Japanese sewer system makes an excellent place to stage a Quake match

That's a normal-sized person on the floor of the place. The storm sewer system underground in Saitama, Japan, is one of the largest in the world and a steady tourist attraction.

Saitama has a population of about 1.2 million, making it the most populous cities in the prefecture. And situated where it is on the coast and Japan being prone to the sea-related disasters as it is, the storm control system is no joke.

Man draws maze by hand, takes seven years

Like mazes? You'll be begging for a copy of this one. A Japanese woman unearthed her father's maze, which he spent seven years drawing. Is he a graphics artist or perhaps in some mathematical or engineering field? No, he is a janitor at a university.

There are undiscovered universes inside of all of us.

Diver cavorts with giant jellyfish

From Discovery.

The Echizen jellyfish, AKA Nomura's jellyfish, can reach a diameter as long as a human's height. It's native to the coasts of Japan and China, but has been thriving lately due to overfishing in the area removing its competition. And this diver's ballsy getting close enough to it to tag it with a sensor!

The mystery radiation burst of ~774-775 A.D.

 

During a time when very few humans would have had the presence of mind or equipment to detect such an event, one species faithfully recorded this freak occurrence for our puzzlement millenniums later: Japanese ceder trees. The evidence of this event is told by the pattern of tree rings in this species, which shows a huge anomaly right around this time in history. There is a massive amount of activity from carbon-14, an element only presented when massive amounts of radiation from space bombard earth's atmosphere.

Sometime around 774 or 775 A.D., a mysterious burst of radiation hit the Earth. We have no idea what caused it, where it came from, or why it went otherwise undetected.

A supernova would be a possible explanation, but early astronomers show no record of such an event visible from Earth during this time, despite having noted supernovas in 1006 and 1054. For that matter, we'd still be able to find evidence of a supernova from this time today. A solar flare could also explain it, but again no solar flare of such a large and devastating nature would have come and gone without somebody noticing it. If you're picking up the theme here, huge bursts of radiation have to be caused by a star or something as big and hot as a star.

Other tree species around the world, as well as ice core samples from the polar regions, bear a similar record about the same time period in history. So either we had an invisible, undetectable solar flare or supernova, or we have a bunch of lying trees on our hands.

PythagoraSwitch - A charming Japanese educational show

What really gets your attention on the show are the bumpers. Each of them features complex physics-driven devices that accomplish the mundane task of displaying the show's logo. Here are several of them in one clip:

These kinetic contraptions are in the similar vein of art as those illustrated by US cartoonist Rube Goldberg and UK cartoonist W. Heath Robinson.

Japanese kids who are fans of the show enjoy making their own devices in a similar vein and showing off in videos. Here's one brilliant example:

ASCII Art Vision in 3D

The Bizarre Problem Of Japan's Shrinking Population

Japan has an interesting and unique problem: Their population is bombing drastically. As of recent numbers, 21% of Japanese citizens are over the age of 65, and their birth rate just dipped below their death rate in recent years, meaning negative population growth.

 The Huffy-Poo estimates a one-third decline in population by 2060, while this Japan Times article declares that the population already shrunk by 75,000 in 2009.

While such things as overzealous family planning and factors which discourage large families have traditionally been to blame, this Escapist story makes the bold claim that the problem is, to put it bluntly, too many young males spending their time with anime and manga - in other words, too much gratification from cartoon porn instead of finding their gratification from actual flesh-and-blood women. (Yes, we know, there is more to manga and anime than porn - but come on, it isn't Mobile Suit Gundam or Deathnote that these guys would be using in place of a girlfriend.)

Still, if this is the real cause of the problem, one wonders what on Earth the females are doing. Are they just passively sitting at home watching the phone not ring? It takes two to tangle, you know.

This is also a possible omen for the rest of the human race. Japan is a first-world country. Are other first-world countries in danger of having their populations become so socially stunted that they can't manage to meet, mingle, and breed as well? Is there, in fact, a possible reverse-Malthusian disaster in our future?

Amazing reverse-gravity ramp illusion

It won the Neural Correlate Society’s "Best Illusion of the Year" contest.

Months later, survivors of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake are seing ghosts

Predictably for a trauma of such massive proportions, the normally level-headed Japanese are experiencing visions of ghosts, as a result of all the death and destruction in the wake of one of history's deadliest earthquakes.

Do keep in mind that the toll racked up to over 15,000 dead and 3,380 missing. We may not all believe in ghosts, but the psychological shock from such an incident would trigger hallucinations in even the most skeptical among us.

The footage of this quake is still shocking to behold. In the second half of this video, houses are swept away like toys:

Here's a first-person view, a video takes by someone shopping in an electronics store when the quake hit:

In this Cambridge Journal article "Trauma, Metacognition And Predisposition To Hallucinations In Non-Patients", the link between auditory and visual hallucinations and post-trauma stress is explored:

"The study found an association between trauma-related measures (negative cognitions about the world and all dissociation variables) and predisposition to both auditory and visual hallucinations."