Posts tagged with "Japan"

Above, Jeff Bezos as a child (left) and today. (Photo source: Child Biography)

Forever young? Jeff Bezos is backing anti-aging startup Altos Labs

Leave a reply

September 8, 2021

Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is pushing the envelope—on marketing, on suborbital space travel, and now on longevity. He is among a group of investors backing a new anti-aging company, according to a new report obtained by Fox News.

The company, Silicon Valley-based Altos Labs, is working on biological reprogramming technology that is targeted at essentially prolong human life, according to MIT Tech Review.

A Russian-born billionaire tech investor, Yuri Milner, and his wife, Julia, also have invested in the company, according to the report. Milner—who is known for investing in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and Airbnb—is worth about $4.8 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates.

Altos was incorporated earlier this year in the United States and the United Kingdom; and has plans to create institutes in California, Cambridge, and Japan, according to the report obtained by Fox News.

It’s also reportedly seeking university scientists with deep pockets dedicated to researching how to reverse the process of aging cells.

Bezos’ investment office, Bezos Expeditions, did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

However, this isn’t the first time the world’s richest man has invested in this kind of research. The 57-year-old Bezos has also invested in the startup company Unity Biotechnology, the New York Post reported.

Unity, according to its website, is working to develop a “new class of therapeutics to slow, halt, or reverse diseases of aging.”

Representatives for Unity did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Research contact: @FoxNews

Above, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will host the virtual G7 meeting on Friday. (Photo source: #g7/Instagram)

Biden to join virtual G7 event on efforts to combat COVID-19 on February 19

Leave a reply

Febraury 16, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden will participate in a virtual G7 event on Friday, February 19, during which he plans to discuss efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuild the world economy, CNN reports

According to the BBC, the G7 (or Group of Seven) comprises the world’s seven largest so-called advanced economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The group regards itself as “a community of values,” with freedom and human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and prosperity and sustainable development as its key principles.

The virtual meeting, hosted by the United Kingdom, also will include leaders of the European Commission and European Council.

The Friday confab will be Biden’s first meeting with the leaders of the G7 as president and represents a departure from former President Donald Trump’s retreat from handling of the pandemic and global relations.

He’ll specifically focus on areas including “coordination on vaccine production, distribution, and supplies, as well as continued efforts to mobilize and cooperate against the threat of emerging infectious diseases by building country capacity and establishing health security financing,” a White House statement released Sunday evening said.

When it comes to rebuilding an economy badly battered by the pandemic, Biden is set to focus on “the importance of all industrialized countries maintaining economic support for the recovery,” the statement said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement this past weekend that he will use the virtual event to call for global cooperation in the battle against the “common foe” of coronavirus. Johnson will charge the leaders to “work together on a joined-up global approach to pandemics that brings an end to the nationalist and divisive politics that marred the initial response to coronavirus,” the statement said.

“Quantum leaps in science have given us the vaccines we need to end this pandemic for good. Now world governments have a responsibility to work together to put those vaccines to the best possible use. I hope 2021 will be remembered as the year humanity worked together like never before to defeat a common foe,” Johnson said.

Even as global Covid-19 cases have declined in recent weeks, the virtual meeting comes just as new variants are threatening to throw a wrench in government vaccination plans.

Biden’s vow to coordinate with other governments on the pandemic and global economy offers yet another break with Trump’s approach to foreign policy.

As the pandemic surged globally last May, Trump announced he was postponing the summit, “because I don’t feel as a G7 it probably represents what’s going on in the world.”

“It’s a very outdated group of countries,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One at the time.

CNN notes that, throughout his term, Trump publicly questioned and denigrated the value of the America’s most longstanding alliances, including with USA from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accord, the World Health Organization,and a slew of other United Nations agencies.

On his first day in office, Biden reversed several of Trump’s attempts to withdraw from international agreements—beginning the process of rejoining the Paris climate accord and halting the departure from the World Health Organization.

In remarks at the State Department earlier this month, Biden declared that “diplomacy is back at the center” of US foreign policy as he vowed to “rebuild” US alliances worldwide.

Research contact: @CNN

Above, spotted garden eels. (Photo source Sumida Aquarium)

‘Eel’ be seeing you: A Japanese aquarium under lockdown asks for video calls to its lonely eels

Leave a reply

May 4, 2020

It turns out that eels have feelings, too: While animals all around the world have relished the chance to reclaim their natural habitats as humans recede into their homes during the pandemic, the keepers at one Japanese aquarium under lockdown believe that the months-long lack of human attention actually is posing a problem for the animals in their exhibits—specifically, for the eels.

In fact, the aquarists at The Sumida Aquarium, which is housed in the Tokyo Skytree Tower, have noticed that the hundreds of tiny spotted garden eels in their tanks have started behaving oddly—burrowing into the sand when aquarium workers pass by.

According to a report by Quartz, the keepers say that the eels are hiding because they have become unfamiliar with humans since the aquatic museum closed to visitors on March 1.

Garden eels are by nature highly vigilant and sensitive, and do submerge themselves in the sand when triggered—but the aquarium said that the eels had learned to accept the presence of humans because there were so many visitors.

As they acclimate themselves to a human-less environment, a newfound shyness is emerging that makes the work of aquarium staff difficult; as they cannot check on the health of the creatures.

According to the California Academy of Sciences, spotted garden eels often are mistaken for plants because of their slim size and the way in which they burrow partially into the seafloor in order to sweep up passing

Now, Quartz reports, the aquarium is launching a three-day “emergency event” starting on May 3, known as the “face-showing festival,” with the goal of “not forgetting the existence of humans.”

Sumida Aquarium is inviting people everywhere to call the aquarium’s dedicated account through an iPad or iPhone, and once connected, people are asked to wave or call out to the eels (but not too loudly) for five minutes at a time, during two time slots a day.

The aquarium said that the event is also something for people to do during the Golden Week holiday, which began April 29 and lasts until May 6.

Research contact: @qz

Photosource: marcobacini from #walkingtogether/Instagram

Steps in the right direction: Walking together helps foster a new relationship

Leave a reply

March 2, 2020

Some people take a new relationship step-by-step. Others jump right in. However, research recently conducted at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, suggests that, when you meet a stranger, taking a short walk together may increase your odds of hitting it off, according to a report by Psychology Tod ay.

The study (Cheng et al., 2020) found that walking together side-by-side for less than ten minutes with someone you’ve never met before will help the two of you to “warm up” to one another—regardless of whether you amble in silence or converse.

Indeed, Psychology Today noted, even when no conversation was taking place, the researchers found that paired strangers with a favorable first impression of one another are more likely to synchronize their footsteps.

“Our analysis revealed a unidirectional relationship between synchrony and impression rating: A better first impression led to higher walking synchrony between two strangers walking side by side in silence,” the authors said of their findings.

“There is a growing awareness of the validity of interpersonal interaction research in real-world scenarios, but daily natural environments are rich in their contextual information, making experiment control a challenge,” first author Miao Cheng said in a news release.

For this study, participants who had never met before were paired together and instructed to walk side-by-side along a quiet path. While walking, a motion sensor disguised as a GPS device tracked the synchrony of each pairs’ footsteps.

The researchers also duped participants into thinking the study had nothing to do with how first impressions affect nonverbal communication (i.e., synchronous walking) so that participants wouldn’t be conscious of whether or not they were synchronizing their steps.

The distance of the out-and-back walk was just under a quarter-mile; it took about six-to-nine minutes to complete the round trip at a casual walking pace.

This paired walking experiment was conducted under three different conditions: 1) walking out to the turnaround point in silence, but conversing on the way back; 2) a silent walking condition in which participants were instructed not to speak for the entirety of their out-and-back walk; 3) a non-walking environment where participants sat quietly in a classroom with other study participants and filled out a questionnaire.

At the halfway turnaround point during each walk, the paired respondents were asked to rate first impressions of their walking partner using the interpersonal judgment scale (IJS). This scale was also used to rate first impressions after the walk was completed.

In general, people tended to have a better first impression of someone after walking together, regardless of whether or not they conversed. “This suggests that walking side by side, even without verbal communication, is sufficient to alter the social relation between two strangers,” the authors said.

What’s more, The researchers found that having a conversation while walking side-by-side enhanced positive first impressions, Psychology Today reported. And, as mentioned, paired walkers with better first impressions of one another at the outset of the experiment had a higher rate of footstep synchronization from the get-go.

“It is very surprising for us to discover that a person’s traits and our first impressions are reflected in the subtle action of walking. I think most people are not even aware that their steps are synchronized with other people as they walk,” senior author Chia-huei Tseng said in a news release. “It was previously known that a person’s physical parameters such as height and weight, affect how their movements interact with others. Now we know psychological traits also have an effect.”

These findings were published on February 21 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Research contact: @PsychToday

Above, former National Security adviser John Bolton. (Photo source: Council on Foreign Relations)

John Bolton bad-mouths Trump for ‘bluffing’ about stopping North Korea’s nuclear ambitions

Leave a reply

December 25, 2019

In his sharpest criticism yet of his old workplace—the White House; not Fox News—former National Security Adviser John Bolton suggested this week that the Trump Administration is bluffing about stopping North Korea’s nuclear ambitions—and soon might need to admit publicly that its policy has failed badly, according to an exclusive interview by Axios’ Jonathon Swan posted on December 22.

Indeed, according to Swan, “Bolton told me in an interview that he does not think the administration “really means it” when President Donald Trump and top officials vow to stop North Korea from having deliverable nuclear weapons—”or it would be pursuing a different course.”

Why now? Bolton, who “resigned” from the White House last September, is speaking out ahead of an end-of-year timetable. If Kim Jong-un follows through on his threatened Christmas provocation, Bolton says the White House should do something “that would be very unusual” for this administration—concede that they got it wrong on North Korea.

“The idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on North Korea is just, unfortunately, not true,” Bolton told Axios. For example, he suggested, the U.S. Navy could start to squeeze Kim Jong-un by intercepting oil that is illegally being transferred to North Korea at sea.

If Kim thumbs his nose at America, Bolton told Swan, he hopes the administration will say: “We’ve tried. The policy’s failed. We’re going to go back now and make it clear that in a variety of steps, together with our allies, when we say it’s unacceptable, we’re going to demonstrate we will not accept it.”

Bolton, who has advocated for a more aggressive North Korea strategy, also criticized Trump for saying earlier this year that Kim’s short-range missile tests don’t bother him.

“When the president says, ‘Well, I’m not worried about short-range missiles,’ he’s saying, ‘I’m not worried about the potential risk to American troops deployed in the region or our treaty allies, South Korea and Japan.'”

The bottom line, according to Bolton: “Time is on the side of the proliferator,” he said. “The more time there is, the more time there is to develop, test and refine both the nuclear component and the ballistic missile component of the program.”

Research contact: @axios

Yumi Ishikawa, founder of #KuToo, on Instagram.

The moral high ground: Japanese woman leads worldwide campaign to wear flats at work

Leave a reply

June 13, 2019

It’s high noon in the workplace: Women are gunning for a change in office dress codes that would enable them to work—and walk—in comfort.

Indeed, according to a report by The Guardian, millions of women worldwide, at all levels of the workplace hierarchy, continue to endure their working hours tortured by blisters, bloodied flesh, foot pain, knee pain, back pain and worse, as a result of the pressure to conform to an aesthetic code—sometimes explicitly written into contracts or policy, more often subliminally expected as a societal and cultural standard—that deems it appropriate to wear high heels.

Now they are pushing back, in a campaign called #KuToo—a a play on the words kutsu, meaning shoes, and kutsuu, meaning pain, in Japanese and inspired by the #MeToo movement.

In early June, Japanese actress and freelance writer Yumi Ishikawa told reporters that she and her supporters had met with the Labor Ministry, “Today we submitted a petition calling for the introduction of laws banning employers from forcing women to wear heels as sexual discrimination or harassment.”

Ishikawa had the idea for the campaign after she was forced to wear high heels during a stint at a funeral parlor. Now, she has everyone debating the politics of footwear—and has received a groundswell of online support.

But not everyone is a fan: Takumi Nemoto, Japan’s health and labor minister, defended the dress codes, telling a legislative committee that he believed it “is socially accepted as something that falls within the realm of being occupationally necessary and appropriate”.

The Guardian notes that a similar petition against high heels at work was signed by more than 150,000 people in the UK in support of the receptionist Nicola Thorp, who was sent home from work on her first day of work at a PwC in 2016 for wearing flat shoes. The case prompted an inquiry on workplace dress codes by a committee of MPs, which highlighted other cases in the UK where women were required to wear heels—even for jobs that included climbing ladders, carrying heavy luggage, carrying food and drink up and down stairs and walking long distances.

However, Britain never changed the law, claiming scope for redress already existed under the Equality Act 2010.

In 2015 the director of the Cannes film festival apologized for the fact that women were being denied access to the red carpet for not wearing high heels. Cannes kept the dress code, despite a protest by the actor Julia Roberts, who went barefoot the next year.

However, in 2017, Canada’s British Columbia province banned companies from forcing female employees to wear high heels, saying the practice was dangerous and discriminatory. That means things might be looking up—err … down.

Research contact: @guardian

Photo source: Language of Listening

Read this and weep: Crying at least once a week is good for you

Leave a reply

December 26, 2018

It’s counter-intuitive, but crying at least once a week may be the key to a happier life—free from tension headaches and agitation.

In fact, one Japanese academic claims that the most beneficial way to relieve stress is to shed some tears—either happy or sad— the UK’s Independent newspaper reports.

Since 2014, former high school teacher Hidefumi Yoshida, 43—who calls himself a “Namida sensei” (“tears teacher”)—has teamed up with Hideho Arita, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Toho University in Tokyo, to launch a series of lectures nationwide in Japan aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of crying.

Yoshida says that he came to recognize the benefits of a good cry after one of his former students stopped showing up for consultations after the pupil had opened up and shed tears.

“The act of crying is more effective than laughing or sleeping in reducing stress,” says Yoshida, adding, “If you cry once a week, you can live a stress-free life.”

Yoshida explains that listening to emotive music, watching sad films, and reading tragic books—and in the process shedding some tears— can offer huge benefits to your mental health by stimulating parasympathetic nerve activity, which slows the heart rate and can have a soothing effect on the mind.

And Yoshida isn’t the first person to tout the soothing effects of crying, the Independent notes.

In 1982, The New York Times reported on the study, entitled “Tear Expert” and conducted by Dr. William Frey—who claimed that crying releases endorphins, subsequently promoting feelings of happiness and well-being.

Frey—director of the Psychiatry Research Laboratories at St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota and a self-appointed student of ”psychogenic lacrimation,” as he calls emotionally induced tears—believes that tears help to relieve stress by ridding the body of potentially harmful stress-induced chemicals.

Another study, conducted in 2008 by researchers at the University of South Florida and the University of Tilburg among a cohort of 3,000 people found that crying made people feel much better in difficult situations, leading the authors to suggest that inducing tears should be used as a cathartic form of therapy.

So get those tissues and hankies out and put them to use. A good cry may be just what the doctor ordered.

Research contact: @Oliviapetter1

A drive-through funeral. (Photo source: Kankon Sosai Aichi Group)

A ‘moving’ experience: Japan’s drive-through funerals

Leave a reply

August 15, 2018

Few memorial services are as “moving” as the one now being offered by a Japanese funeral parlor. Mourners can pay their final respects without ever leaving their cars, according to a report by the Daily Telegraph of Australia.

The undertaker’s “drive-through” service is a first in Japan, where a rapidly aging population means that funerals are anything but a dying trade.

In fact, according to Bloomberg, Japan’s population of 127 million is forecast to shrink by about 33% within the next five decades. The proportion of over-64-year-olds —currently about 25%—is expected to reach 38% within that time frame.

Mourners simply check in by rolling down the car window and using a touchscreen tablet device. They then are asked to make a traditional offering of incense—all while their images are videotaped and viewed by the grieving family inside the venue.

The initiative aims to speed up funeral services and also to give infirm relatives the chance to participate, Masao Ogiwara president of Kankon Sosai Aichi Group, told the Australian news outlet. “Older people may hesitate to attend a funeral because they have to ask for help to get out of the car,” Ogiwara said, “but we want as many people as possible to be able to come to say farewell to their friends or neighbors.”

The drive-through funerals represent the latest in a series of Japanese innovations attempting to win a slice of the competitive US$11.5 billion national funeral business.

One trend that has sparked controversy, according to the Telegraph, is a so-called “rent-a-monk” system, which offers mourners the opportunity to arrange for a monk to deliver funeral rites at the click of a mouse. Amazon has been advertising packages offered by Minrevi which sends out monks to perform Buddhist memorial services and other ceremonies. However, the Japan Buddhist Federation (JBF) objects strenuously to the idea —saying that hiring out monks over the Internet commercializes a religious act.

And finally, for those who would like to lament in private—or cannot afford to pay expensive funeral fees— a temple near Tokyo accepts the ashes of the deceased via mail and places it in its burial facility. There’s even an app that has been developed so that the family can view the burial site by smartphone.

Research contact: @dailytelegraph

This-photo-from-the-G7-meeting-showing-U.S.-President-Trump-at-an-impasse-with-allies-went-viral-over-the-past-weekend.

G7 allies back away from United States

Leave a reply

June 14, 2018

Make new friends but keep the old” is not a plan that U.S. President Donald Trump adhered to over the past week. During the G7 meeting in Quebec with the nation’s oldest and closest allies, Trump underscored the deep disagreements on trade and the environment between his administration and those of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada. He departed while still sparring on Twitter with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; and followed that combative face-off with a handshake in Singapore with North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un, whom he characterized afterward as “funny with a good personality” and “intelligent.” In other words, his new best friend.

A review of available Gallup data underscores a massive attitudinal imbalance. Americans are very positive about their fellow G7 nations. Residents living in G7 nations, by contrast, have become very negative about U.S. leadership after Trump’s election.

The data do not make for a perfect comparison. The latest update on American attitudes toward other countries comes from Gallup’s annual World Affairs poll, which did not include Italy as one of the countries ranked. The latest update on world attitudes toward the United States come from 2017, and answers a question that asks about U.S. leadership, not the nation as a whole.

Still, the contrast is notable. Well over eight in 10 Americans had a favorable opinion about the five G7 countries tested in Gallup’s survey this year—Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Germany and France. In fact, these five countries make up five of the six most positively evaluated countries on the overall list of 22 countries included in the survey. (Norway came in fourth on the list, with 85% favorable opinion; Gallup last asked about Italy in February 2003, at which time 80% had a favorable opinion).

Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was called “weak” and “dishonest” by Trump, was at the top of the list of all countries rated this year, with 94% of Americans saying they had a favorable opinion of their neighbor to the north.

However, even as Americans express positive admiration for the G7 nations, 2017 Gallup World Poll data show just how much the Trump administration’s “America First” approach has already chilled the affection many residents of these nations felt for the U.S. under Barack Obama’s leadership.

During Trump’s first year as president, worldwide approval of U.S. leadership dropped to a record-low 30%, with some of the heaviest losses coming from some of the country’s closest allies — including the six other countries in the G7.

Nowhere was this shift more apparent than in its G7 neighbor to the north and current target of Trump’s ire, Canada. On the heels of Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and with the future of NAFTA hanging in the balance, Canadians’ approval of U.S. leadership tumbled 40 percentage points from 60% in 2016 to 20% in 2017.

This is, however, similar to the previous low rating for the image of U.S. leadership on record in Canada: 22% set back in 2008 under George W. Bush.

The pattern was the same among G7 partners in Europe. After the U.S. administration abandoned the Paris climate accord and raised questions about the U.S. commitment to NATO, ratings of U.S. leadership also dropped precipitously among longtime allies and G7 countries France (28 points), the United Kingdom (26 points), Germany (21 points) and Italy (14 points).

But even with these drops, it’s important to note that none of the current lower U.S. leadership approval ratings in Europe is a new record low. Many ratings were similar if not worse during the last two years of the George W. Bush administration.

Although Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump have met scores of times in person and over the phone—and bonded over golf— the Japanese public has become less enamored with the leadership of the United States. Approval ratings dropped 16 percentage points in one year in Japan, with 31% approving of U.S. leadership at the time of the 2017 survey.

While not the lowest approval rating on record, for the first time since the latter years of the Bush administration, more Japanese disapprove (36%) of U.S. leadership than approve (31%).

All in all, it is clear that the alliances and partnerships that the U.S. has historically considered great strengths are evolving in an uneven environment — one in which the average American has very positive views of the other nations involved, and the average citizens of those nations have quite negative opinions of U.S. leadership.

The big question is what this imbalance means for the future, Gallup said, pointing out that, “In the post-World War II era, the U.S. has leaned on its many powerful partners to assist it in addressing issues beyond its borders time and again.”

Research contact: datainquiry@gallup.com

Trump announces intent to impose tariffs at White House meeting with industry leaders. (Photo source: TRT World)

Trump’s tariffs on steel, aluminum raise ‘external risks’ for U.S. companies

Leave a reply

March 27, 2018

U.S. trade policy has risen to the top of the list of “biggest external risks” facing the members of the CNBC Global CFO Council., an elite group of chief financial officers representing public and private companies from various major sectors.

Indeed, based on a quarterly poll of the council members released on March 23, more than one-quarter (27.3%) say U.S. trade policy is now the biggest risk their companies face. That’s up from 11.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017, outranking other threats that have recently ranked high among business concerns, including “threat of cyber attack” and “consumer demand.”

The CNBC Global CFO Council represents some of the largest public and private companies in the world, collectively managing more than $4.5 trillion in market capitalization across a wide variety of sectors.

The survey was conducted after President Donald Trump signed a pair of proclamations that impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, but before the announcement on March 18 that the United States will seek trade penalties of up to $60 billion against China for intellectual property theft.

The chief financial officers voiced strong opposition to metals tariffs, especially in the broader context: potential retaliatory moves taken by other countries. “The impact direct from steel/aluminum tariffs would be negligible,” said one CFO respondent. “The indirect impact from retaliation could be significant.”

Almost two-thirds of respondents (65.8%) say the tariffs will have a negative impact on their companies, and even more (86.9%) say they will have a negative impact on both the U.S. and Chinese economies.

The CFO Council’s outlook for GDP has been downgraded amid the increased tariff fears, including in three key global economies. Canada, China and Japan were downgraded from “improving” to “stable” by CFOs.

Still, the United States was rated as “improving” for the seventh straight quarter, while the Euro zone was seen as “improving” for the fourth straight quarter. No region was seen as worse than “stable,” a trend that has now held for five quarters.

Research contact: @DavidSpiegel