Thinking Outside the Triangle

Hamantaschen, as essential to Purim as matzo is to Passover, are typically sweet, the triangular cookies filled with a jam that’s often made from poppy seeds. During Purim, which begins this year on the evening of March 20, Jews are encouraged to indulge in playful revelry, eating rich pastries, drinking to excess and dancing in…

Your Environment Is Cleaner. Your Immune System Has Never Been So Unprepared.

Excerpted from “An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System,” published on Tuesday by William Morrow. Should you pick your nose? Don’t laugh. Scientifically, it’s an interesting question. Should your children pick their noses? Should your children eat dirt? Maybe: Your body needs to know what immune challenges lurk in the immediate…