Say you can hear plants and people back away slowly. Turns out it's real: researchers at Japan's Institute of Science Tokyo built a transparent 70-nanometer carbon-nanotube electrode that reads a crop's bioelectric stress signals for up to 10 months, even in the rain.
RIKEN unveiled two supercomputers on the same day: RIKYU for AI for Science and ROQUO for quantum-HPC. Both are Japan's first to run GB200 NVL4 and Quantum-X800 InfiniBand. We compare them with US efforts like xAI's Colossus and the DOE Genesis Mission, and China, to read Japan's bet on purpose over scale.
HOKUSHIN-1, a cubesat from three Japanese universities, was deployed from the ISS on June 19. Why it proves deep-space tech in low orbit first, where failure is cheap.
Muon-catalyzed fusion needs no plasma and no 100-million-degree heat, and it is not 1989's discredited cold fusion. A Japan-led team made the first direct observation of muonic-molecule resonance states, closing a long-standing theory-experiment gap.
Sinfonia Technology, better known for semiconductor robots, has paired a cold crucible melting furnace with a disk atomizer to make highly spherical powder from high-melting metals like titanium and molybdenum. A look at the unglamorous powder that feeds metal 3D printing, and Japan's stake in it.
A Kyushu University team showed for the first time that RPS19, long known as an anemia gene, also suppresses cancer by keeping p53 working. The finding hints at repurposing existing MDM2-inhibitor drugs.
Toray's new TSW-K/M/V RO membranes remove over 99.9% of salt and enough boron to run seawater desalination in a single pass, trimming energy, equipment and cost. Here's why it matters worldwide.
Kubota says its existing waste-melting furnaces destroyed three regulated PFAS at over 99.999 percent, with greenhouse-gas markers below detection. We check whether 'destroying forever chemicals' is really the breakthrough it sounds like.
Since 2016, a Japan-led ALMA team kept breaking distance records for oxygen in the early universe. In 2026 they finally caught the cold neutral gas itself: [O I] 145μm in four galaxies ~13 billion years back. The decade-long quest, and how it complements the Webb-led race.
New image analysis confirms Japan's 228-gram transformable robot SORA-Q (LEV-2) moved about 0.13m and turned 180 degrees on the Moon entirely on its own, earning a Science Robotics cover. Built with help from a toy maker, the palm-sized machine opens a new path for small-scale exploration aimed at caves, steep slopes and, eventually, Mars.
Mitsubishi Electric is building an orbital transfer vehicle under Japan's Space Strategy Fund. We map the race: America's speed-and-price game led by Impulse Space, China's dual-use Shijian maneuvers, and Japan's unconventional bet on the docking skills it honed resupplying the ISS.