Even before this year’s devastating hurricane season, the team of demographers I work with at Penn State and the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics had predicted that the population of Puerto Rico would...

Each year the holidays bring with them an increase in both the consumption of alcohol and concern about drinking’s harmful effects.

Alcohol abuse is no laughing matter, but is it sinful to drink and make merry, moderately and responsibly, during a holy season or at any other time?

As a hi...

While shoppers scramble for Black Friday bargains this year, outdoor retailer REI is closing its 154 U.S. stores. This is the third consecutive year that the Seattle-based company will ignore the frenzy that traditionally marks the start of the holiday shopping season. REI’s nearly 12,000 employees...

Many children have played hot potato, a game in which they pass a spud to other children quickly so they don’t get stuck with it when the music stops.

Taxes are like that potato. No one likes paying them; everyone tries to pass them to others. The game of hot potato sheds...

National discussions of crucial importance to ordinary citizens – such as funding for scientific and medical research, bailouts of financial institutions and the current Republican tax proposals – inevitably involve dollar figures in the millions, billions and trillions.

Unfortunatel...

How many times have you tuned into your local NPR station and instead of the regularly scheduled program you’ve heard “If we get 20 donations by the end of this hour, a generous donor will give us $500 in matching funds”? How much of your mail and email, especially in December,...

A huge online community has developed around the increasingly diverse world of video games. Online streaming systems like Twitch let people watch others play video games in real time, attracting crowds comparable in size to traditional sport...

My ears perked up when, in recent weeks, I heard Donald Trump and Ivan Pavlov mentioned twice in connection with each other. After all, I’m an experimental psychologist who journeyed to Russia to conduct conditioning research with Pavlov’s last living...

On Nov. 14, a group of soldiers from the Zimbabwe Defense Forces arrested and detained Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The move came just days after Army Commander Constantine Chiwenga warned that the military would not “hesitate to step in” if Mugabe did not cease to “purge” his government of independence war veterans.

T...

Thanksgiving is a great U.S. holiday during which people consume huge quantities of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pie.

One of the stranger things about this holiday, however, is that a few days before everyone starts cooking, whole...