A list of common misconceptions

Hey there. You didn’t have stuff to do today, right? Because this list of common misconceptions on Wikipedia will keep you busy for perhaps the rest of your life.

There is a legend that Marco Polo imported pasta from China which originated with the Macaroni Journal, published by an association of food industries with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States. Marco Polo describes a food similar to “lagana” in his Travels, but he uses a term with which he was already familiar. Durum wheat, and thus pasta as it is known today, was introduced by Arabs from Libya, during their conquest of Sicily in the late 7th century, according to the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association, thus predating Marco Polo’s travels to China by about six centuries.

The notion that goldfish have a memory span of just a few seconds is false. It is much longer, counted in months.

(via @jakedobkin)

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