The parents of a young Chinese women dubbed “Avatar girl” have appealed for help for an operation to save their daughter’s life.

Twenty-two-year old Wu Xiaoyan’s parents have been unable to afford the medical costs and have had to watch helplessly as their beloved daughter’s face twisted out of shape – leaving her looking like one of the creations from the Avatar movie.

Doctor Liao Quiqing from the hospital that is treating her in Lishui Zhejang, Southern China said: “She now has a severe facial deformity – a Fibrous Dysplasia.

“She cannot breathe through her nose or smell and can no longer see properly. She is very brave and doesn’t complain but she must be in a lot of pain.

“Because her tumor has already occupied two-thirds of the face we want to remove it and then carry out chemotherapy and radiotherapy.”

But the family that has already spent £10,000 on treatment cannot afford the extra £20,000 needed to complete the surgery.

All the family members are farmers and have little more than £100 a month income each. In addition her mother has been incapacitated after a stroke and the father is struggling to look after her and continue to make a living.

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Beijing, Aug 24: Even though the pace of the movement of vehicles stuck in the 10-day long traffic jam in north China has marginally picked up, officials predict that the massive bumper-to-bumper gridlock may take another two weeks to dissolve.

The traffic jam, which spans several miles along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway, reportedly stems from road construction in Beijing. As of Tuesday, Aug 24, the jam has hit the 10-day mark.

Quoting an official of Zhangjiakou city’s Traffic Management Bureau, an international news agency reported that the traffic jam won’t be finished until the middle of next month (Sep 2010).

Zhang Minghai, director of Bureau general office said that the jam, that spreads across 60 miles (100 kilometers), with cars moving little more than a half-mile (one kilometer) a day at one point has improved since this weekend.

The traffic jam began on last Saturday, Aug 14 along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway, which records a 40 per cent surge in traffic volume every year.

According to the authorities, the traffic congestion escalated after coalfields were discovered in Inner Mongolia.

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Nothing beats spending a warm spring day in the park, playing football with your friends or tossin’ the old frisbee around with your beloved Australian cattle dog named Captain Fluffy. When you get too hot, you can grab a glass of water and take a seat in the shade of a tree.

Fourteen-month old Song Sheng of Jinhu, eastern China, will never be able to enjoy these luxuries, as he suffers from Lamellar ichthyosis, a rare genetic condition that left the poor child born without pores, causing his entire body to develop scales. This unfortunate outcome is due to his inability to sweat. He is instead cooled down through the use of giant bathtubs filled with ice.

Sadly, this primitive method of maintaining one’s cool, as it were, does little to alleviate the massive amounts of pain the poor child is in at all times. According to his father, Song Dehui, if they run out of ice, he develops a fever.

Sadly, there is no cure, though it can be treated. Despite this, Song Dehui is holding out hope for a cure, be it in the form of a folk remedy or a miracle.

A donation system has been set up at Journals Without Borders.

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Pics Courtesy:nopets.com

Bees are not in a prime position in our world. Experts are reporting that honeybee numbers around the planet are in sharp decline — more than 3 million colonies have died in America alone since 2006. Pesticides are thought to be the main culprit, and scientists are scrambling to find a solution before the insects are wiped out across the planet.

But the BBC reports that one city is swiftly turning those numbers around. Paris, City of Light and fashion capital of the world, is becoming the urban honeybee center. The city has more than 400 hives and growing, most of which reside atop apartment buildings, restaurants and in city parks. Some of the city’s most famous restaurants and landmarks now boast their own honey production. Anyone can keep a hive — it just has to be registered with the city veterinarian and be at least 82 feet from a school or hospital.

And the city bees are flourishing. Interestingly enough, they are not suffering the same problems as their country cousins. As Guillaume Charlot of the association L’Abeille de Grand Paris (Bee Keepers of Paris) told the BBC, “a metropolitan hive produces 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of honey in an average year, and up to 80 kg in a bumper season. A country bee-keeper is happy if he gets 30.” The situation for French country bees has been as dire as the rest of the world. The BBC reports that since 1995, about 100,000 French hives have been lost. Scientists point to pesticides but also blame the varroa mite and even possible cell phone use for decimating bee populations.

The same is not true for Parisian bees. Paris has an abundance of cultivated flowers year round to encourage honey making. The city has also been pesticide-free for more than 10 years, and it boasts warmer temperatures to stimulate early breeding. In the country, one crop of flowers may service an entire bee population. And once the nectar is used up, the bees move on or die. In Paris, bees can simply move to another rooftop. Studies done on Parisian honey shows that it contains up to 250 pollens as opposed to the 15 or 20 pollens in honey made by country bees.

Declining honeybee population is worrisome, and not just because people like their sweets. The honeybee is a critical part of the food chain because it cross-pollinates up to 90 percent of the planet’s key crops. As the Daily Mail reports, a world without bees would “mean a largely meatless diet of rice and cereals, no cotton for textiles, no orchards or wildflowers and decimation among wild birds and animals in the bee food chain.” For now, it seems that the decline of honeybees has been tempered in Paris.

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