Fukushima's plead for Help

The world needs to help the people of Fukushima before it is to late. On July 15 2011 the people of Fukushima sent out an S.O.S. video found at http://youtu.be/hFWI1z_i1IQ pleading for the people of the world to help them evacuate there children from the harmful radiation.  The people of Fukushima should have been evacuated immediately once the Fukushima power plant exploded on March 11 but were not. A representative of a network to protect the Fukushima children from radiation named Nakate says, more than three months following the accident, “We know the government is not telling us the truth,” concerning the harmfulness of the radiation to there people. “We ask for an evacuation order for us and our children,” says Nakate. Nakate says that “neither the Japanese government nor the local authorities call for an evacuation,” and thus the people have to figure it out themselves. The people plead for national as well as international support to get them evacuated from the dangerous area. “Please help us save our children,” pleads Nakate.

Robot helps Deaf Speak

Japanese Scientist makes a disturbing yet working robotic mouth. According to information given in an article at http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/180250/20110714/robots-japan-robotic-mouth-sings.htm A Japan scientist invents and constructs a robotic human mouth in hopes it will help the hearing impaired improve their speech. The Japan scientist and Kagawa University professor Hideyuki Sawada decided to design and construct a robotic human mouth. Sawada intends for the robotic mouth to help those who are deaf or hearing impaired improve their speech that the speech of the hearing impaired tends to be of a lower quality or rather harder to understand than someone without a hearing impairment. Most hearing impaired people have to learn how to speak by simply looking at the way other people move there lips and tong in there speech in addition to learning sign language. With this new robot however it is hoped that the hearing impaired will be able to learn the prober lip movements also known as “flaps” that will help them to speak more clearly and regularly. The robotic mouth created by Sawada is made up of metal, an air pump for the artificial lungs and eight vocal cords, and a silicon tongue. This robot can speak, sing and even hear it self speak and then analyze how it could better improve its speech to be more understandable. In other words Sawada’s robotic mouth is a learning robot. The abilities of this robot are shown in a video clip found at http://youtu.be/Bht96voReEo where the robotic mouth sings the popular children’s nursery rhyme “Kagome Kagome” which translated into English means “mesh of basket.”  The robotic mouth also has an artificial nose in order to show patents how our vocal chords interact with our windpipe while we speak. Now since Sawada created a robotic human mouth it is possible that a completely robotic human being could eventually be constructed. 

Surfers' Paradise to be Reborn

Paradise is being restored.  An article found at http://www.relax.com.sg/relax/news/691498/Surfers_seek_return_to_paradise_at_Japan_beach.html revels surfers’ efforts to restore the Namiita beach back to its surfing glory it had before the March 11 tsunami.  The Namiita beach is a place where the waves are picture perfect for surfers of all ability levels in fact locally the Namiita beach of the Iwate Prefecture in Japan has been called “a surfers’ paradise.” One surfer in particular practically lives at Namiita beach. Hiroshi Sugimoto, now a professional surfer, first started his treks to Namiita beach from the neighboring city of Kamaishi when he was a middle school student. Sugimoto eventually opened up his own surf shop right next to the beach and gives surfing lessons to the local high school students. Although his life was thrown through a loop on March 11 when the tsunami hit Japan. Sugimoto recalls that day on March 11 as what appeared to be another normal day at work at his surf shop until suddenly he felt the massive jolt of the earthquake. Upon feeling the immense earthquake Sugimoto fled his surf shop and evacuated to a hill close by. From the hill Sugimoto watched in terror as the entire town was literally swallowed up by the following tsunami. The tsunami destroyed near by buildings not to mention Sugimoto’s surf shop. The debris from the destroyed buildings and other structures were swept into the sea and much of the debris remained in and on the shore of Namiita beach trashing the beach with pieces of houses, furniture and locals random household items, items which were mostly ruined beyond repair.  Sugimoto almost gave up on surfing again at the Namiita beach because of all the debris and damage but after being encouraged by a friend who’s house had been swept away Sugimoto decided to take action in restoring the beach to its former glory. Sugimoto directly contacted surfers and put out a notice on his Web site asking for help in his endeavor to clean up the beach. In response to his plea about 120 surfers gathered together at the beach and started picking up debris. Although this act helped there is still a lot that needs to be done to restore the beach to its former “surfers paradise” but already Sugimoto has scheduled another group clean up and repair date and says that he is willing to continue to work towards restoring the Nimiita beach even if it takes years of effort.

Rising Rice Prices

Many people may have to cut back on the amount of rice they consume. A resent post at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20110713a2.html describes how the price of rice is going up and due to the increase in inventories of the rice from and around a considerable distance in the Fukushima Prefecture. These increases in inventories of the rice were brought to pass due to the resent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan and the fear of contamination of the rice as well as a fear for shortages on rice and other supply. The rise is reasonably backed up according to the resent statistics given by a market research firm concerning the price of rice. The Rice Databank Co. has observed that the Akitakomachi brand of rice produced in the Akita Prefecture was at an average cost of ¥18,700 per 60 kg last Wednesday or rather approximately $233.28 per 132.28 lbs. The price is up 49.6 percent from the last recorded high of ¥12,500, approximately $155.94, in the Kanto region on March 9 which was two days before the earthquake and following tsunami that damaged the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Other brands of rice have also soared up since the disaster including the Koshihikari brand, which is cropped in the Chuetsu area of Niigata Prefecture. Do to the shortage of rice that is available for trading the prices for rice have increased as an attempt to secure supplies for the supermarkets as well as the other mass retailers of rice. The shortage is also a response to a common fear of shipment restrictions that could be put into place because of radioactive substances that could be in the rice. The prices for rice could very well continue until it is determined whether or not there are or are not in fact any radioactive substances in any of the rice.

Nuclear Power is still a Go!

Disaster doesn’t scare away the use of Nuclear Power Plants.

Even though the devastating disaster in Japan when the nuclear power plant exploded and has and continues to cause many problems the industries of Japan still plan on using nuclear energy as a main power source according to an article at http://en.rian.ru/world/20110508/163921388.html.

The ongoing radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant caused by the earthquake and proceeding tsunami in March are not considered enough of a negative to outweigh the positives of using nuclear power. According to top government officials Japan plans to continue to maintain their use of nuclear power.

Although three power plants have been halted in Hamaoka of central Japan due to curtain safety concerns. These safety concerns are described by Japan’s Prim Minister Naoto Kan as dew to the fact that the three active reactors of the Hamaoka plant are at a very high risk of massive earthquakes due to there location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. A ring of fire is a geological term for the separations between the earth’s tectonic plates. Often on the edges of these tectonic plates there are earthquake belts or places that tend to be home to earthquakes and active volcanoes. Japan currently has 54 nuclear reactors all of these nuclear reactors have been and are currently being reviewed by the Japanese government to insure there safety since the earthquake and tsunami of March 11 that severely damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant that has caused the many radiation leaks. The March nuclear disaster has been the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986 although arguably this disaster has been handled rather well in comparison. It is up to the individual in the end to decide whether this call by Japan is a good or bad course of action having on the one hand the plentiful benefits of the use of nuclear energy and on the other hand the possibility of radiation leaks or other complications. The future alone will revel the result as being profitable or disastrous.

Pop Star is CGI!

Digital is the new real and is the best new thing. According to http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110622/tc_digitaltrends/japansnewestpopsingerisactuallyacgicreation_1 the popular Japanese pop music group known as AKB 48’s newest member is reveled as being completely computer-generated/CGI. Aimi Eguchi first appeared as a member of AKB 48 in a commercial for the candy maker Ezaki Glico along with some of the other members of AKB 48.  Fan’s immediately fell in love with her some even claimed she was now the most beautiful of the whole group.  Aimi Eguchi’s fans were extremely surprised to find out that she wasn’t real but rather made completely on a computer. The candy company finally released an amazing making-of video that took viewers step by step through the process of the creation and putting together of Aimi Eguchi. The end result of Aimi Eguchi is simply amazing even after fan’s learned the truth behind Aimi they could not tell the difference between Aimi, the computer generated star, and the real pop idols. The creators of Aimi were so exact in there making of her in fact that viewers could watch the Ezaki Glico commercial over and over again and still not be able to pinpoint any unrealistic features in Aimi that the other stars did not have.  As one could imagine some of AKB 48’s fans were extremely disappointed to find out the truth behind there new beloved star being nothing more than 150 gigabytes of data, many other fans just simply started liking her even more. Aimi Eguchi is a 100% pure idol. When looking in deeper into the creation of Aimi one will find that she was created by putting together traits of the other real members of AKB 48 that the fans admired the most and putting them all together it is no wonder that she became so popular so fast. Who knows there might even be many more CGI pop stars that we don’t even know about?

Gaga for Japan

Lady Gaga arrived in Japan on June 21st to help raise money for the victims in northeast Japan as well as promoting her new album, many news articles report.  This is a continuing effort by Lady Gaga. Originally Lady Gaga designed a "pray for Japan" bracelet soon after she heard about the disaster each bracelet cost five dollars and all proceeds went to help the victims and rebuild Japan. In an interview Lady Gaga said, "This is an example of using fashion to do good." It is amazing all of the effort that Lady Gaga is putting in for the people of Japan it is safe to say that Lady Gaga fans as well as everyone else considers this a very admirable act. According to Forbes magazine, Lady Gaga is ranked as this year’s most powerful celebrity making her appearance and support for Japan even more influential and meaningful. So far Lady Gaga’s creation and promotion of the “pray for Japan” bracelets as well as her other contributions has enabled her to contribute a very generous $3 million for the people in the disaster zones according to Kyodo news agency. The charity event Lady Gaga is participating in, in Japan is to take place in Chiba Japan Saturday June 25^th 2011.  In addition to raising money at the charity event Lady Gada’s performance in Japan will also hopefully give the Japanese tourism a boost after its dramatic drop following the March 11^th disaster. Judging sully from the people who arrived at the airport to greet Lady Gaga upon her arrival in Japan it is safe to say that this event will bring a lot of benefit to the people of Japan. It should be interesting to see the end results of Lady Gaga’s appearance in Japan and how much her contribution helps with the relief effort.