MYTHS
Prepare to be shocked and amazed as we reveal the truth behind 3O commonly held beliefs that are, in fact, completely wrong! By Sarah Hampton. Illustrations by Andy Smith
quacks don’t echo. 1 Duck
Wrong! A duck’s quack is usually quite quiet, and so its echo can be tricky to hear. But in 2003 a team of researchers at the University of Manchester in England placed a duck named Daisy in a special chamber and recorded both her quacks and their echoes.
and nails continue to grow after death. 2 Hair Wrong! After death, the skin dries out and shrinks, pulling it away from the hair and nails. This can give the impression that the hair and nails have become longer after death. But they definitely haven’t grown.
A goldfish only has a three-second 3 memory. Wrong! In fact, fish have relatively good memories and have been taught by scientists to recognise the presence of their owners and remember the way out of underwater mazes. To find out more clever things that fish can do, turn to Ask the Experts on page 35. 16
no gravity in space. 4 There’s
Wrong! Gravity is the force of attraction between every object in the universe that contains matter (i.e. everything). So gravity is everywhere, even in space. The reason that astronauts float in space is that they are further away from the Earth, so its gravitational pull on their bodies is weaker than it is when they are standing on the ground. People sometimes call this feeling of weightlessness in space ‘zero gravity’ but the correct term is microgravity.
Aeroplanes get rid of toilet waste by 5dumping it in mid-air. Wrong! The toilet tanks on aeroplanes, which hold the passengers’ wee and poo during the flight, can only be emptied when the plane is on the ground, usually using a lever that is on the outside of the plane. However, the toilets in some early trains
did flush directly onto the tracks while the train was moving!
6 Bats are blind.
Wrong! Bats do use a system called echolocation to navigate, in which the bat sends out sound waves and listens for the echoes to bounce off things. However, bats can also see.
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