Table of contents for February 8, 2016 in TIME Magazine

Bolivia's Lake Poopó, a saltwater lake that once covered around 386 sq. mi. (1,000 sq km), has now evaporated almost entirely, partly because of drought driven by climate change. Pressures from the changing planet and industry are drying up bodies of water across the globe: LAKE FAGUIBINE This Malian lake is fed by the Niger River, whose tributaries have become clogged with sand after years of drought, shrinking the lake from 228 sq. mi. (590 sq km) in 1974 to shallow pools today. Mali has been trying to clear the tributaries for over 10 years. DEAD SEA The famed saline lake recedes by roughly 3 ft. (1 m) per year, as industry and farmers divert water from the Jordan River. In December, Israel and Jordan advanced plans to build a…

Contradictions abound as Iowa prepares to caucus Prince of concern Ohio Governor John Kasich is all smiles in New Hampshire, calling himself the "prince of light and hope." But he can't help fretting over what Donald Trump will do in the White House, saying the front runner's rhetoric recalls the Salem witch trials. "I'm concerned about negativity rising in America," he told TIME. Hillary insurance Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is planning a turnkey third-party campaign in case Hillary Clinton falters. The billionaire doesn't want to see Bernie Sanders or Trump win. One Bloomberg aide told TIME it's "still possible" that he would run against Clinton but "significantly less likely." Faith in Trump Religious-right insiders hoped to christen Ted Cruz as their chosen one, but Liberty…

Marvin Minsky was one of humanity's great thinkers. When I was 14, I wrote asking to meet with him. He invited me to visit him at MIT and spent hours with me as if he had nothing else to do. Years later, I watched as my young daughter Amy, sitting at a restaurant, built a large structure on the table with Marvin, using the silverware and experimenting with different ways the utensils could create stable structures. There was no sense he was working with an elementary-school student. He approached the endeavor with the same seriousness and whimsy he brought to his interactions with any colleague. He was the consummate educator, for that was his greatest joy and passion. But he was also many other things: a scientist, a mathematician, an…

The reports of mobs of men sexually assaulting women in Germany on New Year's Eve--and the mobs of rioters targeting Pakistani and Syrian immigrants--have left many wondering how so many people could commit such horrific acts. Some blame cultural differences. But there's another factor at play: the crowds themselves. Being part of a group changes how people think and behave. Training with a team, for example, can drive athletes to push their physical limits. But crowds can also be dangerous, in part because they promote a so-called mob mentality. When acting with others, individuals often feel more anonymous and less responsible for their actions, including acts of aggression. Sometimes they may even commit wrongdoing knowingly to seek the approval of those around them. In our own research, we found evidence…

A week before the Iowa caucuses, I drove through rolling, snow-frosted fields east of Des Moines, moving from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz campaign rallies, listening to Rush Limbaugh--an old Iowa tradition of mine--who was falling apart. El Rushbo sounded as blustery and brilliant as ever to the untrained ear, but he was tiptoeing around Donald Trump, asking rhetorical questions rather than deploying his usual slam-bang apocalyptic barrage. Limbaugh had been a Trump enabler for months--for years, in a metaphoric sense, given his stoking of his listeners' self-indulgent anger--but now Trump had jumped the shark. The Donald had said that he could work with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Was that a good thing? Limbaugh pleaded with callers. Wasn't that what the Republican establishment had been doing all along? And…

Barbie's dress won't fit. I'm sitting in a bright pink room at Mattel's headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., playing with a Barbie that only 20 people in the world know exists. Her creation has been kept so secret that the designers code-named the endeavor Project Dawn so that even their spouses wouldn't be tipped off to her existence. Like every girl who has ever played with the most popular toy in history, I yank her clothes off and try to put on a new dress. It's a blue summery frock, cinched tightly at the waist with a black ribbon. I try to tug it over her head, but the waistline gets stuck at her shoulders, her blond mane peeking out from the neckline. "Try going feet first," the lead designer…

Jhumpa Lahiri is a master of language. Her first book, the short-story collection Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Her most recent novel, 2013's The Lowland, was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award. Those books, like her others, were written in English. Now Lahiri has abandoned English for Italian. In Other Words is Lahiri's tale of falling in love with the Romance language, from her first awestruck trip to Florence as a student to her decision to move her family to Rome for three years so she could immerse herself. It's no Me Talk Pretty One Day; Lahiri's account is all passion, no levity. She's so committed to her new tongue, in fact, that she declined to translate it into English…

How does this production put its spin on a musical as iconic as Grease? The writers were very much a part of our rehearsal process and have done a great job. They'd add jokes that were specific to Keke Palmer's voice as Marty or my voice as Jan. There are also some jokes that are relevant to today's generation--it's very hip. Are you nervous about live TV? I'm excited! What we're doing is revolutionary--yes, they've had live [musical] shows on TV, but no one's ever done it for a live [in studio] audience. The director, Thomas Kail, I mean, he directed Hamilton! He's a genius, and what he's doing is really epic. We're shooting on multiple soundstages. Normally theater is kind of static. This is very much a 360-degree world…

Charles Vidor's 1946 Gilda was devised as a showcase for Rita Hayworth, she of the russet tresses and killer stems, who'd been working for years in Hollywood but hadn't yet become a big name. As starmaking vehicles go, this movie has to be one of the weirdest: Hayworth's glorious gold digger Gilda forms the third angle--and what an angle!--in a sexually heated power trio, with Glenn Ford's wayward rake Johnny Farrell and George Macready's ultra-elegant control freak Ballin Mundson in the other corners. Criterion has just released Gilda in a beautifully restored edition (on DVD and Blu-ray), and as film historian Eddie Muller notes in one of the supplemental features, the movie's homoerotic subtext is so overt it isn't even subtext. This is a mercurial, fascinating film--still. "Was this the…

LOVE IT Time's weekly take on what popped in culture Beloved condiment Sriracha now comes in single-serving packets. The National Zoo in Washington released a video of its giant panda Tian Tian frolicking in the snow after Winter Storm Jonas. Comedian Chelsea Handler released Gotta Go, a mobile app that lets people set up a fake phone call or text message to ditch an uncomfortable situation. The NFL teamed up with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to commission 50 footballs from noted designers. (They'll be sold at a charity auction.) Among them are creations by, clockwise from top left: Stacey Bendet, Rebecca Minkoff, David Hart and Nicole Miller. A 9-year-old boxer dog in England is gaining Internet fame for picking up trash and recycling it during walks. LEAVE…

DIED Henry Worsley, 55, explorer, with just 30 miles (48 km) remaining in his attempt to become the first man to finish an unaided solo trek across Antarctica. He called for help before the finish line and died on Jan. 24 of peritonitis. Through the 913 miles (1,470 km) he did complete over 71 days, the former British army officer exceeded his goal of raising more than $140,000 for wounded soldiers. Cu Rua, or "Great-Grandfather Turtle," a 360-lb. (163 kg) Yangtze softshell turtle of unknown age that lived in Hoan Kiem Lake in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Legend holds it helped drive out Chinese forces in the 15th century. BANNED By President Obama, solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prison, or as a punishment for low-level infractions committed by…

Bad work situations tend to feel beyond our control. But in her new book, Caroline Webb, a former partner in the McKinsey consulting colossus, argues that they're (relatively) easy to avoid--using a few tricks from behavioral economics, psychology and neuroscience. When you disagree with colleagues, she suggests, try repeating their side of the argument back to them affirmatively; they will feel appreciated, even if they don't win the battle. To avoid stress from procrastination, promise yourself a small reward, like a snack, for every completed assignment. And when you get frustrated, pause to ask yourself how you'll feel about a troubling task in a month or a year; perspective always helps. Webb admits that these tweaks won't prevent every work catastrophe. But they can improve day-to-day well-being, which can be…

Now that researchers believe they have found a new planet in the far reaches of our solar system, the pressure is on to find a suitable moniker. (Pluto, after all, was named by an 11-year-old girl.) Here's how some unofficial suggestions fared among TIME.com readers: 25% Terminus The Roman god of borders 15% Fortuna The Roman goddess of luck 12% Solo As in Han 7% Tartarus A dungeon for sinners in Greek mythology 6% Olaf Disney's Frozen snowman 4% George Floated by the researchers…

Eric Moorman is the kind of voter Donald Trump predicted would be drawn to his unorthodox campaign for the White House--the kind who didn't care for politics until now. The 56-year-old Iowa resident says he has never attended a political rally before, let alone a Republican presidential caucus on a frigid February night. But here Moorman stood in the cold outside a college auditorium, wearing a yellow Trump hat. "I don't think we can go to another presidency just business as usual," he said. "The American Dream is dying." After nine months of candidate sniping, record audiences for debates and $152 million in television ads, the beginning is coming to an end. And the question that keeps handicappers guessing is not what the latest polls say--there are consistent dead heats…

As a girl, playing Barbies with my sister was a favorite activity--dressing them, undressing them, popping off their heads, snickering at our father cursing loudly as he walked barefoot in the basement across a sea of sharp, skinny naked limbs and equally sharp, pointy naked breasts. We had dozens of Barbies, almost all of them smooth peach plastic and blond-haired, enormous bosoms perched atop teeny waists, toes perpetually en pointe. The only woman I had ever seen who looked like Barbie was Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune--another silent blonde floating on the balls of her feet. But the Barbie of my childhood just got an extreme makeover. The top-heavy blond version is now flanked by a diverse cast of friends also named Barbie. There's a short one, a tall…

Back in 2009, Neil Blumenthal approached Adam Grant, his professor at Wharton, about investing in a new eyewear company. Grant said no thanks. If Blumenthal and his co-founders were truly committed to the company, Grant told him, they would have dropped out of school to work on it full time. Not only had they stayed in school but they also arranged backup jobs should the company fail. You've likely heard of that startup by now: Warby Parker today is valued at more than $1 billion. And Grant has gone back on his original thesis about the risk-reward mentality. In Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Grant argues that we all misunderstand nonconformists. Though we think of innovators as creative free spirits who flout convention, the most effective ones are actually…

Your aid logistics group is in Turkey. Why were you in Iran? Studying Farsi at Tehran University. I spent four years in Afghanistan, where I got fluent in Dari, which is a dialect [of Persian]. Bad timing, eh? The nuclear deal produced a nasty backlash from hard-liners stalking "American infiltration." The domestic political situation completely shifted under my feet. I am 99% sure I was arrested to appease domestic politics. I was arrested on my way to buy my ticket to fly home. Were you charged? They wanted me to go on national television and say I was there to personally overthrow the Iranian government. I was accused of having access to bank accounts with millions of dollars in them and knowing the locations of weapons caches placed around the…

A few months and a million migrants ago, Greece's financial problems were the biggest story in Europe. Yet despite last year's bailout, Greece and its struggles could again push European unity to the brink, because the country's reform process is headed for a confrontation. As Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party celebrate one year in power, they now turn to a contentious question: pension reform. Greek unions have responded to threats of pension cuts with strikes and angry protests. Syriza and its coalition partner control just 153 of 300 seats in Parliament, a bare majority that leaves no political room for maneuver. Tsipras' domestic political enemies are circling like buzzards. Adding to the Prime Minister's problems, the opposition New Democracy party is now headed by Kyriakos Mitsotakis,…

As the eternally beleaguered Detective Phil Fish on the 1970s sitcom Barney Miller, Abe Vigoda was all sideburns, caterpillar eyebrows and stooped shoulders. You could sketch his physical essence in five strokes--though it would take much more to capture the woebegone gleam in his eye, or the just-behind-the-beat nobility of his comic timing. Vigoda, who died Jan. 26 at age 94, almost didn't have a movie or TV career at all. He was already 50, and an accomplished stage actor, when he won the part of Sal Tessio in The Godfather--a man whose eyes, already glancing away from the future, say much more than words ever could. After that, you knew Vigoda when you saw him, in the many TV and movie bit parts he played through the years. His…

Michael Bloomberg, former three-term mayor of New York City, recently told his advisers to inform the media that he is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign as an independent. This is the third presidential cycle in which he has contemplated such a run. So bold, given the two-party tyranny that heavily controls the ballot choices of voters. It is not indecision that is rendering him tentative. No one who has built a booming media empire from a relatively small investment in the early 1980s, and who was elected as a Republican in a Democratic Party stronghold, can be charged with indecision. Rather, the problem is a deeply researched hesitation. Bloomberg wants to run only if he thinks he can win. He is not interested in making collateral points…

If you want to sleep at night, it doesn't pay to think too hard about the human heart. It's a muscle, nothing more, nothing less, but it's a muscle like no other. It started beating roughly four weeks after you were conceived, and it will continue beating, a bit more than once every second, for your entire life. When it stops, you die. As simple as that. It's the centrality of that muscle--its place in the middle of our bodies and its primal role in keeping things running--that has imbued it with so much romance and meaning. There's a reason we don't decorate our Valentine's Day cards with little kidneys. And yet treasure our hearts though we do, we're not taking terribly good care of them. An estimated 610,000 Americans…