Animals
Cats have more bones than humans.
Fact. Cats typically have about 230 bones, while humans have 206.
Water boils faster at higher altitudes.
Fact. Lower atmospheric pressure means water boils at a lower temperature, making it boil faster.
The Great Plague of London was caused by rats.
Fiction. While rats were involved, it was the fleas on rats that transmitted the bubonic plague to humans in 1665.
Australia is wider than the moon.
Fact. Australia's width of 4,000 km is greater than the moon's diameter of about 3,474 km.
Carrots were originally purple.
Fact. The first cultivated carrots were indeed purple, along with yellow and white.
Sharks can blink with both eyes.
Fiction. Sharks do not have eyelids as humans do, so they cannot blink.
Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
Fiction. Lightning can strike the same place more than once.
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows because it was fashionable in Florence at the time to shave them off.
Fact. It was indeed fashionable for women during that era in Florence to pluck their eyebrows.
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.
Fact. Canada is home to over 2 million lakes, accounting for about 60% of the world's total.
Pineapples grow on trees.
Fiction. Pineapples actually grow on the ground from a leafy plant.
Goldfish have a three-second memory.
Fiction. Goldfish can remember things for months, not just a few seconds.
All snowflakes have six sides.
Fact. Snowflakes crystallize in a hexagonal pattern, resulting in six-sided symmetry.
The Eiffel Tower was originally intended to be dismantled after 20 years.
Fact. It was saved due to its usefulness as a radiotelegraph station.
Mount Everest grows taller every year.
Fact. Due to tectonic activity, Mount Everest grows about 4 mm each year.
Chewing gum takes seven years to digest.
Fiction. Chewing gum is mostly indigestible but passes through the digestive system.
An octopus has three hearts.
Fact. Two pump blood to the gills, and one pumps it to the rest of the body.
Humans use only 10% of their brains.
Fiction. Brain imaging studies show we use every part of the brain, and most of the brain is active all the time.
Julius Caesar was once kidnapped by pirates.
Fact. Caesar was indeed kidnapped by Cilician pirates and held for ransom. He even joked that he would return to crucify them, which he later did after his release.
The Amazon Rainforest produces 20% of the world's oxygen.
Fiction. While the Amazon is crucial for producing oxygen, it consumes nearly as much as it produces.
The Caesar salad is named after Julius Caesar.
Fiction. It was named after Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who invented the dish in Mexico in the 1920s.
Sharks can smell a drop of blood from miles away.
Fact. Sharks have an extremely sensitive sense of smell, allowing them to detect blood at very low concentrations.
The human stomach gets a new lining every three to four days.
Fact. The stomach cells renew rapidly to prevent digestion of the stomach lining by stomach acid.
The city of Rome was founded by twin brothers raised by a wolf.
Fiction. According to Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf, but this is a legend rather than a historical fact.
Africa and South America fit together like puzzle pieces.
Fact. They were once joined in the supercontinent Gondwana.
Peanuts are nuts.
Fiction. Peanuts are legumes, not nuts. They grow underground, unlike tree nuts like almonds and walnuts.