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Naoko Motooka began hunting 10 years ago. Her hobby is one way Hokkaido hopes to curb a current boom in the deer population.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 15, 2024

Hunting in Hokkaido; Taylor Swift comes to Tokyo

You probably don’t think of guns when you think of Japan, but Hokkaido’s hunters do.
Yasuhiro Otomo and Miku Narisawa during one of Odyssey Nature Japan's educational fishing programs.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 22, 2024

A young 3/11 survivor and her vow to protect the ocean

At 12, Miku Narisawa experienced a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed her home. Now she is working to protect it.
Motoki Taniguchi (left) and one of his clients, Maurice Shelton, hope their lawsuit can change alleged police practices involving stop-and-search.
PODCAST / deep dive
Mar 8, 2024

A lawsuit puts alleged racial profiling by police on trial in Japan

Three residents with foreign roots have filed a lawsuit claiming Japanese police target visible minorities. We discuss what they hope to achieve.
Two people try to take a selfie under the illuminated cherry blossoms in Kyoto’s Gion district last year.
PODCAST / deep dive
Mar 25, 2024

Sakura stories revisited: Getting in the mood for hanami

We are revisiting some past content on the science, economics and culture of cherry blossom season.
James Manyika, who heads Google’s technology and society team, delivers the keynote address at Google I/O in Mountain View, California, in 2023. OpenAI, Google and Meta ignored corporate policies, altered their own rules and discussed skirting copyright law as they sought online information to train their newest artificial intelligence systems.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 8, 2024

How tech giants cut corners to harvest data for AI

The companies’ actions illustrate how online information has increasingly become the lifeblood of the booming AI industry.
From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
PODCAST / deep dive
Apr 16, 2024

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

We discuss everything from accessibility in Tokyo to dealing with trains and the country’s shifting attitudes.
A nationwide survey by Japan Press Research Institute released in October found that 74.6% of respondents see or hear news a few times a week on the internet. Meanwhile, 87.6% receive news through private broadcasters.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 21, 2024

How to deal with influence operations in the era of generative AI

A significant number of people in Japan don't care about where online news is sourced from, one poll found.
Volunteers from a neighborhood committee stand watch on a street in Beijing on April 3.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 27, 2024

Xi Jinping’s recipe for total control: An army of eyes and ears

The goal is no longer just to address specific threats, but to embed the Chinese Communist Party so deeply in daily life that no trouble can even arise.
Yayoi Kusama’s “Pumpkin,” once the victim of high waves that dragged it into the sea, sits at the end of a pier on the south side of Naoshima.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jun 6, 2024

The sweaty pleasure of Japan’s inconvenient art

This week, writer Thu-Huong Ha is our tour guide into the world of Japan’s inconvenient art movement.
Farm labourers, with their faces covered for protection from heat, work in a field on a hot day in Karnal, India, on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 7, 2024

Everyone you know will eventually be highly vulnerable to extreme heat

Intense heat waves in recent years offer a stark warning of what’s at stake for humanity and particularly the vulnerable elderly population.
Water is sprayed over the stage at a Taylor Swift concert in Rio de Janeiro in November 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 19, 2024

On a warming planet, outdoor concerts need a new safety playbook

Climate change is ushering in more extreme weather worldwide, and with it, greater risks for outdoor events.
You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 4, 2024

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Summer music festivals are back, but for how long? Climate change is putting the heat on our favorite outdoor entertainment.
Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Jul 14, 2024

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

Great pianists aren't made overnight, it takes years of practice. It can all be undone in a matter of days, however, due to a medical condition called dystonia.
One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 22, 2024

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Homeless influencers, fantasy boyfriends and bubble-era bars — Kabukicho seems to have it all.
The latest research indicates that heat stress is likely to worsen the condition of people with Alzheimer’s disease — which accounts for over half of all dementia cases in Japan — by making them more irritated or exacerbating their cognitive decline.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Boiling Point
Jul 29, 2024

For aging Japan, a troubling link between heat and dementia

The latest research indicates that heat can exacerbate cognitive decline and worsen dementia symptoms.
A bulletin board shows the day's highest temperature in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, on July 29.
JAPAN / Boiling Point
Aug 8, 2024

From Naha to Nemuro, how Japan’s cities are responding to more heat

Municipalities are reaching for everything from automated misting systems to anime to help cool residents and educate them about the risks of heat.
An ambulance is parked at the entrance of the emergency room of Saitama Hospital in Wako, Saitama Prefecture, on July 24.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Boiling Point
Aug 20, 2024

How Japan's health care system is gearing up for more heatstroke cases

Rising heatstroke cases are weighing on the nation’s health care system, which is already wrestling with the growing burden of a rapidly aging population.
A damaged road in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 6, after a major earthquake struck the area on New Year's Day
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / OUR PLANET
Oct 6, 2024

Important tool or alarmism? Japan experts split on megaquake advisories.

Supporters say the advisories are about reducing risk, but critics see a system that isn’t based on science and one in which the cons outweigh the pros.
People walk among piled up cars, following floods in Sedavi, Valencia, Spain, on Thursday.
WORLD
Nov 1, 2024

Spain's floods are among Europe's worst storm disasters ever

A year's worth of rain fell in eight hours in parts of the Valencia region on Tuesday.
The Democrats focused on issues like racial and gender inequality and overlooked the economic and social struggles of the working class, allowing Donald Trump to tap into this resentment.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2024

Voters to elites: Ignore the working class at your own peril

The redistribution of respect saw those who climbed the academic ladder celebrated with accolades, while those who didn’t were rendered invisible.
The Bluesky social network has soared to one of the top positions in social network downloads in app stores in the past week since the U.S. election. The company reported a recent gain of 700,000 new users joining the social media platform, an alternative to X.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 18, 2024

How Bluesky, alternative to X and Facebook, is handling explosive growth

Bluesky’s meteoric growth underscores its role as a decentralized alternative to traditional social networks, prioritizing user control and developer creativity.
"True View of Horse-drawn Tramcars Coming and Going at Nihombashi Bridge" (1882) by Utagawa Hiroshige
CULTURE / Art
Dec 31, 2024

The bond between the Japanese and animals as seen in ukiyo-e

An exhibition looks at what kind of relationship did Japanese people and animals have during the early modern Edo Period.
Sulaiman, a Rohingya refugee who recently fled Myanmar, poses for a picture at a refugee camp near the town of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Nov. 22.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 17, 2024

How Myanmar’s junta is suppressing information about a hunger crisis

Junta representatives have warned aid workers against releasing data and analysis that indicate millions of people in Myanmar are experiencing serious hunger.
Tsuyako Shimabukuro (front, second from left), head of the Eguchi community association in the town of Chatan, Okinawa Prefecture, and other community leaders discuss their efforts along with members of the prefectural association of families of missing persons with dementia.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Dec 30, 2024

Okinawa communities battle a rise in missing elderly with dementia

In the prefecture, 118 such cases were reported to the police last year.
Mark Zuckerberg, then chief executive of Facebook, appears at a joint U.S. Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in April 2018.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 11, 2025

Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s sprint to remake Meta for the Trump era

The highly unusual overhaul of the firm's speech policies came after the Meta CEO visited U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in November.
It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Jan 13, 2025

Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?

Amid a push to digitalize, some experts believe citizens should have the right to stay offline.
Though vegan restaurants have been on the upswing since 2017, Japanese vegans still lack a wide variety of options.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Jan 29, 2025

In meat- and fish-loving Japan, veganism is making a comeback

Tourism, climate goals and animal rights concerns are sparking a plant-based renaissance in a country famous for sushi and pork ramen.
Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, speaks at a White House event with President Donald Trump, left; Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son, third from left; and Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle, at the White House on Jan. 21.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 9, 2025

How Sam Altman sidestepped Elon Musk to win over Donald Trump

After helping President Trump get elected, Elon Musk was poised to dominate the nation’s AI policies. But someone got there before him.
The inner monologue has proven extremely difficult to study because it relies on people being able to describe how they think — and it turns out we are unreliable narrators.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 5, 2025

'I don't have a voice in my head': Life with no inner monologue

The inner monologue has proven extremely difficult to study because it relies on people being able to describe how they think.
Ground personnel unload weapons and other military hardware delivered by the U.S. military near Kyiv in 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 28, 2025

U.S. aid pullback is making Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian hacks

USAID has been gutted in the first months of Trump’s presidency by Elon Musk’s "department of government efficiency," and Trump has become increasingly impatient with Zelenskyy.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji