Residents in Luoyang, China were surely surprised when the nearby Jian River recently changed a brilliant blood-red. The shocking color change apparently has nothing to do with the end of days, but with chemical dyes dumped in the river from so-called “illegal workshops.” As startling as the appearance of the river, more troubling are reports that it is still unknown if the dye poses a health risk or even how long the Jian will remain red. I certainly wouldn’t go near it, that’s for sure.

See a video of the blood-red river, after the break.

Chinese furniture worker Wang Yongjun had the misfortune of cutting off the tip of his middle finger after a less than pleasant encounter with an electric saw. Naturally, he was immediately rushed to the hospital where doctors surveyed the damage and tried to figure out what they could do to save the digit. The finger was pretty mangled. All the muscle and skin were completely gone from the tip; only the bone was showing. In a bid to save what was left of the finger, Doctor Huang Xuesong came up with a novel solution. In his words: “We had to make a quick decision or he could have lost his finger. We decided to cultivate a new fingertip on his stomach.”

In 2007 and 2008, two U.S. satellites experienced strange interference on several occasions. The anomalies didn’t last, the longest period being just twelve minutes. However, a draft report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says that what the satellites experienced was an attempt to take control of the spacecraft by hackers on the ground, and names China as the most likely candidate.

The two satellites were Earth observing craft and were not involved in any national security operations. The first, the Landsat-7 satellite operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, encountered interference in October 2007 and June 2008. The second craft, the NASA operated Terra AM-1, had its bout of interference in June and October of 2008. The commission’s report claims that this interference was a failed attempt by a ground station to “lock on” to the satellite in order to send it commands. According to the report, the attack utilized the Svalbard Satellite Station in Spitsbergen, Norway.

While the claims made by the report are quite troubling in their own right, the report itself is disconcertingly short on information.

This shocking video from a Chinese airshow captures the heart-wrenching seconds before an FBC-1 “Flying Leopard” (Xian JH-7) nose dives straight into the ground. If you watch closely, you can see a pilot eject before the plane crashes. Chinese news sources are reporting that he is recovering, having suffered only mild injuries. However, the FBC-1 is a two-seater aircraft, and the second pilot is reported as “missing.”

This is the second crash of an FBC-1 since 2009.

Last week, China successfully placed the Tiangong-1 spacelab into orbit, giving the country its first foothold in space. The name of the module, launched aboard a Long March 2 rocket, translates roughly to “heavenly palace.” Expected to last around two years, the module will function as a testbed for automated docking procedures and will eventually support up to three astronauts for short stays onboard.

The entire Tiangong program has the potential to leap the Chinese space program forward by decades. It should be noted that although U.S. and Russian space agencies mastered docking about 40 years and have both operated space stations since the 1970s, China plans to accomplish all of these tasks within the lifespan of Tiangong-1. The first unmanned mission, Shenzhou 8, is expected later this year. Two manned missions, Shenzhou 9 and 10, will follow in 2012.

The ever famous game, Angry Birds has been ported to a nearly infinite amount of different platforms including Kinect, Google+, reality and cake, but this is the one you’ve all been waiting for: Angry Birds is coming to moon pieOS. The Angry Birds moon pies are an official, Rovio endorsed product for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and are being sold at the Hong Kong Angry Birds/Rovio store, a thing that also apparently exists.

The pies come in chocolate, mango, and pomelo flavors and are being sold in pairs for the equivalent of $5 U.S.. For the moment they are, sadly, available exclusively in China. Kiki Au, a young girl interviewed about the new product put it this way:

I’ve come here to buy the moon cakes because I like playing the game.

A poetically apt explanation of merchandising if ever there was one.

Video coverage after the jump.

On Wednesday the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd., operator of one of the largest stock exchanges in the world, halted trading for several companies after its website suffered a malicious attack. The attack is currently under investigation, and though trading has resumed on all companies the exact motive behind the attack is yet unknown.

Trading was halted on five companies, all of which were publishing information on the HKE corporate filings website. When higher than normal traffic was reported on the site, the operators opted to halt trading citing concern that traders would not have access to timely or reliable information about the companies. In the meantime, HKE went old-school Internet and set up on an online bulletin-board system for posting such information.

Concerns have risen about cyber attacks across the world, and China is hardly immune. The country claimed to be victim to nearly 500,000 malicious attacks last year alone, reminding the world that anyone and everyone is a possible target.

(via Bloomberg)

Supposedly, there was a rumor floating around that somewhere in China, pills made out of dead babies were being sold. A Korean television documentary team decided to track down the truth behind this rumor, and reportedly found a hospital that sells dead babies — mostly abortions or stillbirths, with “mostly” being a scary word here when you think about it — to medicine companies. The team found that when the hospital has a “deceased baby case,” the staff are instructed to immediately alert the medicine company.

The television team also reportedly uncovered the process by which the dead baby pills are made. Supposedly, the medicine companies store the dead babies in a “normal family’s refrigerator,” so as to be undiscoverable, and when they are ready to use the dead baby, they put it into a medical drying microwave. Once dry, they grind the dead baby up and put the powder into a pill capsule.

Government officials in Jiangmen, China are banning residents from having dogs as pets. Set to take place at the end of August, the ban will require all current dog owners to take their pets to a drop-off center where they will either be adopted by people who live in rural areas or euthanized. The goal of the ban is to reduce the number of dogs in areas of Jiangmen that are most densely populated.

According to the city government’s official notice on “Strengthening the Management of Dogs,” any dog owner that wants to keep their pet rather than surrender it to people unknown or sudden death will be allowed to apply for a license. However, it seems as though only people who plan to use their dogs for security for a warehouse or other business will be granted licenses.

In the tech world, China is known for making sometimes decent, sometimes extremely obvious and hilarious knockoff products, but who would’ve thought they’re also into ripping off storefronts? Introducing the fake Apple Store, complete with knockoff Apple Store employee uniforms, a nearly identical layout, the same tables, floors and even the same product holders. One may also notice that Apple’s banners and press images have also been ripped off, and the product accessory walls look nearly identical to the real thing. You’re almost kind of expecting the store to have an evil twin style goatee. Check out more pictures of the bizarro Apple Store after the break.