A “socklifter” is on the loose in Japan according to France 24: A Japanese high school girl who was tackled by a sock-stealing thief is the latest victim in a series of…
Japan
Say it ain’t so! Everyone’s favorite assassin, the Japanese Ninja, is dying out per BBC News: Japan’s era of shoguns and samurai is long over, but the country does have one, or…
Soon the start of the workday will entail submitting to your daily smile scan, the Guardian reports: A Japanese train company is scanning its employees to make sure they smile properly. Each…
Should our emotional well-being be the concern of our gadgets and household appliances? An award-winning Japanese refrigerator prevents access to food unless you grin. Why does this sound like a nightmare? RocketNews24…
Cryptomundo discusses evidence, including tiny tools and bizarre pit dwellings, that supports legends of tiny elfin people living on the island of Hokkaido: A commonly occurring phenomenon seen in the folklore and…
It seems anyone who crossed the Japanese faith healer with a small cult following would be beaten to death with sticks in an deadly “exorcism” rite. Via Japan Subculture: Sachiko Eto, 65,…
Tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands continues to escalate. A report from the Guardian states that both sides have refused to step back for fear of losing face. “There…
First it was perky catlike ears, and now Japan-based Neurowear has created a prototype of an attachable tail with movement controlled by your brain activity, opening up new possibilities for emotional expression. This is surely a landmark moment for the furry and teen werewolf subcultures:
Less than a week after announcing a plan to abandon Nuclear Power by the 2030’s, Hiroko Tabuchi at NYtimes.com reports that the Japanese government will not be implementing that plan: Motohisa Furukawa,…
Is Mao Sugiyama a man ahead of his time? His mind-bending artistic/culinary/surgical endeavor, intended to raise awareness of asexuality, seems to have been done in an entirely ethical manner, but he now…
The future isn’t always what we think it is, via Reuters: Japan’s government said it intends to stop using nuclear power by the 2030s, marking a major shift from policy goals set…
This monumental twist seems as plausible and satisfactory of a possible end to Jesus’s life as any. The BBC investigates: A Japanese legend claims that Jesus escaped Jerusalem and made his way…
Wikipedia on the fascinating flute-playing basket monk sect of seventeenth-to-nineteenth century Japan. Across cultures, specific articles of clothing are commonly worn to conceal oneself for purposes of modesty, conformity, or strategic anonymity….
According to Russia Times, a Japanese public health organization has released grim finding: Aafter examining 38,000 children from the Fukushima Prefecture, site of the infamous nuclear disaster, the organization has estimated…
The Tokyo-based mystical cult Aum Shinrikyo’s deadly terrorist attack, conducted to bring about the apocalypse, revealed the insanity hidden inside the sterile, hypermodern metropolis. The New York Times reports:
After 17 years, the man thought to be the final suspect from the doomsday cult behind the 1995 nerve-gas poisoning that killed 13 people and injured thousands of others was arrested on Friday, the police said. Investigators arrested the suspect, Katsuya Takahashi, 54, near an Internet cafe in central Tokyo after receiving a tip that a man resembling the fugitive had been spotted there. The cult’s blind leader, Chizuo Matsumoto, was convicted of masterminding the attack and has been sentenced to death.
Well, it’s good to know Japan’s government is seriously testing the food supply. Via the Japan Times:
Radioactive cesium was detected in 51 food products from nine prefectures in excess of a new government-set limit in the first month since it was introduced April 1st, according to data released by the health ministry Tuesday.
The limit was exceeded in 337 cases, or 2.4 percent of 13,867 food samples examined by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
Cesium exceeding the previous allowable limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram was detected in 55 cases, while the new limit of 100 becquerels was exceeded in 282 cases. By prefecture, there were 142 cases in Fukushima, 69 in Tochigi, 41 in Ibaraki, 35 in Iwate, 32 in Miyagi, 13 in Chiba, two each in Yamagata and Gunma, and one in Kanagawa.
Introducing my hero. The retired ex-photographer lives, naked and alone, on Sotobanari island, cut off from the rest of the world by typhoons and dangerous currents. Reuters has photos and philosophy from…
Via Voice of America:
The U.S. Coast Guard has sunk an abandoned Japanese fishing boat off the coast of Alaska, more than a year after a tsunami sent it drifting aimlessly across the Pacific Ocean.
The 50-meter long Ryou-Un Mara went down Thursday in the Gulf of Alaska, hours after a Coast Guard vessel started shooting at it, setting fire to the so-called “ghost ship,” which had no lights, crew or communications system.
The Coast Guard decided to sink the Ryou-Un Mara because it posed a significant danger to ships sailing in the area. Officials say sinking the ship poses no risk to the environment and that any fuel on board would be evaporated by now. The sinking operation was delayed when a Canadian fishing boat expressed interest in salvaging the Japanese boat. The Canadian ship eventually determined it could not tow the crippled vessel…
Created in Japan, an eerie musical instrument that creates synesthesia — the blurring of the line between senses. Different categories such as fried foods, dairy, and vegetables produce different sorts of sounds:
EaTheremine (Eat + Theremin) is a fork-type instrumen that enables users to play various sounds by eating foods. These sounds are changed, according to resistance values of foods attached on the fork.
Via Futurity: Zhigang Peng, associate professor in School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has converted the earthquake’s seismic waves into audio files. The results allow experts…
Japanese erotic hotels famously offer themed fetish rooms that transport guests to the oddest of locations. Artist Ai Hasegawa hopes to go further by creating plans for an Extreme Environment Love Hotel…
Could plants communicate with us, if we had the right way of listening? The wife of a Japanese researcher gives her cacti a language lesson:
The chief of research for Fuji Electronic Industries has constructed special instruments which translate the electrical output of plants into modulated sounds, giving voice to a cactus. Relying on her affinity for plants, Mrs. Hashimoto looks forward to actual conversation with her cactus…Convinced it possesses an intelligence, she is determined to teach it the Japanese alphabet.
A century or two from now, pretty much most of the world will be a flooded/radioactive zone being farmed by robots. The Telegraph reports: The project, masterminded by the Ministry of Agriculture,…