Now, in return, National Museum Wales has shipped out artefacts which it says will give visitors in China a taste of the character of Wales, through its culture and language, history and landscape.

BBC: Wales, Land of the Red Dragon: Chongqing exhibition

It was a hatchet that helped give McGillvary a brief taste of fame in February when he gave a rambling, profanity-laced interview to a Fresno, Calif.

WSJ: Pa. coffee run leads to hatchet hitchhiker arrest

Initially, this might simply involve introducing a delay in communications to controllers in Moscow and Houston, US. Ultimately, it could also involve removing crew members into separate modules to give them a taste of what the Mars500 participants have gone through.

BBC: Simulated Mars mission 'lands' back on Earth

Just in case you haven't heard, we're letting you in on a little secret here: Engadget German is the official blog of IFA 2009, so we figured we'd give you a small taste of what's going down in Deutschland in case you've yet to make it over.

ENGADGET: German at IFA 2009: early morning roundup