Mental Floss

BIG QUESTIONS

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Various people had their hands on it, but the credit for the bulk of the pledge goes to Francis Julius Bellamy, a Baptist minister from New York.

Matt Soniak

Stephanie and her curious two-year-old want to know why we sometimes say “Holy Mackerel!” Unfortunately, the answer is about as clear as the tomato sauce Brits like to douse the fish

Stacy Conradt


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The circling thing is a relic of domestic dogs' wild past, a bit of hard-wired behavior that hasn't been bred out yet. Biologists and dog experts say that it might just be a strange quirk for domestic pooches, but for wild dogs and wolves, circling before

Matt Soniak


Consider the following ingredient lists:McDonald's Fancy Ketchup: Tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, salt, natural flavors (vegetable source).Heinz: Tomato concentrate from red ripe t

Matt Soniak




The alphabet, as best as historians can tell, got its start in ancient Egypt sometime in the Middle Bronze Age, but not with the Egyptians. They were, at the time, writing with a set of hieroglyphs that were used both as representations of the consonants

Matt Soniak

We don't want to spoil anything from this season of Breaking Bad for those who haven't seen it. But for the floss readers curious about lily of the valley, a plant that played a part in Sunday's season finale, we're happy to talk botany. Read on at your o

Matt Soniak
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Hot sauces, curries, wasabi peas and other spicy treats turn you into a snot faucet. Why is that? Capsaicin is the chemical found concentrated in the placental tissue of chile peppers and allyl isothiocyanate is an oil contained in plants like mustard and

Matt Soniak


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Dog turds are stealth weapons. People with 20/20 vision often fail to notice them until they appear hours later, on the bottom of a shoe. How the heck is someone who can’t see supposed to track down and eliminate these sidewalk scourges, then?

Matt Soniak


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It’s hard to make that first trip to the college bookstore for required texts without leaving with a bit of sticker shock. Why are textbooks so astonishingly expensive? Let’s take a look.

Ethan Trex




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Around the world, moths make kamikaze dives into light bulbs and open flames with such regularity that they have their own idiom. What is it about lights that make moths so crazy?

Matt Soniak
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Buying fruit juice at the supermarket is a surprisingly complicated task that leads to myriad questions. What’s really in that “100% juice”? Why does that “juice” have the word “cocktail” loitering behind it? Let’s take a look at the exciting world of jui

Ethan Trex
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You ever wake up and have lots of crust in the inner corner of your eye? What is this stuff, and where does it come from?

Matt Soniak


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The rims on U.S. dimes, quarters, half dollars and some dollar coins are called reeded edges. They’ve been on American currency almost since day one as a way of keeping people honest.

Matt Soniak


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Since the early 1970s there’s been at least one 555 number callers can dial and get an answer—555-1212 is a standard number that rings directory assistance. The rest of the 555 numbers have largely gained fame as fake numbers in movies and on TV.

Ethan Trex


The Nintendo Zapper offered a new angle on interactive television.

The 'Duck Hunt' gun, officially called the NES Zapper, seems downright primitive next to today's technology. But in the late '80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder.

Matt Soniak


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In 1955, a French electrician named André Cassagnes got an idea for a new toy after seeing how an electrostatic charge could hold aluminum powder to glass.

Matt Soniak
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If you’ve ever had the date on a cell phone or computer mysteriously switch to December 31, 1969, you may have thought it was simply random. However, the reason behind this odd glitch is a nice little tidbit of computer trivia.

Erica Palan
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“Lethal injection” isn’t a marketing term or a cute nickname. The intent of the injection is to execute someone. So why bother with the alcohol swab and sterile needle? Are they really worried about the condemned getting an infection?

Matt Soniak