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mental floss February 8th, 2010 by Stranger to the World

The Quick 10: The Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame celebrates its 50-year anniversary this week. Although a big block-party-style bash is scheduled for later this summer after some much-needed renovations are complete, the actual construction kickoff happened on February 8, 1960, with the star ceremony taking place the following day. Since Hollywood’s celebration is still a few months away, [...]

The Origin of Traffic Lights

Editor’s Note: Reader Andrea recently asked if we could cover the history of traffic lights. Here’s what we had in the archives. –Jason We’re still stumped on that whole chicken vs. egg question, but there’s one thing we do know for sure—traffic congestion predates the automobil[...]

These Are Not Lipstick Tubes…

This post is not part of the official “What Is It?” contest category, but I couldn’t resist presenting the subject in this enigmatic fashion. The object on the left above is crafted from gold, the right one from silver. Ponder for a while what possible practical utility they might [...]

Inside the World of Fan Fiction

Fan fiction—that is, fiction that uses an existing universe created by another author and expands (or pirates) it—has literally been around for centuries. Consider the “infancy gospels,” later texts that explored the life of the infant Christ and other figures in the original gospels. But r[...]

Jamie Lee Curtis on Turning Off the Juice

Here’s a short clip featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, in which she describes a 25-hour power outage during a family vacation in Idaho. When the outage occurred, the family rallied to make food, melt ice for water, and so on. “My family played music, we played games, we actually talked to each [...]

Star Wars Valentines

James Stowe has a neat collection of Star Wars cards for Valentine’s Day, which is this Sunday. There are six cards, one for each episode. Link (Previously on Neatorama: A Very Wrong Star Wars Valentine) [...]

Testing Democracy

We are often told we must learn from history, and that we should learn from the experiences of others, but how often do we learn about forms of government from scientific experiments? MIT economist Benjamin Olken got the chance to run a field study on direct democracy in three Indonesian districts: [...]

A Moonbow in Hawaii

A moonbow is a rainbow that appears in moonlight. Light from the moon must be refracted through a mist of water in order for us to see the effect. Photographer Wally Pacholka captured this effect at the edge of Haleakala crater on the island of Maui. The large “star” in the picture is M[...]

City Nicknames

Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test your familiarity with city nicknames. If you’re lucky, your city will be one of the ten! If you’re unlucky, you’ll score 30% like I did. Link [...]

Moa is the Only Bird Without Wings

The Moa was the only wingless bird that ever existed. The moa were hunted to extinction by 1500 by the Maori in New Zealand. They were the only species of birds with no wings. But wait, you say, what about kiwis, emus, and ostriches? Well, these flightless birds, a group of birds called ratites, ac[...]