Arizona Republic, Nov. 23, 2003
Magazine Review: Mental Floss
By Dan Kincaid

This easy-to-read magazine sifts history, culture and ideas, picking up all sorts of interesting topics, often with an eye toward debunking them. The cover story looks at the greatest hoaxes in history. Here you'll find such choice specimens of baloney as the tale of the female pope in the Middle Ages; the great moon hoax of 1833, which claimed a famous astronomer had observed advanced life on the moon; 1959's Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, reputedly dedicated to garbing all our furry friends; and the 1969 Paul McCartney is dead flap. Each hoax is described and graded. (We wonder, though, why the Piltdown Man didn't make the list.) You'll also read about artist Gustav Klimt, your endocrine glands, weird "irritant" weapons developed by the U.S. military, the world's most dangerous sports (think Pamplona, Spain), and Adam Worth, the master criminal who served as the model for Sherlock Holme's arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty. There's also a quiz on general knowledge.

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