As kids we had some killer cool lunch boxes. There was a Batman one for a little while in 5th grade that was totally hot. A couple years before we’d asserted our lunch box cool with a flashy red Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles number, but we eventually lost touch with our fans when we sported [...]

Suburban design has clearly reached its sad and tragic end, but finding a way to make something out of the mess it’s left behind all over North America and the world is a massive and intimidating project. It seems as though for every suburb there’s an environmentally-sensitive plan for how things could be better. Well, [...]

As American military engagements in the MIddle East plod along with little or no progress, the New York Times tried to drum up some hopefulness with their epic feature on women in the military this weekend. In movies, of course, female soldiers are nothing new. In fact, some of our best cinematic soldiers have been [...]

Today is International Left-Handers Day, which means that all around the world people will be joining hands (only their left hands, somehow) and celebrating the rich lives and momentous accomplishments of left-handed folk everywhere. And with only 7 to 10 percent of the world’s population being left-handed, it’s kind of amazing to see how much [...]

The first time we ever saw a pop-up book was when we were sleeping over at Louis’ house. He had all the coolest toys, board games and video games, and this new kind of book was just the icing on the cake. Clearly, Louis was ahead of the curve and this three-dimensional book thing would [...]

Our team name in junior high was the Flyers, which didn’t mean that we passed out pieces of paper inviting locals to our events, but that our school occupied an old airfield, and its gym was an old airplane hangar. In college we had a men’s team named the Redmen (not because of the natives [...]

Not to brag or anything, but at the end of our first driving test we pretty much had it in the bag, but as we pulled up to the testing center the instructor asked us to back into the only remaining spot in the parking lot, which was impossibly narrow. We totally pulled it off, [...]

Remember that totally delirious Warner Bros. cartoon Animaniacs, in which the old Warner cartoon trio escaped from the studio water tower where they’d been imprisoned an wreaked havoc on just about everything? Well, one of the favorite targets of their wacky, scatter shot sense of humor was history, which they recounted fairly regularly. mental_floss offers [...]

By all accounts Amelia Earhart (pictured at right) – who would be turning 112 today if she hadn’t disappeared during a trip across the Pacific in 1937 – was a pretty cool lady. All wit, energy and daring, she’s become an incredibly desirable catch for any major actress, with her combination of vintage cool and [...]

Today, on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the news is all moon-related – or rather, Earth Moon-related. None, save fearless Listicles, have noted the perverse human-centrism at work in the constant obsession with our moon, as opposed to every other moon in the universe. Typical humans, only thinking of themselves. Well, to right [...]