Discussion topics

Fukushima recovery

By Di on juillet 15 2019

Workers at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have begun removing fuel rods from a storage pool near one of the three reactors that suffered meltdowns eight years ago. The measure marks a milestone in efforts to decommission the plant, although the more critical removal of melted fuel from inside three damaged reactors will prove far more difficult.

Agreement between India and Japan

By Aditya on juillet 11 2019

Right after returning from the three-day trip to China, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed the Indian leader Narendra Modi to his vacation home at the foot of Mount Fuji.

They agreed on resuming a currency swap accord to the tune of $75 billion and more than ¥300 billion in yen loans to finance India’s infrastructure projects including a high-speed railway using Japan’s Shinkansen system.

The sharing economy in Japan

By Di on juillet 9 2019

AirBnB suffered a major blow when Japan’s main tourism body sharply restricted home-sharing, forcing AirBnB to eliminate four-fifths of its 60,000 listings in Japan. The experience illustrates the country’s hesitant approach to the sharing economy, in which people rent goods and services from one another, usually through internet platforms. The sharing economy’s value in Japan is at most ¥1.2trn yen ($11bn), compared with $229bn for China.

Is art created by A.I. really art?

By James on juin 27 2019
Evergreen

You've probably heard that automation is becoming commonplace in more and more fields of human endeavor. You may also have heard that the last bastions of human exclusivity will probably be creativity and artistic judgment. Robots will be washing our windows long before they start creating masterpieces. Right?

I visited Rutgers University's Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where Ahmed Elgammal's team has created artificial-intelligence software that generates beautiful, original paintings.

Japan may go Gregorian

By James on juin 24 2019

With the Imperial era name change, Japan's Foreign Ministry is considering scrapping the use of the era name for calendar years in some of its official documents and switching to the Gregorian calendar, according to sources.

While the ministry will keep using the Japanese era calendar in documents that require consistency with papers of other ministries (including those that are budget-related), it plans to promote the use of the Gregorian calendar for documents without such restrictions.

A mountain of rubbish

By Di on juin 20 2019

India's tallest rubbish mountain is on course to rise higher than the Taj Mahal in the next year, becoming a fetid symbol for what the UN considers the world's most polluted capital.

About 2,000 tons of garbage are dumped at Ghazipur each day. Taking up the area of more than 40 football pitches, Ghazipur rises by nearly 33ft (10m) a year. At its current rate, it will be taller than the iconic Taj in Agra, some 239ft (73m) high, in 2020.

Social media's effect on self-image

By The English Farm on juin 6 2019
Evergreen

Much has been made over the years about how mainstream media presents unrealistic beauty standards in the form of photoshopped celebrities or stick-thin fashion models.

Using social media does appear to be correlated with body image concerns. A systematic review of 20 papers published in 2016 found that photo-based activities, like scrolling through Instagram or posting pictures of yourself, were a particular problem when it came to negative thoughts about your body.

Does the Internet help democracy?

By Jeremy S on juin 4 2019

A lot of people thought the internet would help democratize the world.

More people and groups would have access to information, and the ability to mobilize from the ground up would gradually undermine concentrations of power—that was the idea, at least.

But the reality has been quite different: Instead of democratizing the world, the internet has destabilized it, creating new cleavages and reinforcing the power structure at the same time.

Any shoe is better than a wet shoe

By Di on mai 20 2019
Topical
Colorful shoes on the beach

When Addy Tritt was 25 years old, she went to her local Payless shoe store in Hays, Kansas, a few years ago. She didn’t intend to walk out with the last of the store’s inventory.

The store was going out of business and had slashed its prices. When the last 204 pairs of footwear dropped to $1 each, Tritt figured she could buy some and donate them somewhere. 

“My pile just kept growing bigger and bigger,” said Tritt. She finally went up to the sales associate and asked, “Can you get me a deal on all of these shoes?”

Squid skin inspires new material

By Di on mai 13 2019

“Ultra-lightweight space blankets have been around for decades, but the key drawback is that the material is static," said Alon Gorodetsky, UCI associate professor of chemical & biomolecular engineering. "We've made a version with changeable properties so you can regulate how much heat is trapped or released."

The researchers took design cues from various species of squids, octopuses and cuttlefish that use their adaptive skin to thrive in aquatic environments.

Japan's new era

By Jeremy S on mai 3 2019

In an eye-blinkingly brief ceremony at the Imperial Palace, Naruhito, 59, officially succeeded Akihito, 85, an enormously popular monarch who brought the royal family much closer to the people as he emphasized a message of peace in a country haunted by the legacy of war.

Aussie rules Mark of the Year

By Jeremy S on avril 29 2019

The annual Australian Football League Mark of the Year competition is a sporting award that celebrates each season's best "mark." A mark is the action of a player cleanly catching a ball that has been kicked and has traveled more than 15 meters through the air without hitting the ground.

A spectacular mark, also known as a "specky," is a mark in Australian rules football that typically involves a player jumping up on the back of another player.

Are bans on plastic bags harmful?

By James on avril 25 2019

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.