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August 31, 2025
 

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MEDICINE

While the health ministry has been distributing educational material on blood donation to high school students since fiscal 1990, this will be the first time the campaign is extended to middle school students.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 2, 2024
Health ministry aims to educate middle schoolers in bid to raise blood donation rate
The ministry aims to have educational material on blood donation ready for middle schoolers in fiscal 2025 to encourage students to be future donors.
High blood pressure is the world’s single biggest indicator of death risk, yet it receives little attention and even less funding.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2024
The world’s biggest killer that you never considered
One of the most dangerous health conditions, high blood pressure, could be tackled easily and cheaply across the globe. But it's getting less attention than other issues.
At the New England Organ Bank in Massachusetts. A U.S. sex offender donated an organ in 2022 to help a sick child and redeem himself.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2024
Giving organs can save donors’ lives, too
A U.S. sex offender donated an organ to save a sick child, showing others like him that a path to redemption exists — and multiplying the good of his action.
The University of Tokyo in the capital's Bunkyo Ward
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 21, 2024
Japanese team uses AI to predict cancer risk from fatty liver images
The model has proved that it can predict cancer onset risk with 82.3% accuracy, researchers have said.
Doctors take part in a rally to protest against government plans to increase medical school admissions, in Seoul on March 3.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 18, 2024
More doctors walk off the job in South Korea in one-day strike
The dispute began in January, when the South Korean government announced a plan to dramatically expand admissions to medical schools.
A high school student was taken to the emergency room after he complained of symptoms including vomiting. The resident physician conducted a CT scan, identified gastric dilation and diagnosed the teenager as suffering from gastroenteritis before sending him home.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2024
Nagoya hospital error results in high school student’s death
The resident physician had incorrectly diagnosed the 16-year-old male student with a digestive disorder, but the teenager turned out to be suffering from a rare disorder.
Group A Streptococcus typically causes swelling and a sore throat in children, but some types of the bacteria can lead to symptoms developing rapidly.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 15, 2024
Rare tissue-damaging bacteria spreads in Japan
At the current rate of infections, the number of cases in Japan could reach 2,500 this year, with a mortality rate of 30%.
Akira Endo was born on Nov. 14, 1933, in Yurihonjo, a city in a mountainous area near the Sea of Japan.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 15, 2024
Akira Endo, scholar of statins that reduce heart disease, dies at 90
His research on fungi helped lay the groundwork for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease.
By April 2024, dengue fever cases in the Americas passed the total for the previous year.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 15, 2024
What's behind the post-COVID surge in communicable diseases?
Many regions have reported at least one infectious disease resurgence that’s at least ten times worse than the prepandemic baseline.
Kazane Kajiya, 27, (second from left) and others filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that the Maternal Health Law infringes upon their constitutional rights by restricting women's ability to make decisions about their own bodies.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 13, 2024
In Japan, a legal fight for the right to sterilization surgery
The plaintiffs' argue that the Maternal Health Law infringes on their rights by restricting a woman's ability to make decisions about their own bodies.
Researchers are still years away from understanding the actual impact of AI on addressing human diseases. But given the speed with which the technology is evolving, its increasingly looking like the impact could be vast.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2024
Inventing medicines is one of the most exciting uses of AI
AlphaFold has advanced significantly since its earlier version, offering static images of protein interactions.
The University of Tokyo Hospital in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward
JAPAN / Society
Jun 12, 2024
16 heart transplant surgeries abandoned in Japan in 2023
Of the 16 patients whose transplant operations were abandoned, 10 received transplants later, while six are still awaiting transplants.
Naoki Okamura, chief executive officer of Astellas Pharma, speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 11, 2024
Astellas seeks green light for eye drug Izervay in Europe and Japan
The drugmaker is in discussions with Japanese regulators about whether clinical trials for local patients are needed, Chief Executive Naoki Okamura said.
A health worker prepares a dose of the Covishield vaccine, co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, and manufactured by Serum Institute of India.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 11, 2024
World’s largest vaccine maker sees demand doubling in five years
Serum Institute of India plans to double its vaccine production to 3 billion doses annually over five years, expecting a surge in demand as global health budgets rise.
An ambulance bearing a message calling for the appropriate use of ambulance services enters Matsusaka Municipal Hospital in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Jun 10, 2024
City in Mie Prefecture starts charging some ambulance-borne patients
Matsusaka is targeting patients taken to any of its three core hospitals by ambulance but who are assessed as not needing hospitalization.
Doctors from the Korean Medical Association attended a candlelight vigil in Seoul on May 30 to protest the government's medical reform plan.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 9, 2024
Korean doctors vote to strike on June 18 in protest over reform
It's the first time the Korean Medical Association has taken collective action to protest against government plans to reform the medical sector.
A draft of a letter from bacteriologist Shibasaburo Kitasato to educator Inazo Nitobe
JAPAN
Jun 9, 2024
Draft letter of famed bacteriologist Kitasato to be made public
Shibasaburo Kitasato established a serum therapy for tetanus and will be the face of Japan's new ¥1,000 bill.
Kyoto University's Center for iPS Cell Research
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 7, 2024
Japan team makes immune-controlling cells from human iPS cells
The team expects that the method can make it possible to mass produce the cells, known for their effectiveness in suppressing rejection in transplantation medicine.
About 1 to 1.8 out of 1,000 people in Japan are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 6, 2024
Japan researchers develop drug to visualize Parkinson’s disease in living patients
The study could help better our understanding of such neurodegenerative diseases, for which there are currently no cures.
A white-tailed eagle is released backed to the wild in Hokkaido in February after having been treated for bird flu with human-use influenza drug.
JAPAN / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jun 6, 2024
White-tailed eagle treated with human drug returns to wild
After having been released in the wild in February, subsequent tracking verified that the bird was successfully living independently in its natural habitat.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Top Japan trade negotiator canceled U.S. trip over rice, report says
Ryosei Akazawa
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Most Trump tariffs are not legal, U.S. appeals court rules
Workers hang a large poster of U.S. President Donald Trump on the facade of the Department of Labor headquarters building in Washington on Wednesday.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Japan is warming up to tattoos — just not permanent ones
Tattoos have a complex history in Japan, but new types of temporary ink are letting locals curious about body art experiment without the commitment.
YouTube Music Weekend is where Japan’s internet-born performers go global
Headlining the second day of YouTube Music Weekend is Vocaloid artist Kikuo, who, with 1.46 million YouTube subscribers, is one of the most popular artists in the genre.
Japan looks to build drone ‘shield’ in record defense budget request
A group of Ground Self-Defense Force service members discuss drone operations and capabilities at a joint static display during the Orient Shield 24 opening ceremony at the Yausubetsu Training Area in Hokkaido in July last year.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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