Mental Floss

SCIENCE

Ninio, J. and Stevens, K. A., Variations on the Hermann Grid: An Extinction Illusion // Facebook

Your Brain Won’t Let You See Every Dot in This Illusion at Once

Watch as the 12 dots in this image vanish and reappear.

iStock

A Coffee Research Center Is Coming to California

Peet's coffee company is giving $250,000 to UC Davis to fund the interdisciplinary Coffee Center.

Stem Cell Therapy Restores Movement to Paralyzed Man’s Arms and Hands

On March 6, 2016, just before Kris Boesen’s 21st birthday, his car skidded across a wet road in Bakersfield, California and slammed into a telephone pole.

istock

10% of Earth’s Wilderness Has Disappeared Since the 1990s

Wilderness landscapes cease to be wilderness not when humans settle there (many indigenous peoples help preserve rather than erode wilderness), but when humans disturb ecosystems with land conversion, industrial activity, or large-scale infrastructure pro

iStock

Why You Shouldn’t Use Q-Tips to Clean Your Ears

Sticking a Q-Tip into your ear isn’t just ineffective—it’s downright dangerous.

Harvard Medical School

Watch Bacteria Evolve to Become Antibiotic Resistant

Researchers used a giant Petri dish to show how bacteria adapt to survive in high doses of antibiotics.

iStock

Spiders Tune the Strings of Their Webs

They've evolved to be tiny, eight-legged musicians.

iStock

We Thought There Was One Giraffe Species—But There Are Four

According to a study of the spotted giant’s DNA published today, Giraffa camelopardalis isn't alone.

iStock

18 Common Words That Have Unexpected Science Definitions

You keep using that word…

iStock

Why Are Planets Round?

Can you have a planet that isn't round? And what do potatoes have to do with it?

iStock

Cats Are Happier When They Work For Their Food, Study Finds

Keeping your cat intellectually challenged might be the key to his or her happiness.

John F. Williams // U.S. Navy

A New Research Vessel Named After Sally Ride Has Hit Waterways

Scientists aboard the ship will study how global warming is affecting Earth's oceans.

Two New Pterosaur Fossils Discovered in North and South America

Scientists in opposite hemispheres recently discovered two new pterosaur fossils.

iStock

The FDA Is Banning Useless (and Harmful) Antibacterial Soaps

It's a win for your skin's microbiome.

Being Infected With Malaria Helped Ebola Victims to Survive

A recent study of Ebola patients revealed a surprising finding.

iStock

How Discussions of Drugs and Death Have Changed Over the Past 200 Years

What 'drug' means to you depends on when you lived.

Hector Lazo via Flickr Creative Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0

Scientists Make Lasers Out of Human Blood

Apparently that’s a thing we can do now.

iStock

Meat Labels May Affect How We Perceive Taste

That "humanely-raised" sticker can mess with your head.

YouTube // flashback fm

Scientists Say We Could Be Fooled by Clark Kent’s Glasses

A recent study found that glasses actually did make people harder to identify.

Nope, that's not a snake. It's a glass lizard.

5 Differences Between Snakes and Legless Lizards

If a limbless reptile like the one above crosses your path, it’s obviously a snake, right? Maybe not.

Hannes Grobe via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.5

Fossils Suggest Life on Earth Is Much Older Than We Thought

Scientists in Greenland found traces of 3.7-billion-year-old microbes in stone uncovered by melting snow and ice.

Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

Scientists Reveal the Origin of The Scream’s Mysterious Stain

The persisting rumor that it came from bird poop can be put to rest.

5 Revelations About Ceres That Are Blowing Scientists' Minds

Science just published six significant papers about the dwarf planet Ceres. We pored over them to see what has planetary scientists so excited.

Jen Pinkowski

A Growing Number of Parents Think Vaccines Are "Unnecessary"

A new study suggests that parents’ reasons for refusing to vaccinate have shifted in the last decade.