Perhaps those who have little or no Chinese should be careful about reproducing putative translations of Chinese phrases - 'tibiwangzi' (unfortunately, this site does not permit the Chinese glyphs to be reproduced) says nothing at all about paper, but rather means '[after]lifting the pen, [realising that one has] forgotten the glyph (character)', which makes much more sense in this context. As to whether the Chinese (and the Japanese) should adopt a phonetic alphabet, this debate started about 150 years ago and was most intense during the first half of the last century ; as far as I know, the subject is no longer current....

Henri

Weren't we told that these organism are perfectly safe - that they would never survive in the wild ? Is Monsanto, which has made a practice of suing farmers who inadvertently found patented organisms - what a farce ! - growing in their fields, going to sue the state of North Dakota for allowing these organisms to grow in cracks in their highways or in ditches along the sides ?... Henri

Chinese censorship bad, US censorship good (or at least acceptable). All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.... Henri

are going to have to force the United States to realise that the policy of denying the Chinese access to the global effort known as the International Space Station is bankrupt. Like it or not, the Chinese possess both the scientific and the economic muscle to play an important role in humanity's attempt to jump out of our gravity well, coupled with a burning desire to do so, and we can no longer allow the vagaries of US foreign policy to hinder them from contributing to this task.... Henri