Information about the Environment in Japan
The Ministry of the Environment of Japan sends updates (in English) about its activities by email almost every day. If you are doing research on the Japanese environment, you might want to subscribe to their mailing list.
Send an e-mail to globe_env@env.go.jp with "Request e-mail service" in the subject line to receive regular English-language environmental news updates by e-mail. Unless otherwise specified, updates will be sent to the e-mail address from which you send your request.
See: http://www.env.go.jp/en/utility/mailnews.html
Today's report mentioned the publication of the "Environmental Statistics 2007".
Accumulation and practical use of data related to the environment are crucial for the understanding of the environment and for the effective implementation of environmental preservation measures. On this account, the Ministry of the Environment has published the "Environmental Statistics 2007," with aggregated data related to the state of the environment, the load on the environment, and measures taken for the environment, from a broad perspective.
See: http://www.env.go.jp/en/headline/headline.php?serial=376
The statistics are available (in Japanese) here:
http://www.env.go.jp/doc/toukei/index.html
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Is Rice a Drug?
An institute in Tsukuba is trying to develop a kind of genetically modified rice that will alleviate the symptoms of hay fever. However, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has categorized the rice as a "drug" rather than a "food", and since the process for getting new drugs into the market is much slower than for getting new foods into the market, the rice will not be made available to consumers anytime soon.
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has decided to develop a genetically modified rice aimed at alleviating symptoms of hay fever as a drug because the health ministry has determined that the rice falls into the category of a medical product.
[...]
The National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, a research institute in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, affiliated with the agriculture ministry, has been developing the rice, aiming to release it for practical use from 2010. It has already finished animal experiments on the efficacy and safety of the product, and its in-house ethics committee in November approved a pilot project to examine whether it was safe for human consumption to develop the rice as a food product within fiscal 2006.
Read the full article: Anti-hay fever rice treated as a drug
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Lectures by a German Prof. Dr. Werner Gitt
A former director, professor and head of “Information Technology” of the Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig, ‘PTB’), Germany are currently in Japan, giving talks on “science and faith.”
When:
June 7, Saturday from 13:00 to 15:00
Venue:
Tsukuba International Congress Center (Epochal Tsukuba)
Conference Room 202B
Language:
English (will be simultaneously interpreted into Japanese)
Contacts:
General inquiries in English, German or in Japanese, contact:
Juergen Boeck - juergenboeck[at]gmx.net
About his lecture in Tsukuba, contact:
Wayne Meyer 029-857-7155 or 090-9833-9920
Tomotaka Makino at Tsukuba Christian Church 029-851-7747 or 029-851-3722
If you want to learn more about Prof. Dr. Werner Gitt, or if you can’t make it to the Tsukuba lecture and are interested in attending his other lecture(s), please visit Prof.Dr.Werner Gitt Japan Lectures Blog (Japanese and English):
http://profgittpub.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/
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Libraries in Tsukuba
You probably already know about Tsukuba Public Library and the library at the University of Tsukuba, but did you know that many of the research institutes here in Tsukuba also have extensive collections? It is not always possible to take the books out of such libraries, but you can usually at least gain access to them if you ask nicely.
Here is a list of libraries in Tsukuba.
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Low Ratio of Foreign Researchers
I thought this article was particularly pertinent to Tsukuba:
It is reported in this evening's edition of Nikkei Newspaper (p. 3) that, according to the 2006 White Paper on Science and Technology, the ratio of foreign researchers/engineers (highly skilled people with higher education) in Japan is only 0.7%, mainly due to communication difficulties such as language and cultural barriers.
Generally, English speaking nations tend to have a higher ratio of foreign researchers, i.e, 40.4% for Australia, 34.6% for Canada, 18.8% for the U.K. and 15.4% for the U.S. However, even France and Germany have relatively high ratios, 14.1% and 4.3%, respectively.
Japan needs to lower various barriers in order to attract more foreign researchers and engineers for higher productivity and growth in the future.
Source: Glocom blog entry from November 9, 2006
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