The hottest TV drama in China – “Nirvanain Fire” or “Langya Bang” has just ended. Millions of people waited every day after midnight for the latest (two) episodes. Are you one of them? What is the story about? Why the show is so popular?

  “Nirvana in Fire” is based on an Internet novel by author HaiYan, who was invited to pen the screenplay for the television adaptation. The 55-episode series, set in a fictionalized kingdom, weaves together two storylines — one about a betrayed general's revenge and the other about princes fighting for the throne.

    The series was put on screen on Sep. 19th, and the number of Internet views exceeded 140 million times the next day. Only during the week of National holiday, the number increased by 1.6 billion.

    It's now the hottest Chinese TV show with a very high score of 9.3 on Douban. (The classical TV drama, Journey to the West, produced in 1986 is with the same score). Previous and recent costume dramas such as “The Journey of Flower” and “Yun Zhong Ge” only scored 6.4 and 3.5.

    Drawing comparisons to “The Count of Monte Cristo”, the story revolves around a gifted young man named Lin Shu, whose father serves as a general. Already a high-ranking military officer by his teenager years, Lin Shuenjoyed a close friendship with Prince Xiao Jingyan and was even engaged to Princess Nihuang.

   At age 17, however, Lin Shu's life turned upside down when his father's army was framed and destroyed by a foxy political rival. LinShu escaped death, but due to the poisoning, his body became weak and frail, and he lost his martial arts abilities. From then on, his face was pale and his fingers always ice-cold.

    After twelve years, Lin Shu returned to his country's capitalwith a new name, Mei Changsu, and a new identity, the leader of the Jiang ZuoAlliance. He then became the strategic adviser for his friend, Prince Jingyan, who had been exiled(流放) by the king. Despite the efforts of Prince Xiao Jingheng and the crown prince to win the throne for themselves, Mei Changsu succeeds in paving the road for his friend to take over as king, as well as the avenging the injustices dealt to histroops many years before.

    If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars，we would go in darkness happily，the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal(夜间活动的) species on this planet. Instead，we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun's light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don't think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it's the only way to explain what we've done to the night: We've engineered it to  receive us by filling it with light.

    The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequences 一 called light pollution 一 whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad  lighting design，which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky. III-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels 一 and light  rhythms — to which many forms of life, including, ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect or life is affected .

    In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze(霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We've grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit nigh, - dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadow on Earth, is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.

    We^'ve lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further form the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing, Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet(磁铁). The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being “captured” by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.

    Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times righter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behavior out of joint including most other creatures ,we do need darkness .Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.

    Living in a glare of our making,we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage—the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night .In a very real sense light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way—the edge of our galaxy arching overhead.

    On 20th July 1969, millions of people saw Neil Armstrong take his first steps in space on television. Armstrong got out of the spacecraft Apollo 11, touched the ground of the moon and said, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

    A conspiracy(阴谋)theory has existed since the night of his lunar handing. Armstrong's achievements were considered amazing, but people wondered if it really happened. Many people believe that the scene on the moon wasn't real. Rumours spread throughout coffee shops, street comers, and newspapers, but it soon died down.

    But theories resurfaced in 2001 Suspicion began when an American television network aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? The show argued that NASA did not have the money for such a voyage, and that the whole scene was probably filmed in a movie studio. Many critics say that there were no stars in the background during the lunar landing, so it must have been a fake. They also point out that the American flag that was posted was waving. How could that be if there is no wind on the moon?

    NASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)has denied these rumours many times. They explained that now photographers can capture the brightness of the astronauts with the dimness of the stars behind them. Also, they said that the flag was waving because the astronauts were pulling it back and forth trying to get it deeper into the rock. NASA also points out that the television program fails to mention that Armstrong and his team brought back 800 pounds of rock from the moon.

    Nell Armstrong is seen as a national icon in the US and his lunar landing is one of the most historic events in the country's history. But either way, this conspiracy theory still exists today.

Disney has picked Chinese actor Liu Yifei to play Mulan in an upcoming film, following accusations against Hollywood of ‘whitewashing'.

    Several Hollywood films have faced criticism in recent months for featuring white actors in Asian roles. Recent films accused of whitewashing include the Hollywood remake of Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell, which had Scarlett Johansson in the main role which was originally Japanese, and Chinese epic The Great Wall which starred Matt Damon as its lead character. Earlier this year, British actor Ed Skrein who was cast as an Asian character in the upcoming Hellboy remake pulled out of the film so that the role could be “cast appropriately”. It then went to Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim.

    The live-action adaptation of the 1998 cartoon movie will tell the tale of the well-known Chinese heroine Hua Mulan. Mulan pretended to be a man to fight in the army to spare her weak father from being forced into the army.

    The film has been under careful examination since it was announced that Disney intended to remake Mulan. An online campaign calling for an Asian actress in the role attracted more than 100,000 signatures before it was shut on Thursday.

    Liu, nicknamed “Fairy Sister” for her delicate looks and previous roles in fantasy dramas, is well-known as an actress, model and singer in China. The 30-year-old is said to be fluent in English, having grown up partly in New York. The Hollywood Reporter said she was picked out of nearly 1,000 candidates for the film.

Disney's announcement on its blog about Liu's casting was met with delight on Twitter as well as on Sina Weibo, China's microblogging network. Many online celebrated it as a win for diversity in Disney films. Chinese-American actress Ming-Na Wen, who voiced Mulan in the original animated movie, also gave her stamp of approval. Chinese netizens congratulated Liu, with many praising Disney's choice. One commenter said, “Needs to know martial arts, can also speak English, has star quality - it definitely should be Liu Yifei.”

    China will green light Internet medical services conducted by medical institutions as part of a broader push to promote Internet Plus Healthcare, those at a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided.

    Medical institutions will be allowed to provide online diagnostic services for some common and chronic diseases in patients' follow-up visits to their doctors. The top levels of hospitals will be encouraged to provide online services, including consultations (会诊), reservations and test result inquiries.

    As China joins the ranks of middle-income countries, the demand for health services has increased accordingly. Internet Plus Healthcare can help reduce the problem of inaccessible and expensive public health services that have long been a big concern for the general public.

    One decision coming out of the meeting says the intelligent review for health insurance will be applied and the one-stop settlement will be advanced. The real-time sharing of prescription and drug retail sales will be explored, as well.

    “We must waste no time in pushing forward the measures once the decisions made.” Li said. “In recent years, top-level hospitals in major cities have seen steady increases in the number of patents. Medical bills have become a heavy burden on families and high-end medical resources sill fall short of meeting the growing demand of the public.”

    To solve the problem, a two-pronged (双管齐下的) approach must be taken. One is to establish medical partnerships to strengthen cooperation between major hospitals and community clinics. The other is to bring forward Internet Plus Healthcare to promote the sharing of quality medical resources.

    The government will see to it that long-distance healthcare services cover all county-level hospitals. So more efforts will be made to ensure that high-speed broadband network will be extended to cover medical institutions in urban and rural areas. Dedicated internet access services will be set up to meet the needs for long-distance healthcare services.

Max Mathews has been called the father of computer music.He created electronic tools so that people could use computers as musical instruments.He had a great influence on the development of electronic music and how it is written,recorded and played.

In 1957,Mathews wrote the first computer program that enabled a computer to create sound.At that time,he was working as an engineer at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.His computer program enabled a large IBM computer to play a 17 seconds piece of music that he had written.The computer was so slow that it would have taken an hour to play the piece of music in 17 seconds.For that reason,Mathews moved the work to a tape player,which could be sped up to play the music at a normal speed.He later said that the sound quality of the musical notes was not great,but the technical importance of the music was huge.

Mathews continued creating other versions of the music program.He became interested in how computers could help musicians outside recording studios.The Groove program he developed was the first computer program made for live performances.

He also developed an electronic device he called the Radio Baton.The device looks like two drum sticks.It enables the user to control the speed and sound levels of orchestral music playing on a computer.The user does this by moving the two sticks on a special electronic surface.

Mathews believed modern musicians are not making full use of the power of computer music.He said a violin always sounds like a violin.But with a computer,the way a violin sounds is unlimited.He said he didn't want computer sounds to replace live music.But he said he hoped laptop computers would one day be considered serious instruments.