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CULTURE / Books
Jan 25, 2014

Silence Once Begun

If you've ever thought book reviewing was a questionable business — so opinionated! so subjective! — this may be the review to prove you right.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jan 25, 2014

Baye McNeil: 'Always endeavor to do ... what you love to do'

Do what you have to do if you truly have to do it, of course, but always endeavor to be yourself and do what you love to do. That way, you'll come to the realization sooner that the life you're living is actually the product of your actions and decisions, and you'll be much less likely to waste a precious moment of it.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jan 19, 2014

China, South Korea face familiar woes in English quest

Japan isn't alone in its struggles with teaching English. China and South Korea have experienced similar frustrations, but their responses and results have been quite different.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2014

Warring dogmas block climate-change progress

National debates over environmental issues are sometimes derailed by two kinds of extremists: eco-doomsayers and techno-optimists. Noisy, headline-grabbing dogmas are an impediment to progress.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 5, 2014

The outbreak of the Great War: 100 years on

On New Year's Day 1914, a respected weekly literary publication carried a long article penned by an author referred to only as A Rifleman. Entitled "Letters on War" and published in The New Age, an influential radical magazine in Britain, the three-page piece argued forcefully in favor of military conflict....
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 29, 2013

A pardon for war hero convicted of being gay

Queen Elizabeth II's long-overdue pardon of war hero Allen Turing should serve as opportunity for the world to reflect on discrimination against gays.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 29, 2013

Hungry animals, people use 'Levy walk'

Imagine you are a member of a hunter-gatherer tribe living in a remote part of the sprawling African plains, and your stomach is growling. How do you search for something to eat?
CULTURE / Books
Dec 28, 2013

Epicenters of death

This study of the Great Kanto Earthquake by scholar Charles Schencking, begins not as you might expect, with the cataclysmic temblor of 1923, but with the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. In this latter event, optimism was predicated on the assumption that swift and decisive action would...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 28, 2013

Incredible India and the New Delhi Dissensus

On a recent visit to New Delhi, I met an activist promoting the rights of dalits (untouchables), who quipped, playing off a current national-branding campaign: "India is indeed incredible . . . but only in paradox."
LIFE / Digital
Dec 24, 2013

Even our Facebook 'grunts' could be monetized

As Mark Twain observed: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." And that was a long time before the Web. Which brings us to a meme that was propagating last week though social media. Its essence was an assertion that Facebook monitored — and stored — not...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2013

The revival of a Great Depression-era retread

Paul Krugman and other economists now advocate the kinds of things Keynesians typically promote to stabilize the economy during a recession to become a permanent part of the U.S. fiscal architecture.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Dec 7, 2013

Impending Japan-China war has the makings of a Clancy classic

On Nov. 23, China announced the creation of a newly expanded air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, overlapping a large expanse of territory also claimed by Japan. The move has produced a visceral reaction in the Japanese vernacular media, particularly the weekly tabloids. Five...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 7, 2013

Wabori: Traditional Japanese Tattoo

It may not have been their sole purposes for visiting Japan during their respective reigns, but Queen Victoria's grandson George V and the last emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, both received tattoos on visits to Japan, despite the government's ban on a craft reserved primarily for the branding of criminals....
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 28, 2013

Researchers create database of infectious diseases

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created a digital database of infectious-disease cases dating back 125 years, a treasure trove of information that could help scientists and public health officials better understand how to fight the spread of deadly afflictions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 23, 2013

Nuclear whistle-blower spills secrets the way the media should

Genpatsu Whiteout' continues to climb the best-seller list, propelled by a guessing game over the identity of its author, who seems to know a lot about the nuclear energy business.
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 21, 2013

Oldest genome of a modern human points to mixed ancestry for Indians

The genetic analysis of a 24,000-year-old arm bone of an ancient Siberian boy suggests that Native Americans have a more complicated ancestry than scientists had previously realized, with some of their distant kin looking more Eurasian than East Asian.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 15, 2013

Study says modern-day dogs closely related to European canines

Amid the harsh, icy lands of ancient Europe, early man found himself an unexpected companion — the snarling, carnivorous wolf — which would eventually become his modern-day counterpart's best furry friend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 9, 2013

Excess Baggage

The debut novel from author Karen Ma centers on the complicated relationship between a Chinese family and an estranged sister who become reunited in Japan after three decades apart and brings into question how culture, rather than family, shapes the individual. The constant theme of the novel is the...
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 3, 2013

Babies know songs they hear in the womb: study

Babies who have a lullaby played to them regularly while still in the womb can recognize the song months after birth, a study has found.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 31, 2013

Tea party anti-elitism harks back to Alger Hiss

The anti-elitism displayed by America's tea party harks back to the beginning of the socialist-and-liberal baiting dialogue of the late 1940s, especially to the perjury trial of Alger Hiss.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 27, 2013

Hitler escape book's authors in plagiarism row

The notorious claim that Hitler escaped his Berlin bunker to live incognito in Argentina first gained popular currency in 1945, when Stalin spoke of it. Since then the idea has resurfaced occasionally, with alleged photographic and documentary evidence pored over by conspiracy theorists. Now the theory...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 26, 2013

Japan Inc.'s hurt pride may be behind bout of fresh phone fears

What's the explanation for the current surge in concern over the poor manners and inattention of addicted cellphone users — especially considering smart phones are arguably no more distracting than the previous generation of mobile gadgets
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Oct 26, 2013

Twitter users find out the hard way that anonymity is just fleeting

In the ego-driven game of Twitter, Jofi Joseph was, for a while, one of the winners.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Oct 25, 2013

Space trash tax eyed

Space is getting awfully messy. The amount of debris in Earth's orbit keeps multiplying each year, damaging satellites and putting astronauts in harm's way. If the problem gets severe enough, it could eventually make low-Earth orbit unusable.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 24, 2013

Farthest galaxy churns out stars

Scientists have discovered the most distant galaxy ever confirmed, whose light took more than 13 billion years to reach Earth, providing a snapshot of the early universe. The faraway system resides in the night sky just above the handle of the Big Dipper.
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2013

Behavioral economics show that women tend to make better investments than men

It's happy hour at Hanaro in Bethesda, Md., and I'm with my wife. We're there about an hour, gobbling plates of half-price tuna rolls and washing them down with $3.50 Blue Moons. Have to hurry, happy hour ends soon. My wife slows down and cautions me to do the same. I don't listen. Keep 'em coming, right...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Oct 18, 2013

Norma Field, champion of Japan's leftist literature, retires — but not from anti-nuclear activism

A colleague once told me he didn't want to be attached to lost causes,' says academic Norma Field. 'I've never understood thinking like that. The bright spots in human history are so few. We should embrace and magnify them.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 13, 2013

Defective gene gives some stronger, darker view of life

Some people just see the world more darkly than others.
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.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 6, 2013

Making someone look you in eyes hurts persuasion

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" If you have ever used that line during a disagreement, you might want to think again. Forcing eye contact when trying to change someone's mind may actually cause listeners to become more stubborn, a new study shows.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake