this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 190 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I like it, though there wasn't a single one of the false facts that I was taught in schools.

"Dinosaurs shed their skin all at once like snakes"

"Girls are naturally not as good at math as boys"

I don't mean to be rude, but If this was taught in your school, everyone around you is probably a moron.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 68 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Yeah, the concept is nice, but it tells me that the Big Bang doesn't explain what happened before it (the leading hypothesis is that the Big Bang started time, so there is no "before") and sources a Wikipedia article on spiders. Then, it cites the common myth about Daddy Longlegs being highly venomous, says that that wasn't dispelled until 2020, and then cites a fucking BuzzFeed listicle.

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

Buzzfeed out here doing the real work

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago

The fucking MythBusters did an episode on that like 20 years ago.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, the concept is nice, but it tells me that the Big Bang doesn’t explain what happened before it (the leading hypothesis is that the Big Bang started time, so there is no “before”)

Which is entirely correct. Time as we know it is an "inside" parameter of our universe, and therefor any causality only exists inside our universe, too. Because causality always contains a temporal element as in "Event A happened, which caused Event B later". We cannot make any assumption of "before the big bang" and therefor no assumption of "what caused the big bang" either.

At least not in any way we could relate to.

the common myth about Daddy Longlegs being highly venomous

Quite a childrens tale, even back then. Two reasons for it: First, the "Daddy Longlegs" has no ability to bite us. Even extreme thin parts of the skin, e.g. the lips, are still way to thick for it to penetrate with its teeth. Second, even if it could inject its venom (which really exists!) it would need to inject about half a cup of it into a grown adult (IIRC about the amount, it could be a quarter cup or a whole cup or something, but still in the range of "thousands of total spider weights").

[–] 12newguy@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

I remember an episode of Mythbusters where they tested this, and I found a neat website that claims to have the result of that test. ( https://mythbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Daddy_Long_Legs_Myth ). The result was that they could bite humans and pierce the skin, but the bite was not especially problematic.

Searching for Mythbusters Daddy Long legs also brought up some YouTube suggestions from the episode, which was called Buried in Concrete. I haven't watched any yet but maybe the scene is somewhere.

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I think that the "you have to discharge your batteries entirely before charging them" would be a better fit, even though it wasn't false at the time, but the technology changed

[–] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You still occasionally should, let it go all the way to dead, but for calibration reasons instead of safety reasons

[–] tuff_wizard@aussie.zone 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That was the original reason. Ni-cad batteries develop a “memory” if they aren’t fully discharged loose capacity.

[–] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

With modern Lithium ion batteries its because as their capacity decreases over time the BMS can't always keep up and recover the 100% point unless you're occasionally draining it all the way. This can result in someone charging their battery to say 97% and leaving it for hours to reach a 100% it will never reach. This is potentially unsafe as it heats up the battery.

Edit: Autocorrupt beansed up my comment

[–] crank0271@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

You're probably already familiar with this resource, but Battery University has some interesting and useful information about batteries and it's accessible enough for the layperson.

[–] lobut@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I was always told to always leave it charged from 20% to 80% and draining it to 0% was a bad thing.

[–] ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

This is correct with unmanaged batteries. Batteries with a BMS however will never get below whatever voltage is set as their 0% unless allowed to sit at 0% for long enough that e n t r o p y occurs and the charge slowly dissipates over time. This will happen even with a fully charged battery left to its own devices (ba dum tss) for too long.

The point of the BMS is to manage the health of the potentially dangerous lithium batteries, and as long as they are used within spec it should keep voltages from getting so low the batteries enter a state of deep discharge, as well as prevent overcharging due to imbalanced charging rates or other similar issues.

Used is the important word here. A battery must be used to maintain it's health. A battery must also not be abused to maintain its health.

Now none of that touches on what you said, but was important background for this to make sense: The BMS will report to you whatever values it deems safe charging and Discharging limits based on factors like internal resistance and temperature. As a result 20-80% of an unmanaged battery is close to 0-100% of a managed one in new condition because the BMS will cut power before unsafe discharge limits are reached, and will stop charging to prevent overcharge once those limits are reached.

[–] Kushan@lemmy.world 35 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah I didn't get taught any of the stuff mentioned for me either.

One thing I did notice that wasn't mentioned was the tongue map, that I was taught about in the 90's - you know the one that said that your tongue has different areas for detecting different kinds of tastes - sweet at the front tip, sour at the back, that kind of thing. All bullshit.

[–] 0ops@piefed.zip 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I remember even testing that one out as a kid, observing that it obviously wasn't true, and bringing up my experience to my teacher. "No" was basically the only response I got. How did a myth like that catch on when it was so easily testable by literally anybody?

[–] sleen@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago

Ageism, it is always implied that adults are the ones right - because what adult would accept a child to disprove their logic?

It's also one of those myths which people forget after a year; and even if its encountered again, it is treated as insignificant.

[–] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

the landing page mentions "your tongue has taste zones". though on the other hand brontosauruses are real again

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"Planet X (Planet 9) exists and explains gravitational pull"

Weird conspiracy theories were not taught at my school.

Also:

In 2017, a photograph appeared to prove that Amelia Earhart survived her plane crash and was taken prisoner by the Japanese. However, it was later proven that the photo was taken two years before her disappearance, leaving the mystery unsolved.

Updated understanding emerged around 2010

The updated understanding emerged 7 years before the photo appeared?

This is why websites need downvotes.

[–] lucg@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Planet 9 a conspiracy theory? Who's conspiring against whom there :|

Afaik it was a legit theory since we discovered planet 8 that way and then people tried to use the same method for further planets. Also beyond Mercury there was supposed to be Vulcanus and people reported sightings but nothing added up

Discovery of planet 8 (Wikipedia):

unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led Alexis Bouvard to hypothesise that its orbit was subject to gravitational perturbation by an unknown planet. After Bouvard's death, the position of Neptune was mathematically predicted from his observations, independently, by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier. Neptune was subsequently directly observed with a telescope

And then Mr Einstein had a thing or two to say about those gravitational disturbances being actually relativity and most things clicked into place (but you'll still have a discrepancy between the known spacetime curving and observed orbits because it's hard to know what mass is exactly where in the Kuiper belt etc.). Or something. I'm probably wrong on the details but that's the broad strokes as I remember them

We didn't get planet 9 in school either fwiw but I think it was in magazines or encyclopedia at my grandparents' place that I heard of it

[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Where did you go to school? I've never heard of either of those before.

[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Those false facts were on the site. I was never taught that.

Besides every girl in my school were better than any boy at mathematics.

[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

Ah sorry, I totally misread that lol!

I think a lot of those are highly dependent on where a person went to school and who their teacher was, because some of them are pretty far out there.