The bird was found dead in a privately owned hut in an area called Sha Tau Kok, not far from the border with China, a government statement said.

Oriental Magpie Robins are common in Hong Kong and often kept as pets. The government said on January 19 another one had tested positive for H5N1.

The virus made its first known jump to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people. So far, it cannot be passed from human to human, but experts fear the virus could mutate causing a pandemic.

A spokesman with Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department reminded the public to observe good personal hygiene.

"They should avoid personal contact with wild birds and live poultry and clean their hands thoroughly after coming into contact with them," he said.

Bird flu has killed at least 83 people worldwide since it re-emerged in late 2003, according to World Health Organization figures.

The U.S. Navy Medical Research Unit in the Egyptian capital conducted the tests determining the cause of death, using blood samples from the girl, the U.N. official said. He refused to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The official had been supervising the examination of samples sent by the government in northern Iraq. He said 30 other samples from northern Iraq were being tested.

The girl died Jan. 17 in a Kurdish area near the border with Turkey and Iran after contracting a severe lung infection. Her hometown of Ranya is just north of a reservoir that is a stopover for migratory birds from Turkey.

Her uncle, who lived in the same home, died Jan. 27.

"Today we started a campaign to kill birds in three towns — Ranya, Dukan and Qaladaza. We formed committees to do so," said Kurdistan Health Minister Mohammed Khoshnow.

Turkey is battling an outbreak of the deadly virus. At least 21 there have contracted the virus, according to preliminary tests. Of those ill with the disease, four children died.

Jon Stoessl, professor of neurology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, believes the placebo effect could be caused by the production of a chemical in the brain called dopamine, which is involved in triggering the expectation of pleasure and reward.

Professor Stoessl carried out a study on patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, which is known to result from a lowering of normal levels of dopamine.

Normally when Parkinson's patients are given a chemical precursor to dopamine they show an improvement in levels of dopamine produced naturally, which makes them feel better. But when Professor Stoessl injected six of his patients with a simple saline solution he found that they too showed an improvement in levels of dopamine - the average increase was more than double.

The patients given the saline solution were told they were to be given the actual treatment and as a result they were expecting to feel an improvement, Professor Stoessl said.

Details will be shown in Alternative Medicine: the evidence at 9pm on BBC2 tomorrow.

Far from getting cleverer, our 11-year-olds are, in fact, less “intelligent” than their counterparts of 30 years ago. Or so say a team who are among Britain’s most respected education researchers.

After studying 25,000 children across both state and private schools Philip Adey, a professor of education at King’s College London confidently declares: “The intelligence of 11-year-olds has fallen by three years’ worth in the past two decades.”

It’s an extraordinary claim. But it’s one that should startle parents and teachers out of complacency. Shocked by the findings, experts are questioning our entire exam system and calling for radical changes in the way our children are taught in primary schools.

In their painstaking research project Adey and his colleague, psychology professor Michael Shayer, compared the results of today’s children with those of children who took exactly the same test in the mid-1990s and also 30 years ago. While most exams have changed (been made easier, if you listen to the critics) this one is the same as it was in 1976 when pupils first chewed their pencils over the problems.

In the easiest question, children are asked to watch as water is poured up to the brim of a tall, thin container. From there the water is tipped into a small fat glass. The tall vessel is refilled. Do both beakers now hold the same amount of water? “It’s frightening how many children now get this simple question wrong,” says scientist Denise Ginsburg, Shayer’s wife and another of the research team.

Another question involves two blocks of a similar size — one of brass, the other of plasticine. Which would displace the most water when dropped into a beaker? children are asked. Two years ago fewer than a fifth came up with the right answer.

In 1976 a third of boys and a quarter of girls scored highly in the tests overall; by 2004, the figures had plummeted to just 6% of boys and 5% of girls. These children were on average two to three years behind those who were tested in the mid-1990s.

“It is shocking,” says Adey. “The general cognitive foundation of 11 and 12-year-olds has taken a big dip. There has been a continuous decline in the last 30 years and it is carrying on now.”

But what exactly is being lost? Is it really general intelligence or simply a specific understanding of scientific concepts such as volume and density? Both, say the researchers. The tests reveal both general intelligence — “higher level brain functions” — and a knowledge that is “the bedrock of science and maths” says Ginsburg. In fact it’s nothing less than the ability of children to handle new, difficult ideas. Doing well at these tests has been linked with getting higher grades generally at GCSE.

So why are children now doing so badly? Possible explanations are numerous. Youngsters don’t get outside for hands-on play in mud, sand and water — and sandpits and water tables have been squeezed out in many primary schools by a relentless drilling of the three Rs and cramming 11- year-olds for the national tests.

“By stressing the basics — reading and writing — and testing like crazy you reduce the level of cognitive stimulation. Children have the facts but they are not thinking very well,” says Adey. “And they are not getting hands-on physical experience of the way materials behave.”

Ginsburg says parents too can do their bit. “When did children stop playing with mud, plasticine and Meccano and start playing with Xboxes and computer games?” she asks. Parents should switch off the television and “sit children around the dinner table to debate issues such as ‘What should we have done about the whale in the Thames?’ ” says Adey.

If these experts are right — and our children are losing the ability to think, the burning question is: what is the value of what they are being taught in primary school and of all those test results that every year rise to new heights? Paul Black, professor of education at King’s College, London is one of the experts so startled by these findings that he now wants ministers to reassess what our children are being taught.

“The decline shown up by this research is big and it is worrying,” he says. “It casts doubt on claims that standards are improving . . . There is not much evidence, in fact I don’t know of any good evidence, that the things tested at the moment in national tests at the age of 11 and 14 are of long-term benefit to learning . . . The government should look at this again.”

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the exams watchdog, has called in the research. Asked whether it may prompt changes in what is being taught in our schools, a spokesman said: “We are cautious about research where questions never change because times change and the world changes.”

And our children’s knowledge and intelligence is changing too — but not, perhaps, in the direction ministers would have us believe.

The Cost of Being Greedy