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1. Lightning never strikes in the same place twice.
JanJar/Thinkstock
Correct!Wrong!False.
It strikes in the same place quite a lot. The Empire State Building gets struck over 100 times a year.
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2. If you cry in space the tears just stick to your face.
Correct!Wrong!That's true.
You can watch a video of Chris Hadfield demonstrating it on board the International Space Station if you want.
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3. If you cut an earthworm in half, both halves can regrow their body.
Correct!Wrong!False!
Only one half of an earthworm can regenerate when it's cut in half, not both halves.
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4. Humans can distinguish between over a trillion different smells.
BananaStock/Thinkstock
Correct!Wrong!It's true!
It's not as good as a dog's, but the human nose is still pretty incredible.
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5. Adults have fewer bones than babies do.
Correct!Wrong!True!
Lots of bones (like the cranium) start out as several fragments at birth, then fuse together into a single bone later in life.
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6. Napoleon Bonaparte was extremely short.
Correct!Wrong!That's false.
Even though he's widely believed to have been short, he was actually above average height for his time.
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7. Goldfish only have a memory of three seconds.
subinpumsom/Thinkstock
Correct!Wrong!It's false.
Goldfishes' legendarily short memory is a common belief, but it's been debunked repeatedly. They can actually remember things for quite a long time.
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8. There are more cells of bacteria in your body than there are human cells.
Correct!Wrong!It's true!
Your body has around ten times as many bacterial cells in it than your own cells.
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9. Your fingernails and hair keep growing after you die.
Correct!Wrong!It's false!
They really don't.
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10. Birds are dinosaurs.
danku/Thinkstock
Correct!Wrong!True!
Not all dinosaurs became extinct; some of them survived, and every bird alive today is descended from those survivors.
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11. It costs the U.S. Mint more to make pennies and nickels than the coins are actually worth.
Correct!Wrong!True!
U.S. taxpayers lost over $100 million in 2013 just through the coins being made.
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12. Water spirals down the plughole in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Correct!Wrong!Faaaaaaalse.
It really doesn't (even though some people on the equator make a living fooling tourists into thinking it does...)
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13. Buzz Aldrin was the first man to urinate on the moon.
NASA/AFP / Getty Images
Correct!Wrong!True!
The second man to stand on fthe moon was the first to pee there (into a special bag in his spacesuit) – shortly after he stepped off the ladder of Apollo 11's Lunar Module.
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14. Twinkies have an infinite shelf life.
Correct!Wrong!False!
The official shelf life of a Twinkie is 45 days. People have kept them around for longer, but they become inedible.
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15. Humans can’t breathe and swallow at the same time.
Correct!Wrong!That's true.
It's because our voice box is lower in the throat than other primates (who can do both at once.) On the plus side, this means we can use language...
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16. The popular image of Santa Claus – chubby, bearded, in red and white clothes – was invented by Coca-Cola for an ad campaign.
Comstock/Thinkstock
Correct!Wrong!That's false.
Santa was portrayed like that for decades before Coke got in on the act.
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17. The top of the Eiffel Tower leans away from the sun.
Correct!Wrong!It's true.
The metal of the tower expands in the heat of the sun, so the sun-facing side is always slightly bigger than the one facing away – making it lean as much as seven inches away from the sun.
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18. Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.
Correct!Wrong!That's false.
Drinking pretty much any non-fatal amount of alcohol won't add enough alcohol to your blood stream to destroy your neurons.
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19. The owner of the company that makes Segways died after accidentally driving his Segway off a cliff.
Kim Carson/Thinkstock
Correct!Wrong!True :-(
