The magazine was co-founded by William E. Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur while they were students at Duke University.
According to the mental_floss website, the idea came from conversations
at the Duke cafeteria about the need for an educational magazine that
was funny and entertaining -------------- 也就是說創辦者覺得很多鄉民對嚴肅話題哈欠連連, 有必要搞一份寓教於幽默的雜誌. 偶跟著鏈接到雜誌網頁看了一下, 也確實如此.