Mental Floss

TECH

Although we use them without a second thought, precious few of us know how they came to sit on our high streets and in the walls of our banks.

Chris Stokel-Walker






Discovery Channel

Shark Cam makes its debut in the Shark Week special "Return of Jaws" tonight at 9 p.m. EST on the Discovery Channel; we talked to Skomal about developing the robot and what it revealed that traditional tracking methods did not.

Erin McCarthy


Illustration by James Poupard from "The young mill-wright & miller's guide : in five parts, embellished with twenty five plates" by Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia. Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons//Public Domain

Although most of the early "X-Patents" are lost, we have a barebones record of what used to be there, giving us a peek into what America’s earliest inventors were up to.

Lucas Reilly
Thinkstock

In 2013, Bill Gates admitted ctrl+alt+del was a mistake and blamed IBM. Here's the story of how the key combination became famous in the first place.

Editorial Staff


Hasbro

Whether you were playing with your friends or gleefully terrorizing your siblings, few things brought as much joy growing up as NERF’s wide array of toys.

Erin McCarthy


ThinkStock

On the TV show Battlestar Galactica, the humans experience conflicting feelings when dealing with the humanoid Cylons. While some find it easy to torture the robots, even though they resemble humans, many cringe at the thought of terrorizing the Cylons. I

Meghan Holohan


ThinkStock

Noise-canceling headphones seem like an oxymoron: a piece of audio technology that creates silence, rather than noise. They’re useful on planes, in crowded offices, and for light sleepers trying to catch some shut-eye in a thin-walled apartment, but how c

Roma Panganiban


Library of Congress

They’ve been called “flying Oval Offices,” presently contain some of the world’s most high-tech missile defense systems, and even starred in an action movie alongside Harrison Ford. Yet, contrary to popular belief, Presidential airplanes have been around

Mark Mancini
YouTube / Computer Chronicles

Our definition of portability has changed over the years, from 1975's IBM 5100 (what we used to call a "luggable" computer) all the way to today's ultrabooks, which are finally actually "notebook" sized -- and still have halfway decent battery life.

Chris Higgins
Wikimedia Commons

As tempting it may be to be the first in your circle to purchase and use a new product, there’s reason to abstain until the kinks of a first generation model have been worked out.

Jeremy Gordon








Petegar/iStock via Getty Images

A new episode of Mad Men or a rare airing of Murder, She Wrote isn’t the only time to stare longingly at a beautiful, sleek typewriter. There are 28 (sometimes 29) days dedicated to the once ubiquitous, now ancient device: International Typewriter Appreci

Bryan Dugan
iStock.com/RomoloTavani

Akira Muto, Koichi Kawakami, and Junichi Nakai pioneered new technology enabling them to observe neural activity occurring in the zebrafish brain in real time.

Roma Panganiban