Big Questions Answered, How and Why

We pay billions for something that comes out of a faucet for pennies. Here’s why.

Linguists have some theories about how Rock, Paper, Scissors is also known as roshambo.

The term is more commonly used on the West Coast, especially in northern California.

A number of factors go into the price of truffles.

To figure out a little bit about why truffles are so expensive, Mental Floss talked to Vittorio Giordano, the Vice President and Truffle Guru at Urbani Truffles USA.

Iodized salt helped curb a thyroid concern in the '20s.

It could prevent you from developing a goiter, for one thing.

Eyebrows are the Swiss Army knife of the human face.

AriZona iced tea is holding the line on price.

AriZona's enormous vats of iced tea are cheaper than pure water. What kind of sorcery is this?

‘Possum’ and ‘opossum’ are sometimes synonyms—but sometimes they refer to different animals. (Also, there’s a chance you've been pronouncing ‘opossum’ wrong all along.)

Americans consume more than 1 billion wings on Super Bowl Sunday, and we have sports bars to thank.

The short answer is that no one really knows why we yawn. But people have theories.

Turns out, those weird shapes actually serve a pretty big function.

Those funky circles and squares you might see on a car’s bumper aren’t just for show—they actually come in handy if you ever need your car towed.

The Buckeye State? More like the Astronaut State.

NASA counts a surprising number of astronauts from the past and present who hail from the Buckeye State.

Which of these water types is better? We have an answer.

“It just tastes funny” is only part of the difference between hard water vs. soft water.

Strombolis and calzones might seem the same, but they actually differ in some crucial ways.

These pizzeria staples have a lot in common, but they’re not the same.

Gasping when you're surprised is a quirk of evolution.

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

‘Cacao’ and ‘cocoa’ started out as synonyms—but there’s a little more to unpack in today’s product labels.

Diamonds are forever. So is debt, if you’re not careful.

Mental Floss readers wanted to know all about dogs, dogs, and dogs in 2022.

In 2022, Mental Floss readers had trucks, dogs, food, Wordle, and the royal family on their minds.

Celine Dion performs in London's Hyde Park.

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.