Japan

Hired to breathe new life into a drab 1970s hotel, Sou Fujimoto Architects decided on an out-of-the-box approach that involved renovating the aging space, while also adding an eye-catching new building that takes the form of a grass-covered hill.

It’s normally a leg here or a tail there, but scientists have now discovered one of the most extreme examples of limb regeneration ever seen in an animal – sea slugs that voluntarily detach their own heads and then regrow an entire body from it.

Teams tasked with managing tsunami risks may soon have a powerful new tool at their disposal, in the form of a new AI model that enables near real-time predictions of how these events will shape the flooding of coastal areas.

Researchers have found that the concrete walls in a decommissioned power plant in Japan have not only kept their strength over the decades but have actually gotten stronger with use, thanks to a rare mineral also found in ancient Roman concrete.

Aleph Farms and the Mitsubishi Corporation have agreed to move toward marketing cultured meat in Japan. Aleph Farms will provide its BioFarm technology and Mitsubishi will provide technical support, manufacturing, and distribution facilities.

Many car trips are made with no more than one other passenger aboard, over relatively short distances at residential speed limits. Toyota's new battery electric C+pod was designed with just such scenarios in mind.

A serious-looking consortium of businesses is trying to position Japan as the first Asian space tourism hub, by proposing a futuristic, floating "Spaceport Japan" from which services like Virgin Galactic can operate their sub-orbital joyrides.

A new study of the orbit of comets suggests that the plane of the ecliptic, where the Earth's orbit rests, may not be the only major alignment in the solar system. There may be a second caused by the effect of the Milky Way on comet orbits.

Robots are an increasingly common sight in stores, and now they’re getting a bit more hands-on. Japanese company Telexistence has begun trials in convenience stores of a robot shelf-stacker that can be controlled by a human via VR.

The Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory in Japan has received an upgrade. A rare-earth element called gadolinium has been added to the water in the facility, which will make it more sensitive to neutrinos from more distant and ancient supernovae.

The United Arab Emirates has successfully launched its first interplanetary mission. This morning, Al Amal, or the Hope Probe, took off from Japan at 6:58 am Monday 20th July (local time), and is currently headed towards Mars.

The world’s most powerful supercomputer has just fired up. A newcomer named Fugaku has nabbed the number one spot in the Top500 list of supercomputers, surpassing Summit, the reigning champion of the past few years.