ideastream – February 9, 2016 – Out for dinner with a group of friends, Christina Dierkes, a science writer with Ohio Sea Grant in Columbus, was feeling adventurous.

The Indian Express – February 4, 2016 –  Cool Japan Festival will be held from February 6-7, 2016 at High Street Phoenix, Mumbai. This year, with the Consulate General of Japan being actively involved in the proceedings, the festival will be designed on the theme – ‘Let’s learn about Japan’. Hightlights of the festival are: 1. Japanese Pop singer Erina Matsui will perform Japanese songs. Her debut song was the popular theme song called ‘B‐Bird’ for…

Medical Daily – February 3, 2016 – Robotic farms may be the future of crop production, and Japan is on its way to launching the first of its kind. Spread, a vegetable producer based in Kyoto, promises that pesticide-free lettuce will pack more nutrients, cost less to produce than current conventional farming techniques, and will increase output incomparably faster. “Seed planting will still be done by people, but the rest of the process, including harvesting, will be done…

TOKYO, Feb. 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — To enhance people-to-people exchanges between China and Japan, the 2016 China Festival, a culture and tourism promotion event launched by the Chinese Embassy in Japan, was held on Jan. 29-31 at the Roppongi Building, a landmark in Tokyo. “3D Beautiful China”, an overseas tourism promotion program jointly initiated by the Information Office of the State Council and the China National Tourism Administration, and implemented by the China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC)., had its premiere during the event. The…

Counsel & Heal – February 1, 2016 – Spread, a company in Japan, is planning to build the world’s first farm run by robots. Hence, it will convert the current one, called the Kameoka Plant farm, into a Vegetable Factory by 2017. While it is currently employing human labor and producing 21,000 heads of lettuce a day, its plan is to accelerate production to 30,000 heads through robots. The robots, though, don’t look like little, machine men….

Japan Today – January 28, 2016 – TOKYO — Box office revenue in Japan for 2015 was the second highest on record largely due to success of animation movies, according to the Motion Picture Producers Association (MPPAJ) of Japan.

Wallstreet.org – January 26, 2016 – McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) is up 1.5% after CFO Kevin Ozan said in a post-earnings conference call the company is exploring a sale of a portion of its stake in its Japan business, according to Reuters. The Nikkei business daily reported last month that the burger chain had reached out to investors about selling a part of the stake for about 100 billion yen ($826.2 million).

KYOTO – January 25, 2016 – Given Kyoto’s prosperous domestic and international tourism industry, the mayoral election on Feb. 7 is widely expected to be an easy win for incumbent Daisaku Kadokawa, 65, who is backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the Democratic Party of Japan. His main challenger, Kumiko Honda, 66, is supported by the Japanese Communist Party, and the third candidate, running with no party support, is former prefectural assemblyman Takashi Mikami,…

Christian Today – January 22, 2016 – While speculations are floating online that the new season of “Attack on Titan” will premiere next month, hardcore fans of the series who have closely followed the ongoing manga will most likely be unsure of the events in the upcoming anime adaptation as it is rumored that the new season will not stick to the story at some key points. In an earlier post, Crossmap stated that spoilers about upcoming events…

The Japan Times – January 20, 2016 – Japanese authorities will help convenience store operators and other retailers tap into overseas markets under a newly agreed Pacific free trade pact, participants of a government-business council meeting said Monday. The Trans-Pacific Partnership accord will deregulate rules in the convenience store business in some TPP countries, including Malaysia and Vietnam, allowing Japanese firms to open more such stores and invest in local retailers, they said. The industry…