Dimitris Xygalatas, "Ritual: How Seemingly Se...

After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ...  Afficher plus

The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Katie Barclay tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, ...  Afficher plus

Our lives are populated by rituals. Baptisms. Funerals. Graduations. Singing happy birthday, chanting cheers at a sports event, saying grace before dinner. When we perform rituals, there's no causal link between the behavior and the hoped for effect; for example, there's no causa ...  Afficher plus

People in every country and culture mark important milestones, such as births, marriages and deaths, with intricately choreographed scripts. We even appeal to supernatural forces  to give our favorite sports teams an extra advantage. This week on the show, anthropologist

Whether clinking a glass with a friend, blowing on a cake, touching wood for good luck or tapping the plane before boarding, most of us have at least one weird ritual. Today’s guest, Harvard Professor Mike Norton, studied them for years. In today’s Nudge episode, he shares his fi ...  Afficher plus

"If you randomly assign people in two groups and you give them different insignia or you have them go through different practices, as we saw in this study, they come to like each other more. It's very easy to create this basic sense of belonging and identity. Ritual is particular ...  Afficher plus