2010-05-06
Ministry aims to build over 14 new atomic power plants by
| The industry ministry said Monday that Japan should build more than 14 new atomic power plants by 2030 as part of its effort to fight global warming. Japan currently has 54 nuclear power plants nationwide. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry also proposed that the country raise the operating rate of the facilities to the world's top level of some 90 percent in 20 years' time, while the rate has been declining to around 60 percent in recent years due partly to safety checks at some plants. |
| Apr 20 | Glass eel haul plummets by 90% (Yomiuri) |
| The nation's catch of glass eels, or juvenile Japanese eels, was only 10 percent that of last season's haul as of late February, the Fisheries Agency said Monday. One result of the low haul is a surge in the wholesale prices of eels--the domestically cultured variety of which are cultivated from glass eels--in anticipation of July's Day of the Ox, when eating eel is believed to bring one good health. Fisheries experts believe that overfishing may be the reason for the decreased catch this year. The experts fear the elvers may be subjected to a trade ban under the Washington Convention in the near future. |
| Apr 19 | Japanese cakes delivered to astronaut Noguchi on ISS (AP) |
| Imuraya Confectionery Co. said Monday it has delivered three types of Japanese cakes to Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who has been staying on the International Space Station since December. The cakes were delivered by space shuttle Discovery with seven crew members aboard including Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, according to the confectionary maker based in Tsu, Mie Prefecture. For their consumption in space, the expiration dates of the cakes have been extended through a special manufacturing process, according to the company. |
| Apr 19 | Honeybee-killing mites invade Japan (Yomiuri) |
| Mites that have caused serious damage to beehives overseas have been discovered in Japan for the first time, according to government sources. The pests likely have invaded Japan by slipping through quarantine when honeybees were imported or by smuggling, the sources said. The mites, known by the scientific name Acarapis woodi and measuring 0.1 millimeter long, were found having parasitized in bees' airways. The mite transmits a fatal virus to honeybees that renders them unable to fly, ultimately killing them. |
| Apr 17 | Snow falls in Tokyo, matches 1969 record for season's latest snowfall (AP) |
| Snow fell in central Tokyo on Saturday as the mercury plunged, matching the 1969 record for the season's latest snowfall, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. Snow also fell in other areas in the Kanto-Koshin regions mainly in the early hours, with 16 centimeters accumulating in Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, 18 cm in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture and 3 cm in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture as of 5 a.m. Saturday's snow in central Tokyo, Yokohama, Kofu in Yamanashi Prefecture and some other areas matched the record for the latest snowfall logged April 17, 1969. |
| Apr 17 | Japanese scientists measure growth in galaxy cluster (Japan Times) |
| A team of Japanese scientists claims to have measured growth in a galaxy cluster, the universe's largest structure bound by gravity, Taiwan's government-run Academia Sinica said in a news release. Galaxy clusters can consist of thousands of galaxies, but they also have radioactive gases and dark matter, an unidentifiable theoretical entity that produces gravitational effects. |
| Apr 16 | Whale fossil found in Gunma Pref. determined as new species (AP) |
| A whale fossil unearthed from some 11 million-year-old stratum in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, in 2002 has been confirmed as a newly discovered baleen whale species group, the Gunma Museum of Natural History said Friday. The fossil "Jomo Kujira" (Jomo Whale), named after what the prefecture was called in ancient times, will be displayed at the museum in Tomioka from Saturday through May 9. With its nasal and occipital bones located apart, the fossil shows the intermediate step in the baleen whale's development, according to the museum. |
| Apr 16 | The bald facts: 3 out of 10 hair loss treatments cut it (Asahi) |
| The receding hopes of men searching for a cure to hair loss have been boosted by a report from the Japanese Dermatological Association, which found that three in 10 hair treatments studied had strong scientific credentials. The study, which rated treatments on a five-point scale from "strongly recommended" to "advise not to use," gave two treatments the best rating. About 8 million men in Japan are thought to be worried by hair loss or receding hairlines, and a large industry had built up around their concerns. Complaints about bogus cures are on the rise. |
| Apr 15 | Cherry blossoms in bloom longer due to big temperature change (AP) |
| Peculiar weather patterns this spring have kept cherry blossoms in bloom longer than usual across the country, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Thursday. While high temperatures from early to mid-March helped cherry blossoms come out early, the subsequent period for the flowers to reach full blossom -- normally one week -- has been drawn out due to cold weather in late March, the agency said said. Cherry blossoms took as long as 19 days from blooming to reach peak blossoms in Matsuyama, the longest ever observed in the city, followed by 16 days in Miyazaki, 15 days in Kobe and Takamatsu, and 14 days in Osaka -- all record lengths. In Nagoya, the period was a record-tying 15 days. |
| Apr 15 | Yamazaki working on bubble experiment for daughter (Yomiuri) |
| Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki is working on an experiment with soap bubbles in space to solve a mystery that has baffled her 7-year-old daughter, Yuki. The experiment aims to confirm whether soap bubbles can be colored in space. The idea came up when Yuki wondered why soap bubbles made from water colored by a bath additive had no color. Yamazaki's husband, Taichi, suggested that in the nongravity environment of space, components of pigments could spread evenly, which could make it possible to make colored bubbles. |
| Apr 14 | Japan rolls out elite science funds (nature.com) |
|  Physicist Akira Tonomura struggled for seven years to raise funding for his dream project: developing a microscope able to image three-dimensional arrays of atoms in unprecedented detail. Last March, with little hope of finding this financial support, he even considered retiring from his research fellowship at the Hitachi Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama, Japan. Then, last month, the Japanese government awarded him ¥5 billion (US$53.6 million) - the biggest grant for an individual research project in the country's history. |
| Apr 13 | Japanese astronauts play musical instruments together (AP) |
| Two Japanese astronauts now at the International Space Station played musical instruments together on Monday during a video chat with Japanese Cabinet ministers and school children at the prime minister's office in Tokyo. Naoko Yamazaki, 39, who arrived at the space station on the space shuttle Discovery last Wednesday, played the traditional Japanese folk song "Sakura Sakura" on a small koto (Japanese harp), while Soichi Noguchi, 44, who is on a six-month mission at the space station, played the introduction on a Japanese flute. |
| Apr 13 | Safety failures at nuclear plant (Japan Times) |
| Chugoku Electric Power Co. announced March 30 that it failed to conduct routine checks on 123 components of its Shimane nuclear power plant in Matsue - 74 in the No. 1 reactor and 49 in the No. 2 reactor. Some components, such as valves in piping and an emergency diesel power generator, had not been checked since 1988. The omission of these checks is serious negligence on the part of the firm. It is thought more similar cases may emerge. |
| Apr 12 | Japan whalers blame Sea Shepherd harassment (AFP) |
|  The last ship of Japan's Antarctic whaling fleet sailed home Monday with the lowest catch in years, a shortfall whalers blamed on high-seas clashes with the militant environmental group Sea Shepherd. The mother ship the Nisshin Maru sailed into Tokyo harbour, the last of the five harpoon ships to come home after they set sail in November, its hull splattered with blood-red paint thrown by the protesters. The fleet's catch of 507 whales was down sharply on last year's cull of 680 and below the target of about 850, said Japan's Fisheries Agency, which blamed a total of 31 days of harassment by the Sea Shepherd group. |
| Apr 12 | New facility at Hiroshima zoo allows visitors to see lions up close (Mainichi) |
|  A new exhibit where only a single sheet of reinforced glass separates visitors from the lions they watch was unveiled at the Asa Zoological Park in Hiroshima City on April 10. The exhibit, called "Leo Glass," is the only one of its kind in Japan. The new exhibit has only a single 20 millimeter sheet of reinforced glass as a barrier. As a visitor, the effect when a lion approaches is powerful. |
| Apr 11 | New CSIRO soybean a hit in Japan (farmonline.com.au) |
|  A NEW soybean variety from CSIRO is gaining popularity in Japan due to its enhanced suitability as an ingredient in traditional Japanese dishes. Bred by CSIRO from an old Japanese variety, the Bunya soybean produces a suite of proteins that gel quickly and firmly - important characteristics for making a range of soy-based foods like tofu and custard. |
| Apr 10 | New method helps diagnose mental disorders (Yomiuri) |
| The country's medical institutions will soon be able to diagnose mental disorders by examining the bloodstreams in a patient's brain, researchers said. Seven institutions nationwide have been conducting a joint study to establish an objective method to accurately diagnose a variety of mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophreniform disorders. Under the new method, doctors will diagnose patients after using an infrared device called near infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS, to measure changes in the brain's bloodstreams. |
| Apr 10 | Japan succeeds in world's first complete cultivation of eels (Japan Times) |
| A government research organization has succeeded in breeding second-generation cultivated eels for the first time in the world by using sperm and eggs collected from those artificially raised from eggs, it said Thursday. The achievement by the Fisheries Research Agency in Yokohama could be the first step toward securing eel resources, following a 90 percent plunge in catches over the last 30 years. |
| Apr 09 | 'Superpower' suits for Japan's aging farmers (malaysianmirror.com) |
|  While Robocop and Iron Man can dodge bullets and crush villains, a new powered suit from Japan promises its elderly users more modest powers, such as pulling up radishes without getting a backache. Unlike its heavily-armed Hollywood counterparts, the Power Assist Suit aims to make life easier for Japan's army of greying farmers. The metal-and-plastic exoskeleton boasts eight electric motors that amplify the strength of the wearer's arms and legs, as well as sensors that can detect movements and respond to commands through a voice-recognition system. |
| Apr 08 | Japanese found to host seaweed digesting bacteria (Los Angeles Times) |
| Bacteria in the guts of some Japanese people may have acquired the ability to digest seaweed because of the sushi their human hosts consume, researchers have reported. The evolved trait enables their human hosts to digest carbohydrates found in edible seaweed such as nori, whose tough cell walls the human body cannot process on its own. The finding, published Thursday in the journal Nature, was stumbled upon by biochemists at the National Center for Scientific Research and Pierre and Marie Curie University in France while seeking enzymes that could digest carbohydrates in the walls of certain red algae. |
| Apr 08 | Researchers re-create Earth's inner core (Yomiuri) |
| Japanese researchers have succeeded in re-creating the incredible pressure and temperature of Earth's inner core for the first time, providing an insight into the conditions at the center of the planet. The inner core is believed to consist of iron. Through their experiments, the researchers found that the density of iron in the inner core is 165 percent that of iron at ground level, and the pressure is the equivalent to having 100 Tokyo Towers on the palm of your hand. The team placed iron particles between two diamonds whose tips measured just 0.04 millimeters in diameter--a device called a diamond anvil. Pressure was applied through the diamonds and then the iron particles were heated using laser illumination. This created an atmospheric pressure 3.64 million times that found at sea level and a temperature of 5,500 C--the same conditions as the inner core. |
| Apr 08 | Ibis lays first eggs in wild in 30 years (Japan Times) |
| A 1-year-old crested ibis in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, was confirmed to have laid eggs, becoming the first to do so in the wild in Japan in 31 years, the Environment Ministry said Wednesday. A ministry official spotted two eggs in the nest of a 3-year-old male and 1-year-old female Tuesday. Speculation that the female had laid eggs mounted after the birds, released last year, were seen taking turns staying in the nest since March 28. |
| Apr 07 | Japanese scientists detect growth in galaxy cluster (AP) |
| A team of Japanese scientists claims to have measured growth in a galaxy cluster, the universe's largest structure bound by gravity, Taiwan's government-run Academia Sinica said in a press release Wednesday. Galaxy clusters can consist of thousands of galaxies, but they also contain radioactive gases and "dark matter," an unidentifiable theoretical entity that produces gravitational effects. The scientists focused on a galaxy cluster named Abell 1689, which they said grew after being heated by matter from the adjacent "cosmic web," a near-void between galaxies containing limited amounts of matter. |
| Apr 07 | 2 Japanese in space together for 1st time as shuttle docks at ISS (AP) |
|  The space shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station on Wednesday, delivering Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki and six other crew members. On the ISS, Yamazaki, 39, met up with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, 44, whose six-month mission comes to an end in June. It is the first time that two Japanese astronauts have worked together in space. The shuttle, which lifted off Monday as scheduled from NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, is taking some 8 tons of supplies and experimental equipment to the space station during its 13-day mission through April 18. |
| Apr 07 | Japan's manned space program at crossroad (Yomiuri) |
| Seven astronauts. Twelve missions. But is this the end of the line? Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki on Monday became the seventh and last Japanese to blast off into space onboard a U.S. space shuttle. But with the shuttle fleet to be retired this year, Japan's manned space program has come to a crossroads. Japan has been dependent on the United States for its space development. This nation has picked up technologies needed for manned space flights, which were previously dominated by the United States and Russia, and has sent an experiment module called Kibo that is now at the International Space Station and the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), an unmanned cargo spacecraft, into space onboard its own rockets. |
| Apr 06 | Ultra-light EV barely tips the scales but can't hit the road (Yahoo) |
|  Japanese company Teijin Ltd has designed an ultra-light concept EV that barely tips the scales at 963 pounds, showcasing technologies and manufacturing methods that shed weight, but, unfortunately, also make the car unsafe to drive. The PU_PA EV is a two-seater that weighs about half of a normal EV and almost 60 percent less than a smart fortwo, which weighs in at 1,600 pounds. The designers used techniques like integral molding to reduce the amount of parts to 100, compared to 20,000 parts for a normal EV. The core structure was made of feather-weight carbon composite material and the interior fabrics were made from biodegradable PET. |
| Apr 06 | Japan unveils humanoid robot that smiles, frowns (Xinhua) |
|  Japanese researchers have developed a humanoid robot that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's facial expressions. By receiving electric signals from the person it is modelled on, the robot can move its rubber facial skin to imitate expressions like a smile, a laugh and a grim look. "I felt like I had a twin sister," the model said. |
| Apr 02 | Researchers study products' 'water footprints' (Japan Times) |
| It takes about 10 liters of water to produce a bottle of beer, while about 65 cu. meters of water is needed to manufacture an automobile. These figures are estimates worked out by Taikan Oki, a professor at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, graduate student Tsuyoshi Kondo and other researchers. |
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