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The 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to three scientists who played a large role in developing lithium-ion batteries: Stanley Whittingham of the U.K., American John Goodenough (at 97, the oldest Nobel laureate ever), and Japan’s Akira Yoshino. Whittingham created the first functional lithium-ion battery in the 1970s, then Goodenough increased its capacity two-fold over the next 10 years. Finally, Yoshino removed the pure lithium, making it much safer to use.

The ageing of Japan is thought to outweigh that of all other nations, with Japan said to have the highest proportion of elderly citizens both in rural and urban areas. According to 2014 estimates, 33.0% of the Japanese population is above the age of 60, 25.9% are aged 65 or above, and 12.5% are aged 75 or above. 

Car rental companies in Japan have figured out why some customers are returning their vehicles with barely a mile on the clock. Rather than travel from point A to B, as many as one in eight “drivers” are using their rental cars to take a nap, catch up on work or even brush up their language skills, according to industry surveys.

Goldman Sachs has instituted a new diversity program based not on quotas but on hard data trends that uncovered why even progressive recruitment out of college hasn’t solved the problem. Women and minorities, it turned out, even when hired at the same rates as their white male counterparts, kept falling out of the pipeline. Attrition was enormous.

Today, more than a quarter of Japan's population is aged over 65. This is set to increase to 40% by 2055. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has warned that Japan will need to add one million nurses and care workers by 2025 to cope with this demographic change.

Encouraging immigration may seem like a simple solution—but it's not a popular one. Japan is still one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world, with foreigners making up less than 2% of the population. Opening up Japan to large-scale immigration is a very sensitive subject.

Mathematicians, computer engineers and scientists in related fields should take a Hippocratic oath to protect the public from powerful new technologies under development, says Hannah Fry, an associate professor of mathematics at University College, London. The ethical pledge would commit scientists to think deeply about the possible applications of their work and compel them to pursue only those that, at the least, do no harm to society.

Human-built machines immortalize human problems, as we are discovering more and more. Voice recognition software isn’t good at identifying higher-pitched (i.e., predominantly women’s) voices. Facial recognition software is far superior at identifying white men’s faces than literally anyone else’s. Motion sensors often seem to be unable to detect dark skin, a problem that seems to also infect some wearable health monitors.

In the United Kingdom, the United States and other developed countries, abused or neglected children are often sent to live with a foster family. But that rarely happens in Japan, one of the world's wealthiest and most progressive societies. 

The 11th-century Japanese writer Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book was written using kana, a Japanese script mainly used by women for nearly a millennium to write literature, arrange secret assignations and express themselves freely within the confines of court life. Women in medieval Japan were discouraged from studying kanji, so they began using kana instead, which transcribe words phonetically. 

LINE is the most popular social media platform in Japan followed by Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. When comparing the Monthly Active Users (MAU) of these 5 social media platforms, LINE is obviously the most dominant in the Japanese market in 2019.

Japan is internationalising—and this process is rapidly accelerating. The driving force is demographic change. Japan’s population is ageing rapidly and shrinking. Add in other factors, including never-before-seen levels of foreign tourism, plus massive preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, and the result is a nation that desperately needs more workers to fill jobs. 

An ancient pilgrimage trail winds through the mountains of Japan’s Kii Peninsula, a densely forested region south of Osaka and Kyoto. It is the Kumano Kodo, a sacred passage of immense natural beauty that has been in use since the 10th century. There are early recorded visits to this region by Emperor Uda (907) and Emperor Kazan (986 and 987) but the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage became more broadly popular in the 11th century. 

The California-based architects Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael have transformed a stretch of the border fence between Mexico and the U.S. into an international playground. The pair installed three hot pink seesaws between the slats of the fence where Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, abuts Sunland Park, New Mexico, allowing people on both sides of the increasingly militarized border to play together.

Japan and India have decided to join forces in the race to discover water on the moon, with the two countries planning to try to land an unmanned rover on the moon’s south pole as early as fiscal 2023.

Frozen water is believed to exist inside craters and other areas of the moon’s poles where sunlight does not reach. The countries plan to use the rover to excavate in such areas and discover water on the moon for the first time. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have already held meetings on the project.

A social media campaign against dress codes and expectations that women wear high heels at work has gone viral in Japan, with thousands joining the #KuToo movement—a pun based on the Japanese words for shoe (kutsu) and pain (kutsuu). Nearly 20,000 women have signed the movement's online petition so far, demanding the government ban companies from requiring female employees to wear high heels on the job.

When hosting an international rugby tournament and welcoming thirsty fans from around the world, the last thing you want to do is run out of beer.

That’s the message from Rugby World Cup bosses to Japanese hosts as they gear up for the global showcase that kicks off on September 20.

Rugby bosses have warned host cities about running out of ale, using anecdotes such as when Australian and Irish fans drank the city of Adelaide dry, forcing emergency supplies to be brought in from surrounding areas.

Thousands of hot springs in Japan are rethinking their long-standing ban on tattooed bathers, as the country prepares for the arrival of an estimated 400,000 fans for this autumn’s Rugby World Cup.

Visitors are accustomed to warnings to cover up their body ink while they are in Japan, where tattoos are traditionally associated with membership of yakuza crime syndicates.

It comes in red, mustard and black, in sizes 6 up to 16; the Boohoo minidress is, according to the online retailer, "perfect for transitioning from day to play". It is not so much the styling and colour, but the price of the £5 dress which attracts thousands of the thriving retailer's U.K. customers to buy it.

The £5 dress epitomises a fast fashion industry that pumps hundreds of new collections onto the market in a short time at pocket money prices. On average, such dresses and other products are discarded by consumers after five weeks. 

It’s that time of the year again, when NASA gives you the opportunity to “ship” your name to another celestial body. This time, the destination is Mars, and the shipping service is NASA’s future Mars 2020 rover.

Men jam their feet into high-heeled shoes and walk back and forth, some falteringly, others with unlikely confidence. Some women watch, gauging the men’s reactions while sympathizing with each other’s stories about wearing the torturous items masquerading as fashion.