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Mental Floss
With songs about everything from flashy drug czars to downtrodden jazz musicians, Steely Dan have always cast their lyrical net far from the usual romantic fare of pop music. On one of the standout tracks from their 1975 album Katy Lied, they dug back to
Bill DeMain|
Jens T Carstensen|
Large animals tend to live longer than smaller ones. But this isn't the case for most breeds of dog. What gives?
Matt Soniak|
Erik Sass|
After you read this list, you can proudly tell all your friends you were intellectually stimulated by reading 50 shades of gray.
Arika Okrent|
Chris Higgins|
Most of us, at one point or another, have coveted a house that's not real. While most of us will never realize those real estate dreams, there are a lucky few who have. Here are a few fictional houses you can really move into.
Stacy Conradt|
From the creepy bicycle man to Alex Keaton's alcoholic uncle, here are some of TV's most memorable teachable moments.
Kara Kovalchik|
Throughout the ages, people have hung some pretty weird names on what’s ailed them. Here are the monikers of a few of the more strangely-named illnesses, and how we know them today.
Kevin Kampwirth|
We've all heard the phrase “hair of the dog,” but what about “scale of the snake” or “guts of the wasp”? Those aren't approved hangover cures, but they do describe actual ingredients found in alcoholic beverages.
Leah Shaffer|
In 1896, chemist Arthur Eichengrün brought forth a miracle—a pure acetylsalicylic acid with medical applications. This was a few years before Lizzie Magie invented the board game Monopoly, and if only the two knew each other, they might have had a lot to
David W Brown|
While global warming is a specific function of trapped greenhouse gases, climate change is more complicated.
T Nelson|
Although our ancestors had managed to invent the wheel millennia prior to the good ol’ days of Ancient Egypt, it wasn't until that civilization arose thousands of years later that the human race began to understand the mysteries behind the circle. Our mod
Roma Panganiban|
Pi, the mathematical ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is a universal constant—much like our global love for pizza. As we celebrate one of the most beloved circular foods this Pi Day, here’s a look at some favorite pizza toppings around t
Roma Panganiban|
In 2008, an international team of scientists was trudging through the forests of Vietnam’s Bidoup-Nui Ba National Park when they found a frog they didn’t recognize. Actually, no one recognized it, at least not formally. It was new to science and the speci
Matt Soniak|
After establishing the theory of relativity as a founding principle of modern physics, Albert Einstein turned his thoughts to higher matters: home appliances.
Roma Panganiban|
When we imagine the creation of an object, be it a light bulb or an iPad, we typically imagine a sole inventor, toiling away in a room to build it. But it's never that simple.
Erin McCarthy|
Any child can tell you that banning something is almost a surefire way of piquing an interest in it. Some governments, however, decided that banning these unusual things was an easy fix for their problems.
Caisey Robertson|
The customer is always right, as these 11 companies learned the hard way.
Andrew Moseman|
A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles is a wonderful place to search or browse through the wordy history of our neighbors to the North.
Arika Okrent|
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