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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 QuakersUmmm, 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-Re...) Sources: MIT news: http://tech.mit.edu/V117/N65/bferna... (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... #2) Most of the Earth's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforestNope. 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 EarthNot 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_... #4) Seventy-five percent of the Earth is made of waterFar 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.Get articles like this delivered to you FREE in our popular email newsletter
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Monday, May 04, 2009
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