10 Things You Think You Know That Aren't Actually True
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Loading... - Pascale Messi
- 05 Sep 2022
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Nobody has the time to look into everything, so people often have to take some things which we know are common knowledge for granted. Unfortunately, not every bit of information you pick up along the way is factual. Read on to have 10 of your beliefs disproved.
Myth #1 – Chimps have more hair than humans
If you put a picture of a chimp next to one of a human, you would be forgiven for thinking that the chimp is much hairier. However, that’s not the case. Humans have between two and five million hair follicles spread around their bodies, which is about the same number as other primates. Our hair is just much less coarse and less visible. While primates are furred, humans have two types of hair: terminal and vellus hair. Terminal hair makes up the hair on our heads and in our armpits and pubic area, and vellus hair is found everywhere else. Vellus hair is much finer, shorter, and lighter than terminal hair, and is not connected to any glands below the skin. No one knows for sure why we have evolved this way, but it’s likely[1] that, when our ancestors moved out of the shady forests and onto the hot savannah, they grew this type of hair as a way to protect their brains while keeping their bodies cool — through sweating — as they hunted and foraged in the sun.
Myth #2 – The Earth revolves around the Sun
Strictly speaking, the Earth is revolving around the solar system’s center of mass, also known as its barycenter. This is the balancing point around which the combined mass of every object in the solar system is evenly distributed. Due to the planets’ constant motion, this point is always shifting. Because the Sun has over 99% of the solar system’s total mass, the barycenter of the solar system is located near its surface, and sometimes within the Sun itself. But when the barycenter is outside the Sun, our planet is just orbiting an empty spot in space. Read More...
