---
title: "List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics"
chunk: 16/16
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions_about_science,_technology,_and_mathematics"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:28:18.528573+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Toxicology ==
Smokeless tobacco is not a "safe" alternative to conventional tobacco; smokeless tobacco products contain nicotine and are therefore highly addictive. They also can cause various harmful effects such as dental disease, oral cancer, oesophagus cancer, and pancreas cancer, coronary heart disease, as well as negative reproductive effects including stillbirth, premature birth and low birth weight.
Swallowing gasoline does not generally require special emergency treatment, as long as it goes into the stomach and not the lungs. This does not mean gasoline is safe to drink; it is very dangerous when consumed. Inducing vomiting can make it worse.
A chloroform-soaked rag cannot instantly incapacitate a person. It takes at least five minutes of inhaling an item soaked in chloroform to render a person unconscious. Most criminal cases involving chloroform also involve another drug being co-administered, such as alcohol or diazepam, or the victim being found to have been complicit in its administration. The misconception that chloroform can be used as an incapacitating agent has been popularized by crime fiction authors.
Although bananas contain naturally occurring radioactive isotopes, particularly potassium-40 (40K), which emit ionizing radiation when undergoing radioactive decay, the levels of such radiation are far too low to induce radiation poisoning, and bananas are not a radiation hazard. It would not be physically possible to eat enough bananas to cause radiation poisoning, as the radiation dose from bananas is non-cumulative. (See also: Banana equivalent dose)
Ingesting Visine, a brand of eye drops, does not cause diarrhea. It is neurotoxic, with consumption causing several serious side-effects. Pranks spiking people with Visine rose after the misconception was popularized by the film Wedding Crashers.

== Transportation ==

The Bermuda Triangle does not have any more shipwrecks or mysterious disappearances than most other waterways.
Toilet waste is never intentionally jettisoned from a commercial aircraft. All waste is collected in tanks and emptied into toilet waste vehicles. Blue ice is caused by accidental leakage from the waste tank. Passenger train toilets, on the other hand, have indeed historically flushed onto the tracks; modern trains in most developed countries usually have retention tanks on board and therefore do not dispose of waste in such a manner.
Automotive batteries stored on a concrete floor do not discharge any faster than they would on other surfaces, in spite of a worry that concrete harms batteries. Early batteries with porous, leaky cases may have been susceptible to moisture from floors, but for many years lead–acid car batteries have had impermeable polypropylene cases. While most modern automotive batteries are sealed, and do not leak battery acid when properly stored and maintained, the sulfuric acid in them can leak out and stain, etch, or corrode concrete floors if their cases crack or tip over or their vent-holes are breached by floods.

== References ==

== Sources ==
Kahn, Charles H. (2001). Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History. Indianapolis, Indiana and Cambridge, England: Hackett Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-87220-575-8. OCLC 46394974 – via Internet Archive.
Varasdi, J. Allen (1996). Myth Information. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-41049-1.