shameless-self-promotion

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In the Beginning: Do a little dance!

Who said you can't have your cake and eat it too? Our new book In the Beginning's hitting stores in little over a week, and we've got a fat slice of fact waiting for you below. Enjoy! Dancing (for fun) Since dance doesn't leave behind artifacts, we can't really tell you who was the first caveman to get up and do a jig. (There's a little evidence of dancing in Egyptian tomb paintings) What we can tell you quite a lot about is... The Waltz This dance, which may get its name from... READ ON

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In the Beginning: Pre-order it today!

In the Beginning's hitting stores in little over a week, and we're serving up another sample below. Enjoy! The Vacuum Cleaner How can we put this politely "“ the first vacuum cleaners kinda sucked. The Original Clean Sweep You could say that H. Cecil Booth invented the first suction-powered vacuum cleaner . . . or you could say that he was the first suction-powered vacuum cleaner. Having seen early models that simply blew the dust around without capturing much of it, Booth was unimpressed and... READ ON

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Get Excited!: In the Beginning Day 10

Mark your calendars, folks! There are just 10 days to go till the new book In the Beginning hits stores, and we're continuing the countdown today with some important information about SPAM, part II: (the e-mail genre). SPAM, Pt II: SPAM (The E-mail Genre) If you're sick of blaming dethroned Nigerian kings, triple-X porn sites and mail-order purveyors of Viagra for all the junk in your e-mail box, why not take issue with the real rascals behind the word. SPAM (A Lot) In 1970, the members of... READ ON

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In the Beginning: 11 Days and Counting

Here's another teaser from our newest new book In the Beginning... Enjoy! SPAM PART I: The Meat First, let's get the ingredients out of the way. SPAM is chopped pork shoulder meat with ham, salt, water, sugar, and sodium nitrite. Unless, that is, it's SPAM Lite, in which case there's also some chicken thrown in there. Or SPAM Oven Roasted Turkey, which includes (we assume) turkey and is suitable for Muslims. Pushing Tin Now that we know what it's made of, why? SPAM was... READ ON

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The 12 Days of "In the Beginning"

We've got another great excerpt from our latest effort In the Beginning for you. There are just 12 more days before it hits stands. Anyone salivating yet? Roller Coasters Every story's got its ups and downs. This one just has more than most. You Must Be This Tall to Read Although purely a pleasure today, the roller coasters of American roots are actually steeped in practicality. In 1827, a mining entrepreneur named Josiah White started looking for a way to bring tons of valuable coal off the... READ ON

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Birth of the Dishwasher

If necessity is the mother of invention, then what caused a filthy rich woman to roll up her sleeves and build the first dishwasher? We've got the saucer full of secrets below. The Dish... READ ON

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In the Beginning: Just 2 weeks to go!

There are just 14 days to go until our latest contribution to the book world In the Beginning comes out, so we figured we'd start excerpting short bits from it. The book covers the origins of everything, from big hair to the big bang, and today we're sharing some insights on Bond. (James Bond). Enjoy! James Bond Today's lesson on the history of James Bond is brought to you by the letters Q, M and the number 007. The Bond Market "Bond, James Bond" may sound suave to us... READ ON

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In the Beginning: The Countdown Begins!

With just 15 Days till our new In the Beginning book comes out, we figured we'd start excerpting bits from it. The book covers the origins of everything, from big hair to the big bang, and today we're sharing the story of bungee jumping. Enjoy! BUNGEE JUMPING Talk about a serious leap of faith: the first land divers plunged head first toward hard soil, all in the name of agriculture. The Jump and Grind If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too? Chances are, if you're a... READ ON

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THE Y-FILES, Part II: More Answers to Help Shut Your Kid Up!

I keep my office like I keep my coffee: dark. So when the door creaked open, and the light streamed in, I knew it was trouble.The dame walked toward me and started firing off questions. She was the pushy sort, and she shot "˜em off rapid-fire: "Why's the sky blue? Why are tennis balls fuzzy? Why do llamas spit? Why? Why? Why?" The gal was merciless, and she didn't take "go ask mom" for an answer. This was a four-year-old who needed explanations, and she needed... READ ON

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HELP!!! (That third exclamation point means we're desperate)

mental_floss is running a feature on election topics that we (as a staff) pretend to know about, but really don't. We've already got a terrific piece on immigration in the can, but for our second piece we're tackling the Health Care industry. Some of the things we'll be asking and looking intoÂ are: - They say that doctors hate HMOs. But why? (Especially when hate's such a strong word.) How do these programs affect physicians/hospitals and how they're compensated? Does a physician get... READ ON