Big in Japan: Super-crazy fast electrical cables are awesome

by Matthew Firestone on

Warning: today’s posting might sound a bit technical for those of you out there without degrees in electrical engineering and/or particle physics.

However, bear with me for a few lines as I can assure you that today’s topic is really freaking cool, and will most likely transform your life in the years ahead.

Last week, an official from the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry announced that they will develop a next-generation power transmission cable with practically zero electrical resistance.

In a word, we are talking about superconductivity.

According to Wikipedia, ‘Superconductivity is a phenomenon occurring in certain materials at extremely low temperatures, characterized by exactly zero electrical resistance and the exclusion of the interior magnetic field.’

If successful, the energy saved by the new cable would be equivalent to a reduction of about 10 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Here is the coolest part:

The ministry will be working alongside Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the same people who brought you the Manhattan Project (aka the atomic bomb).

Confused yet? Keep reading and allow me to explain why the future is starting to look a lot brighter for all of us.

For starters, what exactly is superconductivity?

Good question – put on your thinking caps for a moment and let’s see if I can break this supremely complicated topic into more manageable chunks.

For starters, it helps to know that the resistance of a wire decreases gradually as the temperature is lowered.

In traditional wires made of copper, silver and even gold, there is still resistance even as the thermometer approaches absolute zero (the coldest possible temperature).

However, in materials such as tin and aluminum that have the capacity to act as superconductors, the resistance drops to near-zero once it is cooled beyond the critical temperature.

So, what does this mean?

Theoretically, an electrical current flowing in a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source.

Practically, this means that your electrical bills will be a whole lot cheaper, and we can all start to feel a little bit better about our planet’s rapidly depleting resources.

So, when is this going to happen?

According to officials from the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, the goal is to have functioning superconductive cables by the year 2020.

At that time, it is estimated that Japan’s entire power transmission network will need to be replaced, though the hope is that antiquated copper wires can be swapped out for energy-efficient superconductive cables.

Presently in Japan, power cables are mostly made out of copper, and lose about 5 percent of electricity transmitted before it reaches its end power user.

However, if conventional cables are replaced with superconducting cables, the minisitry believes that transmission losses could be reduced to about 2 percent.

Although this may sound like a small reduction, we are talking about 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or about 2 percent of all power generated in Japan every year.

That is a lot of neon-light to say the least!

Note: The crazy-cool picture at the top of the post is a magnet levitating about a high-temperature superconductor, cooled with liquid nitrogen.

** All images sourced from the Wikimedia Commons Project. **

Actual Snakes on a Plane

by Anna Brones on

It’s happened before, both in a movie and in real life, but somehow snakes keep squirming their way onto planes, this time on a Vietnam Airlines flight from Bangkok to Hanoi.

On Thursday, authorities at Hanoi’s Noi Boi Airport discovered thousands of non-venomous snakes that had been shipped as cargo in 60 boxes. According to the Associated Press, Trinh Ngoc Thanh, Vietnam Airline’s spokesman, said that the boxes had been declared as carrying live fish. Unfortunately for the snakes, who had been packed in ice water, many died en route. Those who had made it alive were transferred to the Wild Animal Rescue center in Hanoi.

This isn’t the first time that Vietnam has had a snake shipment problem. Last month authorities found 1,540 pounds of dead snakes on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok. Besides raising questions about cargo inspection at the Bangkok airport, it also points at an important wildlife issue; Ptyas Mucosus, the scientific name for the snakes, are a protected species, thereby implying illegal trade.

In any event, for those of you traveling through Southeast Asia, it might be a good idea to keep Samuel L. Jackson’s number on hand. He did do an impressive job dealing with those on-board snakes in the movie…

Americans advised not to fly Philippine Airlines

by Iva Skoch on

I didn’t realize the FAA officially rates airlines based on their security standards. Well, they do.

Just this week, Philippine Airlines got downgraded to a Category 2 airline requiring “heightened FAA surveillance.” They join countries likes Ghana, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Ivory Coast, all of which apparently have inadequate air safety standards.

Philippine Airlines will continue flying to the United States, but US citizens are advised to use carriers from countries whose civil aviation authorities meet international standards.

Big in Japan: The $15,000 diamond martini and other choice bling

by Matthew Firestone on

Think you’ve got the hottest rims on the block? Can’t stop sporting your brand new Coach bag? Enamored by the diamond carrot ring on your pinky finger?

Trust me. Your hottest luxury items are already blasé in Japan…

Don’t believe me? Wait until you hear about the choicest bling from the Land of the Rising Sun.

For starters, anybody who is anybody knows that the best ride on the block is a custom-made Rolls-Royce.

Although your typical Rolls has a retail price of about US$390,000, in Japan you can choose a custom color combination for another US$20,000.

(Particularly popular in Japan is exotic light grey and tomato red combination!)

Or, how about fitting your ride with a refrigerator, wet bar, entertainment system and DJ booth for another US$140,000?

One client in Japan even went as far as putting his initials in the headrests using Gothic script – or, as he put it, ‘Harry Potter writing’ – for US$5,000!

Think Japanese bling is a bit extravagant? Wait until you hear about the US$15,000 diamond martini!

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In the West, Gucci or Louis Vuitton handbags ranging from US$600 to US$900 are highly coveted luxury items, though in Japan the super-rich have moved on.

On Omotesando Boulevard in Tokyo, somewhat akin to Beverly Hill’s Rodeo Drive or New York City’s 5th Avenue, Bottega Veneta handbags start at US$1,500, and can run as high as a small house in the suburbs.

And of course, if you’re sporting a luxury handbag, you should have an easy time forking over cash for the hottest and latest bling.

Last year, the rich and beautiful embraced a number of mind-blowing trends including:

– the $600 volcanic body scrub at a trendy spa in the Armani Tower in Tokyo

– the $130,000-a-night Christmas suite with jewel-studded tree in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Tokyo

– the $100 Swarovski crystal-studded box tissue box

And…

– the $15,000 martini with a diamond at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Tokyo

Absurd. Truly freakin’ absurd.

So why do the Japanese love spending ungodly sums of money on disposable goods?

According to one ultra-rich Tokyo elite, Japanese people love to hang around Ginza, Tokyo’s most status-conscious neighbourhood, and show off what they got.

“Those people hanging around Ginza, they are just showing off. If someone has it, other people want it. That’s Japanese. The group mentality.”

He continues:

“The process of getting it, or just before getting it, is interesting. Keeping it is not so interesting,” he concludes.

So you see, there is no shortage of bling in America, be it diamond-encrusted grills or chrome spinners, but clearly the Japanese are masters in their own right.

Although I can assure you that hyper-consumption in Japan is anything but the norm, Tokyo does remain one of the world’s greatest shopping cities.

(Assuming of course that you’ve got the cash to burn!)

On the that note, I’m going to see if I can convince my local watering hole to make a somewhat more affordable cubic zirconia martini…

(Special thanks to my roommate Tac for reminding me once again why we both like to steer clear of Ginza)

**Note that the content in this article was originally reported by the Asia division of Reuters **

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Big in Japan: The world’s most expensive tuna fish

by Matthew Firestone on

Are you ready for this one?

Last week in Tokyo, a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a single bluefin tuna.

(In case you’re wondering, that’s somewhere around 6.1 million yen!!)

The record breaking fish, which was caught off the coast of Japan’s northern city of Aomori, tipped the scales at 607 pounds (about $92 per pound of flesh).

The sale took place at the first auction of the year at Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market, which is located in Central Tokyo.

According to market officials, the record price was caused by a sharp decline in world tuna supply due to tighter international controls on the catch for bluefin tuna.

At present, the Japanese eat one quarter of the world’s total supply of tuna fish each year.

As any Japanese person can tell you, tuna are also the centerpiece of the Japanese diet. Whether you’re partial to maguro (?????; tuna) or toro (????; fatty tuna belly), one thing is for certain:

Tuna are delicious.

Of course, this why bluefin tuna will most likely be extinct sometime in the next fifty years.

It’s hard to imagine a fish like tuna becoming extinct, especially since they’ve been so abundant in the world for most of recorded history. However, numbers are falling dramatically, and it’s very unlikely that the population can sustain itself for much longer.

So, are we perhaps the last generation ever to enjoy fresh sushi?

Perhaps.

Approximately one year ago, British scientists issued a report warning that within the next fifty years, there will most likely be nothing left to fish from the sea. According to the report, nearly one-third of historical sea fisheries have already collapsed, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Science, partly attributed the fishery decline to the global increase in the popularity of sushi.

Despite the demand for more tuna, bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not resulting in bigger returns. On the contrary, the global catch of blue fin tuna fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.

Dr. Steve Palumbi, a scientist at Stanford who worked on the project, told the press: “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.”

Eeek.

Sadly, it may be to late to save the noble bluefin tuna.

However, existing bluefin tuna stocks are being plundered, with high rates of overfishing being reported by virtually every single country in the European Union.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) sets annual fishing quotas to be followed by all member countries. With that said, conservation groups are cynical of ICCAT, and are partial to calling them the International Commission to Catch All Tuna.

Whether you loved canned tuna and mayo or fresh sashimi with a splash of soy sauce, it’s probably best to just enjoy fish while they’re still around.

** All images sourced from the Wikipedia Commons project **