Paris Syndrome

15  Sep  2012 - A dozen or so Japanese tourists a year have to be repatriated from the French capital, after falling prey to what's become known as "Paris syndrome". That is what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations. The experience can apparently be too stressful for some and they suffer a psychiatric breakdown. Around a million Japanese travel to France every year. Many of the visitors come with a deeply romantic vision of Paris - the cobbled streets, as seen in the film Amelie, the beauty of French women or the high culture and art at the Louvre.  The reality can come as a shock. An encounter with a rude taxi driver, or a Parisian waiter who shouts at customers who cannot speak fluent French, might be laughed off by those from other Western cultures. But for the Japanese - used to a more polite and helpful society in which voices are rarely raised in anger - the experience of their dream city turning into a nightmare can simply be too much. This year alone, the Japanese embassy in Paris has had to repatriate four people with a doctor or nurse on board the plane to help them get over the shock. They are suffering from "Paris syndrome". It was a Japanese psychiatrist working In France, Hiroaki Ota, who first identified the syndrome 20 years ago. On average, up to 12 Japanese tourists a year fall victim to it, mainly women in their 30s with high expectations of what may be their first trip abroad. The Japanese embassy has a 24 hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock, and can help find hospital treatment for anyone in need. However, the only permanent cure is to go back to Japan - and never return to Paris.

Falling Men

14 Sep 2012 - Police are investigating whether a man found dead on a west London street was a stowaway who fell from a plane. Just how often does this happen? No-one saw the body fall from the sky on to Portman Avenue.A few neighbours thought they heard something, a thud or a loud bang. But not a soul was around to witness a man hit the pavement of this quiet residential street in Mortlake, south-west London, early on a bright September Sunday. Police say the death is being treated as unexplained. But early media reports all shared the same assumption - that he had stowed away in the landing gear of a plane flying to Heathrow, less than 10 miles away. "He must have come down pretty much vertically to miss the parked cars," says John Taylor, 79, who heard a thump from his home across the street in this placid, affluent suburb. "I expect he was dead already. Poor chap must have been desperate."
It is not the first incident of this kind on the Heathrow flightpath. In 2001, the body of Mohammed Ayaz, a 21-year-old Pakistani, was found in the car park of a branch of Homebase in nearby Richmond. Four years prior to that, another hidden passenger fell from the undercarriage of a plane on to a gasworks close to the store. Dr Stephen Veronneau, of the US Federal Aviation Administration, has identified 96 individuals around the world who have tried to travel in plane wheel wells since 1947. The incidents happened on 85 flights. Veronneau is working on the assumption that the Mortlake fatality was a stowaway. Of these, more than three-quarters have proved fatal.

New Mumbai

22 July 2012 -  Artist and designer Tobias Revell has imagined a future in which the massive city of New Mumbai is powered by energy-generating mushrooms. In his sci-fi "documentary" Revell explains how a futuristic synthetic biology research lab discovers their fungi samples have been stolen by Indian thieves who have quickly learned to adapt the technology for their personal and community needs. An underground market for the magic mushrooms begins to grow, commerce increases, and living conditions begin to improve in a dramatic and environmentally friendly way. Revell's faux documentary explains how the mushrooms grow quickly and begin to harvest the sun, creating energy that provides heat and lighting, like an organic solar panel. They can even be engineered to power a whole building. Some grow strong enough to be used as shelter, parts of building structures, and surfaces to grow local crops. Their porous surfaces also absorb water from the seasonal downpours, which can be collected and used for drinking and bathing. While Revell’s ideas may seem far fetched, they certainly capture the social and economic issues of Mumbai, and present a truly unique solution. The film encourages creative eco-friendly problem solving on a large scale, which may not be too hard to believe in the future.

Tongzhi

21 July 2012 - A newly-published edition of one of China's most authoritative dictionaries has already been criticised by rights campaigners. They complain that it has excluded a definition widely used by homosexuals in China for "gay". The word is "tongzhi", whose primary meaning is "comrade", a form of address beloved of Communists for decades. One of the compilers said they did not want to draw attention to its more colloquial meaning. The newly-revised sixth edition of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary has 69,000 entries, 13,000 Chinese characters and more than 3,000 new phrases. They include internet slang such as "geili" - meaning awesome - and such non-Chinese expressions as PM2.5, which refers to a pollution indicator for particulate matter. But "tongzhi" - in colloquial Chinese the equivalent of "gay" as in "homosexual" - is not among them. Linguist Jiang Lansheng, one of the compilers of the dictionary, said in a Chinese television interview: "We knew about the usage but we can't include it." "You can use the word whichever way you like, but we won't put it into a standard dictionary because we don't want to promote these things. We don't want to draw attention to these things."

Quote of the Day (32)

19 Feb 2012 - Love this quote / picture which was posted on Facebook. Sorry - I don't know who the photographer is, or where the picture was taken.It could be Haiti, but that's French speaking. It must be West Africa (Liberia?) or Kenya? Zimbabwe? RSA?

Goats Have Accents

19 Feb. 2012 - Pygmy goats can develop "accents" as they grow older, according to scientists. The young animals, known as "kids", are raised in groups or "creches" with goats of a similar age. Researchers found that when young goats mixed in these social groups their calls became more similar. The animals join an elite group of mammals known to adapt a vocal sound in response to the environment that includes humans, bats and whales. Dr Elodie Briefer and Dr Alan McElligott from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at the University of London, UK published their results in the journal Animal Behaviour. In order to test the goats' vocal repertoire they recorded calls at one-week-old and again when they were aged five weeks.

"Five weeks corresponds to the time when, in the wild, they join their social group after spending some time hidden in vegetation to avoid predators," Dr Briefer explained. "We found that genetically-related kids produced similar calls... but the calls of kids raised in the same social groups were also similar to each other, and became more similar as the kids grew older. This suggests that goat kids modify their calls according to their social surroundings, developing similar 'accents'." Young goats live in creches with their siblings and others. Dr Briefer suggested that the social structure of the goats could be the motivator behind the convergence in calls. "This could act as a 'group member badge' allowing them to identify members of the group, differentiate them from members of other groups, and increase group cohesion," she told BBC Nature."This is especially important in goats, because they live in complex social groups that split during the day and come back together at night." Scientists suggest that the ability to modify a sound rather than making calls limited by genetics could be more widespread than previously thought.

No Germs

22  Jan . 2012 - Photographer Ton Koene is in Hong Kong, and I hope he does not mind that I took one of his pictures for my blog. I used to work Ton in MSF, and I admire how has been able to carve out a successful career as a photographer for himself. His book with pictures from Afghanistan is a "must have". It is also very interesting to see how Ton portrays Hong Kong. From his pictures and comments (eg. on Facebook) he seems fascinated by the 'City of Buzz", but he also captures the somewhat awkward and "clean" side of Hong Kong very well. He already posted some beautiful pictures of the concrete jungle and of some of Hog Kong's most eccentric creatures , but I also love this picture, as it so well captures the paranoia for ... well... practically everything 'unclean'. Thanks Ton Koene - and please visit his website www.tonkoene.nl for more eye candy.

Great Picture (37)

22 Jan. 2012 - And another picture that I picked from the Internet. I don't know where this picture was taken, but probably from a military training camp in China (could be Taiwan, Vietnam or even Singapore/Myanmar?). There is a lot to see (... :-) ), but look at the expression on these guys' (boys'?) faces. Some seem to enjoy themselves, others don't care or are simply embarrassed. There are also some guys "passers-by" in the background, who seem to be out for a sunday stroll, which makes the whole setting even more bizar! Great picture.

Great Picture (36)

22 Jan 2012 - Some pictures show us such beautiful landscapes that I wonder if they are photo-shopped or not. But this picture - from the Swiss Torism Board - is suppsed to be real. "Moon over the Alps" - it is truely amazing. Sometimes I miss Europe...

Popcorn

19 Jan 2012 -  A new study suggests that people living along the coast of northern Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Researchers say corncobs found at an ancient site in Peru suggest that the inhabitants used them for making flour and popcorn. Scientists from Washington's Natural History Museum say the oldest corncobs they found dated from 4700BC. They are the earliest ever discovered in South America. The curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, Dolores Piperno, says maize was first domesticated in Mexico nearly 9,000 years ago from a wild grass. Ms Piperno says that her team's research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that only a few thousand years later maize arrived in South America, where it evolved into different varieties now common in the Andean regions. Her team discovered the maize in the archaeological sites of Paredones and Huaca Prieta. "This evidence further indicated that in many areas corn arrived before pots did, and that early experimentation with corn as a food was not dependent on the presence of pottery," Ms Piperno explained. She says that at the time, though, maize was not yet an important part of their diet.

Mass Disease

17 Jan. 2012 - It is nothing new, but mass gatherings, such as the London 2012 Olympics, can be a hotbed of diseases from across the world, public health experts have warned. They say it can have consequences for the host nation and for people when they return to their own countries. There are also important issues to consider in handling large numbers of people, they say. A series of reports, in The Lancet infectious disease journal has been highlighting the risks. The theory is that so many people, packed closely together, increases the risk of diseases spreading. Prof Ibrahim Abubakar, from the University of East Anglia, writes that there are risks from diseases already in the host country and from the home countries of the visitors. He highlighted religious or music festivals and major sporting events as mass gatherings which could have a public health risk, such as an influenza outbreak during World Youth Day in 2008 in Australia. One report said increased air travel and the spread of diseases could have "potentially serious implications to health, security, and economic activity worldwide".

2050

13 Jan 2012 - The global research department of HSBC has released a report predicting the rise and fall of the world’s economies in the next 40 years. The world’s top economy in 2050 will be China, followed by the United States. No surprises there – since China’s reforms in the 1980s, economists have said it’s not a question of if, but when, China’s collective economic might will top the U.S. But among the smaller, developing nations, there are several surprises by HSBC prognosticators:
* By 2050, the Philippines will leapfrog 27 places to become the world’s 16^th largest economy.
* Peru’s economy, growing by 5.5% each year, jumping 20 places to 26^th place – ahead of Iran, Columbia and Switzerland. Other strong performers will be Egypt (up 15 places to 20th), Nigeria (up nine places to 37^th), Turkey (up six spots to 12^th), Malaysia (up 17 to 21^st) and the Ukraine (up 19 to 45^th).
* Japan’s working population will contract by a world-top 37% in 2050 – yet HSBC economists predict it will still be toward the top performing economies, dropping only one spot to the 4^th largest economy. India will jump ahead of Japan to 3^rd on the list.
* The big loser in the next 40 years will be advanced economies in Europe, HSBC predicts, who will see their place in the economic pecking order erode as working population dwindles and developing economies climb. Only five European nations will be in the top 20, compared to eight today.  Biggest drop will be felt northern Europe: Denmark to 56^th ( -29), Norway to 48^th ( -22), Sweden to 38^th (-20) and  Finland to 57^th (-19).

Crying Babies

12 Jan. 2012 - New mums should be advised that it is normal for their baby to cry more if they are breastfed, say experts. The Medical Research Council team says this irritability is natural, and although formula-fed babies may appear more content and be easier to pacify, breast is still best. If parents have more realistic expectations more may stick with breastfeeding, they hope. Most UK mums try to breastfeed. Within months the rate drops to a third. The Department of Health recommends that mothers exclusively breastfeed for the first six months after birth.
The most common reason given for women to stop breastfeeding is that "Breast milk alone didn't satisfy my baby", which the MRC scientists say reflects their perception of irritability as a negative signal. But they say this crankiness in babies is normal and just their natural way of communicating their needs to their mother and is no cause for alarm. For example, some cries will be down to tiredness not hunger. And the reason formula babies are so serene could well be because they are overfed. Lead investigator Dr Ken Ong said: "Bottle-fed babies may appear more content, but research suggests that these infants may be overnourished and gain weight too quickly. "Our findings are essentially similar to other stages of life; people often find that eating is comforting."
In their study, they asked more than 300 mums to comment on the temperament of their own baby and to state whether they were using breast or bottle. Overall, 137 of the infants were exclusively breastfed, 88 were exclusively bottle-fed, and 91 were fed with a mixture of formula and breast milk. Breastfed babies were deemed to have "more challenging temperaments" and tended to cry more. Rosie Dodds, of the National Childbirth Trust, said the new observations were useful for parents. "Mothers and babies may experience starting to breastfeed as demanding or stressful in this society where bottle-feeding is seen as the norm and breastfeeding is unfamiliar to many new parents. "It would be interesting to compare this with countries where almost all babies are breastfed."We often hear from mothers who say that once both they and their baby got the hang of it, breastfeeding was a breeze."

Cyberworms

8 Jan. 2012 -  I am not into Twitter, but I do Facebook and of course there is this blog. Like many people I frequently serve the internet, and I am sometimes struggling to remember all the different passwords. Buit passwords are important, no vital! BBC reports that a computer worm has stolen 45,000 login credentials from Facebook, according to security experts. The data is believed to have been taken largely from Facebook accounts in the UK and France, according to security firm Seculert. The culprit is a well-known piece of malware - dubbed Ramnit - which has been around since April 2010 and has previously stolen banking details.
Facebook told the BBC that it was looking into the issue. The latest iteration of the worm was discovered in Seculert's labs. "We suspect that the attackers behind Ramnit are using the stolen credentials to login to victims' Facebook accounts and to transmit malicious links to their friends, thereby magnifying the malware's spread even further," said the researchers. "In addition, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the fact that users tend to use the same password in various web-based services to gain remote access to corporate networks," it added. I need to be more careful,.

Supersoldiers

6 Jan 2011 - Ants can be programmed to become "supersoldiers", according to an international team of researchers. All ant colonies are made up of insects of different "castes", including soldiers and workers. This team worked out how to "trick" developing ant larvae to turn into a rare and unusual supersoldier caste.

The breakthrough, the researchers say, reveals that hidden traits could be unlocked in many species.
 Dr Ehab Abouheif from McGill University in Montreal led the team, which found that treating ant larvae with a hormone at a very specific time during their development turned those ants into the giant supersoldiers. The scientists managed to achieve this in two ant species that do not "naturally" have the supersoldier caste as part of their colony. Dr Abouheif and his team studied Pheidole ants - a large group of more than 1,000 related species. Of those, there are just eight that have a so-called supersoldiers, which help protect the colony by blocking the entrance from invaders using their oversized heads.
The idea of attempting to "programme" developing ants to become these giant soldiers was triggered when Dr Abouheif noticed that another common Pheidole ant species, which does not have any supersoldiers in its colony, had a few strangely big-headed colony members. "We were collecting [the ants] on Long Island, New York, and we noticed some monstrous-looking soldiers," Dr Abouheif said. The apparently mutant ants looked just like the rare supersoldier caste of related species, so the scientists set out to find out what had caused them to take that form. "We understand a lot about how these different castes are produced during development of the ant larvae," said Dr Abouheif. Supersoldiers are much larger than worker ants of the same species

When a queen lays eggs, he explained, each egg can develop into a different caste depending on the environment it is in - the temperature it develops at and the nutrition it receives. But the key to "switching" into a specific cast is controlled to a large extent by one chemical inside the eggs, which is called juvenile hormone. "So if you treat any species at the right time in development, just with a hormone, you can induce the development of the supersoldier," explained Dr Abouheif.

One Billion Apps

4 Jan. 2012 - I just bought my first-ever smartphone and started downloading Apps. Little did I know that I contributed to a new record! The BBC reports that for the first time in a single week, more than a billion apps have been downloaded, according to a study. Analytics firm Flurry said 1.2 billion apps were downloaded in the last week of December. Activity was buoyed by the facts that many users received new devices for Christmas and firms offered discounted apps over the holiday period. The US was responsible for nearly half of the downloads, followed by China and the UK. With 81 million downloads, the UK easily surpassed Canada (41 million), Germany (40 million) and France (40 million). It was beaten to second spot by China with 99 million downloads. The US was out ahead with 509 million. Flurry thinks this level of download activity will become more standard. "Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one billion download barrier per week will become more commonplace," the firm said. "While [Apple] iOS and [Google] Android growth continues to amaze, the market is still by all measures relatively nascent." Unsurprisingly, Christmas proved a boom time for device makers. Flurry estimated that nearly seven million Android devices and iPhones were activated on Christmas Day. Apple does not disclose such figures but Google confirmed that more than 3.7 million Android devices were activated over the Christmas weekend.

The End of the World

3 Jan 2012 - Stories like these - from the Daily Mail - freak me out. Thousands of dead herring have been discovered washed up on a north Norwegian beach - prompting Doomsday predictors to hail it as another sign the world is set to end. More than 20 tonnes of the fish is currently carpeting the beach of Kvaenes, in Nordreisa, with experts views differing on how they have to be there. One thing is for sure, it will provide welcome ammunition to those believing the Mayan prophecy that 2012 will bring the end of Earth. Jan-Petter Jorgenson, 44, was walking with his doggy Molly when he found the stinky haul. He said: 'People say that something similar happened in the 80s. Maybe the fish have been caught in a deprived oxygen environment, and then died of fresh water?' Experts have said the school could have been trapped by tidal waters after predatory fish - such as coalfish - chased them towards the shoreline.  Another theory is that the fish were washed ashore during a recent storm, or trapped in shallow waters and affected by freshwater from a river that flows into the bay. Jens Christian Holst, of the Institute of Marine Research, said several factors could have come together at once. And he said he hoped they would be able to conduct tests on the dead fish to see if they had died of a disease.  The incident in Norway is not the only mass death mystery over the New Year. On Sunday, 200 blackbirds mysteriously fell from the sky in a small Arkansas town - although officials now believe the birds were targeted by someone with fireworks, experts say. Last month 25 dead horses were discovered at the bottom of a cliff near Glenn Innes, New England. And similarly bizarre and unexplained massacres took place on the opening days of last year, with millions of spot fish washing up in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, more blackbirds dying in Arkansas, and masses of marine life dying in Louisiana bayou.

Legionnaires' Disease

3 Jan. 2012 - Hong Kong's brand-new government headquarters compound is contaminated with a bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease, officials have confirmed. Health officials conducted an investigation after a minister was hospitalised with the potentially fatal disease last month. Traces of the bacteria were found to be up to 14 times above acceptable levels. Authorities are now disinfecting the buildings. Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection has been collecting water samples from various sites in the new Central Government Offices after Education Secretary Michael Suen was diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease last month. Samples collected from various toilets - including those at the office of Chief Executive Donald Tsang - tested positive for Legionella pneumophila, said a a government statement. Other trouble spots include water taps inside the kitchens of a canteen and the Dining Hall in the Legislative Council Complex. Wong Kwok-hing, a pro-Beijing unionist legislator, has described the news as a "scandal". He says government offices and the legislature should return to their original locations if the situation gets worse, reported local public broadcaster RTHK. However Dr Thomas Tsang, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, said there was no need for officials to stay away from the new building. The HK$5.5bn site ($708m; £455m) was officially opened last August by Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang. Back then, most of the site was still undergoing engineering work.  Former legislator and physician Lo Wing-lok blamed a rushed move into the new compound for the presence of the deadly bug

Grim Year Ahead

2 Jan 2012 - It is only the second day of the year, but the optimistic feelings linked to new beginnings are already fading.  European leaders have warned of a difficult year ahead, as many economists predict recession in 2012. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe was experiencing its "most severe test in decades" but that Europe was growing closer in the debt crisis. France's President Sarkozy said the crisis was not finished, while Italy's president called for more sacrifices. Growth in Europe has stalled as the debt crisis has forced governments to slash spending.No doubt, these trends will also have a negative impact on growth in Asia and elsewhere. The leaders' new year messages came as leading economists polled by the BBC said they expected a return to recession. The cost of borrowing for some of the eurozone's largest economies, including Italy and Spain, has shot up in recent months as lenders fear governments will not be able to pay back money they have already borrowed. With growth stalled, the pressure is on governments across Europe, not just ones using the single currency, to cut spending in order to meet debt obligations. Fears are now focusing on a potential second credit crunch, triggered by the exposure of banks across Europe to Italy's huge debt. So once more, Happy New Year?

Shrinking Brain

1 Jan. 2012 - Happy 2012. A new year is traditionally a good time for new resolutions, for example to finally go on that diet and loose some weight. researchers have now published results that may increase motivation for the diet die-hards. A diet rich in vitamins and fish may protect the brain from ageing while junk food has the opposite effect, research suggests. Elderly people with high blood levels of vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids had less brain shrinkage and better mental performance, a neurology study found. Trans fats found in fast foods were linked to lower scores in tests and more shrinkage typical of Alzheimer's. A UK medical charity has called for more work into diet and dementia risk. The best current advice is to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, not smoke, take regular exercise and keep blood pressure and cholesterol in check, said Alzheimer's Research UK. Dr Simon Ridley Alzheimer's Research UK. The research looked at nutrients in blood, rather than relying on questionnaires to assess a person's diet. US experts analysed blood samples from 104 healthy people with an average age of 87 who had few known risk factors for Alzheimer's. They found those who had more vitamin B, C, D and E in their blood performed better in tests of memory and thinking skills. People with high levels of omega 3 fatty acids - found mainly in fish - also had high scores. The poorest scores were found in people who had more trans fats in their blood. Trans fats are common in processed foods, including cakes, biscuits and fried foods.