Because of novels and other forms of media that disseminate this belief, many people believe that their hair and nails can keep growing even after they pass away. It's still a widely held misconception about the human body today. Where does this idea originate from, though, if it's not true?

Unbelievably, it actually has its roots in the study of actual biological processes. When someone passes from this mortal coil, their skin can be retrieved for skin grafts up to 12 hours later, but their organs must be harvested within 30 minutes (if the deceased happens to be an organ donor). After that time, the skin dries down, retracts, and gives the appearance that the fingernails have grown longer.

The skin of a deceased person's chin retracts in a similar manner, giving the appearance that the person's stubble has grown since they passed away. In actuality, the body ceases generating glucose after death, which prevents hair and nail growth.

Even in the scientific community, where it was believed to be a vestigial organ left over from millions of years of natural selection that had failed to excise it from the human body, the appendix has long been considered to be entirely worthless and is known for becoming inflamed or rupturing.

This is a fallacy about evolution. If so, what is the appendix useful for, though? The appendix, however, maintains healthy intestinal bacteria, according to Heather F. Smith, PhD, an associate professor at Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine.

She discovered in her study, which was published in the journal Comptes Rendus Palevol, that the appendix had independently evolved in 30 various species of animals and had only rarely vanished following this evolution. Because it contains immune system tissue, the appendix has also been connected to the control of the immune system.

Big in the pants and big in the shoes. Almost everyone in western civilization has heard this adage at some point or another. Studies, including one by the London Urology Clinic, however, have not discovered a connection between a person's member size and the size of their feet.

However, the two doctors who did the study went on to receive the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize. In 1993, a Canadian study of 63 men assessed their height, foot size, and penile length and discovered only a flimsy correlation between these factors and the length of one's manhood. The two doctors continued by claiming that their study's findings had no "practical utility."

A 1999 study in Korea measured the flaccid members of 655 men and compared those measurements to their foot sizes and the rest of their body parts (even going as far as measuring the length of each participant's car). It found no correlation between any of those things, with the possible exception of the girth and circumference of a given man's manhood, but even that wasn't conclusive. In actuality, this myth has been disproved in every significant study that has addressed it since 1999.

Who doesn't enjoy a drink or a pint of beer after work? It might be challenging to locate a group of individuals who haven't heard the urban legend that drinking three beers will inevitably result in the destruction of 10,000 brain cells. Alcohol doesn't actually harm brain cells, but it is understandable why some individuals could draw a relationship between alcohol use and cognitive decline.

In reality, drinking impairs the brain's ability to interact with other areas of the body by damaging the terminals of neurons. Even though ethanol is very effective at killing viruses and cells, when you consume it, your body restricts its use to specific areas of the body, so reducing the harm it can cause.

Even though Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome patients' neuron death was determined to be caused by a B1 or thiamine shortage linked to poor nutrition and health, studies have demonstrated that alcohol does destroy the terminals of neurons. Additionally, other research have demonstrated that consuming alcohol in moderation can actually lower a subject's risk of dementia and cognitive decline.

Hot yoga promotes the notion that one may eliminate toxins from the body by simply sweating them out. Health freaks and Multi Level Marketing schemes (or MLMs) that sell essential oils around the developed world have also fully embraced the notion. But these grandiose statements are not supported by a shred of science.

Sweat is 99% water and does not contain any poisons or hazardous substances, but it helps control the body's temperature. Sweat does not detoxify the body. Although the term "detox" has been appropriated by propagandists of pseudoscience, it actually originated (and is still used) as a medical procedure employing medications and other therapies that vary greatly based on the sort of toxins present in the body.

Everyone has had a childhood buddy who boasted about having two joints before showing off their incredible flexibility by wrapping their legs around their head. Even though it may appear completely out of the ordinary and unusual, most people experience this completely normally, and it has nothing to do with having extra joints.

Being double-jointed is an improbability in science, and these folks most likely merely have a lot of flexibility, a condition known as hypermobility. Instead of the joints themselves, the soft tissues around a flexible person's joints are frequently to blame for hypermobility.

Although having such high flexibility might be advantageous for sports, it can also be a sign of the painful benign joint hypermobility syndrome, or BJHS. Scientists are currently researching this in relation to dancers since hypermobility can also be a sign of instability, which requires a person to use more energy to be upright or stable.

The pseudoscientific practice of palm reading, also known as palmistry, involves fortune tellers attempting to interpret the lines on a person's hands, which are believed by practitioners to reveal that person's potential future.

Even though there are many different tribes around the world that practice palmistry, it is a complete myth. Any specific line in the palm can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and readings from different fortune tellers can differ greatly.

No scientific evidence exists to justify palm reading. The creases in our hands' skin arise from fetuses opening and shutting their hands, which causes lines to appear in the skin at an early stage of development—around 12 weeks after conception.

The average person holds three lines in their hands, but just one in thirty people do. Although in some cases it can be an indication of improper development, such as in cases of down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, Turner's syndrome, Aarskog syndrome, or Rubella syndrome, this can also be a completely normal development.

The phrase "grab a jacket or you'll catch your death out there" has probably been uttered by well-intentioned mothers to their developing children on days when the temperature drops below freezing. It makes sense to think that colder weather makes you sick because your odds of becoming sick increase throughout the winter, but the cold itself has nothing to do with it. In the summer, UV radiation—which is scarce in the winter for a variety of reasons—can readily destroy the majority of viruses.

According to studies, people want to be with other people throughout the colder months of the year, therefore keeping schools open at this time is unlikely to stop the spread of influenza. Other research has demonstrated that there is absolutely no connection between body temperature and the frequency of viral infections, such as the common cold virus (rhinovirus). But for people growing up before the advent of science, it did appear that being outside in the wintertime without proper protection could cause you to "get a cold," which is where the concept of a "cold" originates.

All of us are familiar with the five senses—taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell—as well as the fabled sixth sense that Hollywood perpetually explores in its films. However, it's a fallacy that people have only five senses. While it is true that humans have five primary senses, we also have a plethora of other senses.

Proprioception, for instance, is how we perceive space in relation to how our limbs are positioned. You are actively employing your sense of space if you can close your eyes and touch your nose. Our muscles' spindle receptors make it possible for us to perceive space. Our brains get messages from these spindles informing them of the locations of all of our parts.

Humans possess a variety of senses in addition to proprioception, including our sense of balance, inner pain perception, sense of time, and even human echolocation. Daniel Kisch is the team captain of Team Bat, a group of blind cyclists based in the US. Even at high speeds, the riders use their mouths to emit clicks to echolocate their surroundings. Even persons who still have their sight can learn to use this sense; it isn't just limited to the blind.

Hollywood is a big proponent of this misconception. It has also been included in well-known book series like The Dresden Files and blockbuster movies like the 2011 picture Limitless and the 2014 Scarlett Johansson vehicle, Lucy.

Since the early 1900s, educators and neuroscientists have fought tooth and nail to dispel this notion, but like the Terminator movies, it just won't go away. It has even been known to be recited by teachers.

While it is unclear how this myth came to be, some historians believe it was misinterpreted when William James stated in the early 1900s, "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical powers."

Now, James was not referring to the physical characteristics of the brain; rather, it is generally accepted that he was speaking about societal issues that sap an individual's energy rather than asserting that the brain has a certain amount of capacity.

The truth is that we use every part of the brain equally. In fact, if a person only used 10% of their brain, the majority of it would seem to be dark on the PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan, which would suggest some very severe brain damage. But with these kinds of scans, we simply don't observe that in healthy brains. Even in patients with neurological problems, the entire brain is very active.