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…

Margot Carmichael Lester loves making good-natured jokes at work. As owner of The Word Factory, a Carrboro, N.C., content-creation company, she looks for employees with a sense of humor. 'I only want to work with people who can take a joke.' Sometime…

Where are Chinese tourists going to next? Pop culture may hold some clues, from blockbuster rom-com 'Finding Mr. Right' to U.S. sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory.' blockbuster:轰动,巨型炸弹 China is the source of most of the world's tourists as well as its bigge…

Early one morning last week I queued outside Sri Gopi Iyengar Coffee and Tiffin Center, a coffee bar just outside the monumental Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. My long wait under a scorching sun was rewarded with a small glass…

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…

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…

The world is a fast and dangerous place. To survive a company must innovate. Many organizations look to their innovation teams, but to thrive, the whole of an organization needs to become an innovation engine. Businesses that understand that dedicate…

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…

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…

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…

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…

If you find yourself needing to sit down to take off your shoes, it might be time to start paying attention to your sense of balance. People don't usually think about balance until they fall, but little signs such as relying on handrails to go up and…

For much of the last year, intellectuals and officials in China -- land of world-beating students and, in a bygone age, the scholar official -- have been wringing their hands over the country's declining interest in reading. bygone:过去的        wringin…

Daifailluh al-Bugami was just a year old when his parents noticed that his lips turned blue as he slept at night. It was his weight, doctors said, putting pressure on his delicate airways. delicate:精致的,微妙的,易碎的 Now Daifailluh is 3, and at 61 pounds he…

Sam Su for years ran one of the highest-flying foreign business operations in China. These days, he's trying to pull it out of a tailspin. tailspin:混乱 As China head for Yum Brands Inc. for the past 16 years, Mr. Su built its KFC arm into the biggest…

'What's celebrity sex, Dad?' It was my 7-year-old son, who had been looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. He mispronounced 'celebrity' but spoke the word 'sex' as if he had been using it all his life. 'Celebrity six,' I said, abruptly closi…

When marriage therapist Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill met with new clients recently, she asked them why they were seeking therapy. The couple told her they'd spent years arguing over finances and recently had their worst-ever blowup. The husband complaine…

In late September, on a crowded commuter train in San Francisco, a man shot and killed 20-year-old student Justin Valdez. As security footage shows, before the gunman fired, he waved around his .45 caliber pistol and at one point even pointed it acro…

Big data. It's the latest IT buzzword, and it isn't hard to see why. The ability to parse more information, faster and deeper, is allowing companies, governments, researchers and others to understand the world in a way they could only dream about bef…

The Wolff family of Paramus, N.J., was eyeing the gathering clouds and debating whether to cancel a planned park trip when 6-year-old Leora piped up with an idea: 'Let's call Grandma. Her knees always know when it's going to rain!' Leora's grandmothe…

Chinese investors have been snapping up real estate in the world's most important cities this year. While it's easy to dismiss rich foreign buyers as the dumb money in any market, these investors are taking a sensible approach. Real-Estate:不动产,房地产 sn…

A new worker's revolution is rising in China and it doesn't involve humans. With soaring wages and an aging population, electronics factory managers say the day is approaching when robotic workers will replace people on the Chinese factory floor. A n…

Cycling does the body good. New data from Tour de France cyclists finds that those athletes live an average of six years longer compared with their counterparts in the general population and die less often from heart-related ailments, damping concern…

A woman's place is in the home. consensus:一致,舆论,合意 That was the resounding message from Jiang Xipei, chairman of wire and cable conglomerate Jiangsu Far East Holding Group Co., speaking on a women's leadership panel at the summer World Economic Forum…

China is now home to the world's largest diabetes population. The number of people who have diabetes or early signs of the disease is greater than the entire population of the U.S. diabetes:糖尿病 An estimated 113.9 million Chinese adults 18 years or ol…

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…

By reducing the activity of one type of gene, scientists said they increased the average life span of mice by about 20%, a feat that in human terms is akin to extending life by about 15 years. manipulation:操作,处理 akin to:同类,近似 Moreover, the researcher…

Li Shan's oldest son was the perfect candidate to join the throngs of Chinese students studying abroad. But he chose Tsinghua University in Beijing. throng:人群,拥挤,众多 That is an unusual choice for a graduate of the elite Hong Kong International School,…

For most people, summer involves numerous daily shifts between scorching outdoor heat and frosty air-conditioned interiors. But does exposing the body to extreme temperature swings make people sick? Professor Ron Eccles, director of the Common Cold C…

You've probably heard the baleful reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities is plummeting, according to a big study released last month by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The news has provoked a flood of high-minded…