The Latest Issue of mental_floss is Now on Newsstands!

There’s a new issue of our magazine on sale today! This was a fun one to make. First we went to Indiana to meet young adult novelist-guru and mental_floss video star John Green. Then we headed to Oregon to hang out with Portlandia's Carrie Brownstein in her natural habitat, a bicycle store that serves flights of beer on skateboards.

We tried grappa. Lots of grappa. Grappa that tastes like a "pet shop," grappa that tastes like "a deliciously flaming grape," grappa that tastes like "a fire in a banana grove," grappa that tastes like "biting into the stick used for making a s'more," and s'much other grappa. You’re welcome.

We interviewed the Ontario man who's invented not only a bear-proof suit (well, sort of) but a tumor zapper, and then, because we like Canada so much, we talked to Toronto author Sheila Heti, who is currently at work on an exhaustive book about how people get dressed. We got to know the suffrage-era stunt lady who would give Angelina Jolie a run for her money.

Oh, and we snooped around in Karl Marx's diary a bit too.

I learned a ton making this issue. But a few facts stuck in my mind long enough that I could use them to impress accounting at our office holiday party. You can borrow them if you like, to impress the accountants in your life.

1. An Olympic gold medal is only 1% gold.

2. A bobsled costs $25,000 -- which is as much as the most expensive ice cream sundae in the world.

3. In 19th-century Britain, opium for babies was marketed under the name "Quietness."

4. People who enroll in alligator wrestling school start by wrestling three-foot baby gators. Also, there's such a thing as alligator wrestling school.

5. Neutrinos exist!! They're my new favorite elementary particle.

6. LeVar Burton went through something he calls his "Cameo period." Word up.

7. Quantum mechanics is basically just nachos.

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