Japan

The aging of its population is about to leave Japan without a key element for the nation: pants

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Japan has entered a unprecedented demographic phase for an advanced economy: retirement mass of the generation that supported its industry coincides with a young one that is too small (and unwilling) to occupy the jobs that this economy requires to continue functioning. On paper, global demand for certain domestically manufactured goods has never been higher, but in the engine room, those who know how to produce them are aging without substitutes. Fabric turned into luxury. He japanese denimslowly woven, dense and dyed with natural indigo in repeated cycles, enjoys a moment of consecration worldwide: Dior, Balenciaga and other luxury houses incorporate it, celebrities exhibit it, the market projects grow more than 85% until 2035 and tourism (supported by a weak yen) triple sales in Kojima’s “Jeans Street.” For an industry that had been hollowed out by decades of cheap imports, the return of demand is not marginal but cultural: the value resides in the texturethe way indigo ages and in that kind of aura of exclusivity that results from real and not cosmetic scarcity. In fact, brands with Japanese only website and without direct export they increase that breath of rarity and price. Without a job when it is most demanded. The apogee has arrived when the productive base collapses: There are barely fifty artisans left in the founding heart of the japanese selvedgethe average age is close to seventy, and apprentices last months before giving up due to noise, heat, grease, discipline and slowness. Bloomberg counted that the skill curve is not linear: it takes six months to five years to operate the loom and up to a decade to maintain and repair it. With the master generation entering retirement and entrepreneurs without time to transmit the trade, continuity is broken by calendar, not by market. Ancient technology. The shuttle looms of the early 20th century (now relics) allow continuous edging what gives the “selvedge” and the density of the weave that produces an unmistakable drape, feel and aging in the fabric. Japan came to have 300,000 machines of this type. The problem? Today there are less than 400 operationsa lower third a single signature. To maintain them you have to remove pieces of other machines already stopped and work at a pace that doesn’t fit with today’s industry. They cannot be replaced by automation without losing exactly what the customer pays for: a finish that only time gives on a slow-made fabric. What is authentic is paid for. Plus: the one who pays For this denim you are not looking just for the feel, but for a product that takes time to make, that ages well and does not depend on the rapid rotation of fashion. In other words, this preference fits with the rejection of fast-fashion and a turn towards objects designed to last. The signs are many and clear: Levi’s sells “Blue Tab” lines for twice the price of a normal 501, Capital places jeans worth several hundred or thousands of dollars, and funds linked to the almighty LVMH they invest in Kojima brands. The problem of aging. Japan is getting older faster than there is time to teach the trade. The factories have plenty of orders, but they cannot get hire or train substitutes. The owners travel and manage, but they do not have hours to teach, and the machines will be lost due to lack of parts and hands that know how to maintain them. If the drift continues like this, the problem will not be a lack of demand but capacity: in about ten years (according to own manufacturers) this type of product will no longer be able to be made because neither the technicians nor the machines will be able to work. There are no shortcuts. The final paradox is that the boom of the sector It doesn’t seem like it’s going to save the job, rather it accelerate towards the limit: The more demand grows, the more it squeezes the few remaining hands and the less time there is to teach others. Thus, the world Japanese denim is faced with a disturbing choice: slow down the pace to transmit the trade (even if that means losing sales in the short term) or exploit the latest generation until it is exhausted, knowing that this would leave a product that will possibly disappear, not due to lack of market, but because no one will be able to do it anymore. Image | PxHere, Liface In Xataka | That Japan has 100,000 people over 100 years old explains a problem: they are literally running out of drivers. In Xataka | Japan’s aging has hit rock bottom with a devastating fact: more and more elderly people want to live in prison

Japan already knows how to get out of the demographic catastrophe in which it has sunk: with foreign babies

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Japan seems to have found the key to solve its demographic crisisperhaps the most serious problem, entrenched and apparently unsolvable (apparently) that the country faces. The latest data of the Government show that last year the nation softened its birth rate thanks to babies born to foreign couples. Not only did they grow in net terms, they also grew proportionally, partially alleviating the disaster of Japanese households. It is nothing that many other countries have not experienced before, including Spainbut there, in Japan, the data fuels the debate on immigration. What has happened? That the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare show that Japanese demographics are advancing at two very different rates. If we talk about Japanese households (local population), the birth rate is clearly declining, with around 41,000 fewer babies in a matter of a year. Things are, however, very different when we look at foreign couples. Among them, the same indicator has skyrocketed to almost total 23,000 babies3,000 more than in 2023. The global birth rate remains negative, but it casts little doubt on its demographic driver. What does the data say? That immigration is the lifeblood of Japanese demography. And without a doubt also. The government figures, which show the balance for 2024 and have been published by Nikkei, They reflect how immigration has softened the country’s population setback. In 2024, the government registered 22,878 births of “foreign citizens in Japan,” a label that identifies babies born to foreign parents or a single foreign mother. The data is interesting for three main reasons. First, because they represent 3,000 more than in 2023. Second, because if we look even further back to gain perspective, we see that it represents a growth of 50% in a decade. And third, because thanks to this trend, foreign newborns now account for 3.2% of all births in Japan. It is a percentage very similar to the weight of the foreign population in the country: 3.6 million on a total of 124 million. And Japanese couples? The opposite has happened with them. Among Japanese couples, 686,173 births41,115 less than in 2023. If the blow of that ‘hole’ was not greater in the country’s final census, it was precisely because the foreign birth rate grew to provide almost 23,000 babies. Particularly noteworthy is the number of children born to mothers of Chinese origin (4,237), Filipino (1,897) and Brazilian (1,351). The remaining 14,425 births are attributed to a much broader and more diffuse category called “other nationalities”, which include, for example, Vietnam or Nepal. How many foreigners are there in Japan? Not that many, actually. The Nikkei agency specifies that at least at the end of 2024 in Japan there were around 3.77 million resident foreigners, more or less 3% of the global population. It represents a historical maximum and, above all, a sufficient volume to have strained the migratory pressure between the hottest topics of the national public debate. It is especially relevant that the big surprise of the July elections was Sanseito, a populist party that stands out (among other things) for the harshness of his speech against foreigners and tourism. In fact their motto was “Japan first”with which it won 14 seats and became the third force in the opposition. Even the candidates to preside over the PLD, including Sanae Takaichiwho will probably be the country’s new prime minister, toughened their speech. Why is it important? Because it shows the extent to which Japan faces an existential dilemma. The increase in the foreign population has become a topic of debate, but at the same time official data show that right now it is its demographic float. And that is not a minor issue in a country that has long been mired in a deep birth crisis that is undermining its census and aging society, with all the implications that this entails at an economic, labor, social and health level or even for defense of the nation. Is the situation so serious? In 2024 the country lost more than 900,000 people, a historic collapse that left its global census around 124.3 million of people, far from the maximum 126.6 million registered in 2009. Not only that. The ‘national’ birth rate (among Japanese) stood at its lowest level since there are records (1899) and the country has seen how those over 65 years of age have come to represent around 30% of the global population. Among foreign residents, 56% They move between 20 and 30 years old. Images | Yanhao Fang (Unsplash) 1 and 2 In Xataka | Japan has found the three most serious problems with the massive arrival of tourists. And none of it has to do with tourists.

We are becoming the Japan of the 21st century

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Let’s start with the facts: Europe ages faster than any other developed regionespecially in the south. middle age is over 44 years oldand going up. The big technology companies that define our era are American or Chinese, with permission for South Korean or Taiwanese exceptions. Our industrial glories (Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel…) are today B2B suppliers or corporate zombies, invisible to the consumers who once loved them. We host two of the most important technology events in the world (MWC and IFA) but we are spectators of a spectacle that others dominate. And in the meantime, we regulate: GDPR, AI ActDMA, DSA. We legislate about innovations we don’t lead and impose rules on games we don’t play. There is an uncomfortable but quite precise parallel: post-bubble Japan. In the 1980s, Japan seemed destined to dominate the 21st century. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Nintendo… Japan defined some of the technologies that dominated the world at the end of the 20th century: The game boy and the desktop Nintendo. The walkman and the discman. The Trinitron teles. The VHS that won the format war. The Canons and Nikons that captured our memories. The iconic Casio watches. The Toyotas and Hondas that redefined the word “reliability.” Even the word kaizen (continuous improvement) became a mantra for companies around the world. Japan, in addition to manufacturing great products, exported methodologieswork philosophies and visions of the technological future. Then came the bust, the stagnation, the deflation. And the worst: institutional nostalgia. Japan did not collapse, but began to stop creating the future. And it became a museum of how things were done, of when we were relevant. Europe is taking that same path, but faster. What is worrying is not so much the absence of large European technology companies with honorable exceptions, is the response to that absence: instead of creating conditions for them to emerge, we focus on aggressively regulating those that exist.. We act as if power resides in controlling other people’s platforms, not in building our own. It’s the mentality of someone who no longer plays: if I can’t win, at least I set the rules. But setting rules without the ability to enforce them is simply irrelevance disguised as principles. Japan took solace in its culture, its refined aesthetics, its exceptionalism. In Europe we console ourselves with our “values”. Data protection, sustainability, digital rights. Everything correct, everything noble. But insufficient. Because in the meantime, the technological architecture of the 21st century—the one that defines what is possible to do, think, create—is being built in California and Shenzhen. We set limits on systems that others design. The underlying problem is that Europe has internalized a narrative of managed decline. We no longer aspire to lead, but to “preserve our model.” Translation: manage decay with dignity. It took decades for Japan to accept its new role. Europe seems to have accepted it on the fast track. In Xataka | I increasingly like technology that doesn’t want anything from me: the one that has a purpose and leaves you alone Featured image | Tianshu Liu, Il Vagabiondo

In 1990, the Internet was science fiction for half the world. And in Japan they already played the Sega Mega Drive online

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We live in a highly connected world in which the Internet is present on our computers, mobile phones, consoles and even refrigerators. Never in history has it been so easy to access information, play online or control devices from a distance. However, as we all know, this has not always been the case. The year is 1990. It may be a little surprising to think that in 1990 Japan not only were already connecting to the Internet, but some people were connecting modems to their video game consoles to play online. And the most curious thing about this service is that the country was not even among those that had the most developed connectivity offer. The data. To give a little context, according to Worldmapper dataAbout 3 million people had access to the Internet in the inaugural year of the 1990s. Most of the users were distributed between the United States and Europe. In the connectivity ranking, Japan was far behind, outside the top 10 positions. Pioneers. However, the Japanese company Sega did not hesitate to embrace the network of networks with its Mega Drive console (known as the Sega Genesis in other markets). It was its fourth-generation 16-bit console that had been launched in 1988 and had been a success. The device had a 7.6 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor to run the games and a Zilog Z80 coprocessor. The console thus had 64 KB of RAM, 64 KB of VRAM, 8 KB of audio RAM. Two years after its launch, specifically on November 3, 1990, Sega launched the Mega Modem in Japan. It was an accessory that connected to a DE-9 port located on the back of the console and that allowed it to connect to the Internet. Dial-up. As you can surely imagine, the offering of online services back then was very primitive. However, the Japanese company was encouraged to distribute games through dial-up connection as well as to allow online play in some of its titles. All this was done through a telephone connection whose speed was around 1200 bauds (1.2 kbit/s). And, since there was no additional storage device, all downloaded games had to be stored in the Mega Drive’s memory. Variety of games. At that time, Sega offered two options to access the Mega Modem. On the one hand, players could purchase the accessory with a cartridge for 12,800 yen. This enabled the aforementioned connectivity and gave access to a range of included games. Titles included ‘Nikkan Sports Professional Baseball VAN’, ‘Cyberball’, ‘Advanced Grand Strategy’, ‘TEL/TEL Stadium’, ‘Forbidden City’ and ‘TEL/TEL Majan’. The last one was a mahjong game with individual or online play capabilities. Mega Modem Purchasing separately. On the other hand, the company only offered the Mega Modem for 9,800 yen. In this case, users should purchase compatible cartridges separately to take advantage of the connectivity benefits of the accessory. One of the most successful cartridges was Sansan. It was a Go strategy game with online play capability. The developer, White Box, allowed owners of the cartridge to play through the Mega Modem with others using their Sansan ID. The proposal, without a doubt, was enormously interesting. However, it did not have the expected success and the Japanese company decided to discontinue it at the end of 1992. The new versions of the Mega Drive, in fact, were launched on the market without the modem port. Images | SEGA | boffy_b | In Xataka | The PS5 Slim has removable Blu-ray drives. This modular option carries a penalty called DRM

Japan is so desperate for its bears that it will allow hunters to shoot them in cities. Problem: you run out of hunters

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Tuesday was not an easy day Numatain Gunma prefecture, north of Tokyo. Around seven thirty in the afternoon the police received the notice that a 1.4 meter bear He had sneaked into a supermarket with several dozen customers and destroyed the fish and sushi sections. He also injured two people, one in the parking lot and another inside the store. It is not an isolated case. Not anything exclusive to Numata. Japan has a serious problem of encounters with bears. To solve it, the authorities have decided to use their most experienced hunters, but they won’t make it easy either. There are less and less. What has happened? That Japan has a problem with encounters between bears and humans, episodes that in most cases result in scares or injuries, but that sometimes end with the worst outcomes. It’s not something newbut statistics show that the problem is far from being solved. CNS News assures that between April and September 108 people suffered injuries caused by bears, reflecting a similar rate to the year between March 2023 and 2024, when the Government recorded a record of 219 attacks. Is it that serious? Many of the encounters end in scares or injuries, but the Japanese media also talk about an all-time high number of deaths: seven, the highest number since records began in 2006. The people who have suffered attacks also include both locals and tourists from other countries. In fact, just a few days ago a Spaniard received the blow in the village of Shirakawa-goWorld Heritage Site. In Shiretokoanother place popular with tourists, the trails were closed after an attack in August. What is the reason? Better to talk about ‘reasons’, in plural. When analyzing the problem, a cocktail of causes is usually cited in which environmental issues are mixed with other social and demographic issues. At the end of the day the record of attacks arrives in full abandonment from rural areas and farmland and with a serious population decline that the country has been dragging on for several decades. There are those who include other causes in the equation, such as the effect of climate change on food availability or fluctuations in acorn and beechnut harvests, which cause food scarcity among the adult population. The truth is that Japan is losing inhabitantsis suffering a rural exodus, has seen the borders between populated centers and forests blur and the country has also seen a clear increase in the bear population. Yomiuri Shimbun ensures that the number of black bears has tripled since 2012, with tens of thousands of copies, to which are added the brown from Hokkaido. And how to solve it? The big question. A month ago the country took an important decision and not exempt from controversy: Amended its wildlife protection and management law to relax rules governing what hunters can and cannot do in densely populated neighborhoods. To be more precise, the new regulations allow municipalities to commission hunters to carry out “emergency hunts” for dangerous animals in inhabited areas. Until now, the general rule prohibited killing wild animals with weapons in public spaces. It could only be authorized (and exceptionally) by the police in cases of imminent danger. After the legislative changemunicipal governments may authorize hunts against brown or black bears in densely populated areas provided that certain requirements are met: first, it must be an emergency measure; second, there can be no room for other solutions; and third (and most importantly) it must be ensured that no stray bullet will end up harming a resident. The idea is that only authorized hunters intervene. End of the problem? Not quite. Japan has decided to rely on hunters to solve bear attacks, but the problem is that in the country (like in Spain) there are fewer and fewer hunters. The diary The Mainichi published on Thursday a extensive report in which he recalls that the number of licenses in force in Japan has been decreasing as the population has decreased, the fields have been abandoned and society has changed. If in 1976 there were 500,000 first-level permits approved, since 2012 the figure has always been below 100,000. Who will shoot the bears? In Japan, there is also debate about who will be able to kill bears in neighborhoods full of houses and people. The Government already has announced that the measure will be accompanied by training workshops to guarantee that the system works correctly, which also includes planning security measures, restricting access and evacuating residents. “Emergency shots” are not in any case the only solution that the country has on the table. On the trails of Fukushima, for example, they have installed devices with sensors that seek to scare away animals. The idea: that they emit an annoying buzzing sound that becomes more intense when the bears approach. Images | Suzi Kim (Unsplash) In Xataka | Wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it

Japan has found the three most serious problems of the massive arrival of tourists. And none has to do with tourists

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Summer has confirmed two things around Japan’s tourist success: avalanche has been bigger than expected, and the nation I wasn’t so prepared As I believed. In fact, they have even had the idea of give away flights to foreigners to encourage them beyond the congested Tokyo. In contrast to tourist hordes, Japanese They barely travel To other countries. And that explains many of the evils that the country is finding quite well. The shadow of discomfort. Japan has passed in just two decades of being considered a expensive destination and reserved for a few to become one of the main tourist poles World Cups The number of foreign visitors has grown from 6.7 million in 2005 to almost 37 million in 2024with 2025 on the way to beat a new record. The government aspires to reach 60 million in 2030supported by the global manga popularity, anime and Japanese culture, as well as events such as Tokyo Olympic Games and Osaka’s Expo. The problem? That what I know promoted how A “Inbound Tourism Boom” has become qualified by many as “tourist”, with agglomeration scenes at famous crosses such as Kamakurakomoe’s or in Kyoto’s temples. The initial enthusiasm has given way To growing complaints On noise, strange manners, garbage and pressure on housing and hospitality prices. The weight of the economy and demography. However, when the nation has counted the evils of such discomfort, it has been found that the main problems He has them at homeit was not. Behind that discomfort underlies a psychological element linked to the relative decline of Japan. The strong devaluation of Yen It has made the country cheap for foreigners, but at the same time it has reduced the ability of Japanese young people to travel abroad. For a population that ages quickly (With 16% of over 75 years old) see tourists who marvel at how cheap it is everything A humiliating contrast With the eighties, when Japan was the most expensive country in the world and its own boomers they toured the planet with the latest generation cameras. He Hotel increase (more than double since 2021) and the pressure On rentals In cities such as Kyoto generate the feeling that the economic benefits of tourism do not translate into real improvements in the life of residents. Kyoto redefinition. If there is a place that embodies the debate, it is Kyoto. The old capital, famous for its temples and their geishas, ​​is so congested that many Japanese today consider it an awkward destination and even avoid traveling there. School excursions, once a passage rite, They deviate to cities such as Kanazawa or Nagasaki due to delays, agglomerations and increasing costs. For the inhabitants, the avalanche has raised rentals and Modified social fabricto the point that some experts ensure that the city already meets the definition of Overtourism: When the normal life of its residents is compromised. Historical memory and new tensions. It is not the first time that Japan faces a tourist saturation problem. In the sixties and seventies, internal prosperity generated OLADAS OF DOMESTIC TRAVELS that transformed cities such as Kyoto or Nara, with complaints similar to the current ones. Remembered the Financial Times that then There was talk of “Tourist pollution”, and some anthropologists warned that residents ran the risk of becoming “strangers of strangers” in their own land. Today that Speech resurfacesamplified by social networks with viral tourist videos chasing geishashanging of toriis or violating rules of coexistence. A new term has even coined, “Touristphobia”to describe the mixture of tiredness, irritation and rejection that generates the massification, sometimes dyed of a xenophobic background. Tourism as a political weapon. The issue has entered fully into Japanese politics. In full leadership election of the Democratic Liberal Party, figures as healthy takaichi They have turned the issue into a flag, linking the discomfort of tourists with the Immigration debates and the arrival of foreign workers, increasingly necessary for the shortage of labor. The rhetoric against the “tourist abuse” intermingles with warnings about an alleged threat to national identity. Thus, the debate on tourism ceases to be just a matter of urban management to become a symbol of deeper anxieties about the future of the country. The forgotten of the map. Meanwhile, they remembered In the Financial Times What regions like Fukui show the other face of the currency. With a recently extended bullet train from Tokyo, a world -class dinosaurs museum and outstanding cultural enclaves remains one of the prefectures less visited For foreigners. Their hotels and transport fail to attract enough travelers and their problem is not excess, but The lack of tourists. There, the mayor admits that they have not yet seen or a trace of the hordes. This contrast reflects a central dilemma: Japan needs to better distribute the benefits of tourism, encourage repeated visits and direct the flow to still non -saturated areas, but lacks the infrastructure and political vision necessary to achieve it. A nation mirror. The debate on tourism is ultimately a mirror of Japanese society. Talk about a country agingwho feels the pressure of A weak currencywhich recalls with nostalgia the times of its economic preeminence and that faces the Challenge of managing The massive arrival of foreigners in cities that are exceeded. The challenge is not only to limit agglomerations, but in redefining the relationship between residents and visitors, between their own economy and coexistence, between opening and identity protection. Thus, Japan, which in the past exported millions of tourists, is now seen in the difficult position of learning to manage their own attraction. Image | Pexels, Pexels In Xataka | While Japan is crowded with tourists, the Japanese barely travel to other countries. The reason: only 17% have a passport In Xataka | In Japan tourism has become a problem. So have an idea: give away flights to foreigners

In full birth crisis, Japan faces an extra challenge in 2026: a superstition

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Japan is a country with several calendars. The Western, or Gregorian, is common in the Asian country, which also has its own calendar, based on the “Eras”, the reign periods of its emperors. But in the culture of the country there is still the embers of another calendar, the one based on the traditional Chinese calendar. In 2026 we can verify to what extent this embers is still alive in the Japanese archipelago. To understand why we have to go a complete cycle behind, the year 1966. That year Japan experienced A significant phenomenon: a Fall marked in birthan abrupt contrast with the historical series. If in 1965 around 1.82 million children were born, in 1966 the figure was 1.36 million, 25% less, according to Explain Japan Times. The births were immediately recovered: in 1967 they rolled 1.94 million. The collapse in birth can also be seen in the Japanese health ministry data. As explained by the international agency, the fertility rate went from 2.14 in 1965 to 1.58 in 1966, to “bounce” up to 2.23 the following year. The data was not the result of a statistical anomaly or a disaster, neither natural nor created by the human being. We can see this reflected in an increase in induced abortions in the country, which was recorded A study Posted in 1974 in the magazine Annals of Human Biology. It was the fault of a superstition. The year 1966 corresponded (approximately) to the year of the horse of fire in the cycle on which the traditional Chinese calendar is based. The calendar based on the sexagesimal cycle used in some Asian countries relates each of the 60 years of its cycle with one of Twelve animals (which includes the rat, the tiger, the dragon and also the horse), and one of five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water). And what is special for the year Hinoeuma? According to Japanese superstition, women born during the Fire horse year They will kill their husbands or, according to translations, will be at least the cause of the death of their spouses. This would have taken many couples of childbearing age to avoid pregnancy (or even interrupt), at a time when, as Emi Suzuki and Haruna Kashiwase explain in An article For him Data Blog of the World Bank, there was no possibility of a selective abortion depending on sex. Another important detail mentioned in its article is that the phenomenon occurred more marked in rural Japan and not so much in the urban context, which reflects the greatest follow -up that this type of superstitions used to have in the rural world. 60 years of change 60 years is a long time and Japanese society is no longer the one. Will something be repeated again similar in 2026? There are two reasons why it can be suspected that, if the fall in birth rate occurs, this will be of a minor magnitude of experienced in 66. The first reason is in the slightest weight that today has the superstitious in society. Japan lived an abrupt transition series between the end of the EDO era and the present. One of the most vertiginous progress is the one that led a country ravaged by war to become a worldwide technological innovation pole. 1966 It can be seen as a year of transition in this context, 2026 not so much. In any case, the peculiar relationship between Japanese tradition and modernity is often difficult to understand from the western point of view, so it is not convenient to venture into this direction. However, there is another fact that takes us away from that year 1966: 1.15. We said at the beginning that between 1965 and 1966 the Japanese fertility rate went from 2.1 to 1.6. The fall associated with the year Hinoeuma It was punctual and was reversed the following year, but if we looked at the set of the Historical data we see that it is a small detour in a curve with A marked trend: Japan He runs out of birth progressively. According to data from the Japanese Ministry of Health cited by Suzuki and Kashiwasethe Japanese fertility rate was descending throughout the second half of the twentieth century, first quickly and then slower. In 1989 the birth rate would be located again in 1.58 and has not been recovered or expected to do so. It was known as he “shock of 1.57 “ When the rate fell below the year Hinoeuma. Today the rate It is already 1.15. A few years before, in 1987, Japan celebrated a kind of “Fiesta de Quintos”, a celebration in honor of the generation that had turned 20 in the previous months, those born in Hinoeuma. The newspaper The New York Times It echoed of that celebration and superstition that had diminished the generation held that year. Then it seemed clear that the “fifths” of 86 would be the smallest promotion in history, but they would only be for a short time. In Xataka | While the population of Japan sinks irremediably, Tokyo grows. There is an explanation: Ikkyoku Shūchū Image | Evgeny Tchebotarev

95% of plastics are manufactured with oil and gas. Japan has gotten a bacterium in place

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The world is flooded with plastic. There are microplastics even in our testicles. And the vast majority of them are manufactured from fossil fuels, which aggravates our dependence on these non -renewable resources. In Japan, a bioingenier team from the University of Kobe has found a promising solution. From Pet to PDCA. 95% of the plastics that we use in our day to day are manufactured from oil and gas (98%, if we add coal). In containers, textiles and to the interior of the cars we find a plastic known as polyethylene terephthalate or PET. The objective is to find a high performance alternative to the PET using renewable and biodegradable sources. Exists. It is called pyridineodycarboxylic acid (PDCA) and is a environment -respecting monomer that, when it is polymerized, has comparable physical properties or even superior to those of the PET. The problem, until now, had been to produce large -scale PDCA. Traditional methods to synthesize it are not very efficient and generate unwanted by -products. The solution: a bacterium. The novelty of Japanese research, published in the magazine Metabolic Engineeringis that it uses the cellular metabolism of the bacteria Escherichia coli To produce PDCA from glucose. Unlike the previous bioproduction methods, this makes the bacteria assimilate nitrogen and build the compound from beginning to end, eliminating the problem of by -products. While the existing bioproduction methods They had encountered limitations regarding the quantity and purity of the final compound, bioreactors based on this bacterium are capable of making a clean PDCA synthesis at more than seven times higher concentrations. And with abundant and cheap raw material. E. coli as factory operators. The process has not been exempt from difficulties. The largest bottleneck was to prevent one of the enzymes introduced into the bacteria to produce hydrogen peroxide, a highly reactive compound that deactivated the enzyme itself. The researchers managed to overcome this obstacle by refining the crops and adding a compound capable of eliminating hydrogen peroxide. Now they look for a more profitable solution for large -scale production. The future of bioplastic. Despite the pending challenge, this progress feels the foundations of large -scale plastic microbial synthesis. The practical implementation of bioreactors for the production of high performance PDCA is not only possible, but is a step closer to becoming a reality at an industrial scale. Image | USDA In Xataka | Scientists already investigate a solution to climate change and famines: eat us plastic

Space station astronauts have made sushi. In Japan they would open a war advice, but it is fantastic

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Sushi and ramen are to Japan what the potato tortilla –With onion– Or Paella to Spain: a sign of cultural identity. They have more complex origins than we think: while ramen derives from Chinese cuisine, Sushi was born as a conservation technique before transforming into a gastronomic icon. To such an extent that to International Space Station Astronauts He has given them to prepare Sushi with what they had at their disposal. It has come out regular, but at the same time it is fantastic. Space food It is not a secret that space food You must have very specific characteristics. It is mostly lyophilized And it is thermosellated. Before consumption, the one that is not ready to consume, must be rehydrated and any food and ingredient that enters the season You must meet a series of both security and cleaning requirements. Conservation is also very important for obvious reasons And, although we can think that it is not good, The problem is usually astronauts. When cooking (among many quotes that cook), an ingredient as important as the food and condiments of the station is the double -sided tape. In numerous videos We have seen how ingredient boats such as honey or simple scissors are glued with that tape to the station surfaces. Sushi at the space station. Occasionally, one of the US members decides to surprise his companions cooking something out of the menuand Jonny Kim’s attempt has been one of the last examples. NASA American and Astronaut, hung A few weeks ago a photo in which a tray could be seen with an attempt at Sushi. To do this, they used precooked rice, fish, spam (A canned meat mark) and a touch of GOCHUJANG (A spicy paste based on rice and chili) and Wasabi. The humidity kept the ingredients glued, but for the tray and the rest of the elements, they used the aforementioned tape. Nostalgia. It is not the most appetizing sushi in the universe and, surely, Japan would have some questions for the architects of this culinary crime, but there is a great “but”: as on earth, this space sushi served for one thing: unite the members of the station. Up, despite fellowship, loneliness must be quite present and one of the astronauts commented that he missed the sushi. That gave them an idea: see what they had in their personal provisions to see if they could elaborate something similar. The result is obvious (rice with things on top), but the important thing is that “the result was a great meal,” as Kim points out, and served to foster that feeling of companionship and reduce, a little even if it is, that nostalgia. Nori algae. In X, someone He pointed out What would have been great to use Nori algae To wrap the sushi, but that he understood that it should be difficult to need a dehydrated version of it and that it would not be nice to have algae scales floating around. Kim replied that, in fact, they have Nori, but it is an ingredient that is part of the space orders that, with a limit, can do. And that he had run out of the ingredient. On the problem of the scales, everything is designed: “The crumbs accumulate in the air entry filters, which are aspired every week.” It is not the first time. It is a beautiful gesture, but it is not the first time that sushi is made at the station. It was not a photo, but a complete video that the Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi put on the chef’s hat for prepare A somewhat more “traditional” sushi with tuna, Nori and frozen scallops that had risen on board that intention. The reason for that elaboration was the same as that of this summer: surprise his teammates, take care of those ties and make the stay to thousands of kilometers of his homes is somewhat more cheerful. Also One way that missions are more bearable. In Xataka | Until the 90s nobody in Japan ate sushi with raw salmon. Until a marketing campaign changed everything

We all know that green is to advance traffic lights. Less Japan, defending that green is actually blue

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A long time ago We count A fascinating story that had the traffic lights and China as protagonists. It turns out that Beijing tried to change the color of these key traffic devices because use red to “stop” It was “anti -communist”. Of colors and traffic lights also goes the following story. In Japan they have no problem with red, but with green. The blue traffic light paradox. In most of the world the traffic signal that invites us to advance is unequivocally green, but in Japan that same light It’s called blue And, in some cases, it even seems bluish in the eyes of those who visit the country. This peculiarity He has baffled to generations of foreigners, but for the Japanese it is a convention as natural as saying that the sky is blue. The explanation is not found in lamp technology or in an arbitrary decision of the road authorities, but in a Cultural and linguistic background that sinks its roots in centuries of history. The linguistic origins of “year”. In ancient Japanese, they only existed Four basic words To designate colors: red, white, black and blue. The term AO served to name a much broader spectrum of shades than we associated with blue today, including what we consider green and cyan. This linguistic heritage lasted until the Heian periodwhen the Midori word to specifically refer to vegetation and the vitality of green color. However, the force of custom kept alive The use of AO In situations where, for other languages, green nuance is evident. Thus, it is not strange that a Japanese speaks of blue apples, mountains or blue vegetables, although in the eyes of anyone they are green. The conflict. When Japan introduced traffic lights in the 1930s, the progress light was described as green, following the global convention. But in 1960, with the entry into force of the Road Traffic Lawthe term AO Shingō, the “blue signal” was officially adopted. The clash with international standards was exacerbated after Vienna Convention of 1968which set the green as the reference color. Japan did not ratify that treaty, and with it the right to continue using its own denomination was reserved. In 1973, to reconcile customary and external demands, the government decided that the lights should be of a green With a bluish enough nuance As if I could continue to be called Ao. The result was a curious balance: greenish appearance traffic lights, but culturally blue. Beyond the signals. The persistence of AO It is not limited to traffic lights. Common expressions such as aoringo to designate the green apple, Aonori for the green algae that is sprinkled on dishes such as the okonomiyaki, or Aoba for the young leaves of the trees, show how blue overlaps green in the Japanese tongue. In addition, AO acquired a symbolic value associated withor new and the immature. To say that a person is AOI means that it is still inexperienced, a metaphor equivalent to that in Spanish or English we express calling someone “green.” This crossing of meanings reveals how the language not only names colors, but also organizes cultural perceptions and associations around them. Convention turned into identity. Today, although Japanese traffic lights are in green practice, they continue being called blue by millions of people who have inherited a particular way of seeing and describing the world. What for a foreigner is a rarity or confusion, for a Japanese is a tradition that does not need justification. If you want, the tongue has been imposedwork visual perceptionand the result is an example of how cultural conventions can challenge international standards and become part of national identity. Thus, Japan’s blue traffic light recalls that the way we name things influences how we understand them, and that even a traffic light can tell a story of centuries of history, language and custom. Image | Redoxkun In Xataka | That Japan has 100,000 people over 100 years explains a problem: they are running out of drivers, literally In Xataka | If the question is why there are so many Japanese with umbrella on the street, the answer is simple: for more than the sun

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