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.

    When children start kindergarten, evident gaps in science knowledge already exist between Whites and minorities and between youngsters from upper-income and low-income families. And they often deepen into significant achievement gaps by the end of eighth grade if they are not dealt with during elementary school.

    The findings suggest that, in order for the United States to maintain(维持) long-term scientific and economic competitiveness in the world, policymakers need to renew efforts to ensure access(n.使用或见到的机会，权利) to high-quality, early learning experiences in childcare settings, preschools and elementary schools.

    The researchers' study tracked 7,757 children from their start in kindergarten to the end of eighth grade. Researchers found that, among kindergarteners with low levels of general knowledge, 62 percent were struggling in science by the time they reached third grade and 54 percent were struggling in that subject in eighth grade. And general knowledge gaps between minorities and Whites were already large at the time when students began kindergarten.

    “Children growing up in low-income families typically experience comparatively fewer early opportunities to learn about the natural and social sciences,” the authors wrote. “Their parents often have lower educational levels and therefore less science knowledge themselves as well as fewer resources available to direct the children's academic growth. Children raised in poverty often attend poorly resourced schools that futher limit their academic opportunities.”

    Morgan said that, within families, parents who regularly talk and interact with toddlers(学步的儿童) can point out and explain physical, natural and social events occurring around them daily. This might help youngsters learn facts and concepts that will prepare them to take better advantage of science instruction they receive during elementary and middle school.

    I've loved my mother's desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it when Mother sat doing letters. Looking at the ink bottle, pens and white paper, I decided that the act of writing must be the most wonderful thing in the world.

    Years later, during her final illness, Mother kept different things for my sister and brother, “But the desk,” she said again, “is for Elizabeth.”

    I never saw her get angry, and never saw her cry. I knew she loved me, and she showed it in action. But as a young girl, I wanted heart-to-heart talks between mother and daughter. They never happened and a gulf opened between us. I was “ too emotional (易动感情的) ”, but she lived “on the surface”.

    As years went by, I had my own family. I loved my mother and thanked her for our happy family. I wrote to her in careful words and asked her to let me know that she did forgive (原谅) me.

    I posted the letter and waited for her answer, but it didn't come. I wondered if the letter had even got to her. I only knew that I had written it, and I could stop trying to make her into someone she was not.

    Now the present of her desk told me that she was pleased that writing was my chosen work, though she had never been able to. I cleaned the desk carefully and found some papers inside … a photo of my father and a one-paper letter, folded (折叠) and refolded many times.

    Give me an answer, my letter asks, in any way you choose. Mother, you always chose the act that speaks louder than words.

    Meet big brother Blue and his sisters Meadow and Little Willow, a family of three blind cats that got adopted by the family Catherine Magno.

    Their story starts just before the Christmas of 2014 when the kittens (小猫) were found in an abandoned house in Dubai. By then they had already lost their sight due to a cat flu that was left untreated by their previous (先前的) owner. After that they came to an animal home. At some point, brother Blue almost got adopted by the previous owner's neighbor, but the poor confused cat couldn't bear living without his sisters and cried all night while searching for them. Soon they were all united in the animal home until the important night of 19 February 2015, when Catherine took under her wing.

    “I had zero experience having adopted my first ever rescue kitten just a couple of months ago,” Catherine said. “But their story touched my heart so much that I couldn't bear the thought of them being put in a cage for a very long time or even worse.”

    Catherine was worried about the special needs of her new pet friends: “My worry was that it's going to not only be challenging but also require a lot of adjustments on my part,” but apparently it wasn't that much different. “The only adjustment early on was keeping everything where it was but they are soon adaptive(适应的).” And as she wonderfully put it: “Blind pets see through their hearts.”

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    NASA might be famous for sending rockets up to space quickly. But it will be more famous for making your next holiday come more quickly.

    The space agency is working on a new plane, which could solve the problems of supersonic(超音速的) flight and vastly increase the speed of journeys abroad. If successful, the plane would be able to fly between New York and London in just three hours. And it would reduce the time spent flying other journeys by a half, since it could be used more broadly. Until now, the problem with such planes has been the sonic boom(声爆), made famous by the original Concorde. That happens when a plane reaches supersonic speeds.

    It is a thunderous noise that upsets people on the ground— disturbing animals and even causing physical problems to materials and houses underneath. It was that effect that led Congress to ban such planes from being used over the US land, a decision that in turn was responsible for Concorde's failing to be commercially used.

    In view of the problem, the space agency has developed a new technology and tried it out in wind tunnels, and now believes that it could be put to commercial use. That plane will fly as high as 55,000 feet—far higher than normal planes—and make a sound of only 60 decibels. That's far less than 90 decibels thrown out by normal planes, and is roughly in line with a car on the motorway or a busy restaurant.

    “As long as we can get endorsement from the general public, the plane will probably be something that's acceptable,” said Peter Coen, project manager for NASA's commercial supersonic research team, in a new Bloomberg report. “If we get approved, we will have the full-sized version of the plane tried out and the plane will be put into use.”

A team in Europe are working with wood, but not in the usual ways. They are not carpenters（木匠）. Instead, they are scientists exploring how wood can lead to a greener electronic device, a transistor（晶体管）made from balsa wood, whose production releases less climate-warming gas into the air.

Transistors play an important role in computers and other devices. They act like tiny switches to control the flow of electricity. Engineers use them to process and store data. Today's laptops may host billions of them. So they must be tiny—only a little wider than a strand of DNA.

The new transistor being built by physicist Isak Engquist and his team at Sweden's Linköping University isn't as small as those. Big enough to see and hold, it can stand only an electric pressure that pushes electrons along. And it controls a current using charged particles（粒子）called ions.

This new technology shows a "proof of concept" that the idea can work, even if the new device is not yet ready to put into today's electronics. "While it seems large by today's standards, such a transistor still might prove useful for electronics that require low electric pressures," says Engquist.

"The new transistor suggests that future electronic devices might be made in living plants," Daniel Simon, a physicist in the team, says. "Imagine peeling away some bar k from a living tree," he says, "and stamping electronic circuits into the living wood."

In fact, Engquist says, "There are so many ways we can use wood and the components of wood that we would never have thought of." For instance, he can now imagine a wood-based sensor that could monitor crop health, measure pollution or survey a forest for fire risk.