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A European-Japanese spacecraft set off on a treacherous seven-year journey to Mercury to probe the solar system's smallest and least-explored planet.

The BepiColombo mission, only the third ever to visit Mercury, blasted off from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket at 10:45 p.m. local time on Friday, October 19 (0145 GMT on Saturday), according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

A key part of the Japanese Aesthetic—the ancient ideals that still govern the norms on taste and beauty in Japan—wabi-sabi is not only untranslatable, but also considered undefinable in Japanese culture. It encapsulates a more relaxed acceptance of transience, nature and melancholy, favouring the imperfect and incomplete in everything, from architecture to pottery to flower arranging.

The British government has joined press freedom advocates and journalists in expressing dismay and disgust with Donald Trump's remarks at a rally, where he praised the unprovoked assault on a Guardian US journalist by the state's congressman, Greg Gianforte.

Trump fondly reminisced about the physical assault that occurred on 24 May 2017 when Jacobs, the Guardian's political correspondent, asked Gianforte a question about healthcare policy in the course of a special congressional election in Montana.

There are few technologies being more rapidly adopted and expanded in 2018 than voice A.I. In just a few years, the use of voice systems has evolved from simple voice commands to entire ecosystems of applications and interactions.

Imagine the impact individual organizations could make if they teamed up to solve the world's most intractable societal problems.

That new mindset took center stage in Copenhagen at the inaugural global innovation lab, UNLEASH. There, a thousand carefully chosen, young social entrepreneurs came together from across the world to develop innovative approaches to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Japan landed two unmanned rovers on a 1-kilometer-wide asteroid named Ryugu in late September, 2018. It was the first time robot rovers have successfully landed on an asteroid surface.

"I felt awed by what we had achieved in Japan. This is just a real charm of deep space exploration," Takashi Kubota, a spokesman for the space agency, told CNN. The two rovers together are called MINERVA-II1 and came from the spacecraft Hayabusa2.

In 2016, two years after the English translation of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” became a best-seller, Marie Kondo moved to Los Angeles to establish her home organization consultancy in America. Amidst her culture shock, the Japanese native soon realized her new country also provided something that her homeland did not: unprecedented levels of clutter on which to practice her art.

Two scientists who discovered how to harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer won the 2018 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. James Allison, of the US, and Tasuku Honjo, of Japan, shared the 9m Swedish kronor ($1m/¥113m) prize.

The scientists’ groundbreaking work on the immune system has paved the way for a new class of cancer drugs that are already dramatically changing outcomes for patients. It is the first time the development of a cancer therapy has been recognised with a Nobel prize.

Steep tariffs, challenging geography and government subsidies come to mind when we think about the barriers to international trade. But there are lots of different languages in the world, and translation problems can slow things down, too.

On Friday, August 24, Misa Matsushima realised her lifelong dream and struck a blow for Japan’s women when she started duty as the country’s first female fighter pilot. Matsushima, who holds the rank of first lieutenant in the air self-defence force, completed her training in August 2018, just three years after Japan lifted its ban on women becoming fighter pilots.

Tokyo has topped a list of the world’s most innovative cities, leapfrogging London and New York after embracing the “globe-shaking trends of robotics and 3-D manufacturing.”

Tokyo has risen rapidly since entering the top 10 of the Innovation Cities Index three years ago behind Paris, and was one of three Asian cities to feature this year.

“What really surprised us this year was the resurgence of Tokyo, moving up to eclipse rival cities like Boston,” said Christopher Hire, director of commercial data provider 2thinknow, which published the annual ranking on Friday.

The European Union and Japan signed a monumental trade deal in, July 2018, eliminating nearly all tariffs between the entities in one of the world’s largest free-trade deals. The pact, signed in Tokyo, covers a third of the global economy.

The agreement is in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s trade war and alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although the leaders didn’t mention him by name, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker distanced themselves from Trump’s tactics in a press conference following the deal.

Princess Ayako, the third daughter of Princess Hisako and the late Prince Takamado, Emperor Akihito’s cousin, married a 32-year-old worker at shipping firm NYK Line in October 2018. The husband of the 27-year-old princess is Kei Moriya, a commoner and graduate of Keio University in Tokyo. Their wedding ceremony was planned for Oct. 29 at Meiji Jingu Shrine in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.

Until now, generating nuclear power has required massive facilities surrounded by acres of buildings and infrastructure. The nuclear industry is trying to change that picture—by going small. Efforts to build the nation’s first "advanced small modular reactor" (SMR) in Idaho, U.S.A., are on track for it to become operational by the mid-2020s.

With the end of the year drawing closer, the pressure is on to figure out how to greet the Year of the Boar. If the dwindling number of viewers staying in to watch NHK’s annual music showcase “Kohaku Uta Gassen” is any indication, more and more people in the Kanto region are choosing to head out for less traditional celebrations. 

Bernice Belcher needed an artificial aortic valve replacement. Her surgeons decided to use a new 3D modeling technique.

Using CT scans that are manipulated via special software, a team of engineers creates a model fashioned from flexible materials that re-create the texture of the aorta and its surrounding structures. Then the model is loaded into a heart simulator: a box filled with pumps and bloodlike fluid.

UNESCO has decided to add 12 sites to the World Heritage list that are linked to the history of the country’s persecuted Christians.

The sites include the Oura Cathedral in Nagasaki, the oldest surviving church in the country which is already designated as a national treasure; and the remains of Hara Castle, a site of the Shimabara-Amakusa Rebellion that led to establishment of a national policy of seclusion and the beginning of the hidden Christians’ unique system to transmit their faith and beliefs by themselves.

Your next smartphone might just throw you a curve.

Picture this: You pull your phone out of your pocket and unfold it like a napkin into a tablet. You press your finger on the screen, and it unlocks. You switch to the camera app, and a spider-like array of lenses shoot simultaneously to capture one giant photo.

Coffee is among the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide. Because of its popularity, it has attracted a great deal of research over the years.

Scientists have now stacked up a fair amount of evidence proving that coffee can protect against certain diseases and may even extend lifespan. Studies have shown that moderate coffee consumption might protect against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease, to name but three.

With the rise of A.I. and an endless sea of personal data available, some start to question, "How free are we?" Yes, it is true that A.I. will free us from many of the meaningless tasks that we are saddled with on a daily basis. However, there are serious concerns as to how our data is used for both positive and negative reasons.