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Bus companies say they are going to introduce bigger seats because people are getting taller. Does this mean people are evolving to be taller? According to a study by the Transport Department, male bus passengers are now on average 1.4 centimetres taller and eight kilograms heavier than in the 1960s. Women passengers are two centimetres taller and five kilograms heavier than in the 1960s.

While people in Hong Kong are getting bigger, it does not mean they are evolving. Thirty years is far too short a time to see any evolutionary change in humans, who have remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.

A person's maximum height is determined by his genes. However, a person will only reach his maximum potential height if he receives the right diet, has sufficient sleep and is not affected by a disease or an accident which affects growth.

Many of the bus passengers of the 1960s were born in the 1930s and 1940s which was a time of turmoil and war in China and Hong Kong. As a result, the average diet was not as nutritious as it could have been, which meant many people did not reach their maximum height, regardless of their genetic potential.

However, these people passed their genes on to their children and grandchildren who were mostly born in a time of greater prosperity and stability. These offspring enjoyed a better diet than their parents and grandparents and more of them were able to grow to their genetic maximum height, which is why many people are taller than their parents and grandparents. The genes are the same, but the more nutritious diet has allowed the body to reach its genetically-pro grammed maximum height. However, if the genes you inherit from your parents are programmed for a maximum height of 1.5 metres, no diet on earth can overcome that to turn you into a two-metre tall basketball star! Can psychologists tell your personality from your handwriting? Many wild claims have been made by so-called handwriting experts about their ability to tell someone's personality from a sample of their handwriting.

However, psychologists have proved there is absolutely no truth in these claims. It is more likely the 'handwriting experts' made guesses about the personality of the writers from what they had written, not from the way it was written.