From Mental Floss, an article on the secrets behind your favorite toys; and a look at the surprisingly cool history of ice. What girls want: Caitlin Flanagan on a series of vampire novels that illuminates the complexities of female adolescent desire. From New Internationalist, here are the nominees for Most Artful Tax Dodger (and the winner). Heil Comrade: Baader-Meinhof is flashy and violent, but the glamour hides Germany's odd history of leftist anti-semitism. From Prospect, exactly 50 years ago Michael Young published his famous dystopia The Rise of the Meritocracy; his son Toby argues that we never got the meritocratic educational elite predicted by his father, instead we got the celebrity class; and Britain has more upward social mobility than is often assumed — on some measures more than Germany; but there is least movement where it matters most for the idea of meritocracy, at the very top and the bottom. 20 best brains under 40: Young innovators are changing everything from theoretical mathematics to cancer therapy. The forgotten evolutionist: Alfred Russel Wallace charted a great dividing line in the living world. A review of Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme by Calvin Trillin. Here are 27 popular websites that became books. Will the next Einstein come from Africa? If Neil Turok gets his wish the answer will be a resounding yes.
