When her husband died of cancer 10 years ago, Becky Aikman says she experienced grief and adapted to her loss -- but not in the way some people seemed to expect. proactive:有前瞻性的,主动地 About a year after his death, when Ms. Aikman felt it was time to st…

I know what you should do and here's my advice. How many times have you heard that (and groaned)? groan:呻吟,抱怨 Advice giving, especially unsolicited, is tricky. Being on the receiving end can be annoying and make us defensive. But giving advice can be…

Anyone who has felt like the odd duck of the group can take heart from new research from Harvard Business School that says sticking out in distinct ways can lend you an air of presence or influence. Standing out in certain circumstances, like wearing…

With startup-themed conferences, hackathons, meet-ups and cocktail hours regularly taking place, entrepreneurs are in no short supply of opportunities to meet people who could be helpful to their startups. cocktail:鸡尾酒 But there's a lot more to devel…

Much has been said about what the 'China Dream' really means to many Chinese -- whether it is national strength, cultural renewal or more modest personal goals. For many of those living in the vast countryside, the dream is a life in one a city and s…

The conference call is one of the most familiar rituals of office life -- and one of the most hated. ritual:典礼,宗教仪式 Abuses are rife. People on the line interrupt others, zone out or multitask, forgetting to hit 'mute' while talking to kids or slurpin…

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with 239 people aboard, lost contact early Saturday with the airline shortly into the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Government and airline officials said they weren't ready to speculate about what caused the Boe…

The problem: Every night, your workaholic boss is still glued to the computer when you need to leave. How to go home without looking like a slacker? slacker:懒鬼 Should you sneak out, hoping to avoid a six o'clock showdown in the hall? Guiltily apologi…

Detroit is beautiful-though you probably have to be a child of the industrial Midwest, like me, to see it. As you may have heard, the city is in trouble. At the end of the 2013 fiscal year, Detroit had a balance sheet with liabilities of $9.05 billio…

I'm not a hugger. When I see a registered personal-space invader coming my way at a party, the music from 'Jaws' plays in my head. And there are lots of people like me -- reasonably comfortable in social situations, no particular phobias, just a bit…

How can you decide whether to have a child? It's a complex and profound question -- a philosophical question. But it's not a question traditional philosophers thought about much. In fact, the index of the 1967 'Encyclopedia of Philosophy' had only fo…

Going to bed at the same time every night could give your child's brain a boost, a recent study found. Researchers at University College London found that when 3-year-olds have a regular bedtime they perform better on cognitive tests administered at…

Americans have long taken pride on their willingness to bet it all on a dream. But that risk-taking spirit appears to be fading. Three long-running trends suggest the U.S. economy has turned soft on risk: Companies add jobs more slowly, even in good…

Billions of dollars are flowing into online advertising. But marketers also are confronting an uncomfortable reality: rampant fraud. rampant:猖獗的,狂暴的 About 36% of all Web traffic is considered fake, the product of computers hijacked by viruses and pro…

China has tried your form of government and found it wanting. That was the message delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping during an expansive address at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, this week that capped off his first visit to Western…

The appointment of India-born Satya Nadella as Microsoft Corp.'s CEO has caused a bit of a stir in China, where people are questioning why Indians but not Chinese are getting top jobs in the U.S. Language and familiarity with Western culture are the…

Buying real estate involves weighing a lot of factors: location, price . . . smell? Some condo developers are betting that the best way to a buyer's heart is through the nose. The latest sales tools are signature scents designed to enhance a buyer's…

AT THE ACADEMY AWARDS earlier this month, Kerry Washington, the star of the ABC-TV series 'Scandal,' wore a lilac Jason Wu gown, tailor-made to accommodate what she playfully called her little 'accessory'-a growing baby bump. These days, that's just…

Mistrust between U.S. and Malaysian air-accident investigators has hampered a multinational probe into the jetliner that went missing three weeks ago, people familiar with the investigation said, with no clear leads emerging about who or what was res…

Entrepreneur and author ShaoLan Hsueh thinks that English-speakers can start learning to read Chinese in less than 10 minutes. The language, she says, has more than 20,000 written characters, which most students in China learn by rote memorization. M…

The default background for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system -- a perfect blue sky full of cotton-candy clouds above rolling hills with impeccably trimmed grass and daffodils -- is the spring day we wish could last forever. rolling hills:起伏群山  …

[Confident girls are often called the other B-word, and it can keep them from reaching their full potential, write Sheryl Sandberg and Anna Maria Chavez.] Sheryl: When my brother and sister describe our childhood, they will say that I never actually…

Like many 10-year-olds, Nick Wald takes private lessons. His once-a-week tutor isn't helping him with piano scales or Spanish conjugations, but teaching him how to code. Nick, a fifth-grader in New York, went in with no experience and has since learn…

Some drink only vegetable juice. Others soak in Epsom salts. It's all in the pursuit of ridding the body of months or years of accumulated toxins, said to be the cause of fat, fatigue, diabetes, memory problems and countless other conditions. soak in…

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama took ping-pong diplomacy to a new level on Friday on her weeklong tour of China as the two countries try a new tactic to build trust in a often tense relationship. diplomacy:外交           tactic:策略,战略 More than 40 years…

Is your desktop or laptop computer starting to feel a little poky? Even after just a few months of use, your PC or Mac may start to lose steam thanks to a fragmented hard drive, too many programs running in the background, or even a rogue piece of ma…

What the world needs now is a Web-enabled toothbrush. That part is clear to several oral-hygiene companies. What they can't agree on is who was first to put teeth into the smartphone. The giant Procter & Gamble Co. last week demonstrated what it call…

It's a common scenario: You have an odd pain for weeks or are feeling too tired lately. So you head to a doctor, who may run a test or two. But no clear cause for the symptom shows up. Despite a dizzying array of high-tech medical tests, the reality…

Chinese author Lao Ma has a simple approach to his short stories: In the face of life, everything is funny. Mr. Lao, the pen name of Renmin University of China professor Ma Junjie, says there are plenty of laughable things in daily life that fuel his…

Overseas tourists continued to shun Beijing through 2013. shun:避开,避免,回避 Amid rising pollution and a strengthening yuan, the capital city saw its tourist numbers drop to 4.20 million visits from January to November from 5.01 million visits in 2012, ac…