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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 19, 2013

Why spider's silk is becoming man's best friend

Up on the roof of professor Fritz Vollrath's lab in the zoology department at Oxford University, there is a makeshift greenhouse in which he nurtures his favorite golden orb web spiders. Walking into the greenhouse is a little like finding yourself inside one of those Damien Hirst vitrines that dramatize...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 17, 2013

U.S. weighs military aid for intervention forces

The White House is considering significant military backing for France's drive against al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali, but its support for a major ally could test U.S. legal boundaries and stretch counterterrorism resources in a murky new conflict.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 16, 2013

Obama seeks to flip script on debt debate

ANALYSIS
CULTURE / Books
Jan 13, 2013

Americanized Buddhism

ZEN QUESTIONS: Zazen, Dogen, and the Spirit of Creative Inquiry, by Taigen Dan Leighton. Wisdom Publications, 2011, 312 pp., $17.95 (paperback) These essays and Dharma talks are meant to guide practitioners of Soto Zen meditation. The author is in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, author of "Zen Mind,...
Reader Mail
Jan 3, 2013

Purchase of islands questionable

Regarding the Dec. 29 front-page article "China 1950 paper says Senkakus are Japan's": No it doesn't. The document only refers to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands by their Japanese name. Who is the author of that document, and how does it represent the official position of the Chinese government? And did the...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 27, 2012

Polar bear hunting, trade sparks global controversy

The polar bear was more than 1 km away and began running toward the dog sled, quickly closing the distance on the frozen Arctic waters of Canada's Resolute Bay.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2012

Hard questions about the U.S. nuclear arsenal

We are rightly mourning the horrific killings in Newtown, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School and discussing the threats posed by semiautomatic rifles.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2012

Students fuel life with energy drinks

Acting on a late-night tip, Drew McMillan bounded up to the third floor of James Madison University's Rose Library and found a black filing cabinet with a homemade sign on top: "Test answers."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 23, 2012

Abe is a hawk, the public merely conservative

Commenting acidly on November's U.S. presidential election, American columnist George Will said all it showed was "whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney has the smaller gigantic number of Americans not wanting him to be president." Substitute the names of Prime Minister-elect Shinzo Abe and outgoing Prime...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2012

Sino-Indian border deadlock raises tensions; ambiguity of past accords hinders settlement

Indian national security adviser Shivshankar Menon went to Beijing the week before last to have his last formal meeting with his Chinese counterpart, State Councilor Dai Bingguo, who will be retiring in March next year.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2012

Court cases to test Obama's 'evolution' on gay marriage

The Supreme Court gave itself plenty of room to maneuver when it agreed on Dec. 7 to review the issue of same-sex marriage. The justices could decide one of the great political and civil rights questions of our time, rule narrowly on the two cases it accepted or even punt, on the grounds that the cases...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 15, 2012

Do young Japanese people dream big?

Do young Japanese people dream big? This was the question posed by Steven Kim recently on LinkedIn's "InStyle Tokyo Premier Networking" group.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2012

Should we strive to live to age 1,000?

On which problems should we focus research in medicine and the biological sciences? There is a strong argument for tackling the diseases that kill the most people — diseases like malaria, measles and diarrhea, which kill millions in developing countries, but very few in the developed world.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 12, 2012

Israel Iron Dome could spur or hinder progress toward peace

Yakov Stern was born nearly 60 years ago in the young state of Israel, and in one way or another, he has been fighting for its survival ever since.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 12, 2012

Knicks may live up to hype this time

There's an old question you hear around the NBA sometimes. It goes like this: What's the definition of a dynasty?
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2012

U.K. party leaders playing politics with press rules

Most people like talking about themselves, including those in the press. Since publication of Lord Justice Leveson's report into press culture, practices and ethics at the end of last month, Britain's newspapers have been consumed with discussing their own future. From among the many recommendations...
JAPAN / ELECTION 2012
Dec 11, 2012

'Changed' Abe makes case for fresh chance

In an article published Monday in the monthly Bungei Shunju magazine, Liberal Democratic Party President Shinzo Abe apologized for abandoning the prime ministership a year into his term in 2007 but insisted he is a changed man and deserving of another chance.
COMMENTARY
Nov 29, 2012

China should reconsider the land-grabber look

The installation of a new generation of leaders in China, albeit still incomplete, provides an opportunity for change in the Sino-American relationship, now that U.S. President Barack Obama has been re-elected.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2012

Good time to show he deserves the Nobel Prize

At a recent international conference, a colleague asked, somewhat irreverently (but not irrelevantly), "Now that Obama has been re-elected, will he finally earn his Nobel Prize?"
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 27, 2012

'Third force' elements scramble for poll position

So far 16 political parties are fielding candidates for the Dec. 16 Lower House election.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 25, 2012

The Fish Tree

Once upon a time there was a child who, being a child, simply didn't know what to make of himself. "Look," said his mother. "I brought the sun out for you. Go out and play."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2012

"Anonymous Life"

In the rapidly growing robotics industry, scientists have tried in vain to create humanoid robots like those in the movies. So far, their creations hardly match the impeccable automatons of Science Fiction. The question of identity here arises, with those real-life robots nowhere near the standard of...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 11, 2012

Carp rely on scouting expertise of Schullstrom, McClain

The Hiroshima Carp again failed to make the Central League Climax Series this time, but manager Kenjiro Nomura has been given another year — his fourth at the helm — to try to get the team into the postseason for the first time.
EDITORIALS
Nov 9, 2012

Mr. Obama wins again

U.S. President Barack Obama has won a second term in the White House. His victory was narrow, but it was definitive. Equally important for him, his Democratic Party retained control of the U.S. Senate. On the other hand, as expected, the Republican Party maintained its majority in the House of Representatives....
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Nov 8, 2012

Pending issues: Japan's isle rows, Futenma, TPP

Dealing with tensions between Japan and its East Asian neighbors, resolving the long-stalled relocation of the U.S. Futenma base, negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal, and promoting nuclear power while Japan looks to phase it out are just some of the bilateral issues U.S. President...
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2012

Hashimoto likens weekly's slur to hate speak

The clash between Toru Hashimoto and the weekly magazine Shukan Asahi over an article on the Osaka mayor's lineage has raised a question that Japan still refuses to directly confront: What kinds of comments cross the line from criticism into hate speech that should be legally banned?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 26, 2012

Festival/Tokyo theater event to give Asia a starring role

Japan has been on a bit of a losing streak for a while now. In 2010, it was overtaken as the world's second-largest economy by China, and in 2011 the nation was rocked by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the ensuing tsunami and nuclear crisis.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 22, 2012

Politicians may ru the day their names became verbs

"Which new words would you like to see added to the dictionary?" A couple of months ago the publishing house Taishukan put this generous question to Japanese high school and junior high school students.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 16, 2012

Niseko puts faith in powder to revive tourism boom

Throughout most of the 2010s, the meteoric rise in popularity of Hokkaido's ski resorts among foreign visitors was widely documented in both the domestic and overseas media.
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Oct 16, 2012

Straw belts

Dear Alice,

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.