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

BIG QUESTIONS
In 2022, Mental Floss readers had trucks, dogs, food, Wordle, and the royal family on their minds.
Celine Dion recently announced that she has been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome (SPS), a rare and progressive neurological disorder that only affects about one or two out of every 1 million people.
Nobody will think you’re talking about baseball season, open season, or any other season. But why?
Jesus’s birthday is subject to interpretation, and there are plenty of intriguing theories to explain how we landed on December 25 to celebrate Christmas.
Your tree has lived a whole other life before being attacked by your cat.
It’s delightfully old-timey slang we still use today. But does it have anything to do with the Duesenberg cars of the 1920s?
Kevin Feige and the brains at Marvel may have perfected the art of the post-credits tease, but they didn't invent it.
Though it doesn’t always affect casual conversation, the difference might matter to your credit card company.
For carbohydrate lovers, nothing completes a Thanksgiving meal quite like stuffing ... or is it dressing? It depends whom you ask.
It’s worth learning the difference between these spirits.
Once celebrated by millions, these events were later derided as "architectural beauty pageants" and have largely fallen out of favor. What happened?
The link between teachers and apples goes back centuries.
History's most famous child ruler was also the result of inbreeding, which sure didn't help his longevity much.
In order to assign a numeric category value to a hurricane, meteorologists look to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
No, you're not supposed to use the square McFlurry spoons from McDonald's like a straw.