Matt Soniak

Matt Soniak

@mattsoniak

Matt is a long-time mental_floss regular and writes about science, history, etymology and Bruce Springsteen for both the website and the print magazine. His work has also appeared in print and online for Men’s Health, Scientific American, The Atlantic, Philly.com and others. He tweets as @mattsoniak and blogs about animal behavior at mattsoniak.com. He lives in Philadelphia with his girlfriend, two cats and a large collection of bourbon whiskeys.

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Can Opera Singers Really Shatter Glass?

Saturday morning cartoons would have us believe that anyone in a dress and Viking helmet can shatter wine glasses, monocles and even the opera house chandelier with one powerful high note. Is this one of those skills that only cartoon characters possess, or can we mortals do it... READ ON

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Why Are St. Bernards Always Depicted With Barrels Around Their Necks?

mental_floss477:http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22471.html... READ ON

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What's So Premium About Premium Gasoline?

They must call it premium for a reason, right? Let's find out if we're missing out on something big by not shelling out the extra 20... READ ON

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How Does Scratch and Sniff Work?

Scratch and sniff was born of the noble endeavor of making copies. In the dark ages before word processors, inkjet printers, and the Xerox machine, copies of documents were made by placing carbon paper between the sheet you were typing on and the sheet that would become the copy. In the early 1960s, an organic chemist at 3M named Gale Matson developed a way to make ink copies without carbon paper, using a process called microencapsulation.The Matson process uses two sheets of paper "“ one for the... READ ON

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Why Do Onions Make You Cry?

The onion has been traced back as far as the Bronze Age and was worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians (and eaten by the Israelites during their bondage in Egypt). Onions were rubbed over the muscles of Roman gladiators, used to pay rent in the Middle Ages and eventually brought to the Americas, where today we fry, caramelize, pickle, grill and generally enjoy them. Many of us burst into tears when we cut into one, too. It's the price we pay for onion-y goodness. Here's a play-by-play... READ ON

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Explaining the Chinese Zodiac (Just in Time for Chinese New Year)

According to legend, the celebration of the Chinese New Year began with a monster called Nian. The beast would arrive on the first day of the new year and devour crops, livestock and people. To protect themselves, people put food outside their doors, hoping that Nian wouldn't attack after eating. They also used firecrackers to scare it away. One year, Nian was driven from a village by a child wearing red clothes, so people began hanging red lanterns and scrolls on their windows and doors when a new... READ ON

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How Do Fire Eaters Eat Fire?

Very carefully. No, I'm not being a smart aleck; fire eaters, from fakirs to sideshow performers, have very few secrets about their craft. Urban legend has it that fire eaters use "cold flames" that aren't hot enough to burn the skin or coat their mouths with fireproofing chemicals, but any flame from any source is hot enough to burn the mouth (how many times have you burned the roof of your mouth on something as innocent as piece of pizza?) and applying flame-retarding chemicals... READ ON

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Hail to the King: An Elvis FAQ

Elvis Aaron Presley, the King of Rock n' Roll, would have been 74 years old today were it not for a bad night on the toilet in 1977. Even after all these years, there's still a lot of mystery surrounding the King, so for his birthday let's take a look at some of the myths that persist. Was Elvis a DEA... READ ON

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Too Much Time On My Hands: Why Do We Have Leap Years?

David K. Israel explained the leap second the other day, so in the last few hours of this leap year, let's also look at that extra day we had way back in February. Our average calendar year (the usual 365 days) is a little out of sync with the astronomical year "“ the 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds it takes the earth to go once around the sun. That little chunk of extra time doesn't seem like much (you could probably let 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds slip by while... READ ON

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Why Do We Yawn?

The short answer is that no one really knows. The long answer is that no one really knows, but there are plenty of interesting theories: 1. The idea that we yawn to get rid of carbon dioxide and take in more oxygen has been disproved by research, but persists as the "common wisdom" answer. According to this theory, people breathe more slowly when they're bored or tired and less oxygen gets to the lungs. As CO2 builds up in the blood, the brain reflexively prompts a deep,... READ ON

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