8 Popular 'Science Myths' Where The Truth Is Way Cooler

8. You Never Grow New Brain Cells

This myth is often used as a scare tactic to stop people drinking themselves into oblivion every Saturday night, as alcohol is supposed to kill brain cells (also not true, by the way). As well as being perpetuated in the general public, this was also believed and taught within the scientific community for decades.

It used to be thought that adults growing new brain cells would have all kinds of disruptive influences on established neural networks, but this has turned out to be not the case.

In fact, the birth of new brains cells appears to be extremely important. One oncologist noted that cancer patients who were given a drug to inhibit the growth of tumours also had a habit of developing depression, even after they were cured. Turns out that the drug that was inhibiting cancer cell growth was also inhibiting brain cell growth and studies now show that we might be blossoming with more than 700 new neurons per day - enough to completely replace the brain by the age of 50.

This myth also implies that losing brain cells is a bad thing, but it's actually a key part of all of our development. During childhood, your brain creates neural pathways like crazy, but by the time you hit adolescence, you brain begins pruning them to create a more efficient adult brain. This is part of the reason why teenagers are so insane and also the process that transforms us from children into adults.