Quest to turn cultured meat into gourmet treat
Concerns about sustainability and animal welfare have driven development of meat alternatives. But it really comes down to taste. Researchers in Japan hope their lab-grown version of gourmet beef will please palates.
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Japan Times
20 hours ago
- Japan Times
Noto quake liquefaction hampers land boundary redrawing
Soil liquefaction caused by a massive earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula in central Japan on Jan. 1, 2024, has complicated local efforts to redraw land boundaries in some disaster-hit areas. Both the town of Uchinada and the neighboring city of Kahoku in Ishikawa Prefecture were hit by a widespread lateral flow, in which the ground shifts sideways, when the 7.6-magnitude quake caused soil to behave like liquid, a phenomenon called liquefaction. While the local governments hope to set the postquake boundaries based on the land situation after the liquefaction, the central government holds on to its legal interpretation that existing lines drawn under the parcel boundary system, which establishes boundaries based on real-estate registration documents, should not be altered. Liquefaction during the Noto quake caused a lateral flow of up to 3 meters along a prefectural road running north to south through Uchinada and Kahoku. A 44-year-old resident of Uchinada said he will remove concrete walls separating his home from his neighbor's in order to prevent a dispute from arising, as his property may be encroaching on his neighbor's registered area as a result of the lateral flow. "I can't wait for years until the (revised) land boundaries are formalized," said the resident, who bought his home four years ago. "I'd like to live without worries." The local governments of Ishikawa, Uchinada and Kahoku believe that the boundaries should be established under the postliquefaction situation. They urged the country to allow land registration based on the results of a cadastral survey to remeasure the area and replot the boundary location for each plot of land. On the other hand, the central government upholds a Supreme Court ruling that legal land boundaries cannot be changed just with an agreement by relevant landowners. For drawing new boundaries in areas that went through significant land movements, the central government thinks it necessary for landowners to carry out parcel subdivision or consolidation, in which land is divided up or transferred among the owners for fresh registration, or alternatively for local governments to undertake property rezoning in such areas. Both options pose heavy burdens to local residents and procedural difficulties. The local governments are negative about the options, saying that five to ten years would pass without progress on establishing the revised land boundaries. In the past, the central government made an exception to its policy holding that boundaries based on land registrations should not be altered. The 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, which mainly hit Kobe in western Japan, led to large-scale land shifts and elevations. The central government at the time issued a notice that if the ground surface moved horizontally in a wide area due to crustal movements, parcel boundaries would be altered accordingly. It said, however, that parcel boundaries would not be changed for cases of localized surface movement, such as landslides. The lateral flow caused by the Noto quake falls under localized surface movement, the central government says. The central government cannot change its legal interpretation causally, as that could cause some people to lose land because their plots were crushed by others in the lateral flow, an official said. Aiming to find a solution to the boundary issue, a team comprising members of the central and three local governments was launched Thursday. It will discuss the possibility of a legislative review and a simplification of procedures for rezoning by local governments.
NHK
2 days ago
- NHK
Moderately strong quakes hitting Hokkaido since late May
Moderately powerful earthquakes have been hitting Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, but weather officials say they are unlikely to trigger larger quakes. The Meteorological Agency says a magnitude-6.3 tremor occurred early Monday morning, with its epicenter located off the coast of the Tokachi region. The quake registered an intensity of four on the Japanese seismic scale of zero to seven. The agency estimates that it occurred where the Pacific Plate meets a continental plate. It was the latest in a series of earthquakes along the Pacific coast of Hokkaido since late May, which had each registered an intensity of up to four. Agency officials say they have not been strong enough to trigger more powerful quakes, and each of them is believed to have been an isolated tremor. However, the officials warn that a massive quake could occur anytime along the Chishima Trench off the coast of Hokkaido. In 2003, a magnitude-8.0 quake occurred off Tokachi. Officials are urging the public to prepare for earthquakes.
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Japan Times
Japanese startup Ispace prepares for lunar lander to touch down on the moon
Japanese startup Ispace has announced that its Resilience lunar lander has completed all planned orbital maneuvers while circling the moon and is now being readied for a landing attempt scheduled for early Friday morning. The company released a statement Saturday saying the lander will begin its descent from a circular lunar orbit at 3:20 a.m. Friday, automatically firing its main propulsion system to gradually decelerate and adjust its altitude. The goal is to achieve a soft landing near the Mare Frigoris, or Sea of Cold, in the moon's northern hemisphere. 'Resilience is now ready to attempt a historic landing on the moon, carrying not only the payloads of our customers, but also the hopes of our employees, their families, our partners and all of our supporters,' said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of Ispace, in the statement. This is Ispace's second attempt at a moon landing following the failure of its Hakuto-R Mission 1 in April 2023, when a software error caused the lander to misjudge its altitude, resulting in a crash from approximately 5 kilometers above the lunar surface, according to a company postmortem analysis following the accident. 'We have leveraged the operational experience gained in Mission 1 and during this current voyage to the moon, and we are confident in our preparations for the success of this lunar landing,' Hakamada said. The current mission — Hakuto-R Mission 2 — carries a diverse set of scientific and cultural payloads. Among them is the Tenacious microrover, which was developed in part with the European Space Agency and will collect lunar regolith under a contract with NASA, in one of the first transactions involving resources on the lunar surface and a significant step toward developing the cislunar economy. If the mission is successful, Tenacious will become the first European-built rover to operate on the lunar surface. Other onboard payloads include a lunar water electrolysis system, a module for food production in space and a deep-space radiation sensor. Resilience is also carrying the Memory Disc — a collaborative effort with UNESCO and U.S.-based innovation platform Barrelhand — which contains 275 world languages and cultural artifacts. Also included are a commemorative alloy "Mobile Suit Gundam UC" plate by Bandai Namco and a small sculpture of a red house called "The Moonhouse" by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg. The lander launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 15, alongside Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which landed March 2 and operated until 6:15 p.m. CDT on March 16. Resilience entered lunar orbit on May 7.
