Japan has one of the highest installed renewable energy capacities in the world. The country is also one of the world’s largest consumers of energy. Lacking its own fossil fuel resources, it relies on imports for nearly all of its supply. This dependence on imports makes the country vulnerable to …
Japan's only cigarette making company is facing its first challenge from five smokers who sued the company recently for trying to make them addicted to a harmful product. The company, Japan Tobacco Inc, holds 80 per cent of the nation's cigarette market. Cigarette makers in Japan have an easier time …
The Japanese have come to the rescue of ailing mangrove trees in Sri Lanka. Japan's Institute of Technology on Fisheries and Fishing Communities has come forward to provide aid for a major mangrove rehabilitation scheme which began recently in the Chilaw district in Nattandiya. Nearly 10,000 mangrove plants were planted …
THE Centre for Ecological Research (CER) was set up at Kyoto University in April, 1991, to "promote fundamental research in various ecological topics, and provide facilities for the collaborative utilisation by ecologists throughout Japan and the rest of the world." In December 1991, the Indian Academy of Sciences -brought out …
THE nation that makes radios the size of credit cards and tape recorders small enpu~ to slip into shirt pockets, has set its sights on a new target for miniaturisation. This time, however, the customers will be physicists and other researchers. And thego~l is any- thing but small: to squeeze …
A prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor in Japan had to be shut down due to sodium leakage last December. This accident has recently raised fundamental questions about Japan's nuclear power policy, as the government-run Atomic Energy Commission has begun reviewing the country's fast-breeder development plan. The fast-breeder reactor 'Monju', named after …
Horrifying details about the health ministry's negligence and connivance in spreading the Hiv among nearly 2,000 haemophiliacs in the country, have come to light after more than a decade. The revelations came after Naoto Kan, Japan's health and welfare minister and also . an AIDS-issues activist, ordered a probe. Kan …
A tiny 'microcar', an exact replica of a commercial car, has been built by Japanese workers at the Nisshin Research Laboratory at Nippon- denso, Japan. The car is just 4.8 mm long and 1.8 mm wide. It is constructed bya seven-stage process wherein initially, a silicone rubber cast is made …
TO DATE, most of the research on electric vehicles has concentrated on developing super-efficient batteries in an attempt to maximise their range and power-to- weight ratio. However, until now, even the most advanced vehicles have required a mini battalion of such batteries to achieve a modest performance. The new scooter …
IT is very, very Japanese: small, slick and efficient. Called the Personal Handy-phone System (PHS), this mini cellular phone made its debut in Japan on 1 July, 1995. it is Japan's first homegrown telecommunications technology - a low-powered, low-cost version that can be utilised both as a mobile phone and …
Japan is setting up a US $40 million laser-based monitoring station - Keystone - to help predict earthquakes. It will he set up around the Tokyo Bay area which lies at the junction of three giant tectonic plates on the earth's crust. Laser beams are bounced off from satellite reflectors …
The Mekong river flowing through six South-East Asian countries is to be arrested by the planned construction of nearly 76 dams. The Mekong Watch Network (MWN) a coalition of NGOs, academics and journalists - based in Japan - has called for an expression of solidarity against the proposed projects. The …
The whole nation is caught in a spider's web. Japan is leaving no stone unturned in its offensive against the poisonous redback spider. Armed with vacuums and fumigators, tweezers and chopsticks, nets and jars and pesticides, health officials have hunted the spider down wells and manholes, under gravestones and in …
THE deaf and dumb may finally have a voice in this largely insensitive world. Hitachi, the Japanese electronics group, is harnessing three rapidly developing technologies - computer based-imaging, voice recognition and automatic translation - to help a person converse with someone deaf hundreds of miles away in a foreign language, …
IMAGINE a tank which can hold 50,000 tonnes of water, located about a km under the earth. This is the latest neutrino detector which starts its operations in December in Japan. Located some 300 km west of Tokyo in a lead mine, the construction of the US $ 100 million …
Seven researchers working for Mitsubishi in Japan have found a way of making machinery, vehicles and aircrafts operate more silently (New Scientist, Vol 147, No 1997). When air flows through a pipe, over a wing or into a tunnel, noise is generated. The solution to the problem is to coat …
Japan's nuclear dreams nearly went up in smoke when an accident occured at the prototype fast-breeder reactor, Monju, in the second week of December. About three tons of sodium leaked from a cooling system at Monju, necessitating a shutdown. The 280-megawatt reactor is operated by the government's Power Reactor and …
TO HAVE Alzheimer's disease is consider hell as senile dementia feature. But there is with researchers at Tokyo, Japan, making avail The discovery of a lead to the Vow therapy for the dis Yasuo lhara of the of the University. fruitfly, which is genetic guide for have identified a gene …
JAPAN would now go for an increase in Green areas and environment-friendly by 20 per cent within five 'We do not have any magical way go& CM solve global environmental at once. We must do our best F seep in local communities where Tadamori Oshima, minister of agency of Japan, …
BORN in a small farming village on the island of Shikoku, Japan, Masanobu Fukuoka was trained as an inspector. Soon, he began questioning the accomplishments of modern civilisation. In 1945, after being discharged from the Imperial Army, he returned to the village lyo and chose to farm. Natural farming is …
IN JAPAN, elementary school magazines have been selling particularly well recently due to the mini easy-to-use acid rain measuring kits attached to the inside of the magazines' back cover. A chemical is placed in a small plastic container. When acid rain falls on it, the color changes, and from this …
