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Can’t remember what you were just thinking about? A new study amends our understanding of how memory works.
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Alexa, Siri and the like may be impressive, but how much can we trust them? Joe Queenan ponders the potential disasters.
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The phrase, used during the recent expulsion of Russians from the U.S., is a ‘Neo-Latin’ invention.
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Suggested morning-after remedies from the past three millennia include wearing necklaces of laurel leaves and eating deep-fried canaries.
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For Cleveland, 2016 was the year it did astonishingly well in basketball and baseball. OK, there were some questions about that Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction....
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A recent study of stereotypes of foreigners shows just how wrong they can be.
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Newspaper wars of the 1870s spurred the use of “scoop” as a word for an exclusive news story.
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Researchers used a $60 inkjet printer to produce sets of small rods with markings that can only be decoded with a specific type of electromagnetic radiation.
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Longtime football coach and Heisman winner Steve Spurrier on close calls, the fragility of life and Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Why Me.’
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The artist’s textiles, going on exhibit at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum, are a colorful take on modernism.
The fascination with circles among the Varsity Math crew continues, this time with one very concrete and one completely abstract problem.
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For 2,000 years, believers and nonbelievers alike have fought over the meaning and traditions of a repeatedly reinvented holiday
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In making “It’s a Wonderful Life,” star Jimmy Stewart had to struggle with what today would be called post-traumatic stress disorder.
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As Aleppo falls, the anti-genocide activist turned U.N. ambassador argues that Syria differs from past cases in which the U.S. intervened.
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With the right on the rise, many progressives are looking to a pontiff who campaigns against inequality and climate change.
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An exhibition at the Noguchi Museum in New York documents the seven months the sculptor spent voluntarily interned with other Japanese-Americans.
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Research on the feeling of awe shows that while we feel less egotistical, we have a greater sense of well-being, Alison Gopnik says.
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Could you coin a word and have it catch on with the public? Some Australians did just that with “phubbing” (ignoring someone in favor of paying attention to your smartphone).
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In ‘Rogue One,’ a CGI Peter Cushing returns to the screen. Joe Queenan on how the actor’s appearance may pave the way for the return of stars like John Wayne.
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In an experiment, participants steered a robot arm using nothing more than their thoughts, using a cap with sensors, not brain implants requiring surgery. Dan Akst on the results.
Test your knowledge of stories from this week’s Wall Street Journal.
As a take-home treat, Coach Newton sends the team off for winter break with another set of problems inspired by the find of century-old geometry cards two weeks ago.
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Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition in Black and Gray’ finds the spiritual in the abstract.
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Nearly 80 years ago, Joseph Stalin’s secret police shot the great-grandfather of Denis Karagodin. Now he has shaken Russia with a landmark investigation.
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New research offers insight into neural developments in the first few months of life—and highlights the peculiar evolutionary strategy that allows us to have such big brains.
The president-elect will inherit an executive branch whose power has ballooned far beyond its constitutional bounds.
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From Michelangelo’s version to models sculpted during the Prussian siege of Paris, some snowmen in history have served more serious aims.
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A new study finds that fluorescent light can degrade the flavor of milk in supermarkets—and offers some solutions.
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You know those endless holiday cards excruciatingly detailing a family’s year? What if corporations sent them?
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The use of the word “rogue” in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” dates back to English beggars in the 15th century. Ben Zimmer traces the “rogue” road.
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Hitchcock star Tippi Hedren (“The Birds”) recalls young love and Les Brown’s version of “Sentimental Journey,” with Doris Day singing.
President Erdogan’s harsh crackdown is moving a democratic Muslim ally toward Middle Eastern autocracy.
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The actor talks about immersing himself in research for his roles, including the part of a rebel leader in the new “Star Wars” movie, “Rogue One.”
What Anderson Cooper, Abby Wambach, Jojo Moyes, Steph Curry and 46 others read—and loved—this year.
The best gifts for foodies, art lovers, science buffs, design enthusiasts, sports fans and everyone else.
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How could bin Laden’s ‘secret’ compound in Abbottabad have gone undetected? Was the ISI deceitful or merely incompetent? Maxwell Carter reviews “Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan” by Hein Kiessling.
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The free-spirited rebellion of the novelist’s youth morphed into a lifelong devotion to an unusually rigid form of Stalinism. Martin Rubin reviews “Edward Upward: Art and Life” by Peter Stansky.
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For decades, the expectation has been that capitalism would make China more like the West. Something like the reverse is happening. Richard Bernstein reviews “Tiananmen Redux” by Johan Lagerkvist.
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Did food companies deliberately set out to manipulate research on American health in their favor? Gary Taubes’s powerful new history, “The Case Against Sugar,” will convince you that they did.
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Although cognizant of the stones and bones, Robin Dunbar’s “Human Evolution” is concerned with something more consequential: how and why Homo sapiens became what we are.
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The Earth could easily not exist. And that should make us feel lucky, even in dark times. Gino Segrè reviews “A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos” by Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes.
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The pillars of the Raj—righteous conquest, the rule of law, enlightened reform and modern development—are sized up and demolished in Jon Wilson’s revisionist history “The Chaos of Empire.”
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Faith in self and faith in God became so intermixed in Norman Vincent Peale’s philosophy as to be almost the same thing. Barton Swaim reviews “Surge of Piety” by Christopher Lane
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In “France: A Modern History From the Revolution to the War on Terror,” Jonathan Fenby argues that for more than two centuries, the Fifth Republic has been stuck in the mud of an outdated self-confidence reinforced by political instability. Can it find a way forward?
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The author of “The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary” on leaving home.
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In “Everything You Want Me to Be” a precocious teenager is infatuated with her English teacher and is set to play Lady Macbeth in her school’s production. What could go wrong?
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The comedienne began performing in an age where she couldn’t say the word “pregnant” on late night TV. Bari Weiss reviews “Last Girl Before Freeway” by Leslie Bennetts.
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Michael Chabon’s “Moonglow.” It’s fitting that the best novel of the year was a moving work of escapism.
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No British novelist of the past half-century so consistently defied the expectations that pundits had of him as Sillitoe. D.J. Taylor reviews the late writer’s “Moggerhanger.”
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How did Provence, once nowheresville, come to capture the American imagination? Eric Felten reviews “A Taste for Provence” by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz.
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The literary altercations of 2016 have highlighted the dilemma of publishers, illustrators and writers in a neo-Jacobin era of hair-trigger racial, sexual and ethnic sensitivities.
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Assets are hidden and taxes dodged in an offshore world that creates ‘zones of lawlessness’ and acts as a ‘parasitic twin’ on nation-states. Aifric Campbell reviews ‘Capital Without Borders’ by Brooke Harrington.
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In 1974, Jeremy Thorpe nearly became the No. 2 figure in the government. By 1979, he had lost his parliamentary seat, reputation and honor. Richard Aldous reviews “A Very English Scandal” by John Preston.
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Howard Schneider reviews “The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets” by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee.
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Picasso suggested that if the poet and artist could sell his talent, “we could spend our whole lives going to the pharmacy to buy some Cocteau pills.” Yet the inexhaustibly gifted Cocteau was also vain, drug-addicted and thwarted in love. James Campbell reviews “Jean Cocteau: A Life” by Claude Arnaud.
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America’s free press was born 40 years before the nation. The man who carried out the task was John Peter Zenger. His name is now forgotten—and deserves to be remembered.
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Both countries saw the American Revolution as a way to distract Britain and keep her out of Europe. William Anthony Hay reviews “Brother at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved it” by Larrie D. Ferreiro.
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Robert Harris’s ‘Conclave’ tells the story of the most secretive election in the world. And all 118 electors are listening, or believe they are listening, to the voice of God.
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It’s hard, looking at photographs of the ravaged city, to remember its teeming outdoor markets. Marlene Matar’s ‘The Aleppo Cookbook’ is a crucial means of safeguarding the city’s culinary heritage for generations to come.
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The problem of the void goes back more than 2,000 years. In “Void: The Strange Physics of Nothing,” James Owen Weatherall gives a wide-ranging account of this remarkable story.
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The Latin American novel from Bernal Díaz to Carlos Fuentes.
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“Christmas Magic,” edited by the brilliant David G. Hartwell, is a story collection that promises not to warm your heart.
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Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, Isamu Noguchi and Peggy Guggenheim all sat for Abbott in the 1920s. Robert L. Pincus reviews “Paris Portraits 1925-1930” edited by Ron Kurtz and Hank O’Neal.
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In the Lotus Sutra, he reveals that there is not a threefold path to liberation, but one way. Chandrahas Choudhury reviews “The Lotus Sutra” by Donald S. Lopez Jr.
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Meghan Cox Gurdon on books about Montreal, Manhattan, Fez and more.
—Join the Journal Community's WSJ Reading Group to discuss books and authors.“What books are you reading now?”
Tweak the frat-party classic to make a grown-up cocktail. Here’s a recipe any home bar can handle—the one you want in your back pocket this New Year’s Eve.
Opinion is decidedly split on the recent comeback of the choker necklace, which evokes happy memories of Princess Diana—and cringe-making memories of the “90210” cast.
Yoga vacations—more self-indulgent than you’d think—are taking off around the globe. One lazy yogi heads to Italy for a low-stress, no-hassle trip. Plus: How to find the right yoga retreat and 6 other fun-filled fitness vacations.
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Could the Volkswagen Golf Alltrack, an accessible little wagon, point the way to VW’s redemption?
The ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Night Of’ actor—who also has a rousing new rap album on the way—is a star on the rise.
Giants rookie Eli Apple is having a breakout debut—but it’s nothing compared to his media-savvy mother, Annie.
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments.
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Best-Selling Books, week ended Dec. 25, with data from Nieslen BookScan
“What books are you reading to help you through the financial crisis?”
—James Freeman on Charles Gasparino's new book about the fall of Wall Street“At the heart of 'The Sellout' is its own irksome inquiry: Why did so many large and prestigious institutions make disastrous bets on American mortgages?”