That's right, he's done it again folks! Professor Cao Yilin is the chief director of the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Tissue Engineering at Jiaotong University, as well as a plastic surgeon at No. 9 People's Hospital, and he's been growing human ears on mice since before Justin Bieber was born. He eventually won fame and fortune in 2001 and received 300 million yuan (US$47 million) in research funding as a result. But now he's come under fire from former colleagues who claim his earmice weren't REAL earmice... or something. more ›

• Chinese Scientists Reprogram Cells to Create Mice [WSJ] "Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. The reprogramming may bring scientists one step closer to creating medically useful stem-cell lines for treating human disease without having to resort to controversial laboratory techniques. However, the advance poses fresh ethical challenges because the results could make it easier to create human clones and babies with specific genetic traits."
• Chinese Art, Still Invest-Worthy [GlobalPost] "Compared to the stock market, or nearly any other place one can put one’s money these days, Chinese contemporary art still looks like a very good investment. Recent art auctions in Hong Kong have registered sales at the high end of their estimates, even though the targets the auction houses are setting for themselves are less ambitious today than previous years. The owners of some of the best Beijing galleries said the shakeout promises to be a positive development for dealers, but also for artists. No one likes a bubble and there was growing concern that easy riches were destroying creativity by encouraging Chinese artists to go after major sales, rather than the real thing."
• It's Electric: Chinese Streets Full of Popular Electric Bicycles [FOXNews] "The bicycle was a vivid symbol of China in more doctrinaire communist times, when virtually no one owned a car. Even now, nearly two decades after the country began its great leap into capitalism, it still has 430 million bicycles by government count, outnumbering electric bikes and scooters 7-1. But production of electric two-wheelers has soared from fewer than 200,000 eight years ago to 22 million last year, mostly for the domestic market. The industry estimates about 65 million are on Chinese roads."

• As Chinese art market crashes, many artists applaud [csmonitor.com] "Chinese artists were seen as ATMs," says Jerome Sans, director of the nonprofit Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. "Maybe now they'll stop creating for the market and create for the mind."
• Wine producers pin hopes on China in tough times [AFP] "Wine producers are pinning their hopes for growth during the financial crisis on a country that only recently entered the ranks of the world's top ten wine drinking countries — China. Wine bars and speciality wine stores have flourished in Shanghai, which prides itself of being the nation's most cosmopolitan city, and have quickly become part of the landscape."
• Reports: China auto sales 1.03 million in March [Forbes] "Preliminary figures show auto sales in China rose to at least 1.03 million in March, exceeding U.S. sales for the third month in a row, state media reports said Wednesday. Sales data from 14 major auto makers, accounting for roughly 90 percent of total sales, totaled 1.026 million, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Securities News said, citing Chen Bin, head of the Department of Industry at China's main economic planning agency."

A Beijing clinic has apparently skipped all the controversy surrounding using stem cells and jumped right to marketing it as a way to rejuvenate your face. more ›