Remember being fed spinach as a kid because it's rich in iron? This belief comes from a statistic with the decimal point in the wrong place. HITCitizen Billy No Box dives into some popular myths to find out that many things taken for granted should be taken with a pinch of salt instead. Just like spinach.

A statistic published in 1870 by German scientist Dr. von Wolf showed that spinach had an extremely high content of iron. Ever since, kids have been fed spinach - usually to their disgust - because it is good for them. While it is clearly not bad for them (apart from the trauma of having to eat something that you profoundly dislike,) Wolf's results had the decimal place in the wrong place and overstated the nutritional value by a factor of 10.

This was corrected in 1930, but it seems old eating habits die hard - in particular if you've been force-fed this kind of popular knowledge ever since you started eating real food.

In this vein, there are lots of popular myths that deserve a bit of scrutiny. The Discovery Channel even features a show (called Mythbusters no less) doing exactly this: turning what you have always believed right on the head.

• Everyone knows that a penny dropped from the Empire State Building will have turned into a lethal weapon once it hits the streets of Manhattan. But actually, even fired from a rifle, a penny would cause little harm.
• We also know that humans only use 10% of their brain. However, it's easy to show with MRI scans that all of our grey cells are usually quite busy. Then again, maybe the original test was taken after a long night out, since alcohol kills brain cells, right? Rest assured, it does not. It slows down the way the cells communicate with each other, but only temporarily.
• And of course water drains in the opposite direction on the southern hemisphere - earth rotation, right? Wrong. All the direction of flow depends on is the structure of the drain. That means that a good plumber could construct a bathtub that would make you believe you were in Australia right here in London.
• And as for not using your mobile phone whilst filling up your tank at a gas station - the risk of your newly acquired iPhone (or any phone for that matter) making your Porsche go up in flames are so remote that it's not worth hanging up for that.

A little known but entertaining myth revolves around the reason why there is no Nobel Prize in Mathematics. Allegedly Nobel's wife ran off with a mathematician, so he didn't want this particular science to be supported by his foundation.

The fact that Nobel was never married will probably only do little harm to the credibility of this story.

Here Is The Writer : Billy No Box

Billy No Box has worked in the city for six years, and currently works in Derivatives for a North American bank. He enjoys playing golf, reading books by Umberto Eco, singing "Copacabana" in the shower and at karaoke bars, and occasionally updating his blog about London and everything else.

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