World’s Strangest

I’ll be writing about The Pluto Files, a NOVA program coming in March, over the next couple of weeks. But I thought I’d point you to this breaking news — in the video below, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Brian Williams, and Diane Sawyer have a thing or two to say about Neil deGrasse Tyson demoting [...]

My girlfriend and I recently watched Julie and Julia (my pick, not hers) and, honestly, I could have done without the Julie half of the equation. I’m a cook and a blogger, so I didn’t really need an hour of Amy Adams acting out a variation of my life and all the chopping, typing and [...]

The Letter People was a literacy program that began in 1972 and grew into a TV show. In today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, we’ll see how well you recall the individual Letter People of Letter Land. You’ll be given the character, but can you remember their original alliterative “characteristic”? I couldn’t! Link

Are you thinking of getting a graduate degree, but want something with a narrower focus than an MBA or a JD? Schools around the world offer all sorts of incredibly focused graduate degrees to students who are trying to break into very specific fields. Here’s a look at a handful of programs you might not [...]

NOVA: What Are Dreams? airs on PBS stations in the US tonight, Tuesday, November 24. This is a terrific documentary on dreams, packed with specifics on the science of sleep. If you’ve ever wondered about sleepwalking, why we dream, or why sleep is necessary, this is the documentary for you! Note: after the air date, [...]

The 2,100 citizens of North Pole, Alaska take Christmas very seriously. Since 1954, they’ve volunteered for Operation Santa, a program of the US Postal Service which answers letters to Santa Claus. The program has volunteers all over the country, and many letters are routed through Alaska to get the special North Pole postmark. However, the [...]

Neurologist Oliver Sacks prefers Bach to Beethoven — I’m just the opposite. But enough about me, let’s talk Sacks. Dr. Sacks volunteered to have his brain scanned while listening to each composer’s music. What’s interesting is that listening to Bach has a visible effect on his brain, which isn’t present when listening to Beethoven — [...]

A computer program designed to detect plagiarism has found that William Shakespeare worked together with playright Thomas Kyd on an uncredited Edw…

While it seems most establishments with drive-thru windows are in agreement that bicycles are forbidden, and refused service, Washington-based restaurant Burgerville is leading the way to change that. All 39 of their stores now allow cyclists in their drive up lanes, giving free smoothies to the first batch earlier this month. The intention of our Bike [...]

Wok Kundor is the Elizabeth Taylor of Malaysia. The 107-year-old woman is looking to marry again … for the 23rd time! Wok Kundor has been happily married for four years to her husband, a man 70 years her junior. But since he left their village in northern Terengganu state for a drug rehabilitation program in the [...]