The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, May 3, 2003

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News for Know-It-Alls

If you saw "Friends" last week, you may have caught a glimpse of Courteney Cox reading mental_floss. Launched in 2001, mental_floss was named one of the top 10 new magazines by Library Journal. Filled with lists and trivia, it's for people who like to know facts about everything from black holes to the Dead Sea Scrolls. "We take the chore out of learning by presenting information in a way that's quick, simple, quirky and fun," say co-founders Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur. The idea for the magazine grew out of a late-night discussion among Duke University students.

"We were talking about how Americans want to feel smart and feel that they're educated," Pearson explains. "But most methods of education are fairly dry. So we went looking for a magazine that could deliver education in monthly installments. When we couldn't find one, we started our own." The response was so great that they expanded the distribution nationally and, in June, Wal-Mart will begin carrying mental_floss.

In the second annual "10 issue," readers can find out about the 10 great love affairs in history, the 10 political moments in rock 'n' roll or 10 shocking scandals in sports history. (Mike Tyson's ear-biting incident is one.)

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