Discussion topics

It was only about 40 years ago that plastic bags became standard at U.S. grocery stores. This also made them standard in sewers, landfills, rivers and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They clog drains and cause floods, litter landscapes and kill wildlife. The national movement to get rid of them is gaining steam, with more than 240 cities and counties passing laws that ban or tax them since 2007. But these bans may be hurting the environment more than helping it.

According to research by economist Rebecca Taylor, the introduction of plastic bag bans in California in 2016 reduced the state's plastic waste by 40 million pounds per year. But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags. "What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned," she says.

Trash bags are thick and use more plastic than typical shopping bags. "So about 30 percent of the plastic that was eliminated by the ban comes back in the form of thicker garbage bags," Taylor says. On top of that, cities that banned plastic bags saw a surge in the use of paper bags, which she estimates resulted in about 80 million pounds of extra paper trash per year.

A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment. They require cutting down and processing trees, which involves lots of water, toxic chemicals, fuel and heavy machinery. Together with the uptick in plastic trash bags and huge increase of paper, banning plastic shopping bags actually increases greenhouse gas emissions. That said, at least these bans reduce non-biodegradable litter.

More and more people are feeling both tired and lonely at work. In analyzing the General Social Survey of 2016, close to 50% of people say they are often or always exhausted due to work.

What’s more, there is a significant correlation between feeling lonely and work exhaustion: the more exhausted people are, the lonelier they feel.

This loneliness is not a result of social isolation, but rather is due to the emotional exhaustion of workplace burnout. The problem seems to be pervasive across professions and up and down corporate hierarchies.

Loneliness, whether it results from social isolation or exhaustion, has serious consequences for individuals. Research by Sarah Pressman, of the University of California, Irvine, demonstrates that while obesity reduces longevity by 20%, drinking by 30%, and smoking by 50%, loneliness reduces it by a whopping 70%.

On the other hand, research has demonstrated the link between productivity and social support at work, lower rates of burnout, and greater work satisfaction. The result of feeling socially connected, studies show, is greater psychological well-being. And that translates into higher productivity and better performance. 

Sex is supposed to be simple, at least at the molecular level. X + X = female and X + Y = male.

But as science looks more closely, it becomes increasingly clear that a pair of chromosomes is not always sufficient to distinguish girl/boy—either from the standpoint of sex (biological traits) or of gender (social identity).

In the cultural realm, this shift in perspective has received a wide embrace, with “nonbinary” definitions of gender—transfeminine, genderqueer—having already entered the vernacular. Less visible are the changes taking place in the biological sciences.

The emerging picture of “girlness” or “boyness” reveals the involvement of complex gene networks, extending far beyond the moment six weeks after gestation when the gonads begin to form.

To different extents, many of us are biological hybrids on a male-female continuum. New evidence suggests that the brain consists of a “mosaic” of cell types.

For societies in which gender inequality persists, the new science of sex and gender may help shape public perception and governmental policy, making them better acknowledge this reality.

The Japanese city of Osaka has been selected to host the World Expo in 2025, an event expected to draw millions of visitors and showcase the local economy and culture. The theme for the 2025 World Expo is finding solutions to challenges facing humanity.

Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said in a statement that the country will make an utmost effort to "achieve a magnificent expo in Osaka that would give dreams and surprises to everyone in the world." Hosting a world expo in Japan would be "a golden opportunity to promote fascinating charms of Japan to the rest of the world," Abe said.

World Expos, which are held every five years, can last up to six months and cost millions of dollars to host, but can help put a city on the global map by bringing in international visitors and attention.

Leaders in Osaka, Japan's third-largest city and the largest in western Japan, are hoping the expo will revitalize a city that has lost much of its luster to Tokyo, the nation's political and economic capital. 

What if you could live longer just by doing more of what you love to do most?

It's an attractive theory that finds its evidence in Ogimi, a community on the island of Okinawa that's nicknamed the Village of Longevity because its residents have the highest life expectancy in the world. They also largely share a devotion to a Japanese philosophy known as ikigai, a concept that is, at times, used synonymously with purpose, passion, meaning, mission, vocation and drive.

To help define your own ikigai, ask yourself: "Why do I get up in the morning?" "What motivates me?" "What do I love doing most?" Or, "What would I regret not having done with my life when it's over?"

Once you find your ikigai, even if you don't live to age 100, your life may feel longer because you are more fully engaged with it while you are here. And living with purpose encourages other healthy lifestyle choices, like exercise, social activities, and lifelong learning.

Admittedly, following your ikigai is not easy in our modern technological world. Distractions are everywhere, from commercial advertising to social media to 24-hour news reports. In our fast-paced urban society, we need to work hard to stop working hard and let our ikigai lead the way.

The minister in charge of cybersecurity said he doesn't use computers.

Yoshitaka Sakurada, who just last week was criticized for stumbling over basic questions during Diet deliberations, found himself once again in hot water Wednesday after making it known that he doesn't use computers even though he is a deputy head of the government panel on cybersecurity and is tasked with overseeing policies on such matters.

During a Lower House Cabinet Committee meeting, Sakurada, who is also the minister in charge of the Olympics, said: “I don't use computers because since I was 25 I have been in a position of authority where secretaries and employees handle such tasks for me.”

Sakurada was answering questions posed by Masato Imai, an independent Lower House lawmaker. “It's shocking to me that someone who hasn't even touched computers is responsible for dealing with cybersecurity policies,” Imai said.

Sakurada also said “I don't know the exact details” when Takeshi Saiki, a member of the Democratic Party for the People, asked him about the measures that are in place to guard against cyberattacks on nuclear power plants.

Sakurada said cybersecurity is an important issue for the government and he is confident of his abilities as the minister.

The internet today isn’t what Tim Berners-Lee pictured when he invented the World Wide Web nearly three decades ago.

Berners-Lee says the web is “at a tipping point” as it faces threats like market concentration, data breaches, user frustration with ads and privacy, hate speech and so-called “fake news.”

“If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would have said humanity is going to do a good job with this,” he said. “If we connect all these people together, they are such wonderful people they will get along. I was wrong.”

Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation has unveiled a “Contract for the Web” outlining principles to protect the internet as a basic right for everyone. One key pillar of this initiative is that companies respect consumers’ privacy and personal data.

About 1.5 billion people currently live in a country with no law on personal data protection. The contract requires governments to treat privacy as a fundamental human right.

An attendant at a popular garden in the heart of Tokyo has cost the facility millions of yen because he was “too frightened” to ask foreign visitors to pay the admission fee.

The attendant, who is in his early 70s, admitted failing to collect the fees for Shinjuku Gyoen national garden after an investigation was launched following a tip-off by another employee. The unnamed man said he had stopped collecting admission fees of 200 yen (US$1.80) for adults and 50 yen (US45¢) for children in April 2014, and had continued to allow foreign visitors in free of charge for about two and a half years. As a result an estimated 160,000 people entered the garden without paying. The environment ministry said that it had lost at least 25 million yen ($220,000).

The man told ministry investigators that being yelled at by a non-Japanese visitor years ago had made him wary of overseas guests. “I don’t speak any other languages and I got scared when a foreigner began yelling at me a long time ago,” he told ministry officials. The errant employee was docked 10% of his salary. He asked to take retirement and offered to return half of his retirement bonus, or about 300,000 yen (US$2,650).

Every aging society faces distinct challenges. But Japan has been dealing with one it didn’t foresee: senior crime. Complaints and arrests involving elderly people, and women in particular, are taking place at rates above those of any other demographic group. Almost 1 in 5 women in Japanese prisons is a senior. Their crimes are usually minor, with 9 in 10 senior women being convicted of shoplifting.

Why have so many otherwise law-abiding elderly women resorted to petty theft? Caring for Japanese seniors once fell to families and communities, but that’s changing. From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors living alone increased more than sixfold, to almost 6 million. A recent survey found that more than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone and 40% either don’t have family or rarely speak with relatives. Seniors say they have no one to turn to when they need help.

Even women with a place to go describe feeling invisible. “They may have a house. They may have a family. But that doesn’t mean they have a place they feel at home,” says Yumi Muranaka, head warden of Iwakuni Women’s Prison. “They feel they are not understood. They feel they are only recognized as someone who gets the house chores done.”