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 …
THOUSANDS of people living in the Nigata, Kumamoto and Kagoshima pre- fectures in Japan had contracted the Minamata disease (first detected in the early 1950'5) -a form of organic mer- cury poisoning -when 2 frontrunning chemical companies, Chisso Corp and Showa Denko KK discharged their cont- aminated waste in the …
AFTER 8 months had passed since the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck Kobe in western Japan, all damaged rail lines have been restored, most of the collapsed buildings have been removed, and reconstruction has begun. However, as of mid-August, some 7,600 residents who lost their homes, still continue to live in …
JAPAN has gone ahead and done what-it has been planning to do for 'more than a year now. On August 29, its first proto- type fast-breeder reactor - Monju - started generating power. Monju is the key reactor of the nation's nuclear recycling programme, informs the semi -governmental Power Reactor …
Hokkaido University researchers in Japan are investigating a 'smart' material that could be useful in bio-medical applications. Hydrogels -a cross-linked polymer network filled with water molecules -can show 'shape memory'. The gel which can be deformed at low temperatures, can revert to its original shape when heated above 50
Japan's decision to impose anti-dumping duties of upto 9.9 per cent on cotton yarn imports from Pakistan has enraged Pakistan's cotton-exporting lobby. The decision followed an investigation that revealed that Pakistani cotton was being sold in Japan at between 2.1 per cent and 9.9 per cent below the prices back …
Japan-based Fujitsu Ltd has developed the world's smallest magneto- optical, (MO) disc drive for use in laptop and computer notebooks. The drive, 140 by 101.6 mm and 17 min thick, weighs less than 300 grams, It has been developed for integration into portable computers, potentially replacing standard floppy disc drives. …
IF THE French go ahead with their plans to ensure nuclear tests, the Japanese will have nothing to do with them. Forty eight legislators have joined forces with Citizens for Peace - a non- parliamentary group - to issue a joint statement urging the government to recall Japan's ambassador to …
Japanese researchers have designed an electronic secretary - a computer that can recognise and talk with its owner and perform duties such as taking messages. The ministry of international trade and industry has unveiled the system - consisting of a PC, a combined camera and a microphone which is programmed …
THIS is possible only in Japan, perhaps. Some sage wrote scriptures on a piece of paper in 1247. And 487 years later, the same paper was used by a scholar for taking down notes. If you don't believe this, see it for yourself in the Paper Museum in Tokyo. Japan …
JAPAN must get its act together on the energy front, says the International Energy Agency (iea). In a news conference organised in Tokyo in mid-June, Robert Priddle, director of the iea warned that unless the Japanese government made serious efforts to ease restrictions on the energy industry -- for better …
National budget constraints have forced leading donor nations like the us to cut assistance to developing countries down to almost 20 per cent in 1993-94. But Japan, the world's largest donor, has not followed suit. It has retained its overseas development assistance (oda) budget of us $11.3 billion, 1/5th of …
Japan's health care system is the envy of the world. The average Japanese male expects to live 75.9 years, while women can live upto a ripe 81.8 years. But this success has helped create the fastest growing greying population in the industrialised world, shooting national medical costs through the roof. …
THE Japanese government is furious with China for going ahead with its underground nuclear test, making a complete farce out of the recently-concluded Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference held in New York. At the conference, the non-nuclear states had agreed to an indefinite extension of the treaty only on the condition …
IN Tins age of information, telecommunications is evolving at a breakneck pace. While a few years ago, even movie channel through a TV cable was something of a novelty, the technological pundits are today close to realising their vision of sending 500 cable channels into each home, simultaneously. Though this …
The laying out of a golf course on Japan's Amami-Oshama island - the 2nd one there - may push the Amami black hare, the oldest species of hare in the world, to the brink of extinction. Environmental Network Amami, a local NGO, has thus made them coplaintiffs in the suit …
"RESFARCH whaling" is malignantly alive in Japan. In mid-April, a Japanese factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, returned to Tokyo with 330 minke whales harpooned in the Antarctic during this year's "research mission". Japan has earned worldwide notoriety for sickeningly indiscriminate whale slaughter. It has killed since 1987 about 300 minke …
Researchers at the National Cancer Centre Research Institute, Tokyo, and the Chiba University School of Medicine in Japan, have made a significant discovery which may help correct genetic disorders in the womb. Scientists implanted an easily detectable gene into mouse embryos by injecting it into the tail veins of pregnant …
JAPANESE researchers claim to have developed a high-strength, fatigueresistant spring designed for motor vehicles, which could be used in clutch torsional dampers of pickup trucks. To make the spring, scientists from Nippon Steel, Japan, used a high-strength steel which is formed by adding special elements to a material based on …
In the aftermath of January's devastating earthquake in Kobe, the Japanese have begun to scrutinise and review disaster management plans that they thought were more than adequate. The major lacuna in post-quake reconstruction, believe Japanese researchers, was the absence of geographical information systems (GIS). As Shigeru Kakumoto, a visiting associate …
The brutal face of modern day terrorism bared its fangs recently on a busy subway system in Tokyo. On March 20, a vicious nerve gas spewed through subway cars and stations during the morning rush hour in the city leaving 6 dead and thousands of passengers reeling under its noxious …
