Facts that are actually fiction - new book blows 200 urban myths out of the water

Spinach is packed with iron, right? We all know bats are blind, don’t we?

Wrong! And a new book blows these and almost 200 other urban myths apart.

Queen Cleopatra was an Egyptian
She may have been Queen of egypt and even bathed in milk, but historians agree it's more than likely Cleopatra was Greek - a Macedonian Greek to be precise.

Ostriches bury their heads in sand
IF they did really bury their heads when in danger, they'd suffocate. Ostrich expert Rob Nixon says: "When danger threatened, the ostrich hen would sit dead-still, flattening her endless neck against the earth." In fact, they are trying to do an impression of a bush.

Uncork wine to let it breathe
WINE expert Oz Clarke certainly doesn't think so, writing: "Opening young to middle-aged red wines an hour before serving makes no difference. The surface area of wine in contact with air in the bottle neck is too tiny to be significant."

We swallow eight spiders a year
CLAIMS that we swallow them in our sleep has no basis in fact. Arachnids expert Rod Crawford says: "For a sleeping person to swallow even one would involve so many highly unlikely circumstances that for practical purposes we can rule out that possibility."

Gum takes seven years to digest
GUM was described as "indigestible" when it was first made in the 1860s, and from this came the myth that it wasn't meant to be swallowed. No one knows where the myth that it takes seven years to digest came from, but this has since been described as "nonsense". Wrigley's says its gum - made of sweeteners, corn syrup, softeners, flavours and gum base - will pass through your system in a few days.

An apple fell on Newton's head
NO 18th Century writers mention an apple hitting Isaac Newton on the head in his garden. And two biographers, Michael White and Richard Westfall, dispute the story. White describes it as "almost certain a fabrication designed to suppress the fact that much of the inspiration for the theory of gravity came from his Newton's subsequent alchemical work".

Drinking cool beer quenches thirst
SORRY folks, but if you're on the beer on a hot day you're probably making yourself more thirsty. Alcohol actually makes you need the toilet more - so there is the very real possibility that your dehydration will worsen if you drink booze.

Taking vitamin C prevents a cold
NO conclusive data has ever been found to prove it works. Several experts have said outright there is "no evidence" vitamin C stops you getting a cold. But vitamin C expert professor Balz Frei says it can shorten the duration of a cold's symptoms by as much as 20%.

Coffee sobers you
SADLY, it won't. It will only wake you up. So you'll be a wide awake drunk. Experts say nothing will speed up the rate at which your body breaks down alcohol.

Bats are blind
NO, they can see perfectly, but because they are nocturnal they rely on a sophisticated radar system, known as echolocation, to get around at night. Bats of the World author Dr Gary L Graham says: "All bats can see. Many have excellent vision."

Owls can turn their heads 360 degrees
OWLS can't move their eyes in their sockets so they do turn their heads, but not all the way round. They do have a lot of flexibility but only to a maximum of 270 degrees.

Chewing pencils causes poisoning
Nope, because "pencil lead" is actually graphite. the misnomer dates to the Middle Ages when it was nicknamed German lead.

Sos means Save Our Souls
THEY may fit nicely as an acronym for Save Our Souls but the letters SOS were actually chosen for a different reason. In The Ocean Almanac, author Robert Hendrickson reveals they were selected as a distress call in 1908 because the Morse code for them (three dots, three dashes, three dots) was easy to remember and transmit.

Spinach is full of iron
Super-strong, spinach-guzzling Popeye fuelled the legend of this vegetable's powers. But the myth that it is unusually high in iron originated from a datarecording blunder. German scientist Dr Emil von Wolff recorded his data on spinach incorrectly in 1870, misplacing a decimal point to make it look as though it had 10 times as much iron as it does.

It was eventually corrected in 1937 - but by that time the myth had already taken hold.

Women don't have an Adam's apple
They do. You just cannot see them as clearly as you can see a man's.


/Mirror.co.uk/