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Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 20, 2013

The shadow biosphere: life on Earth, but not as we know it

Across the world's great deserts, a mysterious sheen has been found on boulders and rock faces. These layers of manganese, arsenic and silica are known as desert varnish and they are found in the Atacama desert in Chile, the Mojave desert in California, and in many other arid places. They can make the...
BUSINESS
May 29, 2004

Major life insurers show improvement

Japan's nine major life insurers are looking healthier thanks to stock-related gains made from the 47 percent jump in Tokyo stock prices during fiscal 2003, according to earnings reports released as of Friday.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 15, 2020

Life on Venus? Astronomers see a signal in its clouds

Scientists detected a chemical — phosphine — in the thick Venus atmosphere, and they assert that something now alive is the only explanation for its source.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 4, 2011

Alfons Deeken: Priest-philosopher makes death his life's work

On Friday, July 22, as the stifling heat and humidity of summer relented for just a fleeting few days, hundreds of people filled a hall at Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, to listen to a lecture by philosophy scholar Alfons Deeken.
BUSINESS
Oct 25, 2007

Japanese businesses setting up virtual shop in Second Life

For a year, blue-chip corporations in the West have been setting up shop on Second Life, the online, 3-D alternate reality that is redefining Internet communication.
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2002

Top life insurers' results reveal inability to reverse their decline

The nation's major life insurance companies have had little success reversing a decline in business, while their capital remains under pressure by depressed share prices, according to half-year financial results posted by the firms by Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2002

Meiji Life to merge with Yasuda Mutual

Meiji Life Insurance Co. and Yasuda Mutual Life Insurance Co. announced plans Thursday to merge by April 2004, putting the heat on other life insurers to follow suit in a bid to survive share price plunges, cutthroat competition and a decline in policyholders.
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2000

Midsize life insurers continue to polarize

Polarization among the nation's midsize life insurers is accelerating due to a business environment that is becoming increasingly severe, according to the fiscal 1999 earnings reports the seven firms had released as of Monday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 20, 2022

Housewife loses way in life and rebuilds as corporate exec

“Do not try to score 100 out of 100 points in your life because those are the points you earn from others, which will not make you truly happy. Only look to yourself to discover what makes you happy.” This is the message that Marraige Emichika, who was born Chika Emi but goes by Emichika, is trying...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2017

Inequality is a matter of life and death

Although people are living longer almost everywhere, life expectancy figures in the United States tell a more complicated story.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2017

Life here, there and everywhere in the universe

Maybe only one planet in a million has intelligent life, you say? Okay, then there are at least 140 million planets with intelligent life in this galaxy alone.
EDITORIALS
Jun 5, 2011

Japanese life index

Last month the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cataloged Japanese dissatisfaction in a survey of Japan and the 33 other members of the OECD. The compiled results in OECD's "Your Better Life Index" show that despite the relatively good aspects of life in Japan, many more parts of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 5, 2011

The comic life of expats in Japan

Tales of expat life in Japan all too often get blown out of proportion and quickly become picaresque adventures that little resemble real life.
BUSINESS
Sep 18, 2009

Nippon Life to inject more capital into Prudential

Nippon Life Insurance Co. said Thursday it has agreed to invest $500 million into Prudential Financial Inc., the second time it has put capital into the second-largest U.S. life insurer.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 1, 2009

Chizu Saeki: Beauty's more than skin deep

Skincare guru Chizu Saeki's expertise is such that her abilities have been compared to those of a fortuneteller. She can, for example, determine people's physical and mental health condition, the key experiences that have influenced them, and even their outlook on life, merely by running her fingers...
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2007

Business declines for life insurers

Reeling from an industrywide scandal involving the systematic nonpayment of insurance benefits, major life insurance companies saw new contracts fall in the six months to September, according to earnings reports released Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 19, 2007

Second Life, second lingo

There probably aren't many English teachers in Japan who go to work carrying a samurai sword, dressed in battle armor, with a large Stars and Stripes strapped to their back. But happily for Chris Flesuras, in 3-D virtual world Second Life little is impossible.
BUSINESS
May 31, 2007

Revenues tumble at major life insurers

Premium revenues for the nation's major life insurers dropped in business 2006, reflecting fallout from revelations of an industrywide failure to properly pay out benefits, according to their earnings reports released Wednesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2006

'Life insurance ladies' thrown in limbo

In Japan's still male-dominated business world, there is at least one industry in which women have long made their mark: life insurance.
As a young man, preserving the 400-year-old Ueda Soko Ryu tea ceremony school, which had survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, was always on Soko Ueda's mind.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Nov 11, 2023

‘Life is for being who I am — not who others expect me to be’

A soon-to-be 17th-generation tea ceremony grandmaster shares the journey he took in embracing his family heritage and preserving a Hiroshima tradition.
Hungary, which has increased its birth rate since 2010, has adopted policies that support those who want or have children, including financial incentives, housing subsidies and better work-life balance.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 31, 2024

Why do young people in Hungary want kids more than in Japan?

Marriage and birth rates are plummeting in Japan, while many young people in Hungary want families thanks to measures that support their choices in life and at work.
A bed of rock shows chunks of ripped-up seafloor as debris from a tsunami that followed a huge meteorite impact on Earth dating back to about 3.26 billion years ago, seen in a region called the Barberton Greenstone Belt in northeastern South Africa in this undated photograph.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 22, 2024

Ancient meteorite was 'giant fertilizer bomb' for life on Earth

The space rock that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago and doomed the dinosaurs was far from the largest meteorite to strike our planet.
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance headquarters in Tokyo
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 4, 2025

Meiji Yasuda girds to be more daring in global M&A hunt

The firm’s ambitions reflect bold moves also being made by many of its local rivals, all hunting for growth outside of the country.
Damar Hamlin poses with students at The American School in Japan in Chofu, western Tokyo, on Thursday.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Apr 1, 2025

NFL comeback star Damar Hamlin shares life-saving message in Tokyo

Hamlin’s comeback is bigger than football. It is also a vehicle for him to do something he has done his entire life — help others.
Native Englander Paul Christie now spends most of his time rebuilding declining communities across the rural stretches of southwest Japan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 29, 2023

One tour company’s mission to ‘revive a small corner of Japan’

Launched in 2007, the “Community Project” was devised to reinvigorate two neighboring valleys on the Kunisaki Peninsula.
According to one of the researchers, Sune Lehmann, the algorithm can be used predict health outcomes such as fertility or obesity, who will or will not get cancer, and even whether one is going to make a lot of money.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 22, 2024

How long you got? Danish AI algorithm aims to predict life, and death

It analyses variables such as birth, education, social benefits or even work schedules to predict a wide range of health or social "life events."
Lizi Haidarzhy, whose mother and 4-month-old brother, Tymofii, were killed in a Russian drone attack, wakes up from a nap in Odesa, Ukraine.
WORLD / Society
Apr 19, 2024

A drone strike in Odesa shatters a family’s life

The family’s story and grief have resonated widely in Ukraine.
With brightly colored hair and equally colorful attire, the 48-year-old Maaya Orii certainly stands out in a crowd.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 1, 2024

Paging Dr. Maaya, the neurosurgeon doubling as a fashion designer

Maaya Orii works as a neurosurgeon in Tokyo on weekdays and as a doctor in Kushiro, Hokkaido, on weekends. In her spare time, she’ll shift gears and focus on fashion.
Kodai Furutani, the assistant chief priest at Ryugasan Unmon Temple in Annaka, Gunma Prefecture, is working to become an interfaith chaplain.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2025

Monk in chaplain training urges people to face death and live life

There is a deep-seated idea in Japan that a monk being seen at a hospital is a bad omen, as their presence reminds patients and medical staff of death.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.