LATEST NEWS

New Year Time: Blancpain's Caruso 'Chinese Dragon' Limited Edition Wristwatch

by China.new

The Blancpain Caruso “Chinese Dragon” Limited Edition wristwatch rings in 2012, the Year of the Dragon, in rare style... and “rare” is the watchword here. The luxury Swiss watch manufacturer plans on producing just 50 of the 18k rose gold tickers, sticker priced at $219,682 each.

Newest Japanese Rice Field Art Sends Living Messages of Hope

by Steve Levenstein

The 2011 crop of “Tanbo” rice field art is bolder and more beautiful than ever before. This year, though, Japan's artistic rice farmers are going against the grain by growing messages of hope and perseverance meant to encourage a nation fed up with natural and unnatural disasters.

Groundbreaking Research Supports Calorie Reduction As Key To Healthy Aging

by T Goodman

It has long been known that calorie restricted diets have positive impacts on better mental and physical health, but now a team of researchers at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Rome have discovered the molecule that is triggered by caloric restriction. CREB1 is the molecule and, once activated, it triggers another group of molecules linked to longevity - the sirtuins.

Genghis Khan's Genome Successfully Sequenced by Chinese Scientists

by China.new

Charlie Sheen may have Adonis DNA but when it comes to winning, Genghis Khan DNA conquers all! Chinese scientists have announced they've successfully sequenced the genome of one of the Great Khan's direct descendants, and they didn't need a fossilized mosquito to do it.

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McDonald's German Chicken Sausage Burger Blitzes Hong Kong

by China.new

If you're hungry enough to raise the Teutonic, then we kindly ask you to get a grip... on the German Chicken Sausage Burger, an epicurious menu offering from McDonald's Hong Kong. What say ye, Actual German Folks™, das schmeckt or das boo?

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Tap Water Is OK To Drink, But Watch What You Put Up Your Nose

by T Goodman

Neti-pot nose rinses have recently been reported to have caused the death of two persons in Louisiana. The pots, used by many to drain their sinuses during colds, flu, or allergy flare-ups, convey salt water through the nostrils....

Holiday Social Media Competition Lights Up "Home Decoration Smackdown" In Jersey City, Newark & Roselle

Social Media Competition Lights Up "Home Decoration Smackdown" This Christmas in Jersey City, Newark & Roselle

by Ron Callari

What's a little friendly competition amongst neighboring towns in New Jersey? Well this Christmas season, two councilmen and one mayor have decided to lighten up this year's holiday festivities with a house decoration competition in Jersey City, Newark and Roselle.

Snore No More with the Snore Stopper Wristband

by Steve Levenstein

Tired of being kicked by bedmates awoken by your snoring? The “Snore Stopper” from Hivox prompts snorers to shift their snore-inducing sleep positions with a gentle electrical zap from a battery-powered wristband.

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Toshiba's 'Portable Gamma Camera' Takes Snapshots of Radiation Hotspots

by Steve Levenstein

Toshiba has developed a portable radiation-sensing camera that overlays color-coded radioactivity measurements over visual images. The camera is a refined version of a similar concept tested and proven at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Sensing Microneedles Developed For Continuous Monitoring Of Body Chemicals

by T Goodman

In the future, maybe not too distant, diabetics may be able to monitor their glucose levels continuously, rather than at one point in time, thanks to the researchers from North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of California, San Diego. These researchers have incorporated sensors into multiple microneedles, each less than a millimeter long, that may make today's glucose analyzers, the annoying skin prick tests, obsolete.

Surgeons Check Out Donor Lungs 'Ex Vivo' Prior To Transplant

by T Goodman

Surgeons at the New York Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University performed the very first 'ex vivo' lung transplants yesterday, placing a deceased donor's lungs into a test dome for four hours to get the lungs in shape for their new human recipients. Organ testing procedures have been available prior to now, but none as sophisticated as the XVIVA Perfusion System employed in these particular transplant surgeries.

American Freedom, Made In China? Them's Fightin' Words!

by China.new

“American Freedom, Made In China?” Them's fightin' words in some parts; a sad commentary on the state of the nation's economy in others. What's behind this incendiary phrase stamped on the side of an otherwise ordinary cardboard box?

Chinese Medicinal Plants Garden is World's Largest According to Guinness

by China.new

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM for short) has roots that extend back thousands of years, with seeds in folk cures that were already old when ancient Chinese scholars first began writing them down. It's no wonder, then, that one of China's oldest official medicinal plants gardens has been declared by Guinness World Records to be the world's largest of its kind.

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Giant Godzilla Christmas Tree Spruces Up Tokyo Mall

by Steve Levenstein

Pining for those classic Japanese monster movies that had you sitting on pins and needles? Well fir not, er, fear not! The giant Godzilla Christmas Tree from the Aqua City Odaiba shopping mall in Tokyo is the original nightmare before Christmas!

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Japanese Scientists Listen to Oysters, Pick Up Pearls of Wisdom

by Steve Levenstein

Put a shell to your ear and you can hear the ocean. Japanese scientists have taken that concept to a higher level, inventing a device called the “kai-lingual” that can “hear” oysters commenting on their environment. Well shucks!

With IPOs & Bankruptcy In The Air, Zynga Soars, American Airlines Zags & Alec Baldwin Zings

With IPOs & Bankruptcy In The Air, Zynga Soars, American Airlines Zags & Alec Balwin Zings

by Ron Callari

There's seems to be a glint of irony taking to the not-so-friendly skies, or so one popular TV-star would like the world to believe. While online gaming giant Zynga hopes to reap between $850 million and $1.15 billion with its impending IPO offering on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, the venerable American Airlines files Chapter 11 to reorganize its massive debt. So what's the connection between the two companies where one's on an uptick and the other is in dire straits financially? Well… Alec Baldwin, oddly, it seems!

Reactive Lighting Brings Safety, Efficiency, And The WOW Factor To Your Stairs

by Myra Per-Lee

Traditional staircase lighting fails to impress functionally. Even when lit with a fancy chandelier from an arched ceiling, which basement and attic stairs seldom deserve, the light cast may not be the safest. But the Web's famous gadget hacker from Manitoba, Canada, Alan Parekh, has developed a complete kit for safe, energy-efficient, and versatile LED stair lighting that can express your individual style as well.

Year of the Dragon Ready to Roar with 2012-shaped Solid Gold Statue

by China.new

An exquisite, 24-karat gold statue of a Chinese dragon was recently unveiled by Chow Tai Fook Jewellery in Hong Kong. The dragon's sinuous coils form the numerals "2012", the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac.

Family Violence Is Risk Factor For Psychological Disorders Later In Life

by T Goodman

Scientists at the University College of London (UCL) and the Anna Freud Center liken the impact of family violence on the brains of children to the brains of soldiers exposed to combat. Both kinds of combat result in hypersensitivity to danger and put subjects at risk for developing anxiety disorders.

Japanese Earthquake Seismogram Sculpture Created by Luke Jerram

by Steve Levenstein

Dry statistics and flat printouts do little to convey the awesome destructive power of earthquakes. British multimedia artist Luke Jerram has found a way to bring data to life, as it were, and by doing so express not only the measured progress of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake over 9 minutes terrifying but also display the pure esthetic beauty of nature's fury in action.