After initial research done by the Shanghai Children's Hospital and Shanghai Environmental Protection Industry Association in a study last year, the answer is: well, yeah maybe. In a study of 30 children with leukemia, it was discovered that 15 came from homes with furniture or decor with excessive formaldehyde discharge. more ›

For those of you that haven't been able to pluck yourself out of that sinking feeling, Xinhua has a scientific explanation for it — our city has been sinking! In fact, geologists say it's sunk 7.5 millimetres this year, with "severe subsidence" of 8.3 millimetres detected in downtown areas. The sinking's been caused by heavy construction as well as water being pumped out of underground aquifers for "industrial and agricutural purposes" which has now been... more ›

... at least that is what Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas would have us believe (h/t to Danwei). She recently wrote in to China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou after reading his opinion piece on recent comments by Chinese celebrity Sun Haiying (孙海英) who not too long ago ignited a huge debate with his comments that homosexuality was unequivocally "criminal in nature" ("同性恋就是犯罪“):

Dear Raymond more ›

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa... more ›

There now seems to be something Beijing has that Shanghai doesn't -- hospital clowns. The clowns work in several hospitals, including the large Women and Children's Hospital, as well as orphanages and schools for the children of migrant workers. Magic Hospital, the Beijing-based charity that organizes this, was the brainchild of German Claudia Vogg. The article notes that the hospital clown is a more familiar figure in the West than in China. Certainly China does not yet have anyone like Shobhana Schwebke (try saying that five times fast!), aka Shobi Dobi the Clown, who publishes the Hospital Clown Newsletter , which is probably one of the most informative sites you can find on anything relating to hospital clowns and the therapeutic effects of clowns and laughter. You can find out where clown conferences and festivals are being held or buy Japanese books on hospital clowns. more ›

• The BBC, long blocked by Chinese web censors, appears to be following in Google's footsteps regarding the internet in China. Shanghaiist finds foreign news organizations self censoring more disturbing than search engines. Who is next?
• Wu Xianghu, the deputy editor of the Taizhou Evening News, "died of liver and kidney failure after he was severely beaten by police enraged by reports in his newspaper about their work." He was 41. ESWN has photos of the attack. Taizhou is in Zhejiang province.
• Another way of looking at coal mine accident stats in China.