Welcome to Monday morning at the office. Did you have trouble sleeping last night? Was your stomach bothering you? Did you feel a sense of dread about heading into work? dread:恐惧,担心 Could be that you have a case of the Sunday blues - and you're not t…

Prosecutors wrapped up their case against Bo Xilai on Sunday, sparring with the defiant former Communist Party heavyweight over evidence he tried to block the investigation into his wife for the murder of a British businessman. prosecutor:检察官,公诉人 war…

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…

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'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…

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…

The trophy case in the tiny conference room outside Isaac Larian’s corner office spans an entire wall. It overflows with the dolls that have made him a fortune, from his first hit, the miniskirt-clad Bratz toys, to the latest, the Lalaloopsy dolls wi…

BEIJING—China's family-planning agency is projecting a slow rollout for an easing of its one-child policy, underscoring reluctance by the government in moving too quickly to let some couples have two children and a law in place for decades. rollout:首…

As his term as premier was drawing to a close, Wen Jiabao reflected wistfully on some of the goals he failed to achieve in his time in office and told a surprised group of reporters he should be forgotten. Wistful:渴望的,沉思的,留恋的 While he may have been o…

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 long-running patent war among the technology industry's heavyweights just grew a whole lot bigger-and more controversial. After a brief hiatus for major new litigation, a joint venture owned by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., BlackBerry Ltd. , Erics…

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…

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…

What's the most destructive force in the tech world, the thing that has nearly killed BlackBerry, pushed Dell to go private, and made a mess of Microsoft? Conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley would finger one of the following technologies: smartphon…

Recently, an almost literal case of lifeboat ethics occurred. On Aug. 4, Graham and Sheryl Anley, while yachting off the coast of South Africa, hit a reef, capsizing their boat. As the boat threatened to sink and they scrambled to get off, Sheryl's s…

Michael Dell is set to win a bruising, yearlong battle for control of his company. His next task -- getting Dell Inc. growing again -- may be even tougher. bruising:挫伤,殊死,激烈的 Mr. Dell's proposal to buy the computer company for nearly $25 billion is e…

Apple's latest product launch could breathe new life into a technology that failed to take hold the first time: fingerprint scanners. Placing a finger on a computer or smartphone has long been proposed as a way to avoid the need for passwords to auth…

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…

The sudden death of a street vendor in Hunan province on Wednesday provoked outrage chengguan, or urban management officers. vender:卖主,小贩 outrage:愤怒,愤慨,暴行 Deng Zhengjia was selling watermelons with his wife in Linwu county, Hunan province, when sever…

China's newly revised elder-care law has come as good news for a handful of entrepreneurs who specialize in outsourcing those now-mandated visits to grandma and grandpa. revised:修改的,改进的 outsourcing:外包,外购 mandated:强制性的,托管 The new law, which requires a…

As the head of the entertainment division of a major public-relations firm in New York, Janelle was in charge of no fewer than 15 junior publicists. She knew that she shouldn't play favorites, but she couldn't help it. Some employees were just better…

Getting up the nerve to order in a coffee shop used to be difficult for 16-year-old Georgiann Steely. Speaking in front of classmates was unthinkable. The high-school sophomore overcame a crippling case of social anxiety as a patient in the Child and…

George Washington and his Revolutionary War victories. Robert Frost and the composition of 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.' Bill Gates and the founding of Microsoft. Steve Wozniak and the invention of color computer monitors. Tom Stemberg and…

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…

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…