MYSTERY OF THE DEAD MUTT SOLVED

• Vets examining the preserved innards of Hachiko, the loyal dog who died in 1935 and whose statue has become a popular meeting place in Shibuya, have determined that the dogged mutt died of cancer, not from swallowing a chicken skewer, as originally thought.
• Two Japanese professors from the unfortunately acronymed National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) were able to attach small cameras to Antarctic penguins near the South Pole and film their activities beneath the ice—a first in the animal kingdom. Our guess is the penguins swam around and caught the odd fish.
• In Osaka, five two-legged robots took part in a marathon that saw them “run” 42km by circling an indoor track 423 times.
• We’re not sure if CNN.com was going for a cheap laugh, but under the headline “Japan’s Suicide Rate for Job Seekers Jumps,” it was revealed that 424 people killed themselves in 2010 because they could not find a job, a 20 percent rise from the 2009 figure.
• A new study by researchers from Japan and Germany showed that listening to music with earbuds “could cause damage to hearing that is hard to detect in standard auditory examinations at an early stage.”

TAKING A BULLET (TRAIN)

• Railway fans flocked to Tokyo station to witness the initial runs of the new E5 Series Hayabusa bullet train. The long-nosed green shinkansen can hit 300kph.
• And just how popular was a seat on that train? Turns out someone bid ¥385,000 for a ticket to ride the rails on the Hayabusa’s debut run.
• Even without the massive markup, “Gran Class” seats on the new train are not cheap—the face value of a ticket for a trip from Tokyo to Shin-Aomori? A cool ¥16,490.
• Japan’s police agency revealed that investigators “took action” in 1,342 child pornography cases in 2010, up over 40 percent from the previous year.
• Meanwhile, the number of reported kiddie-porn victims last year was 618, an increase of more than 50 percent from 2009.
• When asked in an interview about all the non-Japanese-born players on Japan’s national rugby team, coach John Kirwan responded, “I had the same problem when I coached in Italy, but it was a bit easier to hide them.”

HERE’S TO HORNY OLD WOMEN

• AV stars Rika Matsuda and Nanako Mori took the top prizes in a “Mature Queen Contest” voted on by porn fans to honor women “who routinely perform roles that require motherly or middle-aged portrayals.” OK, Matsuda is 40 years old, but Mori is just 25… hardly a cougar at that age.
• The Environment Ministry is pondering a new law that would make it illegal for pet shops to display animals after 8pm. In places like Roppongi, some of the stores are open until 3am, as well-heeled and often inebriated lowlifes attempt to impress young women with a cute puppy or kitten.
• In a sign of the times, a record-low 36 aspiring sumo wrestlers tried out for the sport last year, five fewer than the previous record low of 41 in 2009.
• Help is at hand for forgetful rodents, as Japanese researchers have discovered that a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease “improved the short-term memory function of mice with Alzheimer’s disease.”

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

• The Japanese government revealed that it is cutting the number of visas for Filipina “entertainers” to less than 8,000 from 80,000.
• The action comes after the US State Department added Japan to a watchlist for human trafficking in its annual human-rights report. Japan is the biggest market for sex workers in Asia, with 50 percent of the imported “entertainers” coming from the Philippines.
• Japan suspended the use of vaccines from US drugmaker Pfizer and French company Sanofi-Aventis after four kids who were inoculated for pneumonia and meningitis died, the health ministry said.
• Yuki Kashiwagi, a member of all-girl J-pop group AKB48, is branching out, taking on a role as the voice of Rumi in a TV adaptation of the Sket Dance manga series.
• Japan is targeting 2014 for completion of a prototype stealth jet fighter, much like the ones currently used by the US, China and Russia.
• The Defense Ministry says it scrambled a fighter jet when two Chinese spy planes got close to Japanese airspace near the disputed East China Sea islands. The Chinese planes then left the area… probably in a hurry.
• Big plans from Toyota: the automaker said it hoped to sell more than 10 million vehicles in 2015, which would be a record.

THERE’S NO TALKING IN BASEBALL

• The powers that be in Japanese baseball, possibly overreacting to the sumo bout-rigging mess, have told players that they are to cut out all friendly chit-chat with their opponents on the field “from the moment fans begin to take their seats in the stands.”
• It was revealed that a 19-year-old Japanese exchange student trapped in a collapsed building after last month’s earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, told rescuers to go ahead and cut off his leg without any painkillers. “He was very calm,” said a firefighter at the scene. The kid musta been a hockey player.
• In Fukuoka, what looked like a hand grenade was found at the entrance to the home of a gas company president. That followed an incident in which part of a garage belonging to the chairman of the Kyushu Electric Power Company was blown up.
• The former president of NEC, Koji Nishigaki, hanged himself with a bedsheet at his home. He was 72.
• Also, the family of a Chinese intern, whose death in 2008 was ruled a result of overwork at a metal-processing plant in Ibaraki, sued his employer and the agency that got him the job for ¥57.5 million. The guy was pulling more than 150 hours of OT a month.
• An 88-year-old nun, Moto Uesugi, was honored with a Yomiuri Award for Medical Dedication for spending 16 years helping patients in southern Paraguay who were too poor to visit a doctor’s office.
• Japan is sending a team of seven people, including prosecutors and interpreters, to Oman to deal with a gang of pirates who attacked a Japanese oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, before being captured by US forces.
• A survey by the Japan Geriatrics Society revealed that more than 40 percent of doctors who stopped providing artificial nutrition and hydration to patients suffering from end-stage dementia “did so at the strong request of the patient’s family.”

Compiled from reports by Japan Today, The International Herald Tribune, Asahi Shimbun, The Daily Yomiuri, The Japan Times, Mainichi Daily News, The Tokyo Reporter, The Associated Press, AFP, CNN, Reuters and Kyodo