2009/05/18

The four Japanese who were awarded the Nobel Prize in October 2008 have been busy since then attending various events. Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, who received the Nobel Prize in physics, have been inundated with requests for lectures and television appearances. Because they live in Japan, they have gained more attention than Osamu Shimomura, who received the chemistry prize, and Yoichiro Nambu, who shared the physics award with Kobayashi and Maskawa, both of whom live in the United States. When Shimomura returned to Japan for the first time since receiving the prize, though, he participated in many events. ...[more]

2009/04/30

The National Institute for Materials Science has developed a technology to reinforce steel to make it nearly six times more resistant to impact than conventional steel and also stronger in low-temperature environments. This technology has ancient roots, moreover, being based on traditional techniques for making Japanese swords. The research results were published in the May 23 edition of the American journal Science. ...[more]

2009/04/06

Japan’s land area is less than 1% of the Earth’s total, yet it claims about 10% of the earthquakes on the planet. The Great Kanto Earthquake (Tokyo) of 1923 left more than 100,000 people dead, and the death toll from the Great Hanshin Earthquake (Kobe) of 1995 topped 6,000. The list of major earthquakes in Japan is very long. The Japanese government has thus been promoting research into earthquake prediction since the 1960s, which includes not only monitoring of seismic activity but also discussions on how such research should be advanced....[more]

2009/03/06

A research team at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) has succeeded for the first time in mapping the genome of a bacterium that lives in the intestines of termites. These results bring scientists a step closer to developing a biofuel from wood biomass and have attracted attention from countries around the world due to the crunch today in the demand for fossil fuels. ...[more]

2009/02/05

A new nanotechnology-based treatment for myocardial infarction has been developed by researchers at the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine. ...[more]

2009/01/15

Carbon dioxide is one of the major causes of global warming, and reducing CO₂ is a key challenge for the world today. Research into ocean disposal of CO₂ is being carried out to lower the volume of CO₂ released into the atmosphere. On March 4 an open experiment was carried out by the National Maritime Research Institute on a new system for deep-sea disposal of CO₂. And on March 17 the results of studies on marine disposal and sequestration technologies were announced at a symposium held in Tokyo....[more]

2008/12/25

Soaring commodity prices have become an international problem. According to the International Monetary Fund’s primary commodity price statistics for May 2008, the price of 1 ton of rice was $1,009.32, approximately 3.55 times higher than it was in January 2006. Other commodity prices have also been rising: wheat was $328.76 (up 1.96-fold), corn $243.46 (up 2.37-fold), and soy beans $489.09 (up 2.29-fold)....[more]

2008/12/03

Advances continue to be made in human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells since they were first successfully created last year by Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. These cells have been intensively discussed because of the possibilities for their application in regenerative medicine, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency held an international symposium in Kyoto on May 11 and 12, 2008, to discuss the future of the field....[more]

2008/11/21

Researchers have announced the development of the world’s first pesticide made from lactic acid bacteria. The chemical-free pesticide was produced jointly by the Kyoto Prefectural Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Kyoto Prefectural University, and Meiji Seika Kaisha. The announcement was made in Kyoto in March 2008. ...[more]

2008/10/23

A group led by Professor Hideo Hosono of the Frontier Research Center, Tokyo Institute of Technology, announced in February 2008 the discovery of a breakthrough new superconducting material. This material is an iron-based oxypnictide, LaOFeAs, which has alternating layers of nonconducting (lanthanum oxide) and conducting (iron arsenide) compounds. ...[more]