

Kat Long
Joined: Jun 21, 2017
Kat Long is Mental Floss's science editor and host of the Mental Floss/iHeartRadio podcast THE QUEST FOR THE NORTH POLE. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, and the Washington Post.




In this episode, we’ll dive into the first real attempts to conquer the North Pole, by land or by sea. And we’ll analyze what went so extremely wrong.
European explorers often thought of the Arctic as an empty wasteland, and the Indigenous people who lived there as childlike. But as one historian put it, “the real children in the Arctic would be the white explorers.”
In this episode, we’ll meet Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, two adventurers with completely different backgrounds and temperaments who formed one of the most enduring and successful partnerships in the history of exploration. But there were also disappoi
The demise of the Franklin Expedition remains the most compelling puzzle in Arctic exploration. What catastrophe had befallen Britain’s best-prepared polar expedition? And what tantalizing clues are still being uncovered?
Before Robert Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole, he led several expeditions to northern Greenland. He brought back three legendary meteorites from the Arctic—and a young boy named Minik.
While on their quest for the North Pole, Robert Peary and Matthew Henson had sons with Inughuit women. In the 1980s, an ambitious Harvard neuroscientist brought them to America.
In the final bonus episode of The Quest for the North Pole, we travel to far northwestern Greenland to see the changing Arctic firsthand. Along the way, we'll see amazing wildlife, get frostbite, and realize how lucky we are not to be man-hauling thousand
Long before Batman and Commissioner Gordon fought corruption under cover of darkness in Gotham, Theodore Roosevelt, president of the police commission, was prowling around New York City in plainclothes at night to make sure his policemen were doing their
From Acadia to Zion, the U.S. has some pretty majestic national parks. Here’s one fun fact about every single one—plus a map so you can see where they all are.
The 'Titanic' sinking became the most infamous shipwreck in history—but what really happened on that unusually calm night in the North Atlantic?
In her later years, Eva Hart had the distinction of being the last living 'Titanic' survivor with first-hand memories of the disaster.
From the world’s tallest peaks to its deepest lakes and beyond