Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2013

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

• Education officials in Tokyo decided to change the date of next February’s high school entrance exams so the tests don’t fall on the same day as the Tokyo Marathon.
• After responding to a report of a hand grenade lying by the side of road, police in Kitakyushu called in a support team of 50 officers—only to discover that the device was an “authentic replica.”
• It was reported that officials at the environment ministry are drawing up guidelines for “bringing pets to shelters and temporary housing facilities in the event of a disaster.”
• Authorities in the town of Ono in Fukushima issued a residency card to popular doll Licca-chan as part of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of a theme park devoted to the figure.

BREAKTHROUGHS

• A research team headed by a professor at the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine has figured out a way of observing live insects with an electron microscope. Previously, only dead bugs could be observed because the microscope’s vacuum sucks all the liquid from their bodies.
• A group of researchers that included scientists from RIKEN has found that soft-shell turtles possess a sense of smell “that may surpass that of dogs.”
• The Sendai municipal government and two Japanese universities have begun a project aimed at extracting “a petroleum ingredient from waste water using algae.”
• A Tokyo-based information security company has found that about 10 percent of all apps for Android smartphones should be considered “dangerous.”

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?

• The internal affairs ministry announced that Japan’s population plunged by 0.22 percent between October 2011 and October 2012—the sharpest yearly drop ever.
• Of the 127,515,000 people now living in Japan, a record-high 24.1 percent are age 65 or older and a record-low 13 percent are under the age of 14.
• What’s more, for the first time in history, every prefecture now has a higher population of elderly people than they do kids under 14.

THEY’RE BAAAAACK

• Authorities in Tokyo are taking steps to prevent the overfishing of shijimi clams at the mouth of the Tama River. The clams have made a comeback thanks to the success of environmental programs in the region.
• Über-popular novelist Haruki Murakami gave a lecture at Kyoto University—his first talk to a Japanese audience in 18 years.
• Officials at JAXA say they plan to launch a satellite “to clean up space debris” sometime in the next seven years.
• A psychiatrist has helped the NPA develop a checklist for determining “the danger level of stalkers.” The list will be distributed to police headquarters around the country.

PASSINGS

• Legendary interpreter Masumi Muramatsu, who, among other achievements, served as the translator during the live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969, has died at the age of 82.
• Japan Press correspondent Mika Yamamoto was one of 88 people whose names were added to the Journalists Memorial in Washington, which commemorates reporters who have died on the job. Yamamoto was killed last year in Aleppo, Syria.
• Anxious officials south of Tokyo are concerned that the 55m-tall Yokohama Bay Bridge—built in 1989 to accommodate the largest ships in the world at the time—may be too low to handle the new breed of cruise liners and cargo vessels.
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Japan Tower Operators and Mascots Gather for 100th Meeting” (Via Mainichi Japan)

Compiled from reports by AP, Japan Today, The Japan Times, Jiji, The Tokyo Reporter, Japan Probe, The Mainichi, The Japan News, AFP, Reuters and Kyodo