I think this is variable between mammals - in mouse (the species where I look at placenta), there is indeed a thick maternal layer of the placenta, which contains maternal blood vessels. It is derived from the original decidua which surrounds the conceptus in pre-placental earlier stages. Of course, much like in human, the trophoblasts extensively invade the maternal uterine vessels and remodel their walls. Which is freaking creepy, if you ask me.
Don’t know about that… I would still consider placenta proper to be of fetal origin (the chorion-allantoic layer and all that). A fetal organ that can be very invasive and wrap around maternal blood vessels, yes, but all of it of fetal origin.
I just learned 10 minutes ago that a pony isn’t a baby horse. So I guess my parents could’ve bought me a pony for my birthday then. Grow up to be too big for the house my ass… 
For years I thought Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” was actually “Red Hot Love”. I think I was around 30 when I found out the truth. I felt really stupid.
No Asses don’t get very big at all . . . at least not burros. . .
Hey, that cow thing you just said is joke, right? I mean, you only believed boy cow/girl cow horn/no-horn when you were young, yes? I know I had to explain to some of my childhood classmates (on field trips to my house, because I have cows) that no, some girl cows do have horns, and unless you’re dealing with some bull-riding bulls or breeds for which horns are desirable or non-optional (Longhorns, for instance), most boy cows don’t have horns.
(I’ve had to explain to people that no, that’s the bull’s scrotum, not a cow’s udder before, though, so I try not to expect normal people to have cow knowledge.)
I always liked the “What Were You Doing When You Heard Kennedy Was Shot” sketch on Saturday Night Live.
It doesn’t read half as funny as actually seeing it, of course, but take my word for it, Tim Kazurinsky was hilarious.
I’m sorry, but this has been annoying me. The U.S. military may have decided to re-invent the English language, but according to any dictionary you can find and according to the rest of the English-speaking world, “soldier” does in fact refer to any member of any military who isn’t a sailor. And yes, that includes Marines.
Man, this thread is turning into “Basic facts you learned late in life that you didn’t really know, and then you learned them wrong, and NOW you’re learning them correctly…maybe.” I guess that doesn’t fit in the subject line, though.
Man, that’s great even just reading it. I wish I could see a clip now.
This one was embarrassing but apparently I was not alone in this:
As a kid I found it odd that when dividing fractions you got a bigger number than when you started. I mean, if you divide something it has to be smaller right? Well no, 0.5 / 0.25 = 2
My whole life I never understood that but just did the math problems like I was told and left it at that. I never got it when I was young and originally taught it and never thought to seek a better answer when I was older.
Move forward to when I was entering a tutoring program for inner city kids (I was to be a tutor). They brought in some teachers to give myself and the other tutors in the program a quick refresher on a lot of the basics so we could explain them to the kids if asked. I asked about the bit above and got numerous murmurs of agreement from around the room. Even the teacher paused for some seconds trying to figure how to explain it.
Then she did and it was simple and obvious and I saw the light and all that (phrase the question as how many time can 0.25 go into 0.5). A great, “Ahhhh!” was heard in the room.
Silly I know but there it is.
I didn’t realize pickles were made from cucumbers until a few years ago (:smack:)
Also thought in Gordon Lightfoot’s “Carefree Highway” he was singing “Every Highway” 
.
Okay, those are the only ones I’ll ADMIT to right now! 
He’s singing what!!! Oh no!
Misheard song lyrics could be their own thread. I always thought the song that went “purty little love song” was absurdly self-complimentary until I found out it was “heard it in a love song”.
Even though they look like little cucumbers? Man, you really don’t pay attention do you?
Some technical people are very vehement that a website should (normally) use “www”, especially if the domain is used for anything other than the website (email, ftp, etc), although I can’t now remember the argument.
My mis-heard song lyric - which I learned was wrong less than a year ago - is from Jimmy Buffet:
Wasted away in Margaritaville
Looking for my outlaw shaker of salt
And it still sounds like he’s saying ‘outlaw’ to me; go ahead and give it a listen and tell me I’m wrong.
Also, I like my version better than ‘long lost’ shaker of salt. 
I thought it was “lost shaker of salt”, rather than “long lost shaker of salt”.
Also, “Wastin’ away …” and not “Wasted away …”
It’s the same reason that people have first names. If there’s a family named “Smith” who is unfamiliar to me, what happens when I call out “Hey, Smith, it’s Bob, come over here?” That’s OK for a family containing 1 Smith. But if there’s a family of 8 Smiths, then it becomes problematic. They can infer how to route the request by looking at the type of request and sending it to the right Smith, but why do the extra work when they can just require people to ask for Tinker Smith, Tailor Smith, Soldier Smith, etc?
So basically, it’s easier for network admins to require you (or your browser) to ask for what you want instead of trying to read your mind.
And in Westchester, NY, that type of sandwich is called a wedge. A wedge. What the frack is a wedge?
I’ve never encountered that word as a name for a sandwich anywhere else.