Japan recorded 86,473 IVF births in 2024, about 1 in 8 of its 686,173 births. Treatments fell to 550,265 while the multiple-birth rate rose to 4.15 percent, and the 2022 insurance reform helps explain both.

A University of Tokyo and Arc Institute team has shown how the IS621 jumping gene cuts itself out of an E. coli genome, resolving a chicken-and-egg puzzle that had stood since 2024.

State of Play, KONAMI PRESS START and the run-up to Tokyo Game Show all landed in one week. Final Fantasy VII Revelation, Gundam Rogue Orbit and Rev. NOiR all got release windows, and every one of them falls in 2027.

The Switch 2 hit $499.99 in the US on September 1. Japan raised its price three months earlier, and Famitsu's numbers show a rush to 712,000 units in May, then 100,166 in June, with July still under April.

The Apothecary Diaries is getting a live-action drama starring Mana Ashida, on Prime Video from 2028. Japanese social media flipped from dread to approval within an hour, but one uncast role still has fans nervous.

Hokkaido University and Japan's forestry institute modelled all 349 ski areas in the country. At 4°C of warming, only seven stay open 100 days a year on natural snow. At 2°C, 53 do.

France announced three theme parks near Paris, €6 billion of Saudi money, and the region said one would be Dragon Ball. Toei Animation says it granted no license; Paris now says it never put that name forward.

Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank, MUFG and 17 others will form a company in late 2026 to issue a dollar stablecoin. Why banks are entering a $303.7 billion market where Tether holds about 60%, and what is undecided.

Fish have no eyelids, yet pufferfish close their eyes. Shimonoseki's Kaikyokan aquarium dissected 51 species and traced the eye-closing muscle to the one that deflates a puffed-up puffer.