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Where do ornaments, tinsel, and plastic Christmas trees come from? And who’s buying the stuff? Perhaps unsurprisingly, China is making them and the US is importing in mass quantities according to the International Trade Centre. Of course there are small amounts of trade between other nations, but nothing on the scale of China. Read full […]

Dakar, Senegal This time of year, when you take a walk in the streets of Dakar—the capital city of Senegal, that is 92%-95% Muslim in one of the hottest parts of the world, you stumble upon decorated snowmen, Christmas trees with cotton snowballs, traditional masks covered in Christmas lights. It lifts your spirits and gives […]

President-elect Trump says that he will be shutting down his charity foundation “to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as president.” He is also considering a plan to hire an outside monitor for his business interests, which operate under the umbrella of the Trump Organization, as well as the subsidiary run […]

It was the night before Christmas, and I had finally given up. I had clicked refresh over and over, and still there was no change on the delivery page: my Christmas gifts would only arrive Feb. 2. I am one of a slew of takealot.com customers who found themselves gripped with anxiety over delivery difficulties […]

If you’ve been trying to use your will power to fight binge eating, you might have been wrong all this time. There is an alternative—at least according to Dr. Aner Tal, a researcher from the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. The focus of his research has been on how to “trick” people into […]Read More

In the face of AI exerts repeatedly predicting the rise of sex robots, it’s increasingly difficult to insist that such machines strictly belong to a far-off, dystopian future. But some robotics experts predict we’ll soon be doing far more than having sexual intercourse with machines. Instead, we’ll be making love to them—with all the accompanying […]Read More

If you’ve celebrated more than 30 Christmases in your life, your memory of a visit to see Santa would probably be considered quaint by today’s standards. Santa was at the local mall, but he was visible from the end of the line, one that couldn’t be bypassed for the price of an online reservation. There […]Read More

Chances are, you’re still doing whatever bad habit you tried to quit for last new year’s resolution. The months and years go by and, perhaps your job or relationships change, but your routines and behavior likely stay overwhelmingly the same. That’s because the vast majority of our actions aren’t conscious. And to change any lingering […]Read More

The Russian president and the president-elect of the United States are on remarkably good terms, given the two countries’ lingering resentments since the Cold War. If this relationship causes unease for those with concerns about hacking, dictatorial control, or human rights, understanding the philosopher nicknamed “Putin’s Brain” will only deepen this sense of alarm. Political […]Read More

In every culture that anthropologists have ever studied, people tell stories. Families most frequently tell stories around the time of vacations, family reunions, (sadly) funerals, Thanksgiving and, of course, the family-oriented winter holidays of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Stories are told about times past, times present and even times yet to be. These stories mix […]

Santa may soon be a climate refugee: the ice around the North Pole is melting, leaving his workshop on thin ice. Since Dec. 20, the Arctic has lost 238,000 sq km (91,900 sq mi) of ice, according to preliminary data published by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That’s an area about equal to […]

Donald Trump’s erratic behavior—from his petulant response to Saturday Night Live’s depiction of him to his erratic diplomatic calls—is hardly typical of a president. And his manner is so unusual that three psychiatrists, including Judith Herman, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, have written to US President Barack Obama to request that Trump receive […]Read More