Transits through the Strait of Hormuz have fallen from 21.6 to 4.9 million barrels a day, and Gulf producers are building seven bypass pipelines. Japan restored procurement, but July brought a 634.5 billion yen deficit.

Some 21 years after launch, the developer of the 2005 arcade fighter Fist of the North Star explains where the basket bug came from. The code meant to stop infinite combos is what created them.

Desalination makes about 35 trillion liters of fresh water a year and discards roughly 50 trillion liters of brine. A Tokyo lab drips it onto molten tin and recovers magnesium oxide, 280 times concentrated.

Japan has begun selling Telomelysin, a rewired cold virus that multiplies only inside cancer cells and goes into esophageal tumors by endoscope. Three doses list at 9.3 million yen; the trial behind it had 37 patients.

Hafnium keeps advanced chips and jet engines running, yet the world makes about 71 tonnes a year, nearly all of it in France and the United States. An Osaka chemical maker now wants a share of it by 2028.

Toyota, NTT and Tokyu are among roughly 1,600 Japanese employers paying for an AI dating app for single staff. The workplace is trying to buy back a matchmaking role it lost over fifty years.

Japan's Environment Ministry will stop subsidising the purchase of conventional solar panels for new projects from fiscal 2027. The stated reason was not carbon but industry: the money was benefiting factories abroad.

A kawakawa hybrid made bluefin tuna sperm at eight months, and rainbow trout now spawn Chinook salmon yearly. Inside Japan's 20-year surrogate broodstock effort and Kindai's 32-year tuna project.

China's rare earth magnet shipments to Japan fell 52.2% in July 2026 while US-bound shipments rose 4.6%. Japan tells itself pressure breeds breakthroughs. Optical glass and neodymium magnets agree; aluminium does not.