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Lenny Bernstein
For Lenny Bernstein's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 21, 2013
With ban on lead in hunters' bullets, California hopes to protect condors
By 1982, the number of California condors in the wild had dwindled to 22, an entire species nearly wiped out by, among other threats, lead poisoning from hunters' ammunition.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 8, 2013
Report links sonar to whale stranding
The mysterious stranding of about 100 melon-headed whales in a shallow Madagascar lagoon in 2008 set off a rapid international response — a few of the 3-4-meter-long marine mammals were rescued, necropsies conducted, a review panel formed.
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 9, 2013
Could man-made clouds help lower the planet's temperature?
With the planet warming inexorably, some experts are wondering whether the time may have come to deliberately attempt 'solar radiation management.
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Aug 28, 2013
Air gun noise sparks alarm in war over offshore drilling
The use of "seismic air guns" to determine how much oil and gas lies beneath a vast swath of the ocean floor off the southeast coast of the United States is provoking an early skirmish in a battle over oil drilling that is still years away.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 25, 2013
Flying through an urban obstacle course like 007
If you're my age (meaning not in your 20s) and you've even heard of "parkour," it's probably because of that scene in the 2006 remake of "Casino Royale" when James Bond chases a bounding, bouncing bad guy up a giant construction crane, down an elevator shaft and over all kinds of obstacles on a building site.
Reader Mail
Feb 27, 2011
Pawns of leading-edge 'research'
The front-page Feb. 22 article "Work starts at Shinjuku Unit 731" prompted me to make a few comments as a student of the Chinese language who visited the Biological Warfare Unit 731 site in the Pingfang district of Harbin, China. (The Shinjuku site in Tokyo is said to have been research headquarters for Unit 731.)
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2011
No proof seniors drive less safely
The Jan. 3 Kyodo article "Traffic deaths down but not for seniors" reports that, for the first time, half of all victims of fatal traffic accidents in Japan during 2010 were 65 or older. The piece then opines that the imbalance in the distribution of fatalities "suggests a greater need for measures to prevent seniors from having accidents," including workshops and a system that encourages the voluntary surrender of driver's licenses.

Longform

High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?