As we told you in March, there are some phenomena in the Pearl River Delta that may cause us to meet our maker no matter how vigilant we are.

Add to the list objects falling from tall buildings, although on this occasion the victim looks likely to pull through.

At around 9 a.m. on Sunday (June 16) a pregnant woman was walking through a residential complex in Shenzhen when a kitchen knife fell from an upper-storey balcony, landing on her head and sliding down to her hand, Jiangsu Television reports. The victim, Mrs. Wang, is recovering in hospital.

Wang’s mother, Mrs Luo, told reporters at Peking University Hospital in Shenzhen, the knife cut a tendon in her middle finger.

A police investigation showed that the knife fell from the balcony of a resident surnamed Wang. He explained that he had left it out on the balcony to dry. “I was so stupid. I didn’t know what I was doing,” Wang confessed.

The same thing happened to a pregnant woman in Shenzhen’s Longgang District last year. She sustained a shoulder injury.

So, should we worry about similar things happening to us? In this year’s book “The Art of Thinking Clearly,” novelist Rolf Dobelli argues that we should avoid following the news. One of Dobelli’s arguments is as follows:

News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated.

We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press. Watching an airplane crash on television is going to change your attitude toward that risk, regardless of its real probability.

The book is hit-and-miss and somewhat repetitive because it was originally published in the form of many short articles. But it’s enlightening and well worth a read if you don’t mind being told how to think logically by a guy who makes up fiction for a living.

Anyway, tune in tomorrow for more news.