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Archive for the 'Science/Technology' Category

8/19/2009

DNA ‘origami’

The 3Yen loves covering Japanese origami including Robo-origami. Nano-origami, and Electric origami scooter, but this ”DNA origami” just sounds so cool.
DNA origami by IBM

IBM Scientists Use DNA Scaffolding To Build Tiny Circuit Boards
–Nanotechnology advancement could lead to smaller, faster, more energy efficient computer chips–
IBM Press room San Jose, CA – 17 Aug 2009—
could be a major breakthrough in enabling the semiconductor industry to pack more power and speed into tiny computer chips, while making them more energy efficient and less expensive to manufacture.
IBM researchers… have made an advancement in combining lithographic patterning with self assembly — a method to arrange DNA origami structures on surfaces compatible with today’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment.more


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8/17/2009

Japanese drowns during concrete canoe testing

concrete canoe japan

Student drowns while testing concrete canoe
Mainichi – August 17, 2009 OSAKA – A university student here died after a test on a concrete canoe in the Yodogawa River went disastrously awry on Sunday afternoon...more

Ok, ok, if you stop giggling so will I. Creating concrete canoes are common engineering competition throughout the world—the idea being to make the seemingly unfloatable float—It’s considered integral part of a civil engineer’s education (Wiki).

concrete-canoe-making
concrete-canoe test

Ok, you may go back to giggling about drowning during a concrete canoe test (because I certainly am).


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8/11/2009

Rock-n-Roll at 5 am in Tokyo

Well, I just discovered the exact time the earthquake hit Tokyo (and killed my wall clock).
Earthquake clock-killer

This morning’s earthquake was “only” 6.4M on the Richter scale, but it felt stronger than the so-called 7.1M earthquake we had yesterday. The epicenter of today’s 6.4M quake was only 170 km (105 miles) SW of Tokyo, whereas Sunday’s 7.1M quake was 320 km (200 miles) SSW of Tokyo very deep under the ocean.

My friends down in Izu sent me this cellphone photo timestamped 2009-08-11-05:27:04.
2009-08-11 5am earthquake embiggen

Long-time contributor to the 3Yen, “Kuang_Grade,” just quipped about: “love how Jessica Simpson is currently the second topic heading under a Google news search for Tokyo earthquake.

Jessica Simpson, Beyonce In Japan During 6.6 Earthquake
AccessHollywood.com
Beyonce and sister Solange Knowles were in Japan on Monday to promote the Samantha Thavasa & Disney handbag collection kickoff at the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel.
“wtf! wtf! wtf! my sister said she was scared out of her mind and calling my mom and i was snoring. 6.6????? omg! omg! omg! tsunami watch???” Solange posted on her Twitter page.

With two major earthquakes recorded in Tokyo in the past 48 hours and a typhoon is on its way from in the south of Japan that has already killed 12 with more missing, it’s time to round up the usual suspects….
Giant Monsters Attack Japan


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8/10/2009

Forces of Darkness gather over Japan

Typhoon 2009 aug08 09:16am

The Forces of Darkness—evil Hello Kitties are gathering over Japan….

The first warning came last night with an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 rattled Tokyo and eastern Japan, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Then, this morning we were hit with the edge of Typhoon Etau, which killed at least 12 people and many others missing, with a second typhoon also on its way by Wednesday.

Then I saw the Devilish Duo, evil Hello Kitties wandering the streets of Tokyo beneath the gathering storm clouds as you can see in the photo.

Be scared…be very scared.


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8/5/2009

Japan Inc admits their robots are crap

robot_salarymen

Oh Buddha, I sound like a broken record (WOTS a record?) about the never-ending procession of “new” Japanese robots that don’t do anything. However, NEDO, Japan’s quasi-governmental thinktank for robots is now admitting that a Stalinesque 5-Year Plan is needed for “practical” applications of robots with goals for a fake Roomba the size of a small refrigerator and a faux-Segway that’s much slower.

Japan Promotes Practical Application of Home-use
Aug. 5, 2009 –Tech-On Nikkei
NEDO, an independent administrative institution in Japan, announced Aug 3, 2009, the outlines of the “Home-use Robot Practical Application Project,” which will be carried out for five years from fiscal 2009.
The goals of this project are to promote the commercialization of home-use robots, whose market is smaller than that for industrial robots, and to develop safety technologies and standards, which have been major issues…more…

actroid chan robot fembot actroid robot girl closeup
The photos above and on the right are of the Actroid fembot from my previous 3Yen report, My Girl in Tokyo. Other 3Yen reports on Japan’s fake robot boom include:
Creating two-legged robots that cannot perform any useful function is a waste of money
Robot damp dreams


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8/3/2009

Mecha suit released for the Japanese mass market

robot-legs japan 2009

Cyberdyne’s cyborg employees are out strutting their stuff on the streets in Tokyo wearing the latest version of the robotics company’s mecha suit, the “HAL” (Hybrid Assistive Limb). Cyberdyne is now starting mass production the robot suit, which can sense the user’s intended motion and amplify their strength from 50 to 70%. According to its inventor, Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai of Tsukuba University, the suit will, “assist disorder persons (sic) or aged people.”
wrong trousers japan

The 3Yen has reported on these powered exoskeletons several times before, but none of those devices had such infamous rogue robot names as Cyberdyne’s HAL.
(That is, Cyberdyne, was the company the created the Terminators, and HAL was the villain of 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Refer to previous 3Yen reports:
Honda puts a bot up your butt
Wrong Trousers Honda’s new kinky strap-on

The older, bulkier version made its debut back in August 2006 as shown in the video below.


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8/2/2009

Robot bullying in Japan

One of Japan’s pervasive social problems is their culture of ijime/bullying. Check out this Toyota girl pushing around her robot “coworker” and how Mr. Roboto remains balanced even after pushed by the bully and is able to run away at 7 km/h (4.4 MPH, which is a 13 minute, 40 second mile).
toyota robot bullying by japanese girl

The video above, “….demonstrates the running capabilities of the new humanoid robot. The robot takes a step every 340ms and has no contact with the ground for 100ms of thatmore info at smart-machines.blogspot.com...

I wish the Japanese would work on more practical robots like this four-legged robot mule, which also gets bullied a lot.


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7/31/2009

GIANT JAPANESE JELLYFISH ATTACK!!! [yawn]

killer jellyfish - PANIC everyone
GIANT JELLYFISH PICTURES: Japan’s Nomura Invasion
National Geographic July 29, 2009–Eat your heart out, Godzilla. A massive menace from the sea seems poised to invade Japan anew this summer, experts predict.

In 2005 Japanese waters were inundated with swarms of Nomura's jellyfish–like the pair seen above cruising off the coast of Fukui Prefecture in November 2007. The giants clogged fishing nets and poisoned potential catches with their toxic stings, costing coastal fishers billions of yenmore.

jellyfish attack japanese kaiju

It’s that time of year again* for the GIANT JAPANESE JELLYFISH ATTACK!!
Oh nooos! tokyo bay jellyfish massing in pollution industrial waste
It’s not like the Japanese coast every year are covered so thick with jellyfish that you can walk on the water (like in the photo on the right I took in Tokyo). I especially love reading about the “plight” of the Japanese fishermen whose livelihood is threatened by the jellyfish plague when it was their greedy overfishing the mostly caused the problem to begin with, sheesh.
Japan needs a moratorium on ALL fishing within Japan’s coastal economic zone just to repair the damage of their ridiculous overfishing (on Japan’s coast it’s hard to find any fish larger than one’s hand).

*Here’s the list of 3Yen reports over the years of this “news”:
PANIC! Killer jellyfish invading Japan! 2008-02-09
INVASION OF THE NUCLEAR JELLYFISH! 2006-07-20
The Attack of the Killer Jellyfish! 2007-02-20
Attack of the giant jellyfish! 2005-12-08


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7/29/2009

Yummy Japanese HOYA—like ‘rubber dipped in ammonia’

sea-squirt japan hoya

Recently the price of yummy sea squirts–called “Hoya”hoya sea-squirt in japanese in Japanese—has dropped four-fold thanks to an over-abundance caused in part by global warming. Japanese love these hoya, which are more aptly described by the Lonely Planet guide as tasting like, “rubber dipped in ammonia” in sushi.


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7/27/2009

Japan’s national bird is back!

crow in flight Japanese National Tree concrete utility pole
The national tree of Japan, the sacred Utility Pole is home to the true national bird* of Japan is the crow–BIG CROWS with attitudes like the Darth-Vader-on-a-bad-hair-day.
crow-concrete-dildo

In Tokyo, Hitchcock Isn’t Around, but He Seems to Have Sent the Birds
Washington Post – Sunday, July 26, 2009
….
“Yes, they have returned,” admitted Naoki Satou, the chagrined point man for the city’s eight-year-old war on crows.
The conflict had gone Tokyo’s way until 2006, when the formidably beaked carrion-eaters launched a counterattack. The crow count has since risen about 30 percentmore...

Japanese carrion crows
Of course, Tokyo city government has not yet learned about these new inventions called “trash cans” and “dumpsters” that might solve the city’s problem crows breaking the curb-side plastic garbage bags full of gourmet crow cuisine

*Just in case you thought I was kidding about the carrion crow being Japan’s national bird, here’s the logo of the JFA, Japan Football Association with the national soccer team’s mascot the, three-legged, mutant crow of Japan’s first emperor, Jimmu (Wiki).
3Leg-crow


Also, check out the previous 3Yen reports on Japan’s plague of carrion crows.
Tokyo is ruled by birdbrains
Let’s ‘kakashi’ – scarecrow!


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