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December 22, 2024
 

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Joel Achenbach
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 26, 2013
Budget limits trim NASA's plans for big projects
The Cassini spacecraft is in splendid shape as it circles Saturn. Conceived in the 1980s and launched in 1997, Cassini arrived at the gas-giant planet in 2004 and has continued to deliver stunning images of the jewel of the solar system.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2013
Space industry faces choice for next direction
The air is so clear the mountains in the distance look almost fake, as if added digitally. The desert floor is runway-flat, with a few Joshua trees popping up randomly, like lost cowboys. The dominant feature is the sky, preposterously vast, beckoning test pilots, rocketeers and would-be space travelers....
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 23, 2013
Dealey Plaza: birthplace of a mystery that still reverberates
Dealey Plaza is a depression. It is a shallow basin on the western edge of downtown, framed by concrete structures called pergolas and peristyles that were built in the late 1930s by the Works Progress Administration. Designed as a gateway to the city, the plaza is more of an ode to the automobile because...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 11, 2013
Social polarization dated back to Stone Age
Social polarization wasn't invented yesterday. Ask the scientists studying the bones of prehistoric Europeans. Hundreds of skeletal remains, many from a newly discovered cave in Germany, have produced a startling reminder of the power of social boundaries.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 23, 2013
Search for Mars life to continue despite rover's findings
Martian life is awfully cryptic — that is a scientific term; it means life that is out of sight, below the surface, burrowed into ecological niches not easily scrutinized by robotic sentinels from the planet Earth.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 15, 2013
2013: A space conundrum
Long ago, in a dreamier era, space stations were imagined as portals to the heavens. In the 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," the huge structure twirled in orbit, aesthetically sublime, a relaxing way station for astronauts heading to the moon. It featured a Hilton and a Howard Johnson's.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2013
NASA's mission improbable: corral an asteroid
NASA is looking for a rock. It has to be out there somewhere — a small asteroid circling the sun and passing close to Earth. It can't be too big or too small. Something 6 to 9 meters in diameter would work. It can't be spinning too rapidly, or tumbling knees over elbows. It can't be a speed demon....
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 18, 2013
Origin of gold found in neutron star bursts
Gold — atomic number 79, element symbol Au and the most widely beloved of the precious metals — might have its origin in extremely rare and violent explosions in the far reaches of outer space.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 16, 2013
Houston, we have a superstar: Crooning astronaut Hadfield's enthusiasm goes viral down on Earth
Chris Hadfield, who crawled out of a space capsule on the plains of Kazakhstan early Tuesday, is dealing with gravity for the first time in five months and sudden global celebrity after singing a gone-viral made-in-space music video.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 6, 2013
Remembering the awe that is Gettysburg
It was the biggest battle of the war, unequaled in scale and violence by anything seen before or since in North America. Two immense armies collided in the fields and orchards and woods around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1863, and fought for three days with no quarter given, in arguably the...
Freed anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson arrives in France
U.S.-Canadian anti-whaling environmental activist Paul Watson, who was released from prison in Greenland's capital Nuuk after five months in detention, arrives with Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy-en-France, near Paris, on Friday.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

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