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Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 6, 2013

Science's great unknowns: 20 unsolved questions

What is the universe made of? Astronomers face an embarrassing conundrum: they don't know what 95 percent of the universe is made of. Atoms, which form everything we see around us, only account for a measly 5 percent. Over the past 80 years it has become clear that the substantial remainder is comprised...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2013

Humble true tales of a 'good man'

The journals of Kenjiro Setoue, a doctor at a clinic on a small Kyushu island, chronicle a life that is, as the doctor himself notes, for the most part, unexciting. It is difficult to believe that a version of this life has been retold — and, one has to believe, embellished — in an ongoing series...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 4, 2013

Witnesses reluctant to talk about Tiananmen

From a young age, Qi Zhiyong's daughter asked him how he lost his leg.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Apr 20, 2013

New Zealand instructor empowered by Pilates

Candace Adachi is one of those people who can turn heads without even trying as she walks by. With a spring in her step and a dazzling smile to match, she radiates self-confidence and well-being, and it comes as no surprise to learn that she is a professional fitness instructor. She says, however, that...
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 13, 2013

Catholic priests unmasked: 'God doesn't like boys who cry'

March 13, 2013. The world is waiting. Television screens show days-old footage of cardinals in red and white, processing past Vatican guards into the magnificence of the Sistine Chapel for the papal conclave.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 16, 2013

Exhibition to honor '01 school massacre dead

Twelve years ago, Ami Kifushi was a sixth-grader at Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka Prefecture when a knife-wielding intruder entered the premises, killed eight students and wounded several others.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 23, 2012

Journeying to the ends of the Earth ...

Travel is an addiction for which there seems no cure. Once under its sway, it is best just to ride out the alternating fevers and chills and see where they take you.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 2, 2012

Michael Woodford: Japan's whistle-blower supreme speaks out

Michael Woodford glances out of the floor-to-ceiling window of his multimillion-pound loft apartment, which looks out across the River Thames toward the City of London, the so-called Square Mile that is among the world's leading financial and commercial centers.
LIFE
Dec 1, 2012

When the past catches up

"Ha ha! I can't believe it's you!"
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 1, 2012

When the past catches up

"Ha ha! I can't believe it's you!"
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 21, 2012

Singing the praises of greenery

This year's annual hop between the hemispheres in my capacity as a globetrotting nature-tour guide took me to my namesake country, Brazil, with strange and unusual hopes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2012

Cusack delves into the dark with 'The Raven'

"One of the negative things about the Internet," actor John Cusack remarks when asked about rumors surrounding casting in his new film, "The Raven," "is unnecessary information. Stuff that doesn't serve any real purpose and can be detrimental to someone's ego or ... like I say, useless. Hopefully a good...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2012

The third space: the cafe's place in forming modern Japan

COFFEE LIFE IN JAPAN, by Merry White. University of California Press, 2012, 240 pp., $24.95 (paperback) Those of us interested in coffee, life and Japan will open Merry White's "Coffee Life in Japan" with high expectations. For most readers, alas, these expectations will be only partially fulfilled....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 22, 2012

Filipino filmmaker-writer captures the stories of Asians on the fringe

Rey Ventura's prose startles with the subtle force of cinematic images: From the "rustling leaves" that signal the return of the rebel forces to the Aeta hill tribes in the Philippines to the "standing men" or day laborers populating the alleyways of the Kotobukicho district of Yokohama. As both filmmaker...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2012

Court judgment in Canada may set guidelines for physician-assisted death in terminal cases

Gloria Taylor, a Canadian, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Over a period of a few years, her muscles will weaken until she can no longer walk, use her hands, chew, swallow, speak and, ultimately, breathe. Then she will die.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 24, 2012

Mutombo using stature to make a difference in world

Dikembe Mutombo commands attention, and it's not because he towers over people at 218 cm, or the fascinating fact that he speaks nine languages (including five African dialects) or blocked 3,289 shots during his 18-season NBA career. Simply put, the big fellow has lived a remarkable life.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 23, 2012

Aussie rejects salaryman lifestyle to embrace love of nature in Hokkaido

Rambling among crates of raw fish, dawdling around with 450 types of freshly caught produce. It may seem an odd way to relax, but for James Gallagher, 46, the organized chaos of the Tsukiji Fish Market used to be a welcome respite during his lunch breaks at the advertising firm Dentsu in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 29, 2012

Japanese families on endangered list

The family is humanity's oldest and most universal institution. But its shape, size, aims and ideologies seem infinitely variable. Japan's families down the ages have been polygamous and monogamous, multigeneration and single-generation, swarming with children or comparatively, if not entirely, devoid...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 20, 2011

Fate's path led Canadian to Kamakura

Rarely does life offer a clear-cut crossroads, but Heather Willson, a 34-year resident of Japan, faced one squarely when she was 22 years old.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 5, 2011

Doomed self-obsessive remains iconic to some in the Japan of today

"It's not that I'm weak, it's that the suffering weighs down on me too heavily."
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2010

The price of living longer

The British coalition government has announced that it will set from 2016 the qualifying age for old-age pensions for men at 66 instead of 65. Women have hitherto received old-age pensions at 60, but the qualifying age will be brought into line with that for men through a speedier timetable than hitherto...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 4, 2010

Manga's Cinderella story

"I want to tell you a real love story," whispers a pen-wielding Misako, a graphic-novel version of comic artist Misako Takashima, on the first page of the 2007 book, "Rock and Roll Love."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 13, 2010

Volleyball star finds meaning off court

As every top-level athlete knows, sacrifice underpins every training plan and for an Olympic athlete it becomes a way of life. For Sohn Jeong Wook, his goal of taking part in the Olympics was more important than country, but it didn't override family.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 6, 2009

Scaremeister Raimi sheds light on his fondness for darkness

Sam Raimi is best known as the man behind the "Spiderman" franchise, but he's also widely regarded as a master of the macabre and of horror. After all, he broke through in 1981 with "The Evil Dead" after fixating on horror movies as a child. Before age 10, he was making 8-mm home movies.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 27, 2009

Is it better to end in 'beautiful madness' than quicksands of banality?

On the morning of Sept. 18, 1939, a man and a woman walked into a woodland that was then in eastern Poland. They took a cocktail of drugs. When the woman woke up several hours later, the man was dead. He was buried the next day not far away.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 8, 2009

Working humbly to serve everyone

Ian De Stains has a place in a decades-old British order of chivalry created by King George V in 1917. Yet after knowing him, this may be hard to believe.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2009

German genetics law a double-edged sword

MELBOURNE — In April, Germany's parliament placed limits on the use of genetic diagnosis. Is the new German law a model for other countries to follow as we grapple with the ethical issues posed by our growing knowledge of human genetics?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 2, 2009

Creating a catalyst for self-reflection

"One of the hardest missions for people is to face themselves in the mirror, to criticize themselves, to ask themselves really basic questions," says ex-Israeli soldier Avichay Sharon. "No one wants to touch sensitive nerves, no one wants to go underneath, scratch underneath within himself." Sharon is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2009

Juliette Binoche takes to the stage — this time to dance

The Oscars are still in the air, and not just in Hollywood, as Tokyo is set to host Juliette Binoche — winner of Best Supporting Actress in 1996 for her role in "The English Patient" — in a weeklong run of "in-i," a dance work she created and is performing with Akram Khan, one of England's hottest...

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