The tallest tower in China, 492m was opened to the public today; its panoramic observation post, the highest in the world at 474m, gives an unobstructed view of the city.

From now on the tower casts a shadow over the former tallest tower in Shanghai, the Jin Mao, 420m.

The 6 tallest towers in the world today :

1. The Burj, Dubai (~800m)
2. The Shanghai World Financial Center (492m)
3. The International Commerce Centre of Hong-Kong (484m)
4. The Dubai Tower, Doha (445m)
5. The Trump International Hotel, Chicago (415m)
6. The Princess Tower, Dubai (400m)

The Shanghai World Financial Center by night :

An intrepid worker :

The highest observatory post in the world, on three levels :

Informations

• Shanghai World Financial Center (french: Centre Mondial des Finances de Shanghai , chinese).
• 492,3 meters (second tallest tower in the world)
• 101 floors
• 31 lifts
• Cost: 8,17 billion yuans (800 million euros)
• Architecture firm: Kohn Pedersen Fox (New York)

Woman from Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province has given birth to a 6.5-kilogram (14-pound) baby yesterday, the size of a six-month-old.

The baby is completely healthy but stunned the medical staff as they didn’t even have a birth scale to weight him.

The instrument was made to celebrate the take off of the space shuttle Shenzhou 7. Made of nine solid gold bars mounted on a rose wood dragon, the xylophone symbolises the success of the Chinese spatial adventure.

Apparently, in China silence is not golden…

A woman tastes one of southern Italy’s full-bodied red wines, near Guagnano, in Puglia, the heel of boot-shaped Italy. Red wine has been touted as beneficial to cardiovascular health, but new research suggests that drinking more than a certain amount of that favourite Merlot or Shiraz may actually be harmful over time. (Pier Paolo Cito/Associated Press)

It’s been quite a decade for wine sales in Canada. In 2007, Canadians spent $5 billion on wine — an increase of 9.5 per cent from the year before, according to figures from Statistics Canada.

Canada’s love affair with fermented grape juice really began taking off in the late 1990s, when wine accounted for 21 per cent of sales of all alcoholic beverages across the country. Since then, market share for beer and spirits has been declining while wine’s popularity has been increasing. It now accounts for 28 per cent of the alcoholic beverage market.

Most of that growth has been due to a surge in red wine sales. Since 2000, sales of red wine are up by 130 per cent compared to a 33 per cent increase for white wine. Sales of red outpace sales of white in every province except New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The wine tide appears to have turned in the late 1990s when research about red wine’s potential health benefits began to surface.

The benefits of red wine appear to be linked to the presence of resveratrol, melatonin and flavonoids.

Flavonoids are thought to help protect the body from cancer because of their antioxidant properties. They help the body neutralize certain free radicals that can trigger the cellular activity that may lead to cancer.

Melatonin — a substance present in red wine and some foods and that humans naturally produce in small amounts — is thought to delay the oxidative damage and inflammatory processes typical of old age.

Resveratrol is produced naturally by grape skins during red wine’s fermentation process. Several studies have suggested that resveratrol may explain the “French paradox” — why the French appear to be able to consume a diet higher in fat than the norm while enjoying a comparatively lower incidence of heart disease.

High doses of the chemical appear to mimic the effects that a 20 to 30 per cent reduction in calories in the typical diet would have. Researchers say such a diet is effective at prolonging life in many species.

A study released in June 2008 found that not only is resveratrol effective at protecting the heart at high doses, but it can also be effective at low doses beginning in middle age, leading to a healthier heart and better quality of life in old age.

Red wine has been credited with more than keeping your heart healthy and delaying the aging process. It has also shown promising results in preventing prostate cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, leukemia and some common food-borne illnesses.

Not all effects are positive

But the long list of potential health benefits does not necessarily mean red wine should be a staple in every household.

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, and pregnant women — or women contemplating having a baby — should avoid alcohol. It can be dangerous to the fetus.

Alcohol can also increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. Two drinks a day can increase a healthy woman’s risk by 10 per cent — or more if there is a family history of the disease.

Red wine can also trigger migraines in people who are susceptible to them, probably because of the accumulation of histamines and tannins from prolonged contact with the skin of the grape during the fermentation process.

Wine can also elevate your triglyceride levels. High triglyceride levels are associated with health problems such as diabetes.

Drinking wine — or any other alcoholic beverage — can also lead to weight gain. A glass of wine contains about 120 calories and no nutrients — that is, empty calories. Get together with friends, have a few glasses of wine along with a small plate of hors d’oeuvres, and you’re approaching your total recommended caloric intake for the entire day. If you’re not active, before long, your waistline will be in expansion mode.

Worldwide, drinking causes almost as much harm as smoking, according to the World Health Organization. The agency estimates that alcohol causes 1.8 million deaths around the world every year; about a third of those deaths are accidents that could have been avoided.

The WHO also estimates that worldwide, alcohol causes or plays a role in 20 per cent to 30 per cent of all cases of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicide, epileptic seizures and traffic accidents.

Even in France, attempts have been made to make the country more aware of the potential pitfalls of alcohol. A 2005 report urged the French government to snap out of its state of national denial and take urgent steps to address the problems of alcohol abuse. The report found that alcohol was directly responsible for 23,000 deaths a year in France and indirectly responsible for 22,000 more.

The report’s author, Hervé Chabalier, said one person in 10 in the country is ill because of the effects of alcohol.

To confront the crisis, some agents have increased their imagination. The employees from a real estate agency in Wuhan are thereby disguised in taikonaute costumes…

Are these agents ready to promise the moon ?

The city of Quanzhou in the Fujian province welcomes the competition this year. The « Peasants’ Games » have taken place every 4 years since 1988. More than 6,000 peasant athletes contest in more than 200 events.

Besides traditional athletic events, basketball, ping-pong, imagine a series of traditional peasants sports such as a dragon boat regatta or a line fishing competition, kite flying, lion dancing or aerobic chanting.

The opening ceremony

The delegation parade

Here are some things I’ve learned from Godzilla, Gamera, Star Wars, etc.

-Any animal which isn’t a human will grow 50 times its size when exposed to some sort of radiation.

-If some exotic pet escapes from its cage, it will likewise grow to immense proportions.

-No matter what city you’re in, the streets are always wide enough so that giant monsters could walk on it.

-Many monsters, even machines, are somehow depicted in ancient myths.

-It takes only a few seconds to pick a name for an unknown giant monster.

-If a monster is evil, it has enough energy to spout an infinite number of energy beams from its mouth. If it’s a good guy, it can only shoot at most 2 energy beams before it nearly collapses of exhaustion.

-A monster’s energy beam can effortlessly destroy a huge, heavily armored robot, but takes 5 seconds to shoot through buildings.

-No matter where you are, there’s always a clearing big enough for almost a dozen monster to rumble in.

-Giant flowers are always a problem. They’ll either blow up in a mile wide explosion, or they’ll mutate into vine-whipping, acid-spitting atrocities.

-It takes all the electricity in a city to power a handful of tanks.

-The power of a missle is inversly proportional to how much you talk about its “capabilities”.

-Aliens wear pimped out jackets and know martial arts.

-If there’s an object you need to destroy quickly, it will always have a near-inpenetrable energy sheild.

-When you see an ordinary building and its name pops up in the subtitles, the building will be destroyed in about 15 minutes.

-When fighting monsters, the infantry soldiers always carry machine guns.

-If you have a strange looking lightsaber, you are one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy.

-Tiny spaceships never get destroyed. Huge kilometer-wide starships will be destroyed in a matter of minutes.

-A pistol is enough to kill a horde of man-sized creatures.

-Anything with wings or an extra body cavity can fly.

-People will always leave their homes with the lights on.

-Monsters can stand knee-high in the middle of the sea.

-In order to swim, monsters only need to bob their bodies up and down.

-A big drill can pierce right through armor. Nuclear beams can’t.

-Red energy beams are hotter and more powerful than blue or white beams.

-Any monster which has more than one energy beam will be nearly impossible to kill.

-A shell can withstand energy beams but not missles.

-No matter what, the hot female character will always hang out with the ugly geek.

-Global warming doesn’t melt ice caps or change the weather. It instead causes giant eggs to hatch or animals to go crazy.

-Any attack that has a whirly sound effect will hurt like crap.

-Flimsy towers can easily support giant insects or birds.

-Energy beams can be shot from the mouth, eyes, hands, nose, chest, knees, and wings.

-If someone constructs a weapon but accidentally shoots it at the “good guy” monster, it will prove lethal.

-If you have wings or more than one head, it takes over 3 monsters to beat you, and over 11 monsters to actually kill you.

-All military facilities have a screen which shows a perfect picture of the attacking monsters.

-Repairing a heavily damaged, 40 story robot takes a week.

I woke up Sunday morning and stuck my head out the window, hopeful that my friends who were running the ING New York City Marathon would have good weather. They were in luck: Beautiful sunny skies and cold-but-not-too-cold temperatures made for great racing conditions. While I know that some of us on the sidelines were quite chilly, I’ll bet the runners were quite thankful for the almost-perfect autumn day.

Pretty soon, though, these crisp autumn mornings will turn into bitter cold winter days; I’ve already noticed that it’s been harder and harder to get up and run in the mornings as the temperature drops and the wind picks up. And while some runners embrace the cold and will keep running outdoors through the new year, I tend to retreat to the gym during the winter—to the dreaded treadmill.

There are certainly pros and cons to both running on a treadmill or on the road, many of which have already been discussed in this blog. Now here’s one more point for the treadmill: If you run at the gym (or in your home, if you’ve got the setup) while facing a mirror, you may not feel like you’re working as hard. According to British research published this year in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, study participants who watched themselves in a mirror while running on a treadmill used oxygen more efficiently than those who had no reflection to watch. Watching the rhythmic movement of your own legs can apparently help your mind and body relax and get into the zone, making the effort seem easier, reports Women’s Health magazine.

Do you spend your winter workouts indoors or outdoors? What are your tricks for making them easier? Regardless of where you exercise, it’s important to keep it up over the next few months of cold weather and holiday celebrations. New research from the past two weeks piles on the evidence that regular physical activity is imperative to your health.

• For people with type 2 diabetes, aerobic exercise combined with resistance training was shown to improve glucose control, physical performance, and body fat composition in a three-month study by University of Utah researchers.
• Normal-weight women who frequently carry out vigorous activity (heavy house and yard work such as scrubbing floors, washing windows, digging, or chopping wood) or strenuous exercise (running, aerobics, fast dancing, and biking on hills) are 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who don’t, found a National Cancer Institute study of more than 32,000 women.
• People who are physically active may have less severe problems in the event of a stroke and may recover more successfully than those who do not exercise, found a Danish study of 265 people.
• And in an animal study, researchers found that if obese individuals abruptly stop a regular exercise routine—something we all may be tempted to do when the weather gets cold—the disruption may quickly lead to symptoms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition that affects at least 75% of obese people.

Homer: All right brain, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you.
But let’s just get me through this, and I can get back to killing

you with beer.

Brain: It’s a deal!

There are many myths about our brains, such as we use only 10 percent of our brain — and many other amazing facts, as revealed in a fascinating new book by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, two leading neuroscientists.

They write in their book that not only that we don’t use just 10 percent of our brain, but also that even simple tasks actually produce activity throughout the entire brain.

Many people like this old myth because it gives them a hope that they could do so much more if they could use even a tiny bit of that other 90 percent.

Yawning is often related to sleepiness and boredom but it actually wake up our brain activities. We get more oxygen into our blood system while yawning.

Blind people hear better - this is also a myth, because, when tested, blind people are not better at detecting faint sounds. But they do have better memory. Since they can’t rely on their vision, they constantly rely on their memory and it seams that this improves some other abilities by taking advantage of brain space that isn’t being used for vision.

Playing video games practices multi-tasking and this increases one’s abilityto pay attention to many things at the same time. In one study, college students who played action games regularly processed information more quickly, could track more objects at once, and had better task-switching abilities. So, allowing your children to play computer games may not be such a bad thing after all.

Another myth about our brain is that we are more intelligent if our brain is bigger - after all, Einstein’s brain was no larger than the average person’s.

Exercise helps keep your brain fit. Not sudoku or crosswords. In fact, exercise is the single most useful thing you can do to maintain your cognitive abilities later in life; elderly people who have been athletic all their lives do much better mentally than sedentary people of the same age.

Stupid tunes are hard to forget. There’s nothing more annoying than the line of a song playing over and over again in your head. Blame it on your brain’s ability to recall sequences. We need to remember sequences every day, from the movements involved in signing your name or in making coffee, to the correct route you need to take off the motorway to get home.
One way is to introduce other sequences that interfere with the reinforcement of the memory. So find another infectious song, and hope the cure doesn’t become more annoying than the original problem!

Talk about bringing solar power to the palm of your hand!
The World’s Smallest Solar Racing Car is a tiny, fully-functional solar powered vehicle topped with a minuscule photovoltaic panel.When one thinks of toy cars for little ones, one typically conjures up images of die-cast Matchbox race cars with broad white stripes and tail fins. But in this new era of innovative product design - where the battery-packed has been redefined, it is refreshing to find renewable energy alternatives to toy cars and trucks as we know them.

Certainly too small to be a flashy Formula One kiddie vehicle or even drivable for that matter, but what this Lilliputian roadster lacks in size, it totally makes up for in power – real green zip power – not to mention full-throttle cuteness!

The World’s Smallest Solar Racing Car is a fully functional solar vehicle that is topped with a miniscule solar panel that amazingly generates enough electricity to turn run a small electric motor with four wheels attached. Measuring only 33×22×14 millimeters, it can run on solar power alone, or even on the light of a strong indoor source.

I think that it makes a great showcase for solar technology, and though it is definitely too bite-size to let small babies or toddlers play with, it serves as a fun example of future-forward design for the next generation and possibly the greener gadget geniuses in our midst.

As its name implies, the Select Solar Mini Racer can be run entirely on solar power, but can also be powered by the artificial light of a strong indoor source. We think it looks like a great educational eco-friendly toy for little kids and big kids (and your inner kid) alike. The Solar Mini is a fabulous showcase of solar technology, and it’s adorable to boot. Plus at a mere £11.99 it certainly is the most affordable solar car on the market.