How did Turkey become the world capital of hair transplants?
I too had noticed on my TikTok feed that whenever a male celebrity showed up on a red carpet with a lusher head of hair, people tend to comment, “He went to Turkey.” Senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos probes the question of why a well-executed hair transplant has become so synonymous with this tourist destination on the Asia-Europe border. He also dives deep into the recent advancements in hair transplant technology — fascinating. I rejoice for men who have, for too long, been plagued by their receding hairlines. Good for them.
My family voted for Trump. How can we talk about politics without ruining the holidays?
Are you reading senior reporter Sigal Samuel’s new column, Your Mileage May Vary? It’s a wonderful iteration of your standard-issue advice column (of which I read many different varieties, to be clear!), where Sigal offers a philosophical, values-based framework for thinking through tricky ethical dilemmas. This week, a reader asks Sigal about how to deal with their Trump-supporting family members over the holidays, a scenario that is surely familiar to many Americans this week as they prepare to gather with loved ones. Sigal’s answer is humane and thoughtful: It turns out there is a middle way between ignoring the issue completely to keep the peace and telling your family they’re evil and stupid, one that takes into account the values everyone brings to the table.
American doctors hate the health care system almost as much as you do
Like everyone else, I have been transfixed by the fallout from the shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and the deep fault lines within American society it exposed. There’s no doubt that many are made deeply miserable by our current health care system, and there’s no shortage of blame to go around. My colleague Dylan Scott (who has done a lot of excellent work untangling this story) looks at one of the players in this endlessly complicated landscape: American doctors themselves, whose costly services are sometimes pointed to as one of the primary drivers of costs. It turns out that many of them are just as beaten down by the system as patients are, and are also in need of solutions.
You’ve never heard of the Covid booster with the fewest side effects
Senior reporter Keren Landman is not joking around with this headline! I had never heard of Novavax, a vaccine for preventing Covid-19 infections that is made with conventional technology (unlike its counterparts made by Moderna and Pfizer, which rely on newer mRNA advances). The huge benefit of Novavax, which gained FDA approval in 2022, is that it typically comes with less severe side effects (those pesky few days of fever and fatigue, for many) than the other vaccines. Apparently half of Americans are not planning on getting their Covid shot this year — with this new information, I’m wondering anew: Why the heck not?
📹 Why your favorite movies fake their locations
Confession: I kind of loved Hot Frosty, the Netflix Christmas romcom about a snowman that comes to life by way of an enchanted scarf and proceeds to woo Lacey Chabert (a repeat holiday romcom heroine). So I was so excited to see one of Hot Frosty’s producers talking about all of the considerations that go into picking movie locations in this Vox video and why Vancouver is such a perennially popular destination. Producer Edward Vega breaks down all the factors — like diverse landscapes and temperate weather — that go into choosing just the right place to make movie magic.
