Mental Floss

BIG QUESTIONS

"Love the Avenger" by Jean Honore Fragonard, circa 1790.

Cupid’s connection to love and romance dates back centuries.

Middle school and junior high are not quite the same.

The two terms describe the period of education between elementary and high school, but middle school and junior high aren’t exactly the same.

If this is what your eyeballs feel like after trying (and failing) to see Magic Eye pictures, you're not alone.

Magic Eye pictures have been called “the world’s most famous—and infamously frustrating—optical illusion.” Here’s what might be going on if you can’t see them.

Ja’Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals makes a catch over Raymond Calais of the Los Angeles Rams during Super Bowl LVI.

For each year’s Super Bowl showdown, manufacturers and retailers will produce and stock two sets of T-shirts, hats, and other merchandise that declares each team the champ. So who gets the losing team’s stuff?

Greetings from the cockpit.

The flight deck has long been known by a peculiar term—one that probably has to do with roosters.

If you guessed gopher, you‘re correct.

If you’re planning an early February trip to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, you might want to know the difference between groundhogs and gophers.

Dory and Marlin in Finding Nemo (2003).

Before 2003's 'Finding Nemo,' 'Dory fish' were best known by another name. Actually, several other names.

Liquid gold.

We pay billions for something that comes out of a faucet for pennies. Here’s why.

Linguists have some theories about how Rock, Paper, Scissors is also known as roshambo.

The term is more commonly used on the West Coast, especially in northern California.

A number of factors go into the price of truffles.

To figure out a little bit about why truffles are so expensive, Mental Floss talked to Vittorio Giordano, the Vice President and Truffle Guru at Urbani Truffles USA.

Iodized salt helped curb a thyroid concern in the '20s.

It could prevent you from developing a goiter, for one thing.

Eyebrows serve a real purpose.

Eyebrows are the Swiss Army knife of the human face.

AriZona iced tea is holding the line on price.

AriZona's enormous vats of iced tea are cheaper than pure water. What kind of sorcery is this?

A possum (left) and an opossum (right).

‘Possum’ and ‘opossum’ are sometimes synonyms—but sometimes they refer to different animals. (Also, there’s a chance you've been pronouncing ‘opossum’ wrong all along.)

Buffalo wings are a Super Bowl staple.

Americans consume more than 1 billion wings on Super Bowl Sunday, and we have sports bars to thank.

Why is this woman yawning?

The short answer is that no one really knows why we yawn. But people have theories.

Turns out, those weird shapes actually serve a pretty big function.

Those funky circles and squares you might see on a car’s bumper aren’t just for show—they actually come in handy if you ever need your car towed.

The Buckeye State? More like the Astronaut State.

NASA counts a surprising number of astronauts from the past and present who hail from the Buckeye State.

It’s flu season for a reason.

It’s not just because you’re spending more time indoors.

Which of these water types is better? We have an answer.

“It just tastes funny” is only part of the difference between hard water vs. soft water.

Strombolis and calzones might seem the same, but they actually differ in some crucial ways.

These pizzeria staples have a lot in common, but they’re not the same.

Gasping when you're surprised is a quirk of evolution.

Gasping is tied to an innate survival mechanism, hardwired into humans through evolution: the fight-or-flight response.

Probably cocoa powder.

‘Cacao’ and ‘cocoa’ started out as synonyms—but there’s a little more to unpack in today’s product labels.

Fancy.

Diamonds are forever. So is debt, if you’re not careful.