Mental Floss

THE BODY

Jason's Phone

Let’s picture a typical moment in my day: I’m minding my own business, with my iPhone in my back pocket. Suddenly, my left cheek is shaking as the phone vibrates and does the bzzt, bzzt, bzzt-ing dance of its people on my backside. I check the phone, and

Matt Soniak
istock.com/LauriPatterson

The sugars in beans are far too big to slip though the intestinal wall on their own, and our guts’ enzymatic tool kit doesn’t have the right stuff to break the big things apart into more manageable pieces.

Matt Soniak

Sledding image via Shutterstock“Put a jacket on if you’re going out there, or you’ll catch a cold.”It’s a common refrain of grandmothers all over the world. Are they right, though? Do low temperatures have anything to do with catching the common cold? Mos

Matt Soniak


Smelling image via ShutterstockI’m perfectly suited to answer the Big Question that reader Katie posed the other day, because I have anosmia, which means I can’t smell. At all. Every diaper my two-year-old has ever filled has been totally odorless to me.

Stacy Conradt


Vonschonertagen/iStock via Getty Images

Paper cut image via ShutterstockThere are a couple things at play here, some involving the paper, some involving your skin. For one thing, what part of your body comes in contact with paper the most?

Matt Soniak




istock.com/ByronOrtizA

Some animals have it made. Their whole day revolves around eating and having sex (and, to be fair, trying not to get eaten themselves). And when winter arrives, they get to curl up somewhere and wait things out until the weather is nice again. Can humans

Matt Soniak

Adam's apple photo via ShutterstockTouch your fingers to the front of your throat and start humming. Feel around until you can feel vibration directly under your fingers. That’s your larynx, or voice box. It houses your vocal cords and is involved in brea

Matt Soniak


iStock/YelenaYemchuk

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


jessicajonnie/iStock via Getty Images

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