Tag

Debunked myth

A popular belief about this has been shown to be wrong.

11 oddities.

Spiritual 6Icky 4Not an emergency 20Get it checked 14Try it 62Learnable 20Party trick 19Vestigial 7Genetic 35Sleep 6Illusion 21Childhood 10Debunked myth 11Community 13Famous people 14Record 7
Ears Variation

Attached and free earlobes

Some earlobes hang free and others join the head directly. Textbooks taught this as one gene, but a 2017 study found at least 49 genetic regions involved, and the two shapes blend into each other.

Both shapes are common
Eyes Trick

Crossing your eyes

Turning both eyes inward toward the nose on purpose. Nearly everyone with normal two-eyed vision can do it. Your eyes will not get stuck that way.

Nearly everyone
Brain Rare ability

Eidetic memory

Some children can keep a detailed picture of an image in view for a short time after it is taken away. The ability fades by the teenage years. A true photographic memory in adults has never been confirmed.

2–10% of children aged 6–12
Eyes Variation

Heterochromia

Eyes of two different colours, or one eye with two colours, in fewer than 1 in 100 people. When it is present from birth it is almost always harmless.

Under 1% of people
Bones Variation

Hitchhiker's thumb

A thumb whose top joint bends back past 50 degrees, once taught as a simple recessive gene. Thumb angle is really a smooth range, and the genetics are not that simple.

24–36% of people
Bones Trick

Knuckle cracking

Pulling or bending a finger joint until it pops. Between 25% and 54% of people do it out of habit. The sound is a gas bubble forming in the joint fluid, and it does not cause arthritis.

25–54% crack habitually
Brain Rare ability

Mirror-touch synesthesia

About 1 in 60 people feel a touch on their own body when they watch someone else being touched. The brain system that mirrors other people's actions appears to be turned up too high.

About 1.6% of people
Skin Involuntary

Pruney fingers

Fingertips and toes wrinkle after 5 to 15 minutes in water. This is not the skin soaking up water. It is the nervous system shrinking the fingertip on purpose, and the wrinkles may improve grip when wet.

Everyone with intact nerves
Eyes Perception

Tetrachromacy

Most people have three kinds of colour-sensing cone. A few people have four. In theory they can tell apart colours that look identical to everyone else. Confirmed cases are extremely rare, and online tests cannot detect it.

A handful of confirmed cases
Ears Sound

The sound of silence

In a room that absorbs almost all sound, you hear your heartbeat, your blood, your breath, and a high ringing from your own inner ear. True silence is not possible for a living person.

Everyone, given a quiet enough room
Mouth Trick

Tongue rolling

Between 65% and 84% of people can curl the sides of the tongue up into a tube. For decades it was taught as a simple one-gene trait. It is not.

65–84% of people