The Robot Museum, Japan’s first museum fully dedicated to educating visitors about the robots of the world, is scheduled to open in Nagoya’s Sakae district in October, according to a June 29 announcement by Osaka-based robot venture GYROWALK and Osaka-based real estate auction services provider IDU.
Housed in a refurbished building that used to serve […]
Researchers at Kyoto University have developed new semiconductor laser technology that allows the shape of beams to be tailored freely and that can output beams up to 10 times more compact than existing beams – a development that could lead to a tenfold increase in the storage capacity of optical discs. Research results were published […]
A portion of the Indonesian coelacanth video shot several weeks ago has been made public.
The news report states that while more than 200 coelacanth finds have been documented off the coast of southern Africa, only 4 of the Indonesian variety had ever been confirmed before the Aquamarine Fukushima team caught theirs on video last […]
On June 21, Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced plans to send its BULLDOG landmine clearing system to Cambodia, where it will be put to the test in the field. The BULLDOG system, which employs Kawasaki’s robotic remote control and electronic control technology, has undergone some upgrades after conducting mine clearing operations in Afghanistan in 2004 and […]
On June 21, researchers at Waseda University’s Institute of Egyptology unveiled the computer-generated facial image of an ancient Egyptian military commander that lived about 3,800 years ago. The image is based on CAT scans taken of a mummy.
Researchers claim the mummy, which was unearthed near Cairo at an archeological site in North Dashur, is from […]
On June 20, an Okayama University team of researchers led by Professor Shogo Minagi unveiled a nasal airflow regulator designed to alleviate voice loss such as that which sometimes occurs after a stroke.
In normal speech, the soft palate (located at the back of the roof of the mouth) works to regulate the amount of air […]
Animals mimicking human behavior are a favorite staple of the Japanese media, and lately, for some reason or other, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of wire photos of animals playing soccer. Perhaps it is a sign that fascination with the sport extends deep into the animal kingdom. Regardless, we are not […]
On June 19, Japan’s Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken), SGI Japan and Intel announced the development of a supercomputer with a theoretical peak performance of 1 petaflops (one million billion floating point operations per second). Known as the MDGRAPE-3 (or the Protein Explorer), the computer system is designed to perform molecular dynamics simulations […]
“It’s dirty, but everyone is interested in poop. I wanted to give it a try,” says Michinori Ueda, director of Himeji City Science Museum, which is hosting an exhibit that delves into the world of excrement. Entitled Za Unchi-ten (”The Poop Exhibit”), the exhibit showcases the dung of 100 animals and provides displays that explore […]
