Airport Express

    With the Airport Express, you are never far from town. There is a train every 10 minutes, ready to rush you between the airport and Hong Kong Station in the heart of the shopping and downtown district in about 24 minutes. Or travel to the Asia World-Expo in just 1 minute from the airport.

Airport Express service hours

Mon.-Fri.: 5:50am to 1:15am

Sat.-Sun.: 5:00am to 2:00am

Tickets

    There are three types of ticket for travelling to and from the Airport: Single Journey, Round Trip and Same Day Return. Single Journey Ticket and Same Day Return Ticket are valid(有效的) on day of issue(发放). Round Trip Ticket is valid for 30 days from day of issue. You can also use the Octopus Card for the Airport Express. (The Octopus Card is an electronic store-value ticket and it can be used on most public transport. The fare will be deducted(扣除) from the stored value each time, so you do not have to carry heavy coins. The card is valid for three years after value has been added.)

Travel tips

Children under 3 travel for free.

    Passengers travelling on the Airport Express are now able to write email and do online searches with Wi-Fi service.

    For more information about Airport Express, please visit www.hongkongairport.com or call 00852-21818888.

    On Saturday evening, CCTV showed a computer-generated image of the Chang'e 3 lander's path as it approached the surface of the moon, saying that during the landing period it needed to have no contact with Earth. As it was just hundreds of meters away the lander's camera broadcast images of the moon's surface.

    The Chang'e 3's solar panels, which are used to absorb sunlight to generate power, opened soon after the landing. The mission blasted off (发射) from southwest China on Dec. 2 on a Long March-3B carrier rocket. It is named after a mythical Chinese goddess of the moon and the “Yutu” rover vehicle, or “Jade Rabbit” in English, afternoon the goddess' pet.

    China's military-backed space program has made much progress in a relatively short time, although it is behind the United States and Russia in technology and experience. China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to achieve manned space travel independently. In 2006, it sent its first probe (探测器) to the moon. China plans to open a space station around 2020 and send an astronaut to the moon after that.

    “They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations, how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars. They are making big advancements, and I think over the next 10-20 years they'll certainly be matching Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas.”

    When the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris (巴黎圣母院) was on fire, it seemed as if the nation had lost a piece of its soul. A similar tragedy took place in 19th century Russia. And the rebuilding effort of the Russians might offer some inspiration for the French.

    Standing in the heart of the Russian capital, with 60,000 square meters of floor space and 1,500 rooms, the Winter Palace was among the world's grandest building. On Dec. 17, 1837, a fire broke out at the Winter Palace. By the morning of Dec.19, only the structure's framework remained.

    For the czar (沙皇), the fire presented a political challenge. Fearing that Russia's enemies would cast the fire as a blow to the czarist orders, the czar's supporters quickly worked together to shape the description of the fire in Russia and abroad. They wanted the country to appear united. And they certainly didn't want despair to become the story.

    The first full account of the fire was written in French by the poet Petr Viazemskii. A Russian translation appeared two months later. That text and others painted a highly idealized picture of the response to the tragedy. The accounts noted that the czar forcefully directed the fire's containment. Soldiers were selfless to save the palace. The Russian people felt the loss just as deeply as the czar.

    To erase the shame of the fire, the czar set a nearly impossible goal: rebuild the palace within 15 months, and he ordered that rebuilt palace look exactly as it had before. Thousands of workers labored on the construction site. They made rapid progress. On Match 25, 1839, the czar celebrated the rebirth of the Winter Palace.

Outwardly identical to the old version, the new palace featured more iron and brick in its structures—and less wood. It was far less fire-prone than the original.

    Notre Dame hasn't experienced the same level of destruction as the Winter Palace, if the Russian phoenix of 1839 is any indication, there is hope that a renewed Notre Dame will once again grace the banks of the Seine.

    Going to university is supposed to be a mind-broadening experience. That statement is probably made in comparison to training for work straight after school. But is it actually true? Jessika Golle of the University of Tubingen, in Germany reports in Psychological Science this week that those who have been to university indeed seem to leave with broader and more curious minds than those who have spent their immediate post-school years in vocational (职业的) training for work. However, it was not the case that university broadened minds. Rather, vocational training for work seemed to have narrowed them. The result is not quite what might be expected.

    Dr. Golle came to this conclusion after she and a team of colleagues studied the early careers of 2,095 German youngsters. The team used two standardized tests to assess their volunteers' personality traits (特点) including openness, conscientiousness (认真) and so on, and attitudes such as realistic, investigative and enterprising twice, once towards the end of each volunteer's time at high school, and then again six years later. Of the original group, 382 had to make a choice between the academic and vocational routes, and it was on these that the researchers focused. University beckoned for 212 of them. The remaining 170 chose vocational training and a job.

    When it came to the second round of tests, Dr. Golle found that the personalities of both groups had not changed significantly. As for changes in altitude, again, none were noticeable in the university group. However, those who had chosen the vocational route showed marked drops in interest in tasks that are investigative and enterprising in nature. And that might restrict their choice of careers.

    The changes in attitude that the researchers recorded were more worrying. Vocational training has always been what Germany prides itself on. If Dr Golle is correct, and changes in attitude brought about by the very training are narrowing people's choices that is indeed a matter worthy of serious consideration.

    Chewing gum(口香糖) has its origins in ancient times from Mayans to Greeks who would chew the resin(树脂)of certain trees for medical purposes and maybe even for freshening breath. The history of chewing gum continued as Native Americans introduced it to European settlers.

    Chewing gum hit the market after Santa Anna brought a case of chicle(糖胶树脂) from Mexico to New York. Santa Anna gave some to the part-time inventor Thomas Adams Thomas Adams changed the gum and marketed it as a candy. The invention took off and was known as Chiclets.

    In 1900 Frank Fleer coate chewing gum with sugar, and in 1906 Blibber Blubber was invented, but never made it to market. Blibber Blubber was too sticky and it was also too difficult to remove the burst bubble(破了的泡泡) from one's skin without using some special tools.

    A history of bubblegum just wouldn't be complete without mentioning the gumball machine, which popularized gum. The first gumball machine came onto the scene in 1907 and sold sugar-coated chewing gum.

    However, it wasn't until 1928 that bubblegum was created. Walter Diemer, working for Frank Fleer's gum company, discovered bubblegum by accident while experimenting in the lab during his breaks. The gum was named Dubble Bubble. Pink was the only color which could be used at the time, and Dubble Bubble has remained pink ever since.

    According to the International Chewing Gum Association,during WWII Dubble Bubble was handed out by US military members as gifts, thereby spreading its popularity among the peoples of Europe, Africa, and Asia. And in the 1930s he first bubblegum cards appeared. "the pictures changed from war heroes to Wild West figures to professional athletes."

    Bubblegum has been popular ever since, especially among children, thanks to its inventive shapes, and sugary flavors, from original bubblegum to a yardstick of fruity bubblegum.

Humans aren't the only animals that move to music. Parrots have been known to do it. And now rats have been observed bopping their heads in time with the tunes of Mozart, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson and others, according to a new paper from the University of Tokyo. What's more, the rats seems to respond to the same beats that get humans' feet tapping (轻跺). 

The researchers played a sonata by Mozart for lab rats at different variations of the original speed. Wireless sensors on the rats' bodies tracked their movements. Meanwhile, 20 human participants were involved and listened to the same music through headphones equipped with motion sensors. 

It was observed that the rats' head movements were the most obvious when the music played at its normal speed, which was around 132bpm (beats per minute). The same was true for human participants. The researchers then changed to some pop songs such as Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" and Michael Jackson's "Beat It". As with Mozart's, rats moved their heads along the rhythm of pop songs, similar to how people do, at about 120 to 140bpm. 

The study showed that both rats and humans moved their heads along to the beat in a similar rhythm. The level of head bopping from both humans and rats decreased as the music sped up. The study suggests that there is something similar about the way human and rat brains respond to rhythms, but rats do not match their motions to the beat like humans do. Humans can predict the timing of a beat and move predictably to it. 

Aniruddh Patel, a psychologist who studies brain response to music, says humans and parrots respond to beats with big, voluntary movements such as head shaking, dancing or foot tapping. Patel also stresses that this study does not show that rats have the same emotional associations with music as humans do. Yet he believes it could help reveal how humans and some other animals developed a sense of rhythm.