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Asia
5:08 pm
Thu February 7, 2013

Move Over James Bond, China Has An Unlikely Box Office Champ

Credit Enlight Pictures
The surprise hit Lost in Thailand, a road comedy that cost less than $5 million to make, has become China's highest-grossing domestic film.

Originally published on Fri February 8, 2013 9:32 am

Movies are big business in China, and 2012 was another record year: Theaters raked in about $2.7 billion, pushing China past Japan to become the world's second-largest market.

Those blistering sales were expected; China's ultimate box-office champ, however, was not.

Hollywood blockbusters usually do well in China. And last year, competition was stiff, including a new installment of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise, as well as Skyfall, the latest James Bond flick.

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It's All Politics
4:23 pm
Thu February 7, 2013

Rubio's Job: Play Second Fiddle To The President, And Don't Mess Up

Originally published on Thu February 7, 2013 5:28 pm

Science
4:19 pm
Thu February 7, 2013

Fresh Clues In Dinosaur Whodunit Point To Asteroid

Originally published on Thu February 7, 2013 7:53 pm

Some 66 million years ago, about 75 percent of species on Earth disappeared. It wasn't just dinosaurs but most large mammals, fish, birds and plankton. Scientists have known this for a long time just from looking at the fossil record. If you dig deep enough, you find lots of dinosaur bones. And then a few layers up, they're gone.

But scientists couldn't figure out exactly what had caused this phenomenon. Of course, there were lots of theories.

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Asia
3:03 pm
Thu February 7, 2013

American Woman Gives Domestic Abuse A Face, And Voice, In China

Originally published on Thu February 7, 2013 8:30 pm

The faces of American Kim Lee and her Chinese husband, Li Yang, both in their 40s, once graced the covers of books that sold in the millions. He was China's most famous English teacher, the "Crazy English" guru of China, who pioneered his own style of English teaching: pedagogy through shouted language, yelling to halls of thousands of students.

His methods were given official recognition after he was employed by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee to teach Olympic volunteers.

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NPR Story
1:46 pm
Thu February 7, 2013

While Studying Ice, Scientists Discover Huge Penguin Colony

Originally published on Fri February 8, 2013 8:55 pm

In 2009, a team of researchers from the British Antarctic Survey were studying satellite images of the Antarctic when they noticed something interesting: trails of penguin poop. That showed signs of a huge emperor penguin colony.

The existence of the colony was unconfirmed until a team of researchers from the International Polar Foundation visited in December 2012.

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