Shattered Illusions: Ten Things about the Natural World You Thought You Knew (Bu

[Guest guest]

Shattered Illusions: Ten Things about the Natural World You Thought You

Knew (But Didn*t)

Monday, May 04, 2009

by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

_http://www.naturalnews.com/026197.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/026197.html)

 

(NaturalNews) People tend to think that the things they believe are true.

And even when they're terrible wrong, they still believe their fictions as

if they were facts.

 

It's a healthy exercise to have your false beliefs challenged by reality,

so today I'm doing my best to shatter ten false beliefs most people hold

about the natural world -- food, animals, nature and so on.

 

Read the list below and see how many you used to believe.

 

 

#1) Quaker Oats was started by Quakers

Ummm, not really. In fact, the company has nothing to do with Quakers. It

was started in Pennsylvania in 1901 when there were lots of Quakers around,

mostly due to the fact that Quakers were known as being honest.

 

But Quaker Oats isn't exactly honest. Today, it*s actually owned by

PepsiCo, and in the 1950s, Quaker Oats, Harvard University and MIT researchers

conducted experiments on human children using radioactive elements to trace

the flow of nutrients through their bodies. The children were invited to be

part of a **special science club,** but they weren*t told they were being

fed Quaker Oats laced with radioactive substances. Side effects of

radioactive exposure include skin cell mutations and skin cancer.

 

When parents found out about the experiments, they sued, and Quaker Oats

was eventually forced to pay out $1.85 million, but the case wasn*t settled

until decades later -- 1997, actually. It*s all detailed in the book The

State Boy's Rebellion by Michael D*Antonio. (

_http://www.amazon.com/State-Boys-Rebellion-Michael-DAntonio/dp/074324513X_

(http://www.amazon.com/State-Boys-Rebellion-Michael-DAntonio/dp/074324513X) )

 

Sources:

MIT news: _http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N65/bfernald.65n.html_

(http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N65/bfernald.65n.html)

(Note how arrogant this MIT news story is, implying it was okay to

experiment on the children because the levels of radioactivity were so low.)

 

Wikipedia: _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_Oats_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_Oats)

 

 

#2) Most of the Earth*s oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest

Nope. Most of the Earth*s oxygen is actually produced by marine algae,

which generate more oxygen than all the trees and land plants in the world.

 

Called cyanobacteria, algae release oxygen as a byproduct of

photosynthesis (the solar-powered process by which they produce energy).

 

Spirulina is an oxygen-producing alga that also produces food at the same

time (70 percent protein, with anti-cancer nutrients to boot).

 

 

#3) The Great Wall of China is the largest man-made structure on Earth

Not even close. The distinction of being the largest man-made structure on

Earth belongs to Fresh Kills, the Statin Island, New York landfill site.

 

It's 4.6 square miles in size, and so much garbage was dumped there that

at its peak, the dump was 80 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty.

 

Fresh Kills was closed in 2001, flattened and turned into a wildlife

refuge. Let's hope the wildlife doesn*t dig too deep there.

 

Source: _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Kills_Landfill_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Kills_Landfill)

 

 

#4) Seventy-five percent of the Earth is made of water

Far from it. In fact, on the basis of pure mass, only about half of one

percent of planet Earth is made of water. The oceans occupy only a thin layer

of water that sloshes around the upper crust of the planet. The vast

majority of the Earth is made of other elements (99.5%), with about one-third of

it being iron.

 

From space, the Earth looks like it's made mostly of water, and it*s true

that the surface area of the Earth has more water than land, but that*s not

what the planet is made of internally.

 

Source:

_http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/what-is-the-earth-made-of/_

(http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/what-is-the-earth-made-of/)

 

 

#5) Blue whales are the largest living things on Earth

Not even close. The largest living organism on Earth actually covers 2,200

acres and is nearly 3,000 years old. And yes, it's a single entity. What

is it?

 

A mushroom. It's in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon. Most of the

mushroom mass is located underground. For further reading, check out the

fascinating book: Mycelium Running.

 

Source:

_http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/what-is-the-earth-made-of/_

(http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/earth/what-is-the-earth-made-of/)

 

 

#6) Camels originated in the deserts of the Middle East

Nope. Camels came from North America, where they evolved twenty million

years ago. They became extinct in North America during the last Ice Age, but

continued to thrive elsewhere.

 

As stated on the source page (below):

 

....the origin of camels can be traced to the Protylopus, an animal that

occupied the North American continent during the Eocene period. That the

Camelidae eventually disappeared from the mother continent is part of the

enigma surrounding the extinction of North American Pleistocene mammals.

However, by this time Camelidae had already migrated across the Bering Straits

to

Asia during the late Pliocene or early Glacial epochs.

 

Source: _http://www.ilri.org/InfoServ/Webpub/Fulldocs/Monono5/Origins.htm_

(http://www.ilri.org/InfoServ/Webpub/Fulldocs/Monono5/Origins.htm)

 

 

#7) Light always travels at a constant speed

This high school science myth persists, but it's not true. Light travels

at different speeds depending on what it's traveling through. Light slows

down when it hits water, for example, or even glass (which is why prisms

work). When shone through a diamond, light slows to about half its normal

speed.

 

In 2000, a Harvard University team of researchers were able to slow light

to a transmission speed of zero by shining it into a Bose-Einstein

condensate made from rubidium.

 

Source: _http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Bose-Einstein_Condensate_

(http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Bose-Einstein_Condensate)

 

 

#8) Human beings have only five senses

The right answer? NINE (or more). In addition to touch, taste, smell,

vision and olfactory senses, humans also have proprioception (body awareness),

nociception (perception of pain), equilibrioception (sense of balance) and

thermoception (sense of heat).

 

And that doesn*t even count the typical **sixth sense** category such as

intuition, precognition and other psychic sense. Nor does it consider

hunger, thirst, empathy or the sense of electricity running through your skin

(like when you touch a live electrical outlet). In truth, there are far more

than five senses, and the actual number depends on who you ask.

 

Source: _http://health.howstuffworks.com/question242.htm_

(http://health.howstuffworks.com/question242.htm)

 

#9) Ostriches bury their heads in the sand when danger approaches

Naw, that would be stupid. Ostriches run away from danger like everybody

else. If they buried their heads in the sand, they would suffocate and die.

 

Source: _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_animals_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_animals)

 

 

#10) Penicillin was first discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming

Not by a long shot (ahem). There are numerous accounts of penicillin being

discovered and used decades -- even centuries -- earlier.

 

A scientist in Costa Rica, for example, named Clodomiro (Clorito) Picado

Twight (1887-1944) discovered and documented penicillin in 1915, thirteen

years before Fleming's " discovery " of 1928.

 

Earlier than that, Ernest Duchesne documented penicillin in a paper

written in 1897, but his paper was rejected by the science journals at the time

because he was thought too young to know anything about science. (Dang kids

playing around with mold again!)

 

Even further back in time, the Bedouin tribes in North Africa have

followed a process for well over 1,000 years that used mold to make a healing

ointment (with antibacterial properties just like penicillin, no less).

 

Western medicine, of course, tends to believe it is the first to discover

things, and it fails to give credit to the use of such medicines by

indigenous cultures or discoverers outside academic circles.

 

Source: _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin)

 

 

More stuff you thought you knew, but didn't

I first found these ten ideas in the book The Book of General Ignorance. I

then researched each one further and cited new sources for most of them.

This is a fascinating book to check out if you're interested in learning

things you thought you already knew, but didn't.

 

Find it on Amazon.com at

_http://www.amazon.com/Book-General-Ignorance-John-Mitchinson/dp/B0026IBX7S/

wsdm-20_

(http://www.amazon.com/Book-General-Ignorance-John-Mitchinson/dp/B0026IBX7S/wsdm\

-20)

 

Or pick it up at your local bookstore.

 

Just be careful not to read it unless you want to shatter many illusions

you might presently hold dear.

 

And while you're at it, if you're really looking to have your world

rocked, pick up the book by Russ Kick called You Are STILL Being Lied The

NEW

Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and

Cultural Myths (

_http://www.amazon.com/You-STILL-Being-Lied-Disinformation/dp/1934708070/wsd

m-20_

(http://www.amazon.com/You-STILL-Being-Lied-Disinformation/dp/1934708070/wsdm-20\

) )

 

Or even my own little-known book on disinfo, called Spam Filters For Your

Brain: How to navigate through the lies, hype and mind games of the food,

drug and cosmetics industries:

_http://www.truthpublishing.com/spamfilters_p/yprint-cat21268.3.htm_

(http://www.truthpublishing.com/spamfilters_p/yprint-cat21268.3.htm)

 

Bonus item: #11) Hitler was a vegetarian

Not unless you think someone who eats sausages and game birds is a

vegetarian. Hitler was an avid eater of certain meats, and the idea that he was

a

vegetarian is a complete myth.

 

See the historical details in my own article on the subject here:

_http://www.naturalnews.com/025163.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/025163.html)

 

Hitler wasn't a vegetarian, but he was a Catholic, by the way. His

soldiers even wore belt buckles with the inscription Gott mit uns (God is with

us). Read more in the article link above.

 

 

Bonus item: #12) Panthers are large black cats

Actually, there*s no such thing as a panther. It*s just a nick-name used

by various people to describe a cougar, jaguar or leopard.

 

Source: _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther_

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther)