From The Archive

Sometimes there is more to a dinner plate than meets the eye. In some cases, what looks like a regular meal is actually a cake with some clever, camouflaging decoration. Here are 11 cakes that look like something much more nutritious... or at least like s

Good morning! It's the 11th of the month, which means we've got lots of '11 lists' for your reading enjoyment. We'll post one list every hour starting at 9:11am until we get tired. It's going to be a good day. If there's one thing we at mental_floss kno

Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know (“Learn Something New Every Day, By Email”). To subscribe to his daily email, click here. Babushka dolls, also called matryoshka dolls or Russian nesting dolls, are, as Wikipedia states, "a set of do

HU GUANGYAO/Xinhua/Landov Dixville Notch, NH, is a tiny unincorporated township of about 75 residents situated at the foot of the scenic White Mountains and home to The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel. But the village's claim to fame is the legendary midnight

Reader Ashley asks: "Is Sebastian from Disney's The Little Mermaid a crab or a

Image credit: JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters/Landov In every debate this campaign season, Mitt Romney has been hammered by his Republican rivals for essentially teaching companies how to ship jobs overseas during his days at Bain. Romney almost always responds

A few years ago, the Swiss ball migrated from the gym to the office en masse. Swarms of desk jockeys rolled them into their cubicles, convinced that sitting for eight straight hours on a rubber ball counted as "exercise" and provided them with a subtle ab

One of the reasons why I like the Scrabble app better than Words With Friends is that it has that wide-smiling Teacher. (I also don't like that Word With Friends doesn't have TWs in the corners, but that's a whole other post.) If you don't know about the

It’s been said that it's good luck to be born on New Year’s Day. While we can't say whether being born on January 1st will actually pave the path to riches, we can tell you that those with the earliest birthday of the year are certainly in good company.

Lisa F. Young / Shutterstock.com Poor Santa. He's a big guy and everyone knows it. He's probably the last person it's socially acceptable to describe as having a "belly like a bowl full of jelly.” We're not helping with his weight problem, either. On Sat

Hanukkah started Tuesday night and runs the whole week, eight nights in total. During these nights, a helluva lot of latkes, or potato pancakes, are consumed. To understand why, you first have to understand the story of Hanukkah.

A few years ago, I wrote about strange Christmas traditions like Krampus, Caga Tia, the Caganer, Mari Lwyd, Zwarte Piet, the pickle ornament, the TV Yule Log, and Christmas in Japan (which involves several odd customs). Since then, I've uncovered a few mo