As we continue examining this season’s DVR success stories in The Blacklist and Sleepy Hollow it makes one wonder, just what other shows caused networks to change the way they think about how their audience watches television? 24 (2001) Jack Bauer is…

CAOFEIDIAN, China  $91 billion industrial project here, mired in debt and unfulfilled promise, suggests part of the reason why China's economy is wobbling and why it will be hard to turn around. mire:陷于,泥潭 unfulfilled:未得到满足的,缺口 wobbling:摆动,颤动 The ste…

Air pollution from coal combustion likely cut life expectancy in parts of China by more than five years during the 1990s, a study has found, adding weight to increasing public demands for Beijing to clean up the environment. Lifespan:寿命 combustion:燃烧…

SHANGHAI—Trading volume in China's bond market has plummeted in recent months, in another reminder of how the country's shifting interest-rate environment has taken a toll on a once fast-expanding financial sector. bond market:债券市场          plummet:骤…

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…

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…

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…

[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…

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…

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…

The mass uprisings this summer in Egypt, Turkey and Brazil are powerful reminders that the middle classes drive history. What remains unclear, however, is where they are driving it. uprising:起义,升起 The world today is witnessing its third great surge o…

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…

China's high-tech companies have made their mark on the nation's economy. Now, with growing cash and investment at their disposal, they are beginning to have an impact on its skylines. Many of China's technology giants got their starts in cheap, half…

"I WEAR A T-shirt and jeans every single day," said Erik Schnakenberg, 30, co-founder of the Venice, Calif.-based brand Buck Mason. "It's definitely my uniform." Difficulty finding a great-fitting, well-priced T-shirt was one reason th…

Nelson Mandela, who rose from militant antiapartheid activist to become the unifying president of a democratic South Africa and a global symbol of racial reconciliation, died at his Johannesburg home following a lengthy stay at a Pretoria hospital, t…

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…

When it comes to parenting, Chinese fathers say the most important role they play is that of the family chauffeur. chauffeur:司机,开车运送 In a survey of 500 Chinese fathers released earlier this week by communications company JWT, respondents ranked drivi…

Despite some hype and a few regional exceptions, the construction of office towers and suburban office parks has not made a significant resurgence in the current recovery. After a century in which office space expanded nationally with every uptick in…

Young people from less-privileged homes are more likely to graduate from college and earn more if raised by two married parents. privileged:特权的,特殊的 Young adults are 44 percent more likely to have graduated from college if they were raised by their ma…

The teen years are often fraught with door-slamming, eye-rolling and seeming insensitivity, even by kids who behaved kindly before. Some parents worry that they're doing something wrong, or that their children will never think of anyone but themselve…

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…

In a forest on the outskirts of this former Chinese capital, 58-year-old real-estate developer Lu Jun and his 30-year-old son, Lu Xun. are set to unveil their pride and joy: a $164-million development with 11 buildings designed by leading internation…

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…

More Americans are eating lunch at their desks or even forgoing it altogether. Is passing up a proper midday break bad for one's health? Chris Cunningham, professor of Industrial-Organizational and Occupational Health Psychology at the University of…

We spend a full five hours and 16 minutes a day in front of a screen, and that's without even turning on a television. So says a statistic from eMarketer, a research firm that focuses on digital media and marketing. It says that for the first time we…

Many students cruise along just fine in math until fourth grade or so. Then, they hit a wall -- fractions. cruise:巡航,巡游,漫游 fraction:分数,片段The wall is about to get taller. With mastery of the topic seen as a crucial stepping stone to progressing in mat…

The big push in office design is forcing co-workers to interact more. Cubicle walls are lower, office doors are no more and communal cafes and snack bars abound. cubicle:小卧室,小隔间 communal:公共的,公社的 Like most grand social experiments, though, open-plan o…