Mental Floss
Trivia and origin stories written for the sort of person who reads the plaque next to the exhibit.
Opens in a new tab. We do not control this site and it may have changed since we catalogued it.
How to get the most from it
Mental Floss sits in Curious Facts under Learn, filed as coffee break.
- Set aside five to fifteen minutes and give it your proper attention.
- It works on a phone or a desktop, so open it on whatever is nearest.
- It works with the sound off, so it is fine on a train or in a quiet office.
- No account needed — you can start without signing up.
- Go in expecting something brainy and funny.
About this category: Records, comparisons, scale demonstrations and weird knowledge. The category most likely to produce a sentence beginning "did you know".
Good for
- Filling a coffee break properly
- Giving your brain a workout
- A reliable laugh
- A quiet break at your desk
- Killing time on your phone
- Trying it with zero commitment
Mental Floss: quick answers
Is Mental Floss free?
Yes. Mental Floss is free to use and needs no account.
Do I need an account to use Mental Floss?
No. You can use Mental Floss without signing up for anything.
Does Mental Floss work on a phone?
Yes. Mental Floss works on phones as well as desktop browsers.
Is Mental Floss safe for work?
Yes, we file it as safe for work. It also works muted.
How long does Mental Floss take?
We file it as "Coffee break": Five to fifteen minutes of proper attention.
More in Curious Facts
All 19 in Curious FactsOne well-sourced strange story per weekday, told at exactly the length of a cup of coffee.
- 2 min
Converts your scrolling into real distance and tells you what you have just passed — a giraffe, the Eiffel Tower, low Earth orbit.
- 10 min
The original rumour desk, still patiently establishing whether the thing your uncle forwarded actually happened.
- <1 min
Cecil Adams' archive of exhaustively answered daft questions, invented decades before you could just ask the internet.
- 10 min
Same mood: brainy
All brainy sitesWeighted average of professional reviews on a 0-100 scale, with the user score shown separately when the two disagree loudly.
- 2 min
A community weblog running since 1999 where members share the best thing they found online today, with thoughtful threads underneath each post.
- 1 hr+
- Desktop
Multi-model forecasts with a meteogram showing how confident the models actually are, which most weather apps quietly decline to admit.
Name every station on a city's metro map from memory, and find out how many lines you use daily without ever reading.
- 10 min
Keep exploring
Category
Time and mood
Have a site of your own? Suggest it for Detour or browse the AltFTool backlinks hub.