6 SUPERHEROINES WHO PAVED THE WAY FOR JESSICA JONES P. 36 HOW A COWGIRL WRANGLED THE SUPREME COURTP. 52 FEEL SMART AGAIN ® 54 POWERFUL WOMEN who Changed the World INCLUDING A BADASS AN OBITUARY AVIATOR WRITER AMY P. 28 P. 48 JOHNSON A GRILLED CHEESE TRUCK THE DAREDEVIL WHO WON ENTREPRENEUR BRITAIN’S HEART P. 38 P. 28 016 SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER (FOR GARBAGEMEN) MARCH/APRIL 2 MARCH/APRIL VOLUME 15, ISSUE 2 2 ISSUE 15, VOLUME MENTALFLOSS.COM P. 10 www.apadana-ielts.com WHAT’S NEXT With available technology like Toyota Safety Sense™ P1 and Intelligent Clearance Sonar,2 the 2016 Prius is designed to help keep you safe in an unpredictable world. Intelligent technology is what’s next. toyota.com/prius Prototype shown with options. Production model may vary. 1Please refer to the Owner’s Manual for more information and system limitations. 2Intelligent Clearance Sonar (ICS) is designed to assist drivers in avoiding potential collisions at speeds of 9 mph or less. Certain vehicle and environmental conditions, including an object’s shape and composition, may affect the ability of the ICS to detect it. Always look around outside the vehicle and use mirrors to confirm clearance. See Owner’s Manual for details. ©2015 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. www.apadana-ielts.com MARCH/APRIL 2016 • VOL. 15 ISSUE 2 CONTENTS FEATURES 54 WORLD-CHANGING WOMEN 32 38 40 42 43 44 A taxidermist An ex-teacher A tennis champ An industrial A director A med student revolutionizing shaping serving up designer casting a powering how we teach destinies with hope for kids working to save new light on batteries with natural history grilled cheese in Kenya people’s soles Shakespeare eggplants How Sandra Day O’Connor went from saddle to gavel p. 52 PLUS: The world’s greatest obituary writer p. 48 + The coolest grandmas of all time! p. 33 IN EVERY ISSUE SCATTERBRAIN LEFT BRAIN/RIGHT BRAIN 10 TRASH: Outrageous schemes for cleaning up 24 The story of Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation space junk, a dirty way to get rich, and one hot 28 Amelia Earhart has nothing on Amy Johnson new use for seaweed balls LIVE SMARTER GO MENTAL 18 Where to wage your next water fight 58 Peacocks: Mother Nature’s biggest liars 20 The only way to eat eggs from now on! 60 How Pixar conjures movie magic 21 Get more creative in an instant 62 The triumphant return of cassette tapes COVER: ALAMY (AMY JOHNSON). THIS PAGE: DOMINIC PHUA DOMINIC PAGE: THIS JOHNSON). (AMY ALAMY COVER: 22 Mussolini’s accidental barista revolution 64 The mental_loss quiz www.apadana-ielts.com CONTENTS THE INDEX A O Adoption, highway 16 Obituary, avian 51 Apollo Theater 26 Oscar the Grouch 12 B P Birds, boozy 58 Pac-Man, janitor 10 Bob Peafowl 51, 58 Cat 55 Plastic, shrimpy 17 The Man couldn’t keep her down. Cuts 55 Poles p. 28 Green eggs, sans ham Business, dirty 13, 15 Fishing 4 7 p. 20 C North 33 South 33 Cofee energy-giving 22 R energy-saving 17 Ratatouille 60 Comma, amendments for 56 Roadkill, resale value of 12 D S Dogs, subway-riding 62 Sesame Street, globalizing 14 Drew, Nancy 55 Shakespeare Native American takes on 43 E Is the Mafia in Supreme Court 5 7 cahoots with your Eggplants, powerful 44 trash collector? Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit 26 Eggs, saucy 20 p. 15 Sticky F Kid 62 Lauryn Hill has Fatberg 65 something to Space 11 school you on. Female bodybuilder, oldest 33 Stroganof, beef 50 p. 24 Fur coats, cat 13 T G Tape Get-rich-quick schemes, dusty 13 Cassette 62 Grandma, shark-defying 33 Duck 62 Grilled cheese 38 Duct 62 Gypsies, King of 49 Tax forms, beautiful 42 H Taxidermy, amateur 32 Home insulation, seaweed 17 Texas, reason not to mess with 16 Watch your back, History’s greatest J Toilet seats, sweet-smelling 17 Annie Oakley. grandmas Jessica Jones, foremothers of 36 Tuberculosis, feigned 45 p. 52 p. 33 Judges, groundbreaking 46, 52 U L Undercover Meet this guy’s feisty foreign Lego, angry 62 Garbageman 15 family. p. 12 M Maid 45 Mars, India’s mission to 41 V Men, sat-on 41 Vision, bionic 40 Mousse, salmon 5 7 Vlogbrothers 33 N W Nicknames W a r If you give a mouse For biplanes 29 Nurse 36, 45 a movie ... For wooden legs 45 Water 18 p. 60 PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID WILLIAMS (SHAKSHUKA). MARK HORTON / RETNA LTD (LAURYN HILL). ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY J. MILLER (GRANDMA). ALAMY (AMY JOHNSON, JOHNSON, (AMY ALAMY (GRANDMA). MILLER J. ANDY BY ILLUSTRATION HILL). (LAURYN LTD RETNA / HORTON MARK (SHAKSHUKA). WILLIAMS DAVID BY PHOTOGRAPHY (COWGIRL) CORBIS TRUCK). (GARBAGE JACOBSEN MICHAEL BY ILLUSTRATION CAN). (TRASH ISTOCK (PIXAR). HEWITT COOPER COURTESY OSCAR). www.apadana-ielts.com to the magzine EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT Get in on the un and suscribe today! GO ONLINE mentalfloss.com/subscribe OR CALL 877-717-8931 www.apadana-ielts.com EDITOR’S NOTE WE CAN BE HEROINES The first week of college was the first real time more compelling to learn about the ones who have been I spent connected to the Internet. It took entire left to the margins: like Barbara Hillary (page 33), who minutes to load a single page on my Mac Color Classic, became the first African American woman to visit both but it was still an extraordinary feeling to be able to poles—in her seventies! look up anything at all, any time I wanted. So that Even though I’m well past that first week of college, it’s week, before homework got heavy, I would stay up late, especially inspiring to study those who are still in the pro- clicking around and even printing things out—just cess of making their mark, and to learn exactly how they because I could. are doing it. That’s why we chose to focus our attention That’s how two grainy, low-res images came to be on 11 young women who have just begun—like Trisha tacked on the bulletin board above my desk. One was Prabhu (page 34), who at 15 launched an app intended of Emma Goldman, the early-20th-century anarchist to end cyberbullying. To make sure we got it right, we famous for the (paraphrased) quote “If I can’t dance, I teamed up with Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, an organiza- don’t want to be part of your revolution.” The other was tion that shines a light on young women who are using of a young woman in a beret identified only as “Celine, their brains to make the world a better place. Our hope is activist, Paris.” She wasn’t famous. I don’t even know that their stories serve as something like the missing link what she was advocating. But in my teenage mind, she that Parisian activist provided me. filled an important void: the missing link between me, Is our list definitive? We think so. Exhaustive? Of the first-week college student figuring out what mark course not. Our point is that there’s plenty of room for I planned to make on the world, and Emma Goldman, everyone, regardless of their calling, to jump into the super-iconic icon. (Also: that beret!) action of making history. What’s your plan? I was thinking about these two women as we were putting together this issue. It’s always thrilling to read the stories of women who’ve earned their place in history @jessanne books (like Sandra Day O’Connor, page 52). It’s even ALAMY www.apadana-ielts.com A staf editor for mentalfloss.com, APRIL DALEY wrote VOLUME 15, ISSUE 2 | MARCH/APRIL 2016 the profile of Trisha FOUNDERS Prabhu for this issue Mangesh Hattikudur Will Pearson (page 34). When EDITORIAL she’s not editing news stories, Daley VP, EDITOR IN CHIEF Jessanne Collins plays resident shopping expert for the CREATIVE DIRECTOR Winslow Taft mentalfloss.com gift guides. Before turning EXECUTIVE EDITOR Foster Kamer ART DIRECTOR Lucy Quintanilla to the flossy life, she was an assistant editor MANAGING EDITOR Jen Doll at Us Weekly, where she “learned more SENIOR EDITOR Lucas Reilly about the Kardashian family than anyone EDITORIAL FELLOW Samuel Anderson CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jason Lamphier COPY EDITOR Autumn Whitefield-Madrano ever should.” FACT CHECKER Riki Markowitz PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Aliya Best PROOFREADER Regan Hofmann Brooklyn writer LIZZIE MENTALFLOSS.COM JACOBS couldn’t be VP, DIGITAL/EDITOR IN CHIEF Jason English EXECUTIVE EDITOR Erin McCarthy EDITOR AT LARGE Nick Greene better suited to provide SENIOR EDITORS Arika Okrent, Jen Pinkowski, Abbey Stone, Jennifer M. Wood a piece on Sandra Day SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Beth Anne Macaluso STAFF EDITORS Erika Berlin, April Daley, Bess Lovejoy O’Connor (page 52). ASSISTANT EDITORS Rebecca O’Connell, Caitlin Schneider STAFF WRITERS Stacy Conradt, Michele Debczak, Kirstin Fawcett, Shaunacy Ferro, Anna Green, “My parents are both Chris Higgins, Kate Horowitz, Kara Kovalchik, Andrew LaSane, Jake Rossen attorneys—I went to the ‘Jacobs School SENIOR DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGNER Emem Ofong of Law’—and when I told my mom I was DESIGNER Chloe Efron PRODUCER Colin Gorenstein RESEARCHER Jocelyn Sears PROOFREADER Betsy Johns FACT CHECKER Austin Thompson working on this, she sent me a photocopy DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY AND PARTNERSHIPS Taylor Lorenz from the book Secret Lives of the Supreme PUBLISHING Court featuring a ridiculous illustration of VP, PUBLISHER Molly Bechert O’Connor in her aerobics gear.” VP, MARKETING Tara Mitchell ACCOUNT DIRECTORS Dan Figura, Molly Hollister ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Abby Sharpe NORTHWEST ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Steve Thompson It’s not often that a MIDWEST DIRECTOR Erin Sesto story makes a writer SOUTHWEST DIRECTORS James Horan, Richard Taw SOUTHEAST DIRECTOR Wheeler Morrison ponder her own death, DETROIT DIRECTOR David Sauter but profiling America’s SALES ASSISTANT Alma Heredia premier obituary INTEGRATED MARKETING DIRECTOR Nikki Ettore writer (page 48) is an ART DIRECTOR, MARKETING Joshua Moore exception.