-two thousand four hundred fifty-eight meters wonder what this number is? Well, that’s the speed at which light travels per second in a vacuum. However, light travels slower by less than 25% of this water speed and 59% while traveling through diamonds. However, electrons, neutrinos, and neutrons travel faster than light in these substances.
So, the factoid you learned in your science class, which said nothing travels as fast as light does, isn’t very true. At least not at all times. Physicists believe that wormholes and quantum entanglement also change this rule! Besides this, the expanding fabric of space also exceeded the speed of light during the Big Bang.
These are just a few fun facts that you might not have learned in school. Or there were breakthroughs in the past few years which changed the beliefs from the time we were in school. Share these fun facts with your friends and loved ones. And get started talking about the facts you learned in school and how things have changed over the years. Don’t forget to tell us if you know of some scientific fact that you studied in school but isn’t true anymore!