Each year, in an annual rite of autumn, giant jellyfish (echizen kurage) invade the seas around Japan, damaging nets, interrupting fishing operations and reducing the overall quality and quantity of catches. This year the residents of Fukui prefecture have a new strategy to combat the giant jellyfish — they plan to eat them.
(On the […]

Researchers from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have developed a micromotor powered by the movement of bacteria.
The 20-micron (1 micron = 1 millionth of a meter) diameter revolving motor has 6 blades, each with a foot that sits in a 0.5-micron deep, 13-micron diameter groove etched into a silicon […]

Archaeologists in the town of Umi in Fukuoka prefecture have excavated a piece of earthenware shaped as the head of a creature with googly eyes and a big grin. Opinions are divided about whether this artifact, which was unearthed from a site dating back to the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573 AD), is supposed to […]

East Japan Railway Company (JR East) has become the world’s first railway company to develop a humanoid robot guide. JR East spent two years working with a Japanese robot manufacturer to develop the droid, nicknamed “I” (which stands for “information”), who the company is now grooming for employment at train stations.
I stands 120 centimeters […]

On August 25, Toyota Roof Garden (a subsidiary of the Toyota Motor Corporation) began taking orders for its TM9 turf mats, modular grass tiles developed specifically for converting rooftops into fields of green. In addition to providing an extra layer of thermal insulation to a building, a grassy rooftop can also be used as a […]

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has set aside over 2 billion yen (US$17.4 million) in its 2007 budget to support the development of intelligent robots that rely on their own decision-making skills in the workplace. The objective of METI’s robot budget is to support the development of key artificial intelligence technology for […]

Toshimichi Boui (55), a Nara prefecture resident in the furniture business, is making a name for himself by successfully growing pyramid-shaped watermelons.
Each melon is cultivated inside a hand-made acrylic box from a very young age. The vines grow on a wooden trellis so that the melons can be exposed to full sunlight. This allows […]

Japan’s National Police Agency is moving forward with plans to introduce a road safety system that alerts drivers to potential hazards through audio and visual notifications on in-vehicle navigation systems. With testing scheduled to begin in Tokyo this year, the system is expected to be rolled out in 2008 after the test results are verified. […]

God does not play dice with the universe. Or maybe he does. Maybe he uses really small dice that we have difficulty noticing. If so, they might look something like these tiny dice manufactured by Iriso Seimetsu Co., Ltd.
Billed as the smallest dice in the world, each one measures 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.3 […]

A University of Electro-Communications team of researchers led by professor Kazuo Tanaka has developed a prototype of an electric wheelchair that the user can steer simply by thinking of which direction he or she would like to go.
The wheelchair interprets the user’s intended direction by means of a skull cap outfitted with a […]