| Dec 23 | Space development division planned |
| The government will set up a division to handle space development policy, including a satellite system for improving the accuracy of Japan's global positioning system, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Thursday. The division will deal with the development, maintenance and the operation of equipment, including a system utilizing "quasi-zenith" satellites, that will be part of the GPS program, Fujimura told a news conference. The government will submit related legislation to the next Diet session in January, he added. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 22 | TEPCO switches on Japan's largest solar power plant |
| The Ohgishima solar power plant began operations on Dec. 19 in the coastal area of Kawasaki City, according to Kawasaki City Mayor Takao Abe and Tokyo Electric Company. The mega plant will provide electricity to approximately 3,800 households, said TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa. However, combined with the Ukishima power plant on Tokyo Bay, which went into operation in Aug. 2011, the combined output will be enough for 5,900 households. It was built by Kawasaki City and TEPCO. The plant, which consists of approximately 64,000 solar panels made by Kyocera, was built on a 23-hectare site and generates 13,000 kW. Kyocera has been one of the world's leading manufacturers of solar power for 35 years. (majirox news) |
| Dec 22 | Health ministry seeking stricter food-cesium rules |
| The health ministry is proposing much stricter regulations on radioactive cesium in food that would lower the current limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram to 100. Changes would also be made to the cesium limits for milk and water. For example, limit for milk would be lowered from 200 becquerels per kilogram to 50, while the limit for water would drop from 200 becquerels to just 10, finally bringing Japan's standards in line with those used by the World Health Organization. The proposal will be submitted to the ministry's Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food Sanitation Council on Thursday, and then to the science ministry's Radiation Council. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 21 | Research reactor ceiling catches fire |
 A fire Tuesday partially burned the ceiling of a building housing a nuclear reactor in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, the prefectural government and the reactor's operator said.
The fire broke out at around 9:30 a.m. and was extinguished two hours later, they said, adding the blaze at the research reactor facility did not result in a radiation leak and no one was injured.
The ceiling under the building's steel plate roof was set alight by sparks during welding work on the roof, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency said. (Japan Times  ) |
| Dec 20 | Radioactive water floods tunnel at Fukushima plant |
| Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Dec. 19 released a photo showing about 230 tons of radioactive water that had accumulated in an underground tunnel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The tunnel, adjacent to the central waste treatment building, may have been flooded with water leaked from supposedly waterproof storage containers of highly radioactive water in the building. The water in the tunnel was discovered on Dec. 18. TEPCO said the tunnel is about 4.5 meters wide and about 54 meters in length. (Asahi) |
| Dec 20 | 'Miracle pine' seedlings growing in pods at institute |
| Seedlings of the "miracle pine" that remained standing among a grove of thousands swept away in the March tsunami in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, are growing in pods at a forestry institute and will be planted in the city at a future date. The 260-year-old, 70-meter pine, however, is not expected to survive as its roots have been rotted by the seawater. Sumitomo Forestry Group said it has grown 18 seedlings from seeds taken from pine cones from the tree at its institute in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture. It unveiled the plants Wednesday at a press conference in Tokyo. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 18 | Daunting tasks await despite declaration of cold shutdown |
| Officials on Friday finally declared a state of cold shutdown at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, only to find they still face a long and bumpy road toward scrapping its crippled reactors and restoring the public's shattered confidence in nuclear energy. When the time comes to remove the fuel from reactors 1, 2 and 3, they intend to draw on the lessons of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the U.S. But the task will be more challenging than at the Pennsylvania facility because the fuel is believed to have melted through the bases of the reactor pressure vessels. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 16 | Japan says stricken nuclear power plant in cold shutdown |
 Japan declared its tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to be in cold shutdown on Friday in a major step toward resolving the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked on March 11 by a huge earthquake and a towering tsunami which knocked out its cooling systems, triggering meltdowns, radiation leaks and mass evacuations.
In making the much-anticipated announcement, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda drew a line under the crisis phase of the emergency at the plant and highlighted the next challenges: post-disaster clean-up and the safe dismantling of the plant, something experts say could take up to 40 years. (Reuters ) |
| Dec 16 | Fukushima cold shutdown: An inside look |
 Japanese authorities are set to announce Friday that they have brought the Fukushima Daiichi complex's devastated reactors to a state called cold shutdown, a milestone in stabilizing the site of the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Even if cold shutdown is attained, it will take decades for isotopes to decay to safe levels, and to remove the last fuel and completely dismantle the plant. For now, the unknowns are so great that authorities aren't even sure how to start tackling some of the biggest problems, which include locating and stopping the flow of toxic water and removing the melted nuclear fuel. Fukushima Daiichi is hemorrhaging enough radiated water each month to fill four Olympic-size swimming pools. (Wall Street Journal ) |
| Dec 16 | Flotsam from Japanese tsunami reaches NW coast |
 Some debris from the March tsunami in Japan is already reaching the Northwest coast.
A large black float about the size of a 55-gallon drum was found two weeks ago by a crew cleaning a beach a few miles east of Neah Bay at the northwest tip of Washington.
Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham displayed the float Tuesday night in Port Angeles at a presentation at Peninsula College.
Larger amounts of debris from Japan will likely begin washing ashore in about a year. The float traveled faster because it sits on top of the water and caught the wind.
(The Star ) |
| Dec 16 | O-157 discovery may spur ban on raw beef liver |
 The health ministry said Thursday it has detected E. coli inside beef liver for the first time, raising the likelihood that raw liver may soon be banned from the dining table.
The findings, to be discussed by a ministry council next Tuesday, come as the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has been considering whether to prohibit butchers and restaurants from selling raw beef liver, in the wake of food poisoning deaths from raw beef served at barbecue restaurants earlier this year.
Food poisoning from E. coli can be fatal and thorough heating for over one minute at 75 degrees is necessary to kill the enterohemorrhagic bacteria in the liver. (Japan Times ) |
| Dec 15 | US, Japan, Australia? Mars probe will hit Earth in January |
 The ill-fated Phobos-Grunt probe that got stuck in the orbit after an unsuccessful launch will fall to Earth on January 11, probably affecting four continents, the US Strategic Command shared its latest forecast.
The current orbit of the vehicle suggests that it could collide with the surface on a vast part of the globe, from latitude 51.4°N to latitude 51.4°S. anywhere in Africa, Australia, Japan, North America or southern part of Western Europe, but definitely not on the larger part of the Russian territory.
A more-or-less exact prognosis on the coordinates of the crash can only be made several hours before the collision.
According to the previous forecast, the probe was due to enter atmosphere on January 9. (rt.com ) |
| Dec 15 | Radiation doses vary with evacuation patterns |
| Evacuation patterns affected the differing levels of external radiation to which residents of Fukushima Prefecture were exposed in the first four months of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to the prefectural government. The difference was seen in interim results released Tuesday of health checks on all residents of the prefecture. Just after the crisis began, the government initially failed to disclose data from the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI), which was used to analyze how radioactive substances would spread from the nuclear plant. (Yomiuri) |
| Dec 14 | Japan to install radar at airport to reduce bird strikes |
| Japan will install radar equipment at Tokyo's Haneda airport in April to prevent birds from colliding with airplanes that could cause plane crashes, according to local media citing officials from ministry of transport. It is the first such high-tech effort to be made in the country due to the rising bird strikes at the nation's busiest airport, the officials said. The radar after installation can locate the positions of birds up to 300 meters high, so that people can track their movements on screen and deal with them more easily. The radar can measure the size and the type of birds while the monitors will be able estimate where birds are likely to fly, and it can disperse the birds by using popping sounds over loudspeakers. (Reuters) |
| Dec 14 | Interim storage facilities planned for near N-plant |
 The Environment Ministry plans to build interim facilities to store soil and ash contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, in the prefecture's Futaba county, sources said Tuesday.
The ministry is expected to officially announce the plan by the end of the year. The ministry said it would select a location for the storage facilities by the end of fiscal 2012 at the latest. It now plans to choose municipalities to hold the material.
Futaba county has eight municipalities, including Futabamachi and Okumamachi, where the crippled nuclear power plant is located. (Yomiuri ) |
| Dec 13 | Radioactivity in Japanese waters thousands of times higher than normal |
 With recent reports that there have been further radioactive leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plants, a new study has assessed the level of radioactivity in the ocean in the first months after the disaster.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution chemist Ken Buesseler and two Japanese colleagues report that discharges from the power plants peaked a month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and continued through at least July.
The disaster was the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history. Concentrations of cesium-137 at the plants' discharge points to the ocean peaked at more than 50 million times normal levels. (tgdaily.com) |
| Dec 13 | No Monju test runs in FY12, govt says |
| The government has announced it will not resume test operations for a Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, during fiscal 2012 in light of the current domestic situation following the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Additionally, the government plans not to include 2.2 billion yen earmarked for test operation preparations in the fiscal 2012 budget. Following recommendations from the Government Revitalization Unit, the government has reviewed the budgets for Monju and other nuclear energy-related projects, and will cut 4 billion yen from Monju's 21.5 billion yen budget request in the coming fiscal year. (Yomiuri) |
| Dec 13 | Top genome researcher to quit / Frustrated expert wants to develop anticancer drugs in U.S. |
| Tokyo University Prof. Yusuke Nakamura will step down as head of the office promoting medical innovation in the Cabinet Secretariat and move to the University of Chicago, it was learned Monday. Nakamura, 59, will make the move in April next year. Nakamura, a leading authority on genomic research, hopes to put new anticancer drugs to practical use in the United States. His decision likely will cause controversy, as it means a leader of medical innovation in Japan has given up on research and development of medicine here. (Yomiuri) |
| Dec 12 | Japan launches new spy satellite |
 Japan launched a new spy satellite into orbit on Monday amid concerns over North Korea's missile programme and to monitor natural disasters in the region, officials said.
The Japanese H-2A rocket carrying an information-gathering radar satellite lifted off at 10:21 am (0121 GMT) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan.
"The rocket was launched successfully," said Toshiyuki Miura, a spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which built the satellite and worked on the launch with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
"The satellite was separated into orbit around the Earth later," Miura added.
The government decided to build an intelligence-gathering system after North Korea launched a missile in 1998 that flew over the Japanese archipelago and into the Pacific, shocking many in Japan. (AFP ) |
| Dec 12 | Researchers develop method to form blood platelets from stem cells |
| A team of researchers from Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo has worked out a method using artificially created stem cells to produce a large volume of cells from which blood platelets can be derived outside the human body. The method using so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells may prove to be a boon for those who need repeated blood transfusions such as patients with blood cancers as well as aplastic anemia who suffer from declining bone marrow function. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 11 | Wild monkeys to carry forest fallout monitors |
 Fukushima University researchers plan to measure forest radiation levels in Fukushima Prefecture by placing special monitoring collars on wild monkeys, in light of the nuclear crisis.
Each of the collars contains a small radiation meter and a Global Positioning System transmitter, and can be unclipped by remote control. This will allow a team led by robotics professor Takayuki Takahashi to recover the collars and collect the data within one to two months after the monkeys are released back into the wild, they said.
Radiation in forests is currently monitored mainly from the air, for example by helicopter, but the researchers believe they can get more detailed data through wild monkeys and aim to implement the project in an area of the city of Minamisoma by spring. (Japan Times ) |
| Dec 11 | H-IIA radar satellite launch delayed |
| The launch of a radar satellite aboard an H-IIA rocket has been pushed back a day after inclement weather was forecast for Sunday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Saturday. The launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture will now take place between 10:21 and 10:35 a.m. Monday. The radar satellite is part of a government program aimed at enhancing its intelligence-gathering capabilities, but is also said to be useful for collecting data on natural disasters. The program was launched after North Korea in 1998 fired a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 10 | Residents' exposure tops safety limit |
| Residents in three municipalities near the Fukushima No. 1 power station were exposed to as much as 37 millisieverts of radiation during the first four months of the nuclear crisis, prefectural officials said Friday. The prefecture estimated the dose they received after conducting health checks on about 1,730 residents in the towns of Namie and Kawamata, and the village of Iitate, which are all close to the No. 1 nuclear plant and in areas designated as evacuation zones. The residents had kept records of their daily movements during the four-month period. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 09 | Japan PM: Nuke plant stable by year's end |
| The prime minister says Japan plans to declare a tsunami-hit nuclear power plant is stable by the end of the year as planned. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Friday temperatures of the three melted reactor cores have fallen below the boiling point. And radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have significantly subsided since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that set off the crisis. Those are the two key conditions to achieve what Japanese nuclear officials call "cold shutdown." That status is a milestone in the effort to stabilize and eventually close the plant. (USA Today) |
| Dec 08 | Tepco may dump decontaminated water into sea |
 The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant is considering dumping water it treated for radiation contamination into the ocean as early as March, the firm said on Thursday, prompting protests from fishing groups.
Tokyo Electric Power, (Tepco) the utility operating Fukushima's Daiichi plant, hit by a powerful tsunami in March that caused the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years, said it was running out of space to store some of the water it treated at the plant, due to an inflow of groundwater.
"We would like to increase the number of tanks to accommodate the water but it will be difficult to do so indefinitely," Tepco spokesman Junichi Matsumoto told reporters.
He said the plant was likely to reach its storage capacity of about 155,000 tons around March. (Reuters ) |
| Dec 08 | Japan plans to expand contaminated rice ban |
 Japan will extend a ban on rice shipments from a third city in Fukushima prefecture after local authorities found more tainted grain, deepening food-safety concerns nine months after a nuclear disaster.
The ban will likely cover the Shibukawa area of Nihonmatsu City, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, as rice samples from the area contained 780 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, said Shinji Uchida at the grain division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The maximum allowed by the government for human consumption is 500 becquerels. (Bloomberg ) |
| Dec 08 | Japan megaquake shifted gravity satellite orbits |
The Tohoku earthquake that rattled Japan on 11 March changed Earth's gravitational field enough to affect the orbits of satellites. The satellites' altered courses suggest that the earthquake was stronger and deeper than instruments on Earth indicated.
These weren't just any satellites: they are the twin spacecraft of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), which fly 220 kilometres apart in a polar orbit about 500 kilometres above Earth. GRACE's job is to map the Earth's gravity field, and it does this by monitoring the effect of minute variations in the field on the trajectories of the satellites and the changing distance between them.
Earth's gravity field changes whenever there is a redistribution of mass on its surface. (newscientist.com) |
| Dec 08 | Huge Japanese earthquake cracked open the seafloor |
 The March 2011 megaquake off the coast of Japan opened up fissures as wide as 6 feet (3 meters) in the seafloor, a new study finds.
The fissures now scar the seafloor where peaceful clam beds once lay, according to Takeshi Tsuji, a researcher at Kyoto University in Japan. Along with seismic studies, the fissures, revealed by manned submersible vehicles that investigated the seafloor after the quake, show how the crust around the quake's epicenter expanded and cracked.
Tsuji and his colleagues had a unique opportunity to see how the seafloor changed after the magnitude-9.0 quake struck on March 11. Before the quake, the researchers had taken video and photographs of the seafloor on the continental side of the Japan Trench, near where the crust would later rupture, generating an enormous tsunami that killed about 20,000 people.
(MSN) |
| Dec 06 | Japan scientists study oyster 'language' |
 Scientists in Japan have begun studying the "language" of oysters in an effort to find out what they are saying about their environment.
Researchers are monitoring the opening and closing of the molluscs in response to changes in seawater, such as reduced oxygen or red tide, a suffocating algal bloom, that can lead to mass die-offs.
Using a device they have nicknamed the "kai-lingual", a play on the Japanese word "kai" or shellfish, scientists from Kagawa University want to see if they can decode oyster movements that might warn of possible problems.
The "kai-lingual" uses a series of sensors and magnets to send information on the opening and closing of shells in response to environmental changes. (AFP) |
| Dec 06 | Japan whaling fleet off to Antarctica |
| Japan's whaling fleet left port on Tuesday for the country's annual hunt in Antarctica, press pictures showed, with security measures beefed up amid simmering international protests. Three ships, led by the 720-tonne Yushin Maru, set sail from Shimonoseki in western Japan on a mission officially said to be for "scientific research", according to local media reports. The government's fishery agency declined to confirm the reports, citing security reasons. In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from the US-based environmental group Sea Shepherd. (AFP) |
| Dec 06 | Japan was struck by 'double tsunami' |
 The devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan in March of 2011 has just been revealed to be a long-hypothesized but never proved 'merging tsunami' that doubled in intensity after passing over rugged sub-sea topography, which amplified its destructive power prior to reaching the shore.
"It was a one-in-ten-million chance that we were able to observe this double wave with satellites," said Y. Tony Song, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the study's principal investigator. "Researchers have suspected for decades that such 'merging tsunamis' might have been responsible for the 1960 Chilean tsunami that killed many in Japan and Hawaii, but nobody had definitively observed a merging tsunami until now." (planetsave.com) |
| Dec 05 | Water leaks from crippled Japanese nuke plant |
 The operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant says that about 45 tons of highly radioactive water leaked from a purification device over the weekend, and some may have drained into the ocean.
The leak comes as Tokyo Electric Power Co. aims to bring the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi plant to a cold shutdown by year-end.
A pool of radioactive water was discovered midday Sunday around a decontamination device, TEPCO said in a statement. After the equipment was turned off, the leak appeared to stop.
Later, workers found a crack in a concrete barrier leaking the contaminated water into a gutter that leads to the ocean. (AP ) |
| Dec 04 | Future cancers from Japan nuclear disaster might be hidden |
| Even if the worst nuclear accident in 25 years leads to many people developing cancer, we might never find out. That may sound implausible, but the ordinary rate of cancer is so high, and our understanding of the effects of radiation exposure so limited, that any increase in cases from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster might be undetectable. Several experts said that cancers caused by the radiation leaks might be too few to show up in large population studies. That could mean thousands of cancers under the radar in a study of millions of people - or it could be virtually none. Some of the dozen experts the AP interviewed said they think the radiation exposure most Japanese have gotten falls in a "low-dose" range, where the effect on cancer remains unclear. (statesman.com) |
| Dec 04 | Scientists a step closer to cloning mammoth |
 The thighbone of a mammoth found in August in Siberia contains well-preserved marrow, increasing the chances of cloning one of the extinct beasts, Japanese and Russian scientists confirmed recently.
The teams from the Sakha Republic's mammoth museum in eastern Russia and Kinki University's graduate school in biology-oriented science and technology will launch full-fledged joint research next year to clone the giant mammal, which is believed to have become extinct about 10,000 years ago, they said.
By transplanting nuclei taken from the marrow cells into elephant egg cells whose nuclei have been removed through a cloning technique, embryos with a mammoth gene could be produced and planted into elephant wombs, as the two species are close relatives, they said. (Japan Times ) |
| Dec 03 | Tsunami moved giant rock 470 meters to Iwate field |
| A giant rock called Tsunami-ishi (tsunami rock) sits in a field in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, illustrating the power of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, which moved the rock 470 meters. A team of researchers from the Chiba Institute of Technology and Tsukuba University found the rock, which measured a maximum of 6.5 meters wide and 2.4 meters high, while researching tsunami-affected land features in coastal areas of the Sanriku region in late August. After studying aerial photographs and interviewing residents, researchers found that the rock, which weighs an estimated 140 tons, was displaced from near a breakwater. (Yomiuri) |
| Dec 03 | Exposure didn't sicken plant boss: doc |
| A radiation medicine expert has concluded the former head of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant did not become ill as a result of radiation exposure, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday. Makoto Akashi, executive director of the National Institute of Radiological Science, reviewed the cumulative amount of radiation Masao Yoshida, 56, was exposed to since the nuclear crisis started in March and informed Tepco of his view Thursday night, the utility said. Yoshida was relieved of his post Thursday to undergo medical treatment. He was hospitalized Nov. 24. (Japan Times) |
| Dec 02 | Japan may announce Fukushima cold shutdown on Dec. 16: Yomiuri |
| Japan may announce on December 16 that tsunami-damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima are in a cold shutdown, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Friday, an important milestone in its plan to bring under control the worst nuclear accident in 25 years. The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out reactor cooling systems, causing meltdowns of nuclear fuel rods. A cold shutdown is when water used to cool nuclear fuel rods remains below its boiling point, preventing the fuel from reheating. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda may declare a cold shutdown because a November 30 analysis by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co showed that temperatures for the nuclear fuel lying at the bottom of the containment vessel have stabilized, the paper said. (Reuters) |
| Dec 02 | Japan quake lifted seabed 16 stories-largest recorded |
 Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake shifted the seabed by as much as 165 feet (50 meters)-the largest slip yet recorded, a new study says.
That's considerably larger than in previous reports, which in May put the shift at 79 feet (24 meters).
For the study, Toshiya Fujiwara and colleagues at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology compared seabed maps made in 1999 and 2004 to those made only days after the March quake.
Their analysis also revealed the seabed may also have risen by as much as 33 feet (10 meters).
The earthquake was the first in a subduction zone-a place where one tectonic plate is diving under another-in which scientists have been able to look directly at movement of pieces of Earth's crust right up to the edge of the fault line. (National Geographic ) |
| Dec 01 | Study shows deeper meltdown at Japan nuke reactor |
 Radioactive debris from melted fuel rods may have seeped deeper into the floor of a Japan's tsunami-hit nuclear reactor than previously thought, to within a foot from breaching the crucial steel barrier, a new simulation showed Wednesday.
The findings will not change the ongoing efforts to stabilize the reactors more than eight months after the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was disabled, but they harshly depict the meltdowns that occurred and conditions within the reactors, which will be off-limits for years.
The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its latest simulation showed fuel at the No. 1 reactor may have eroded part of the primary containment vessel's thick concrete floor. The vessel is a beaker-shaped steel container, set into the floor. A concrete foundation below that is the last manmade barrier before earth. (AP ) |
| Dec 01 | Astronaut speaks of Japan's disaster recovery seen from space |
 Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa who recently returned from the International Space Station spoke Wednesday night of his observation from space of ongoing reconstruction efforts in the disaster-hit northeastern Japan.
"Light was gradually increasing and I felt the warmth of human activities," Furukawa, 47, told reporters via a televised conference from Houston, Texas.
Furukawa, who appeared in a blue pilot suit, was asked about his feelings at the time of his first-ever entry into the atmosphere on his return aboard a Soyuz space capsule. (Mainichi ) |
| Dec 01 | Disregard Tepco order, boss told plant workers |
| The head of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, who will be relieved of his post effective Thursday for medical treatment, told workers to disregard Tepco's order to stop injecting seawater into a reactor soon after the crisis erupted in March, according to government and other sources. Masao Yoshida, who has drawn media attention for continuing the seawater injection despite Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s decision to suspend the measure, told workers not to obey his ensuing instruction before going on to order them to stop injecting the water, government and Tepco sources said. While some people have criticized Yoshida's unilateral action, others have said he kept the crisis from growing even worse as workers scrambled to try to get the plant back under control. (Japan Times) |
| Nov 30 | High cesium level found in Date rice |
 The government on Tuesday ordered a ban on the shipment of rice harvested in two more districts in Fukushima Prefecture after tests detected dangerously high levels of radioactive cesium.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said the central government has instructed Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato to impose the ban on about 1,900 kg harvested in the Oguni district and 1,500 kg in the Tsukidate district, both in the city of Date.
On Monday, the Fukushima Prefectural Government announced that a combined 3,400 kg of unmilled rice harvested by two farms in the Oguni district and by one farm in the Tsukidate district contained between 580 and 1,050 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. The government's limit is 500 becquerels. (Japan Times ) |
| Nov 29 | Radioactive cesium hotspot detected near Tokyo |
 A high level of radioactive cesium was detected in the soil today at Kashiwa City, Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo, according to Japan's Ministry of Environment. It is probably the result of the fallout from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The high concentration was detected in a vacant lot. According to the city government, up to 450,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium was detected in one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of soil 5 to 10 cm centimeters (2 to 4 inches) below the surface. (majirox news ) |
| Nov 27 | Japan calls it quits on infrared space telescope |
 Japan announced this week its Akari infrared space telescope was switched off after five years of scanning the sky in search of star-forming dust clouds, ancient galaxies in the distant universe, and asteroids within the solar system.
The Akari mission succumbed to trouble in its power generation system, which first appeared in May and ended the satellite's scientific observations in June.
The observatory stopped receiving electricity on the night side of its orbit around Earth, an indication its batteries were not charging sufficiently. The craft remained powered in sunlight. (spaceflightnow.com) |
| Nov 27 | More cesium found in rice harvested in Fukushima in Japan |
 The Fukushima prefectural government in Japan has announced that radioactive cesium beyond the provisional regulatory limit was detected in unmilled rice harvested at five farms in the Onami district of Fukushima Prefecture.
Radioactive cesium exceeding the limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram was recently detected in harvested rice at another farm in the area, fueling concerns among consumers.
This time as much as 1,270 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram was detected in unmilled rice, the prefecture said Friday. The rice has not been shipped to the market. Instead, it was stored in farmers' warehouses or a local agricultural cooperative, or was distributed to farmers' relatives.
(sacbee.com ) |
| Nov 27 | Monju reactor may be axed: Hosono |
 The government will consider scrapping the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor during its operational review of the troubled nuclear facility, Goshi Hosono, minister in charge of the nuclear disaster, said Saturday.
"There are various opinions and (the government) should consider all of them, including the possibility of decommissioning the facility," Hosono told reporters after visiting the complex in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.
Ruling Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers and private-sector experts demanded a thorough operational and budgetary review of the Monju project during the government's energy policy screening session last week. (Japan Times ) |
| Nov 26 | Japan collab transmits record data speeds on terahertz waves |
Researchers from Japan-based semiconductor manufacturer Rohm, together with a team from Osaka University, have come up with a chip that, in experiments, has achieved a wireless data transmission speed of 1.5 gigabits per second. This is a record breaker as the world's first terahertz wireless communication achieved with a small semiconductor device. The chip's ability to transmit at such a quick speed is not the end of the story. Even higher transmission speeds of up to 30 Gbps may be possible in the future, according to reports. (physorg.com) |
| Nov 25 | Sea Shepherd prepares to tackle Japanese whalers |
 Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd is preparing for a three month voyage to the Southern Ocean and is expecting one of its most intense campaigns yet against Japanese whalers.
Three Sea Shepherd vessels - the Steve Irwin, the Bob Barker and the Brigitte Bardot - with a total of 88 crew members will head into Antarctic waters in December for what they call 'Operation Divine Wind' (or Kamikaze) with the objective of stopping Japanese whaling activities.
It's Sea Shepherd's eighth voyage to the Southern Ocean. The organisation claims that its harassment tactics last season forced the Japanese whaling fleet to cut short its hunting trip with a fraction of its usual catch. (sbs.com.au ) |
| Nov 25 | Science in Japan: Where rats and robots play |
| Think of a university and what comes to mind may be the cloistered calm of Oxford, the architectural chaos of MIT or even, perhaps, the 1950s brutalism of Moscow. A Daliesque building on a subtropical island, with a view of the ocean and signs on campus warning of venomous snakes, is more unusual. But that is appropriate, for the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), inaugurated as a graduate university on November 19th, is intended to be unusual. It was built from scratch on a forested hilltop overlooking the East China Sea, and its approach to science starts from scratch too. It has no departments. Instead, its biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians and computer geeks intermingle, sharing laboratory equipment, teachers and money. After two centuries of science becoming more and more specialised, the idea is to bring back the generalist. (The Economist) |
| Nov 25 | 2nd earthquake of day shakes northern Japan |
 Two strong earthquakes rattled northern Japan on Thursday, but neither caused any apparent damage or a tsunami.
A magnitude-6.1 quake struck Thursday evening south of the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.
It hit about 465 miles (750 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and 19 miles (30 kilometers) below the sea surface. The agency did not issue a tsunami warning.
About 3,900 households in the towns of Erimo and Samani lost electricity shortly after the quake, but power was restored about an hour later, according to the Hokkaido Electric Power Co. (AP ) |