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Mental Floss
With the number of remakes, reboots, and re-imagined movies coming out of Hollywood lately, the industry seems intent on taking everything old and making it new again. And while that's hardly just a recent trend, you might be surprised at some of the film
Rick Marshall|
In our Retrobituaries series, we highlight interesting people who are no longer with us. Today let's explore the life of Ruth Fertel, who died at 75 in 2002.
David W Brown|
The symbols we use also have names: dollar sign, treble clef, asterisk, etc. But sometimes the name for a symbol takes on a different sort of meaning.
Arika Okrent|
This week on Bates Motel: Dead deputies, dead dogs and dead dreams. Ah, idyllic White Pine Bay. Having fun! Wish you were here!
Stacy Conradt|
As a marker of singularity, our voices are as effective as our fingerprints. Though people may share a similar pitch or certain vocal characteristics, under close examination, no two voices are alike. Height, weight, hormones, provenance, allergies, struc
Kevin Kampwirth|
Paying tribute to century-old hairdos (and don’ts).
Jennifer M Wood|
Thinking of the wild English countryside might conjure up images of manor houses, green fields, and secret gardens, Lions, tigers, and bears are from a different kind of story—but that's not actually so, according to a recent discovery by a team of resear
Roma Panganiban|
Nothing is certain but death, taxes, and spam comments on your blog. One way to avoid repeating the same comment over and over without having to write thousands of different original comments is to replace the words in one comment with various synonyms.
Arika Okrent|
Pharaohs were normally meticulous shavers, according to most archaeologists and historians. So why did they wear false beards while eliminating real ones?
Mark Mancini|
Erik Sass|
People have speculated over the nature of seemingly useless physical characteristics in living things for thousands of years.
Kevin Kampwirth|
For a few hours after particularly loud concert, the ringing in your ears makes it tough to hear. When your friends ask how the show was, you sheepishly ask them speak up so you can catch what they’re saying. This hearing loss, which is most often reversi
Meghan Holohan|
As seen on TV—and likely your own credit card bill.
Jennifer M Wood|
April 26 is National Hairball Awareness Day. To celebrate, we've hacked up a few facts about everyone's least favorite cat treat.
Amanda Green|
In honor of Arbor Day, we bring you lifesaving wood, the truth about cork, and a refuge for swamped spiders.
the mag|
Love. It's the drug, and a battlefield, and a many splendored thing. It takes time, it will lead you back, and it don't cost a thing. Is there any topic that has inspired more pop songs than love?
Arika Okrent|
Digital advancements such as the Internet, e-book readers and even your phone may have put a crimp in the sales of traditional book publishers, but they haven't been able to slow down the rare book market.
Danny Gallagher|
Though he invented the telephone, nobody knew what Alexander Graham Bell’s voice sounded like outside of his immediate associations. His last living relative who had heard him speak, granddaughter Mabel Grosvenor, died in 2006, and with her the last memor
Caisey Robertson|
Words we use every day in modern English owe their inclusion in dictionaries to a British army officer picking up a few slang words from the cotton traders in Bangalore, street food vendors in the Caribbean, or the Boer warriors two fought against Britons
Chris Stokel-Walker|
Named after the great Roman emperor, Julius Caesar, yet he was not the first baby born by the procedure.
Matt Soniak|
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