30 False Facts That Are So Ingrained In People’s Minds They Can’t See The Truth, As Shared Online

That on average you swallow 8 spiders a year.

After eating wait 30 minutes before swimming

That if you touch a baby animal for any reason, their parents will abandon them because they now smell like you.

That one anecdote that every paranoid snake-hater doles out about that pet python who stopped eating and would sleep in the bed with its owner. Supposedly "sizing her up" and "making room" to eat her.

Snakes aren't that smart. They're opportunistic predators, they don't really plan ahead. Could you imagine a python sliding up next to an antelope and calmly trying to compare measurements? Besides, the most common pet snakes are too small to eat a full grown human anyway. (They can definitely squeeze one to death on accident, so you should never handle a large snake alone, but they won't try to eat you afterwards.)

That our blood is blue before it reaches oxygen

That you will make less by getting a raise due to getting into the next tax bracket (US specific). This is true only in very rare scenarios like receiving disability, but by and large, you won't make less per paycheck with a raise.

Scientists don’t know how bees fly.

If you shave facial hair it grows back thicker

That men have one less rib than women. I have no idea how people still spread this, but I heard it all throughout childhood

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day