Hair and fingernails don’t continue to grow after a person dies
Once oxygenated blood stops circulating at death, the cells that produce new hair and fingernail tissue can no longer function. The idea that hair and nails keep growing is a misinterpretation of what actually happens to a corpse in the hours and days after a person dies, according to the BBC. The skin dries out and retracts at the fingertips, making nails look longer. Men’s facial skin also gets dehydrated, which can extend stubble and make it appear to have grown longer.
We use way more than 10 per cent of our brains
Although it sometimes seems like we’re not running on all cylinders, brain scans show activity throughout the organ, even when we’re resting. Nobody’s sure where the idea came from that 90 per cent of our brain tissue is going unused, but any neurologist will tell you that’s definitely wrong.
ROYGBIV is not the lineup of colours in the rainbow
You probably remember learning the “ROYGBIV” initialism to represent the colours of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. Today, though, everyone from teachers to colour specialists have begun to forego indigo. The rainbow LGBT Pride flag also only has six colours—and many people are left to wonder why indigo, which seems to be just an arbitrary combination of two of the other colours (blue and purple/violet), found its way into the rainbow. Well, for that we can thank Sir Isaac Newton, a superstitious sort who believed that the number seven had a cosmic significance, per occult beliefs of the time. So he believed that seven colours, no more, no less, had to come together to make white, and chose indigo to join the other colours, potentially because of the popularity of indigo dye at the time.