The Internet gets a lot of bad press, and not without reason. It’s a wide-open forum and there’s a lot of stuff out there that is pretty disturbing. But there are also some pretty cool sites you can visit that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to be caught looking at if your parents/spouse/kids walked into the room unexpectedly.

One site I have in my “favorites” list is www.livescience.com. It’s a good place to get caught up on some of the latest research and discoveries in various fields of study, and the information is presented in a way that even we non-scientist types can easily understand.

One of the things that caught my eye on the site this week was a feature that examined whether or not some of the popular myths we’ve all heard enough times to assume they were probably true actually hold up under the harsh light of scientific investigation. A few examples follow.

“People use only 10 percent of their brains. Although it certainly seems like many of the people we meet in life are using a tiny part of their mental capacity, the wonders of MRI imaging have demonstrated that all parts of our brains are active and in use. We’ll need to come up with another explanation for the rampant stupidity that seems to define much of the human experience.

“A falling cat always lands on its feet. This is true in most cases. If a cat falls from a height of more than one foot they do, in fact, land on their little paws. It’s just one more thing for them to be smug about.

“Chickens can live without a head. Shockingly, this one is also true. Apparently the brain stem, which controls the bird’s reflexes, is not located in the head, so the body can continue to function for a time sans head. One headless chicken apparently survived for 18 months. There is no truth to the rumor that this headless chicken was elected to Congress. To be fair, he was running against an entrenched incumbent and the vote was very close.

“Water draining from a container in the Southern Hemisphere rotates in the opposite direction than it does in the Northern Hemisphere. Not a shred of truth to this one. The rotation is affected by the shape and design of the container being drained, but is not affected by your geography. However, if anyone doesn’t believe this I’d be glad to fly to Australia and flush a few toilets if you’ll pay for my airfare.

“Hair and fingernails continue to grow after you are dead. This is not true even though visual evidence might suggest otherwise. As the body dehydrates postmortem it only appears that hair and nails are getting longer as the skin around them retracts. One possible counterpoint to this line of reasoning – Keith Richards.

“And last, but certainly not least – men think about sex every seven seconds. There is actually no objective data to suggest that this might be true, and researchers agree that this figure is highly overstated. If thought processes were interrupted that often by naughty interludes, men would be able to accomplish almost nothing of complexity or value in terms of intellectual achievement. There are very few jobs a man who was that preoccupied with sex would be able to hold, and the world only needs a few Hugh Hefners and Bill Clintons.