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Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 14, 2013

Rescuing gadgets from the golden age of 'Made in Japan'

Piles of old electronic gadgetry, most of it out of order, clutter Junichi Matsuzaki's "studio" on the first floor of an aging public apartment building in Adachi Ward in northeastern Tokyo. To visitors the outdated technology may look like junk, but to the 53-year-old self-proclaimed consumer electronics...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 14, 2013

On the trail of the legendary Koryak reindeer herders

The dark herd rushed at the slope like a massive wave crashing ashore. Hitting the base of the steep escarpment they were momentarily lost from my viewpoint; they surged upslope, reemerging into view on the upper terrace as a thundering horde, the vibration of their cloven hoof beats discernible through...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 14, 2013

Travel shows warp true globalization

Now that Tokyo has been given the honor of hosting the 2020 Olympic Games, the city, as well as all of Japan, will spend the next seven years "internationalizing" (kokusai-ka), a term that becomes fashionable again every few years when something like this happens. Theoretically a circumscribed society...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 14, 2013

Lessons on ballpark seating etiquette for Japanese baseball

Whose side are you on? Or, rather, which side are you on?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 14, 2013

History of the cat from ancient god to cuddly pal

Outnumbering dogs by roughly three to one worldwide, cats have been the world's most popular pet for a long time, but right now, in particular, they seem to be enjoying a golden era — possibly their most golden since the days of ancient Egypt, 3,000 years ago, when they were worshipped as gods. Even...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 14, 2013

Amy Winehouse and the so-called '27 Club'

In the acknowledgements section of his strange new group biography of six famous musicians who died at the age of 27, Howard Sounes writes about setting out "to see what, if anything, the 27 Club amounts to apart from a series of coincidental and tragic deaths." That "if anything" would be tantalizing...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2013

The desperate search for online privacy is over

Privacy in the traditional sense is most certainly dead. But the killer isn't the NSA. It's the Internet itself — or, more to the point, our entire reliance on it
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 13, 2013

The U.S. with Iran in Syria

America should grasp the opportunity for a diplomatic resolution to the Syrian crisis afforded by the Russian-Iranian plan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 13, 2013

My day at the races

The surface of the coffee in my Starbucks cup begins its gentle dance, the signal to lift my head.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 13, 2013

The dysfunctional family of Mother Nature

"From now on, I will carry my own water bottle," I promised Mother Nature. She had just scolded me as I came around the corner by presenting me with an angry beach covered with garbage. And this was not the first time she has told me off. Hundreds of beaches in the Seto Inland Sea are inundated with...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 13, 2013

Neuroscientists reveal the sexiest parts of the body

The mind, said Raquel Welch, is an erogenous zone. And it is the brain, and how it organizes our erogenous zones, that has intrigued scientists for decades. Why is a nuzzled neck sexy when few would be turned on by a nuzzled nose? And why do men seem to have fewer erogenous zones than women? A new study...
JAPAN
Sep 13, 2013

Studies on mouse rehab music and onion tears win Ig Nobels

A study on how opera may prolong one's life and research into the complex mechanism of how chopping onions causes tears have earned two Japanese groups an Ig Nobel prize.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Sep 13, 2013

Home of Zero fighter drawing Miyazaki fans

"Kaze Tachinu" ("The Wind Rises") was director Hayao Miyazaki's last feature-length anime before he retired this month.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 13, 2013

Population of North Korea gulags has shrunk: experts

The population of North Korea's city-size political prison camps could be tens of thousands lower than the estimate used for more than a decade by aid groups and the U.S. government, according to recent reports and accounts from researchers, who put the new number at between 80,000 to 120,000.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 13, 2013

Voyager I craft becomes first man-made object to enter interstellar space

The tireless Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in the disco era and now about 19 billion km from Earth, has become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space, scientists said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013

Aoyama looks to the 1980s without nostalgia

Shinji Aoyama is the director as cinephile. That is, while winning awards for his own films, including two prizes at Cannes for his 2000 drama "Eureka," he has long been a serious student of films by others, beginning with his days at Rikkyo University as a disciple of eminent film scholar Shigehiko...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2013

Tanks, not leak, main problem at Fukushima

The radioactive water tainting the sea from the Fukushima No. 1 plant may be generating headlines, but an expert says its storage tanks pose a greater danger.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013

'Les Saveurs du Palais'

In France, female chefs rarely get to the top — and when they do, gender issues are rife. One way to deal with it is simply to ignore it, and in this story of chef Hortense Laborie (based on the real-life Daniele Delpeuch) it works. "Haute Cuisine" is the story of how she was hand-picked by Joel Robuchon...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013

'Minnasan, Sayonara! (See You Tomorrow, Everyone)'

Director: Yoshihiro Nakamura
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 12, 2013

Cute craving a cash cow for Hello Kitty creator

Tanya Stanich, a 43-year-old lawyer, clutched a handful of pink and black Hello Kitty notebooks at Sanrio Co.'s store in Manhattan's Times Square and touched a sequined bag adorned with the face of a cartoon cat.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Sep 12, 2013

Roomba rules with working moms

Don't diss working mothers. They boost the economy.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2013

No. 1 chief pleased with Olympics bid; tritium reading doubles

The head of the leaking Fukushima No. 1 plant expresses relief at Tokyo winning the 2020 Olympics while disclosing yet another leap in groundwater radiation.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Sep 11, 2013

Balentien ties single-season home run record

Before facing the Hiroshima Carp, Wladimir Balentien and teammate Ryoji Aikawa decided they were going to go with a high-sock look, or as Balentien put it, "old-school, Sadaharu Oh-style."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2013

Real-world validations of our digital realm

"We are now living in a super, hyper-extended information society," says curator Masafumi Fukugawa, "and that idea was the starting point for our new exhibition."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2013

The tireless patience of a behavioral photographer

In Wim Wenders' 1984 film "Paris, Texas," Walt (Dean Stockwell) picks up his younger brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), who had disappeared in the desert four years earlier, to drive him back to Los Angeles. As Walt drives, Travis shows him a weathered picture of an empty plot of land he bought in...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2013

A dream for the digital age: Internet access for all

Giving the five billion people who still stuck in the paper age digital access would transform their lives in a very positive way.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 11, 2013

Activist, filmmaker Landau dies at 77

Saul Landau, an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work gave an unprecedented glimpse into Fidel Castro's Cuba, and who co-wrote a riveting account of a Washington assassination linked to Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, died Sept. 9 at his home in Alameda, California. He was 77.

Longform

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