13 Scientific Terms Even Smart People Misuse

When scientists use these words, they typically mean something completely different than what they do when non-scientists use them. Sometimes our definitions are too narrow or too broad, and sometimes, we use terms interchangeably when they actually shouldn’t be. We dug deep into the American Museum of Natural History’s website to help set the record straight.

1. AND 2. POISONOUS AND VENOMOUS

Though the words poison and venom are often used interchangeably—and although they both describe a toxin that interferes with a physiological process—there is a difference. It’s all about how the substance is delivered: Venom is delivered via an anatomical device like fangs, while poison is usually inhaled, ingested, or absorbed. As Mark Siddall, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at AMNH, explains in the clip above, both the rough-skinned newt and the blue-ringed octopus produce a powerful toxin called tetrodotoxin. But scientists call the octopus venomous because it delivers the substance through a bite, and consider the newt poisonous because the toxin is in its skin.

3. MICROBES

When most people hear the word “microbe,” they think of stuff that they can’t see that’s going to make them sick. But while some do cause disease, not all microbes, or microscopic organisms, are bad; in fact, some are essential for life. Microbes include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa, and make up most of the life on our planet. For every human cell in our bodies, there are about 10 resident microbes; only a small percentage are pathogens.

4., 5., AND 6. METEOR, METEORITE, AND ASTEROID

Although some use these terms interchangeably, meteors, meteorites, and asteroids are all different things. Here’s how to use them correctly: Asteroids are the rocky bodies that orbit the Sun mostly between Mars and Jupiter; they’re much smaller than planets, and they’re sometimes pulled out of their orbit by the force of Jupiter’s gravity and travel toward the inner solar system. The vast majority of meteorites—rocks that fall to Earth from space and actually reach the Earth’s surface—are parts of asteroids. Like meteorites, meteors are objects that enter Earth’s atmosphere from space—but they’re typically grain-sized pieces of comet dust that burn up before reaching the ground, leaving behind trails that we call “shooting stars” as they vaporize.

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