Pink, slimy and repellent, the Nomura’s jellyfish is an authentic horror of the deep that’s been assaulting Japan. Now the creatures have sunk a 10-ton fishing trawler.

The boat was capsized off Chiba in Japan, as its three-man crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomura’s jellyfish. Four years after they last reared their slimy heads, and for reasons that remain mysterious, an armada of the gelatinous giants has gathered in the Yellow Sea off China and the Korean peninsula.

Now it has drifted into the Sea of Japan, and brought down the Diasan Shinsho-maru. One of the largest jellyfish in the world, the Nomura’s jellyfish can grow up to 6 feet in diameter and weigh as much as 400 pounds.

The Telegraph reports that the boat’s crew was thrown into the sea, but the three men were rescued by another trawler. The local Coast Guard office reported that the weather was clear and the sea was calm at the time of the accident.

Experts believe weather and water conditions in the breeding grounds, off the coast of China, have been ideal for the jellyfish in recent months.

“The arrival is inevitable,” Professor Shinichi Ue at Hiroshima University, told the Yomiuri newspaper. “A huge jellyfish typhoon will hit the country.”

In 2005, fishermen looking for anchovies, salmon and yellowtail began finding huge numbers of the jellyfish in their nets. When the Nomuras grow larger than a metre in diameter, half a dozen of them can destroy a fishing net. The fish caught alongside them are poisoned and covered in slime and rendered unsaleable.

So serious was the situation that salmon boats in northern Japan stopped going out, and in some places fishermen lost 80 per cent of their income. Even staff at some of the nuclear power plants along the Japan Sea coast found that the jellyfish got sucked into the pumps which take in sea water to cool the reactors.

No one is sure about the reasons for the slimy plague. One theory is that climate change is heating up the sea water and encouraging them to breed. Another blames effluent from rivers in China, which carries nutrients on which the jellyfish feed. Another blames over-fishing of other species, leaving a surfeit of plankton for the Echizen kurage to feed on.

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Originally posted 2009-11-03 07:20:18.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Japan’s finance minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, resigned today amid growing criticism of his apparently alcohol-fueled antics in front of the TV cameras at last weekend’s G7 summit in Rome.

Media reports said the economics minister, Kaoru Yosano, has been asked to succeed Nakagawa with immediate effect.

Nakagawa apologized for embarrassing the government during a crucial meeting of the word’s top financial officials.

“I have caused trouble to the prime minister and other people,” he said. “I apologize for causing a commotion through not taking enough care of my health.”

He repeated his denials that he had been drinking before he slurred his way though a briefing with Japanese reporters on Saturday, and blamed his demeanor on jetlag, an overdose of cold medicine and a “sip” of wine during an official lunch.

Nakagawa slurred his words, gave an inaccurate answer to a question about monetary policy and often appeared on the verge of nodding off.

The prime minister, Taro Aso, came under pressure to sack his minister after footage of the press conference was aired on Japanese television.

The world’s second-biggest economy was, for a short time, effectively rudderless after Nakagawa bowed to pressure to quit, having vowed last night to stay in the post.

Earlier today he said he planned to resign after securing the passage of budget bills through parliament – a process that could take weeks – but changed his mind following pressure from opposition MPs and colleagues in his own party.

Aso has reportedly offered the post to Yosano, who is seen as a safer pair of hands than the charismatic, but unpredictable, Nakagawa.

Yosano, a fiscal conservative, will retain his current position and take over Nakagawa’s portfolio, the Kyodo news agency said.

Nakagawa’s resignation comes a day after figures showed Japan’s economy was heading for its worst recession since the second world war.

Aso, whose approval ratings plunged to below 10% at the weekend, faces the prospect of guiding his Liberal Democratic party to only its second election defeat in more than 50 years.

The LDP is expected to cede power to the Democratic party of Japan, whose leader, Ichiro Ozawa, was due to meet US secretary of state Hillary Clinton this evening.

Video of Nakagawa
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Originally posted 2009-02-17 13:26:04.

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In what could be a harbinger of the future, elementary-school students in Tokyo are being taught by a robot.

Saya is the result of 15 years of research and is being tested as a teacher after working as a receptionist.

She — or it — is multilingual, can organize set tasks for pupils, call the roll and get angry when the kids misbehave.

Saya is just one example of Japan’s determination to put a robot in every home by 2015.

The robot was originally developed for companies who want to cut costs by replacing office workers such as secretaries and receptionists with an android that had a range of human expressions

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Originally posted 2009-03-12 07:13:38.

Popularity: 1% [?]