【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题：Why being wrong is good for you Even the most prolific blunderers can go on to do great things 正文：“Mistakes are the portals of discovery,” wrote James Joyce in “Ulysses”. In 1888 Lee Kum Sheung, a young cook in a coastal province in southern China, forgot the oyster soup he was boiling on the stove until it simmered down to a thick, sticky gravy. Once he discovered how tasty it was, he decided to sell his “oyster sauce” in jars. That lucky mistake would make him a...
Nov 10, 2024•18 min•Ep. 541
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Locked in overheated battle with its clone at home, Luckin eyes expansion in U.S. 正文：“Going out” was and remains a mantra for Chinese businesses in search of new growth opportunities and relief from fierce competition at home. But the latter part of that equation, going out to escape competition, is quickly becoming yesterday’s story as Chinese companies increasingly encounter their domestic rivals in overseas markets as well. 知识点：mantra n./ˈmæntrə/ 1. A mantra is...
Nov 08, 2024•12 min•Ep. 542
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Huawei’s new made-in-China software takes on Apple and Android With its latest operating system, it is cutting ties with Western tech 小标题：Huawei's new made-in-China software takes on Apple and Android 正文：When Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, releases its latest smartphone this month, techies will strip it down to figure out how it works. The semiconductors powering the Mate 70, as the device is called, will reveal how much progress China has made in building its ow...
Nov 07, 2024•17 min•Ep. 543
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Gold Beans All the Rage With China’s Gen Z as Deflation Bites 正文：With China’s deflation at its worst in 15 years, a volatile stock market and bank interest rates too low for her liking, 18-year-old Tina Hong is placing her financial security in gold beans. Weighing as little as one gram, the beans — and other forms of gold jewelry — are increasingly viewed as the safest investment bet for young Chinese in an era of economic uncertainty. It’s part of a larger consu...
Nov 06, 2024•19 min•Ep. 544
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:A Vivid Trump-Harris Contrast in the Campaign’s Grueling Final Days 正文：It was the final Sunday of the campaign for president, and Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump were continuing to race across battleground states in their search for support. But in message and demeanor, Ms. Harris, the Democrat, and Mr. Trump, the Republican, could not have been more different. 知识点：battleground state n. /ˈbæt̬ .əl.ɡraʊnd ˌsteɪt/ (in the United States) a state wher...
Nov 05, 2024•10 min•Ep. 545
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:What will happen the day after the US election? 正文：Late on election night four years ago, Donald Trump saw the so-called “red mirage” and pounced. His vote count was still ahead of Joe Biden in several swing states. Around 2.30am he appeared before White House cameras to declare victory. Any ballots counted after then would be fraudulent, Trump said. His aim was to exploit the fact that far more Democrats than Republicans had voted by mail, which meant the “blue s...
Nov 04, 2024•14 min•Ep. 546
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题：Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and the Billions of Ways to Influence an Election 正文：Entrepreneurs become legends when they make big bets on technology that pay off in a huge and dramatic way. Elon Musk is now applying that all-or-nothing philosophy to a presidential election, tying his reputation and perhaps his future to a win by Donald J. Trump. 知识点：pay off If something you have done pays off, it is successful. 取得成功，得到好结果 • All her hard work paid off in the end, and she ...
Nov 03, 2024•11 min•Ep. 547
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题：Can Men in China Take a Joke? Women Doing Stand-Up Have Their Doubts. Comedy has become a way for women to skewer China’s gender inequality. Some men aren’t happy about it. 正文：On the list of topics best avoided by China’s comedians, some are obvious. Politics. The Chinese military. Now add: Men’s fragile egos. That, at least, was the message sent this month, when a major e-commerce platform abruptly ended a partnership with China’s most prominent female stand-up c...
Nov 02, 2024•16 min•Ep. 548
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Ratan Tata, Whose Indian Business Empire Went Global, Dies at 86 正文：Ratan Tata, one of India’s most powerful and admired magnates, who transformed his family’s business conglomerate, the Tata Group, into a multinational corporation with globally recognizable brands, died on Wednesday in Mumbai. He was 86. 知识点：admired adj. /ədˈmaɪrd/ Regarded with respect and warm approval; often seen as impressive or inspiring. 受尊敬的；令⼈钦佩的，受⼈喜爱的。 • She is an admired leader in the f...
Nov 01, 2024•9 min•Ep. 549
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:The blistering rally in gold augurs ill for the power of the dollar Central banks are shifting away from the greenback 正文：Not long ago gold seemed to have lost its lustre. In the decades after President Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971, the yellow metal fell out of favour with central banks, which hoarded their reserves in dollars instead. In the 1980s and 1990s investors and households grew weary of its miserly returns. Goldbugs were dismissed as...
Oct 31, 2024•21 min•Ep. 550
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:It’s not just obesity. Drugs like Ozempic will change the world As they become cheaper, they promise to improve billions of lives 正文：Every day seems to bring more exciting news. First the drugs tackled diabetes. Then, with just an injection a week, they took on obesity. Now they are being found to treat cardiovascular and kidney disease, and are being tested for Alzheimer’s and addiction. It is early days yet, but GLP-1 receptor agonists have all the makings of on...
Oct 30, 2024•18 min•Ep. 551
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Can Google or Huawei stymie Apple’s march towards $4trn? The contest for global smartphone dominance gets interesting 正文： To call apple a corporate behemoth is to be uncharitable. It is much bigger than that. On many financial measures it makes more sense to compare the iPhone-maker not with other companies but with stockmarket indices—and not some obscure ones, either. On October 21st its market capitalisation nudged $3.6trn, more than Hong Kong’s Hang Seng. 知识点：...
Oct 29, 2024•15 min•Ep. 552
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:How China is trying to win back foreign tourists Come, spend, don’t worry about a visa 正文：Interesting, safe and easy to get around, China has what it takes to be the top tourist destination in Asia. Indeed, it was. In the first half of 2019, before covid-19 hit, China’s travel agencies handled 8.6m tourist visits, more than any other country in the region, according to the government. China’s border authorities recorded 47.7m entries and exits by foreigners, inclu...
Oct 28, 2024•18 min•Ep. 553
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题：Is Elon Musk’s $1m giveaway to American voters illegal? His lottery scheme raises thorny questions—and sets a new precedent 正文：Easy money is usually too good to be true. Elon Musk, a billionaire, is promising it nonetheless. The tech mogul is offering to pay registered voters in American swing states at least $47 if they sign a petition pledging their “support” for freedom of speech and the right to bear arms (both of which are protected by the constitution). On O...
Oct 27, 2024•29 min•Ep. 554
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Not your average internet celebrity: China’s CEOs turn online influencers 正文：I really want to become a wang hong (internet celebrity),” said Mr Lu Fang. And while internet stardom is something younger people typically aspire to, the 48-year-old chief executive of a Chinese luxury electric vehicle maker recently voiced the same aspiration. “I hope everyone will help me become a wang hong,” Mr Lu, the head of state-owned automaker Dongfeng Motor’s subsidiary Voyah, ...
Oct 26, 2024•14 min•Ep. 555
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:What the surging gold price says about a dangerous world Financial fears and geopolitical tremors combine to great effect 正文：Less than a mile from Singapore’s luxurious Changi Airport sits a rather less glamorous business park. Residents of the industrial estate include freight and logistics firms, as well as the back offices of several banks. One building is a little different, however. Behind a glossy onyx facade, layers of security and imposing steel doors, sit...
Oct 25, 2024•19 min•Ep. 556
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:McDonald Trump had a shift serving fries. Will the stunt supersize his base? 正文：Remember the creepy clown sightings that started in 2016? All over the world, scary clowns started popping up, terrifying small children. The trend also frightened executives at McDonald’s, who started to phase out Ronald McDonald as a result of the “current climate around clown sightings in communities”. 知识点：creepy adj. /ˈkriːpi/ causing an unpleasant feeling of fear or slight horror令...
Oct 24, 2024•16 min•Ep. 557
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:The sperm donor bros of tech Genetic largesse from some of Silicon Valley’s elite appears to be a mix of narcissism, altruism and dreams of immortality 正文：Before he was arrested in France for failing to adequately moderate criminal activity on his social media app, tech billionaire Pavel Durov was known for three things: founding Telegram, posting thirst-trap photos on Instagram and fathering over 100 children. 知识点：adequate adj. /ˈædɪkwət/ enough in quantity, or g...
Oct 23, 2024•17 min•Ep. 558
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Final video of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar transfixes Gaza Drone footage of chief’s demise has reshaped views among some Palestinians exhausted by war 正文：For months, Israel has portrayed the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as holed up in the militant group’s fortified tunnel network under Gaza, shielding himself from Israeli bombs. But when many Palestinians in the strip watched the Israeli drone footage of Sinwar’s killing, they saw the Hamas chief above ground, dressed ...
Oct 22, 2024•19 min•Ep. 559
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:What Elon Musk Really Wants The Tesla and X mogul has long dreamed of redesigning the world in his own extreme image. Trump may be his Trojan horse. 正文：In Elon Musk’s vision of human history, Donald Trump is the singularity. If Musk can propel Trump back to the White House, it will mark the moment that his own superintelligence merges with the most powerful apparatus on the planet, the American government—not to mention the business opportunity of the century. 知识点...
Oct 21, 2024•15 min•Ep. 560
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:No Offense: How Americans Became Intolerant of Body Odor 正文：For centuries, the smell of rancid human sweat was a part of everyday life. Wherever there were people, there was body odor. A typical American in the 1800s might take just one bath a week, and the whole family would use the same water. Men working 14 hours in fields or factories and women who spent their days in a hot kitchen might only wash by splashing themselves with water from a basin. A warm bath wa...
Oct 20, 2024•15 min•Ep. 561
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题：How complicated is brain surgery actually? A doctor reveals the myths and realities of his profession 正文：Neurosurgeons are typically portrayed in one of two ways in popular culture. One is as a brilliant, if arrogant, boffin. These doctors are intellectuals (it is brain surgery, after all) who have very little social life. Think of Dr Jack Shephard, the protagonist of “Lost”, a television series, or Doctor Strange, a Marvel character. The other common depiction is...
Oct 19, 2024•20 min•Ep. 562
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:How high could the oil price go? Geopolitical risk is rising. But so is the supply of oil 正文：All around the world consumers, motorists and politicians are nervously eyeing the oil price. The conflict between Israel and Hamas that began a year ago is spreading. If all-out war erupts between Israel and Iran, the threat to the Middle East, a region that produces a third of the world’s crude, is as obvious as it is scary. Few commodities affect the global economy as m...
Oct 18, 2024•17 min•Ep. 563
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Why the world is so animated about anime Japan’s cartoons have conquered its screens, and more 正文：Most Athletes raise their fists in triumph after a win. When Noah Lyles, an American sprinter, won gold in the Olympics 100-metre race in August, he held his hands out in front of him, wrists together and fingers extended, as though getting ready to catch a large ball. The gesture may have seemed odd, but fans of Japanese animation knew immediately that Mr Lyles, an a...
Oct 17, 2024•16 min•Ep. 564
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Nobel for Economics Awarded to Authors of ‘Why Nations Fail’ and an Ex-IMF Figure 正文：Why do some nations prosper while others are poor? To boil down this year’s economics Nobel to a single sentence: “Institutions matter.” The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson for work that advanced the understanding of economic disparities among countries. 知识点：prosper v. /ˈprɑːspər/ If people or businesses prosper, the...
Oct 16, 2024•12 min•Ep. 565
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Elon Musk’s SpaceX has achieved something extraordinary If SpaceX can land and reuse the most powerful rocket ever made what can’t it do? 正文：The launch was remarkable: a booster rocket with twice the power of the Apollo programme’s Saturn V lancing into the early-morning sky on a tight, bright column of blue-tinged flame. But that wonder has been seen four times before. It was the landing of the booster stage of SpaceX’s fifth Starship test flight which was truly ...
Oct 15, 2024•18 min•Ep. 566
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Tesla's Cybercab Is Here 正文：Movie studios are where Hollywood spins fantastical worlds out of fancy camera angles and special effects. So where better to show off the Tesla Cybercab, a two-door self-driving taxi that CEO Elon Musk says will be in production in just three years—but that’s still fascinatingly short on firm detail? 知识点：spin v./spɪn/ If something spins or if you spin it, it turns quickly around a central point. 转动 • He spun the wheel sharply and made ...
Oct 14, 2024•14 min•Ep. 567
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Why so many Chinese graduates cannot find work Our number-crunching suggests that their plight could be much worse than previously thought 正文： Around this time each year companies visit university campuses in China looking for potential employees. This year the mood is grim. At a job fair in Wuhan a firm was looking to hire management trainees—but it wanted only elite graduates and offered just 1,000 yuan ($140) per month. 知识点：campus n. /ˈkæmpəs/ the buildings of ...
Oct 13, 2024•14 min•Ep. 568
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Han Kang wins the Nobel prize in literature for 2024 The South Korean author offers another example of the country’s cultural clout 正文：Han Kang has been called “Korea’s Kafka”. Rather than giant bugs, her metamorphoses involve vegetation.“The Fruit of My Woman”, a short story, imagines a wife becoming a (withered) houseplant. “ The Vegetarian”, a prizewinning novel, depicts a woman consumed by her desire to sprout roots and become a tree. 知识点：bug n./bʌɡ/ A bug is ...
Oct 12, 2024•13 min•Ep. 569
【欢迎订阅】 每天早上5:30，准时更新。 【阅读原文】 标题:Why Hurricane Milton Is a Sign of the New Abnormal Weather-wise, the world has entered uncharted territory. 正文：“We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.” This assessment, co-authored by several of the world’s leading climate scientists, was published on Tuesday, in the journal BioScience. Also on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center updated its warning about Hurricane Milton, now churning across the Gulf of Mexico: “Milt...
Oct 11, 2024•16 min•Ep. 570
