Tag archives for japan
Posted by On our radar today: The Cassini spacecraft has snapped a photo of an enormous hurricane raging on Saturn, a lost Egyptian city has been revealed in new photos and video, and…
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Japan is home to a dozen ancient languages at risk of disappearing forever. A new translation of K. David Harrison’s “The Last Speakers” could help tip the scales in their favor.
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On this week’s show, meet a woman who free-dives with great white sharks, a man who skied to the North Pole in the darkness of winter, and photographers who can turn such darkness into a colorful portrait of a world we can’t see.
Carbon Tax Is a Popular Topic in Washington
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on March 14, 2013 Since China announced it will hold off plans to introduce a carbon tax, the idea has generated some activity on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers on Tuesday proposed a draft bill that would charge the largest industrial polluters a fee for, or carbon tax on, their fossil-fuel emissions. The plan, proposed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Rep. Earl…
Posted by Sunday is opening day for the two-week-long 16th meeting, in Bangkok, Thailand, of the world’s leading body for regulating the world’s wildlife—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). How will the gathering decide on the issue of legalizing the sale of ivory?
Posted by Find out how Lu, the injured loggerhead sea turtle, got her sea legs back thanks to prosthetic limbs developed by a Japanese team.
Posted by Customs authorities in Hong Kong have seized over 1,000 kg of African ivory worth almost $1.5m. This concealed shipment of 779 tusks is the third largest seizure in just three months and was smuggled by sea from Kenya via Malaysia. A routine x-ray scan of a shipping container reported to contain “archaeological stones” revealed the…
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The Japanese Otton frog (Babina subaspera) may look harmless, but don’t be fooled by its ordinary green, warty appearance. This frog carries concealed weapons. A new study has discovered that the Otton frog has sharp retractable claws that shoot out of its thumbs. The rare frog, native to the Amami islands of Southern Japan, uses…
Kiyoshi Sakamoto: Portrait of a Photographer
Posted by Alyson Foster on July 20, 2012 
On March 8, 1918, National Geographic editor, Gilbert Grosvenor received a letter from Arthur Hosking regarding several photographs the Society had recently purchased. Hosking was handling the transaction for the photographer, a Japanese schoolteacher named Kiyoshi Sakamoto, and he thought Sakamoto and National Geographic might be a good match. Editors at National Geographic did indeed find Sakamoto’s work worthwhile. The letter marked the beginning of what would be a decades-long relationship between the Society and the photographer.
Posted by The cherry trees are blooming in Washington. Tuesday, March 27, 2012, marks 100 years since First Lady Helen Taft and the Japanese ambassador’s wife, Viscountess Iwa Chinda, planted the first two trees. No photographs of the event exist, and newspaper accounts were sketchy. But historical records offer a picture of what happened that day and how it came about.
Posted by A North Pacific Bluefin tuna fetched 56.49m yen/$736,000 at Tsukiji fish market’s first tuna auction of the year. Bluefin stocks in the Atlantic and South Pacific are depleted to fractions of their original size thanks to overfishing driven primarily by the Japanese sushi market. Many of us, who may love sushi as much as the…
Big Businesses’ Call for Climate Action: Strong Treaty, More Aid
Posted by Mason Inman on October 20, 2011 A group of 285 large investors, representing more than $20 trillion in assets, urged world governments to forge a binding treaty at upcoming climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, and said global spending has not been nearly enough to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The call came from a coalition of four green investment groups—representing the…
Japan, Germany Struggle With Nuclear Power Slowdown
Posted by Mason Inman on July 21, 2011 With a large share of their nuclear power plants down at the moment, both Japan and Germany are scrambling to meet energy demand and figure out how to get by without nuclear in the future. Two-thirds of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors are currently down, most of them for maintenance and testing. To cope with the…
After Fukushima, Japan Vows to Boost Renewables
Posted by Mason Inman on May 26, 2011 In the wake of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged to boost renewable energy to at least 20 percent of its consumption in the next decade. This would double the share of renewable electricity in Japan, which gets most of its electricity from nuclear, coal, and oil. Nuclear power had supplied…
U.K.’s “Greenest Government Ever” Charges Ahead with Nuclear Power
Posted by Mason Inman on May 19, 2011 Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, has repeatedly pledged to create the “greenest government ever,” and now the country has adopted a new, ambitious goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, aiming by 2025 to slash them by half, compared with 1990. The goal, agreed to by Cabinet ministers in the ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats,…
Natural Gas Fracking Under Increasing Pressure
Posted by Mason Inman on May 12, 2011 The Oscar-nominated documentary “Gasland” featured dramatic clips of people whose tap water could be set on fire, apparently a side effect of “fracking,” a method of opening up fissures deep underground to unlock natural gas. A new Duke study backs up these residents’ woes, finding that drinking water near fracking sites had average methane levels…
Cherry trees are a cherished landmark of Washington, D.C. Admired by thousands of visitors at this time of year, when they are in flower, the trees represent an enduring bond between the U.S. and Japan. But few people know of the woman behind Japan’s gift of the trees to America–a pioneering National Geographic editor who famously reported for the magazine on the earthquake wave that devastated Japan in 1896, and introduced the word tsunami to the English language. Meet Eliza Scidmore.
On the evening of June 15, 1896, the northeast coast of Hondo, the main island of Japan, was struck by a great earthquake wave (tsunami), which was more destructive of life and property than any earthquake convulsion of this century in that empire. Thus began an article in the September 1896 issue of National Geographic…
Thousands of people are dead or missing after a deadly earthquake and tsunami shattered much of Japan last Friday. Families have been torn apart, homes and settlements have been destroyed — and now a nuclear disaster threatens the survivors. Governments and international institutions are sending relief aid, rescue teams, and nuclear experts to help Japan in…
Posted by It’s probably no surprise that today’s astronauts are discouraged from drinking on the job. Space tourists, however, may have different expectations. Enter Australia’s 4 Pines Brewing Company, which this Saturday will be conducting human experiments in Florida—taste testing space beer. (Related: “‘Global Warming Beer’ Taps Melted Arctic Ice.”) According to ABC Melbourne, the brewery has…
By Jordan Schaul When I first talked to Senior Curator, Ed Bronikowski at the Smithsonian National Zoo about current and upcoming projects last year he was excited that the zoo was planning to acquire Japanese giant salamanders Senior Curator, Ed Bronikowski (Opening of Giant Salamander Breeding Center) Photo Credit: NZP (Andrias japonicus) by the…
By Frederick M. O’Regan Our planet’s great whales and those who care about them can breathe a bit easier following last month’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), in Agadir, Morocco. A controversial proposal advanced by the Chair and Vice Chair of the IWC would have rewritten rules to resuscitate the whaling industry in…
Barring only the Hubble Space Telescope, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi may go down in history as the most beloved orbiting space photographer. Bye! The Yokohama native spent just over five months as a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, returning to Earth today via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. That’s the longest time any Japanese…
Sustainability was fashionable way before modern-day threats of climate change and pollution, according to Azby Brown, the director of KIT Future Design Institute in Tokyo and the author of Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan. The book is about late Edo period Japan (1603-1868), before the industry of the West made its…
A proposal circulating among the 88 nations that comprise the International Whaling Commission would allow an official resumption of commercial whaling in many parts of the ocean. The International Fund for Animal Welfare is making an urgent appeal to the U.S. Government to save the whales. By Patrick R. Ramage As our Ship of State…
