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 …
THE ANTI-GOLF movement is gaining momentum almost in tandem with the game's popularity. Anti-golf activists see the sport as "the most serious environmental problem in the world". Tricia Barnett, a British conservationist and supporter of the Global Anti-Golf Movement (GAGM) (Down To Earth, August 15, 1993), thinks the campaign has …
The increasing pressure on the West Bengal government to clean up industrial pollution in the state has forced it to seek Japanese aid. Japanese experts will help the state government set up effluent treatment plants and upgrade the capabilities of the state pollution control board in line with growing needs. …
SMALL is beautiful. Notwithstanding the anti-whale tone of the comment, the remark holds true for this book. Whaling Issues and Japan's Whale Research should ideally be called a booklet on a big animal. The book makes you realise the present whaling controversy is more complex than newspaper reports would have …
A GROUP of Japanese companies has developed a robot that can wash and wax 2,000 sq metres of floor in an hour. The machine is first guided around the area to be cleaned, after which it memorises the cleaning route and then automatically washes or waxes the floor, stopping only …
TIRED of waste paper baskets full of photocopied waste? Now, you can reuse those sheets of paper, thanks to a machine that erases clean photocopied documents. But Ricoh Co of Japan, which has developed the erasing technique, say their copy eraser is still at the prototype stage. To reverse the …
A FAT-RICH diet, widely believed to be unhealthy, acts as an elixir for the Japanese, the world's longest-living people, claim old-age researchers. Before World War II, the lifespan of the Japanese was the lowest in the developed world. "Our cholesterol (counts) used to be very low," says Takao Suzuki, director …
FACED with the daunting task of making Australia's meat-and-potatoes consumers switch to meat-and-rice, growers are hoping to exploit the recent royal wedding in Japan. They have launched an advertising campaign urging Australian couples to adopt some of Japan's rice-related wedding rituals, especially the placing of white rice cakes in the …
SCIENTISTS are making headway in using genetic engineering techniques to develop commercial varieties of rice strains that are resistant to diseases. Initial trials by researchers in China and Japan of rice strains modified to fight the red stripe virus, which in southeast Asia has been known to destroy entire harvests, …
THE JAPANESE pharmaceutical industry will shrink by 10 per cent in three years because of government plans to tighten price controls, say analysts. Drug manufacturers in Japan usually offset price cuts by increases in volume, as the process of drug dispensation in the country offered doctors the incentive to prescribe …
EVEN AS Japanese computer firms plan to shift production of their personal computers to Taiwan in order to reduce costs, Microsoft Corp of the US has launched a Japanese version of its Windows 3.1 software package in an effort to dominate the world's second-largest personal computer (PC) market. This is …
FROM THE house of Nikon have come electric spectacles that are battery-operated and change 0 from dark to light and back again at the touch of a button in less than 10 seconds. In contrast, the better known photochromatic lenses can take up to an hour to turn clear on …
SECRET issues in Japan will experience close encounters in the form of toilet tissue. Officials in Tachikawa, west of Tokyo, report they are recycling tonnes of top secret documents with a state-of-the-art shredder. It tears up the paper into shreds without destroying the fibre, but not to worry: the shreds …
BIRDS are among the most fascinating of creatures. They tirelessly build exquisite nests and care for their eggs and nestlings. But even birds have their parasites, the most famous being the cuckoo, which never builds its own nest and spends no effort in incubating its eggs or caring for its …
ALL THROUGH the second half of the 20th century, whenever Western governments have seen their industries lagging behind globally, they have resorted to updating their technology policies. The result has been that technology strategies became the key to economic growth not only in the US and in several European nations, …
NOW THAT Hiroshi Nakajima has been confirmed as director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), at the organisation's annual general assembly held in early May, he has to start setting his house in order -- a formidable task by all accounts. At the WHO annual general assembly, 93 countries voted …
"OUR ANGER has grown to its highest level," fumed Kazuo Shima, the Japanese delegate to the annual general meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), after Tokyo's attempts at yen diplomacy failed to prevent an extension of the global ban on commercial whaling (Down To Earth, April 30, 1993). The …
"EMPTY boxes, empty promises", read a sign put up by the Washington Apple Commission, to protest against Japan's "unfair" ban on American apples, at a recent food exhibition in Osaka. The organisation that represents growers producing 60 per cent of the US apple crop said Japan has been rejecting import …
ALARMED by spiralling health care costs, the Japanese government is taking steps to wean the public away from its tendency to reach for a variety of pills at the slightest cough or shiver. The Japanese are the biggest spenders on drugs in the world, with a per capita expenditure of …
JAPAN'S Canon company, world-famous for its cameras, has adapted a technique used in making photocopiers to produce cheaper and more efficient solar cells. The technique involves sandwiching amorphous silicon between two layers of amorphous silicon germanium (New Scientist, Vol 137, No 1865). Silicon and germanium are semiconductors, which means while …
TWO HUNDRED years ago, Thomas Malthus had asked at what point man's population would exceed his means of subsistence. The world's population then had not reached 1 billion. Today, a year before the population conference in Cairo, the total number of people in the world is fast approaching 5.5 billion. …
