Andre - Archive

Mahjong epilepsy is a "genuine phenomenon and a unique syndrome" according to Hong Kong's Queen Mary Hospital doctors. As they wrote in the latest issue of the Hong Kong Medical Journal, "playing mahjong is associated with considerable stress, especially when monetary bets are involved". This stress and sleep deprivation might lower the seizure threshold among susceptible players and the only cure for those might be to avoid the game.

Besides 3 cases in Hong Kong, only 20 other cases of mahjong epilepsy have been reported in medical literature - all of them in Taiwan.

... or open them. That depends on whether you are a Hong Kong boy or girl.

There are now only 961 men for every 1,000 women while just a decade ago, the sexes were equal in number. The results of the 2006 census showed that the number of unmarried women living on their own has jumped 43.8% in 5 years whereas the number of lone men has increased just 14.1%. Blame for this imbalance is mainly put on the trend among local men to marry mainlanders (China).

"Toilets Emergency", what a relief to see such sign at an airport. This picture was taken at Bangkok's new airport Suvarnabhumi. The sign is actually pointing to both toilets and an emergency exit but part of it is hidden behind a wall.

Following complaints about lack of toilets, there are now plenty of them and difficult to miss: some toilets have signs pointing into direction of next one including distance in meters.

Hong Kong's MTR (underground trains) will be the world's first to introduce wireless Internet through a high-speed WiFi network.

Trials by local service provider PCCW have been successfull and the service will first be introduced in station concourses and on platforms this summer and putting it in trains for access on the go will be the next step thereafter.

Given the much undeserved hype around the recently launched Apple iPhone, now it looks like there's indeed an iPhone Nano on the horizon. Just yesterday a friend was still joking about how silly that would be, having such a small phone.

If the "big" iPhone already feels "old" in terms of comparing technology features (apart from the memory size) to plenty of other mobile phones available at much cheaper prices and without fixed network providers, then what will iPhone Nano feel like? Even less functions than the big one, smaller in size... basically just an music player with phone capability.

Well guess what? I've already seen music players in "original MP3-player size" with integrated mobile phone and SMS function last year in China for a price Apple would just consider replacing an iPhone battery.

Believers of a secret plan by the cows to take over the world got their biggest confirmation yet: cows are a main source of greenhouse gas emissions. Contrary to popular belief, most of the gas does not come from a cow's rear end but through belching. An average dairy cow belches out about 100 to 200 liters of methane each day.

According to Michael Abberton, a scientist at the UK-based Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, the solution is to develop new varieties of food that are easier for cattle to digest and also provide a proper balance of fiber, protein and sugar.

"Most of the fathers disappeared after learning about the pregnancy, and some of the mothers did not even know the fathers' names," the China Daily said.