One of world's largest flowers blooms at botanical garden near Tokyo
The titan arum, native to Indonesia, flowered this week at Tsukuba Botanical Garden, a research facility of Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science.
The flowers can grow higher than 3 meters.
The one that bloomed at Tsukuba is 93 centimeters tall and 59 centimeters wide.
It began to shrink on Wednesday, three days after blossoming.
Visitors took photos and smelled its distinctive odor.
One said he was happy to see the flower up close, and hopes to visit again if another one blooms.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
7 hours ago
- Japan Times
Immune cells that worsen asthma can ease lung inflammation, Japan study shows
A Japanese research team has found that cells often labeled "villains" for their roles in atopic dermatitis and asthma can alleviate lung inflammation. The team of researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo has discovered that basophils, immune cells that are present in very small numbers in the blood, play a crucial role in recovery from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which occurs in severe pneumonia and similar conditions. The findings, published Thursday in the European Respiratory Journal, may pave the way for new treatments. ARDS is triggered by severe pneumonia or sepsis and causes significant inflammation in the lungs. Mechanical ventilation is often required, with the fatality rate reaching 30% to 50%. No effective drug therapy has been established. Associate professor Kensuke Miyake and other members of the team observed the recovery process in mice that exhibited ARDS-like symptoms. They found that basophils gather in the lungs during the recovery phase and secrete a substance called interleukin-4, which alleviates inflammation by suppressing the activity of neutrophils, which are immune cells that contribute to inflammation. Mice in which the functions of basophils and interleukin-4 were blocked showed prolonged lung inflammation and worse symptoms, supporting the case for their essential role in recovery. The team describes the research result as a "discovery that defies conventional wisdom."
Japan Times
15 hours ago
- Japan Times
Japanese students struggle with description-type tests
The average correct answer rate was as low as 25.6% for description-type questions in the Japanese-language section of the fiscal 2025 national achievement test for junior high school third-graders, the education ministry has said. Among such questions, students seemed to struggle especially with those asking them to write their thoughts in a way that others can understand. The fiscal 2025 achievement test for elementary school sixth-graders and junior high school third-graders was held in April, with a total of some 1.9 million students participating from about 28,000 schools nationwide. This year, the ministry released test results by gender for the first time. Female students in both elementary school sixth grade and junior high school third grade gave more correct answers to Japanese-language questions than male students. More girls than boys in both grades said that they like, are good at or understand the subject well. In the mathematics and science segments of the national test, no significant gender gaps were seen in correct answer rates. However, fewer girls than boys said that they like, are good at or understand the subjects well. These tendencies in mathematics and science were also observed in the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. A ministry official said that the tendencies are believed to derive from multiple factors, including gender-related unconscious bias and biological differences between males and females. The average correct answer rate for each subject had been released earlier. Among elementary school sixth-graders, the correct answer rate came to 67.0% for Japanese language, 58.2% for mathematics, and 57.3% for science. Among junior high school third-graders, the rate was 54.6% for Japanese language and 48.8% for mathematics, while the average score in science was 505.
NHK
2 days ago
- NHK
After Kamchatka quake, Japan warns reflected tsunami could pack extra punch
Following the massive earthquake that struck near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on Wednesday morning, Japan's Meteorological Agency says tsunami waves arriving after the first one could be more powerful -- partly due to the region's unique undersea topography. The quake, with an estimated magnitude of 8.8, hit near the peninsula at around 11:25 a.m., local time. Tsunami waves have been observed across a broad area of Japan's Pacific coast. The agency says an undersea mountain range known as the Emperor Seamount Chain lies to the east of the peninsula, stretching about 2,000 kilometers from south to north. The seamounts are located at a depth of around 6,000 meters, with some rising more than 4,000 or 5,000 meters above the seafloor. The agency suggests that this topography could cause tsunami waves to be reflected, making them higher as they head toward the Japanese archipelago. In the 2006 earthquake that occurred off the eastern part of the Kuril Islands -- south of Wednesday's quake epicenter -- the agency found that reflected tsunami waves caused by local topography were higher than the initial tsunami. Those higher waves reached the coast of western Japan.
