Myth Buster

I always thought that the Sun 🌞 was yellow (even the emoji agrees with me!), because that's how I have seen it in my colouring books, textbooks, etc., and I think many people also believed that the Sun is yellow. I recently got to know that the Sun is actually white, so I thought this would be worth posting. According to the Stanford Solar Center, "it is a common misconception that the sun is yellow or orange or even red." In reality, "the sun is essentially all colors mixed together, which appear to our eyes as white." The reason we see the sun as yellow or orange most of the time is because those colored wavelengths, which are longer, are the only ones that make it to our eyes. The other short-wavelength colors—green, blue, and violet—become scattered by the atmosphere, which is what makes the sky look blue during the day!

I thought deserts were just a large area of land covered with sand. But, in Grade 7, I learnt that deserts are areas of extreme temperature . I believe many people think that deserts are just very big sandy areas, like the Sahara Desert and the Thar Desert, but don't now that there is something called a ' cold desert ' that also exists. Deserts are not defined by their temperatures, but by their lack of precipitation. And while most of the world's most famous deserts are indeed hot, there are some deserts that also experience brutal cold. Known as polar deserts, these arid areas can be found in Iran (called Dasht-e Lut) and Northern Greenland, for example.

I believe all of us have heard about the five-second-rule, and many of you must be following it as well. Here is a warning to those who do follow the five-second-rule, because, again, it is a MYTH. Don't adhere to the five-second rule and take your chances with food that's fallen on the floor. When researchers at Clemson University left bologna and bread on a surface contaminated with salmonella in a 2017 study, they found that "a substantial amount of bacteria transferred to the food within five seconds."

I have been learning that chameleons have the ability to change colours so that they could blend in with the surroundings and protect themselves from the predators. For everyone who is with me, you are wrong ❌ just like me, as you must have guessed. Yes, chameleons do have the ability to change colors, but the falsity here lies in why they do so. According to Wired, chameleons change colors to regulate their temperatures or communicate with other chameleons, not to camouflage themselves.

I used to believe that bananas 🍌grew on trees, until, I learnt about plants in detail in Class 6. And to those who don't know that bananas don't grow on trees, go ahead and continue reading!! We all know that money doesn't grow on trees, but many of us believe that bananas do. Sadly, we're mistaken again. Though they may look similar to trees, the Rainforest Alliance says that the plants bananas grow on are in fact "giant herbs related to lilies and orchids."

Many people believe that bats are blind🙈, but, again, it's not true. Contrary to popular belief—and the idiom "as blind as a bat"—these nocturnal creatures can absolutely see. In fact, as Rob Mies, former executive director for the Organization for Bat Conservation, told National Geographic, bats "can see three times better than humans." So joke's on us!