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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2016

'Statistically significant' doesn't mean 'right'

Statistical techniques were invented by people who dreamed that the power of physics and chemistry might extend to a world of previously unpredictable phenomena, including human behavior.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 23, 2016

Iran media outlets add $600,000 to Salman Rushdie fatwa bounty

Iranian state-run media outlets have added $600,000 to a bounty for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie imposed in 1989 over the publishing of his book "The Satanic Verses.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 20, 2016

The Meiji Era and the soul of Japan: part 1

'Japan's first modern novel" was published serially between 1887 and 1889.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2016

U.S. should stop lecturing China about North Korea

China has demonstrated it has yet to be convinced to destroy its own ally and strengthen America's position in Northeast Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2016

The physicist who said no to Albert Einstein

Thanks to the rejection of a scientific paper written by Albert Einstein, his prediction of the existence of gravitational waves — which now has been proving true — was not retracted.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 17, 2016

Viral anonymous blogger rails against Abe failure to alleviate chronic day care shortage

An anonymous blog post penned by an irate mother complaining that she has to quit her job after her child was denied admission to a day care center has gone viral on the Internet, shedding light on what she called the hypocrisy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to promote the "dynamic engagement"...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 15, 2016

The art of the spin in U.S. presidential primaries

Presidential primary 'winners' are usually determined not just by the electorate but by what the political journalist Hendrik Hertzberg dubbed the 'expectorate.'
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2016

Stop ignoring North Korea

The lesson of Pyongyang's latest nuclear test is that talking to North Korea offers a better hope of success than ignoring it.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 30, 2016

New cat in town: Unpublished Beatrix Potter story found

A story by children's author Beatrix Potter, written more than a century ago, is to be published for the first time after its recent rediscovery. The tale featuressome of Potter's best-known characters such as Peter Rabbit.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 29, 2016

Want more sex? Try using contraception, researchers say

A study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has shown that couples who use contraception have as much as three times more sex than couples who do not.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2016

Insect Literature

The Berlin-based author Yoko Tawada recently remarked that one of the difficulties she faced when translating Kafka's short story "Metamorphosis" into Japanese was that the associations Japanese people had with insects — even presumably giant beetles — were different to those of Europeans. Tawada...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2016

Persuading China to cooperate against the North

The U.S., South Korea and Japan have run out of options to forestall a nuclear North Korea. It's time to make a deal with China.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2016

Why economic growth lags

A new book offers a sobering reminder of technology's limits.
CULTURE / Music / David Bowie in Japan
Jan 15, 2016

Ground control to Major Jack

I first met David Bowie in August 1982 in Auckland, New Zealand, where the crew of Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" had come together for the flight to the film's location in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. From the outset he came across as a man of great personal warmth, devoid of any pretence....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / David Bowie in Japan
Jan 14, 2016

Like some cat from Japan: A tribute to David Bowie

The late David Bowie's appreciation of Japan and its culture was strong. Following his recent death, The Japan Times asked five people who share that connection with the country, and who witnessed the decade-spanning trajectory of this starman, to recall what his sound and vision meant to them.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 14, 2016

Global warming seen upsetting natural cycle, may delay next ice age for 100,000 years

Global warming is likely to disrupt a natural cycle of ice ages and contribute to delaying the onset of the next big freeze until about 100,000 years from now, scientists said on Wednesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Jan 6, 2016

For Japan's English teachers, rays of hope amid the race to the bottom

The major economic engines of Japan Inc. — car manufacturers, appliance giants and the like — have often been caught price-fixing: colluding to keep an even market share, squeeze competitors out and maintain "harmony." Similarly, the commercial English-teaching business could be accused of wage-fixing:...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 2, 2016

Warming to Tsuwano: a wintry visit to the town of fish and foxes

The first official gate to the Taikodani Inari Shrine sits at the turn-off to tiny Tsuwano from the circuitous mountain highway that links Yamaguchi and Shimane prefectures. The shrine's main hall, however, sits on another peak halfway across town, a good five-minute drive away. I let my car idle at...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 29, 2015

New book says Zhou Enlai, China's first premier, was 'probably gay'

A book to be published in Hong Kong in the new year says Zhou Enlai, communist China's much-respected first premier, was probably gay despite his long marriage, and had once been in love with a male schoolmate two years his junior.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 27, 2015

Taking a longer view in defense of clutter

There's a worrying trend in Japan that is spreading throughout the world: that of throwing things out.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 5, 2015

Hanzai Japan

Hackneyed writing and plot devices grow like kabi (mold) in crime fiction, but this anthology of 16 stories by writers in and outside Japan serves up tasty surprises. "Jigoku" by Naomi Hirahara is a heartfelt, surefooted tale by a serial killer confined to a cardboard-box in hell. Carrie Vaughn's "The...
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 1, 2015

Gates, fellow billionaires look to plow $2 billion into clean energy initiatives

Bill Gates, the world's richest man, led a group of philanthropists in vowing to plow $2 billion into clean energy through personal investments and a new fund to be set up next year.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 14, 2015

Critic Donald Richie reflects on Asia in 'Travels in the East'

The writer Donald Richie wore many hats: film curator and director, critic, essayist, writer of fiction, composer, cultural commentator extraordinaire and inveterate traveler.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 7, 2015

'The Book of Tea' is a transcendent view of life, art and Japan

To those unfamiliar with his name, Okakura Kakuzo was a pivotal figure in trying to make sense out of the clash between Western innovation in Japan and Oriental tradition. Self-exiled from the emerging modernism of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), Okakura traveled to India, China, Europe and, not without a...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2015

James Bond is the U.K.'s greatest intelligence asset

James Bond and his fellow fictional British operatives allow U.K. intelligence to project an image that goes well beyond the niggling issues of reality.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2015

U.S. should retire outdated alliance with South Korea

The U.S.-South Korean security treaty is entirely one-sided, and charity is no basis for foreign policy.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Oct 5, 2015

Fish oils no help for mental decline

Fish oil supplements do not protect against mental decline despite common belief, a study says.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 3, 2015

The long and short of male circumcision in Japan

For most of its history the Japanese archipelago knew nothing of circumcision. Contact with missionaries and merchants from Europe did little to raise awareness of the custom, and the procedure does not seem to have been a high priority for the promoters of Western ideas and technology during the Meiji...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.