Author name: admin

Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is a mainland Chinese citizen, the Financial Times reported Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the severing of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November. Source link

Humans and monkeys may have evolved their keen ability to detect snakes due to a fear response triggered by the reptiles’ scales, rather than their elongated bodies, according to research from Nagoya University. The findings, which could reshape the understanding of visual system evolution in primates, were published in the British scientific journal Scientific Reports. Prof. Nobuyuki Kawai, cognitive scientist at Nagoya University’s graduate school who heads the research, explained that while humans and monkeys have long been believed to have an innate fear of snakes, the specific features that elicit this fear remained unclear. To investigate, Kawai’s team conducted experiments using three Japanese macaques born in captivity and unfamiliar with snakes or newts. The monkeys were trained to identify an odd animal out of nine images displayed on a touchscreen, and the time it took them to do so was measured and compared. As previous theories suggested, the monkeys were faster in identifying a snake among newts than in finding a newt among snakes, with one monkey detecting a snake an average of 0.84 of a second quicker than locating a newt. The researchers then conducted the experiments using processed images of newts overlaid with snake scales. When shown these modified images, two of the monkeys took roughly the same amount of time to differentiate a scaled newt from snakes as they did to find a snake among such newts. Interestingly, the third monkey identified a scaled newt among snakes faster than a snake among scaled newts. The study concluded that primates might be particularly sensitive to the distinctive feature of snake scales. “Snake-scale patterns could potentially be effective in preventing crop damage caused by wild monkeys,” Kawai suggested, highlighting potential applications for the research. Translated by The Japan Times Source link

Jera, Japan’s largest liquefied natural gas buyer and top utility, created a think tank to research domestic and international energy trends, according to people with knowledge of the matter, following western oil giants trying to gain an advantage in the rapidly shifting market. Jera Global Institute was founded on Jan. 1 and will aim to follow the example of Shell’s scenarios team, which produces long-term forecasts to advise senior management and the board, said the people, requesting anonymity because the unit hasn’t been formally announced. A Jera spokesperson declined to comment. The energy transition is posing new challenges for Japan’s fuel importers, which must balance security of supply and goals to reduce emissions. Jera’s think tank will have a staff of more than 30 people, mostly Japanese, and in the future expand to the U.S., Europe, and Asia to enhance overseas research, the people said. Source link

North Korea fired off at least one apparent ballistic missile on Monday, its first launch of the year, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Seoul for what was likely his final visit to the region as top diplomat. The Defense Ministry in Tokyo said the missile had splashed down just several minutes after its launch was announced. South Korea’s military also confirmed it had detected an unidentified ballistic missile fired toward the Sea of Japan. The launch came as Blinken visited Seoul for a meeting with his counterpart and South Korea’s acting president as part of a bid to encourage stability in the U.S. ally — including its much-improved relations with Japan. Blinken’s trip also came the day an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol was set to expire, with authorities seeking an extension of the warrant for the impeached leader. Source link

TDK, one of the main suppliers of batteries for Apple’s iPhones, will this year roll out an improved version of its most advanced product to help mobile devices keep up with the rising power demands of built-in artificial intelligence. The Tokyo-based company plans to start mass production of its third-generation silicon-anode cells from late summer, CEO Noboru Saito said in an interview. Silicon batteries, which are more complex to manufacture but carry more energy than conventional ones, have already been embraced by most major Chinese phone makers, and Saito expects further growth ahead. “Our continued investment in R&D (research and development) is one of our business’s strengths, and we plan to accelerate that momentum,” said the 58-year-old executive, who’s been with the company for over three decades. Source link

Any cultural critic can complain about the lack of creativity in American popular culture right now and the unmet “hunger for a certain kind of popular art” amid so much institutionalized unoriginality. It’s a bit harder to give writers or filmmakers specific marching orders. What exact kind of popular art are we missing? What specific achievement should American creators be aiming for? Nevertheless, let’s try a thought heading into the new year, one occasioned by recent social media discourse, my Christmas shopping and personal interests, and the box office success of “Wicked.” If I were giving out assignments for would-be invigorators of our stuck culture, I would suggest new experiments in the national fantastic and a quest for the “Great American Fantasy” story. Source link

LONDON – Elon Musk said Nigel Farage should quit as leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform U.K. party in an abrupt withdrawal of support by the U.S. billionaire for the Brexit campaigner who is trying to shake up the British political establishment again. “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes,” Musk said on his social media platform X on Sunday, a few hours after Farage described him as a friend who made Reform look “cool.” Musk — a close ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump — had seemingly backed Farage and posed for a photograph with him last month. Source link

Seoul – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives late Sunday in crisis-riven South Korea where he will seek delicately to encourage continuity with the policies, but not tactics, of the impeached president. Blinken will hold talks with counterpart Cho Tae-yul on Monday, the same day a warrant expires to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol who unsuccessfully tried to impose martial law on Dec. 3. Seoul is the first stop on what will likely be Blinken’s final trip as the top U.S. diplomat as he seeks to highlight President Joe Biden’s record rallying democratic allies before the return of the more mercurial Donald Trump. Source link

You may have heard that the Oxford dictionary’s “word of the year” this year was “brain rot.” I found that interesting for two reasons. The first is that it is clearly two words. The second is that unlike prior words of the year — like 2013’s “selfie” or last year’s “rizz” — “brain rot” is neither new nor changed from its original intended meaning. Its first use was recorded in 1854 and said to be “indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort” — which, well, yeah. Since the selection for Oxford’s yearly word is done by public poll, this leads me to my first prediction in this column of observations for tech in 2025: The brain rot economy will show signs of weakness as people grow more wary of what is being served up to them by algorithms as they scroll endlessly. In the past year, the flood of AI slop content has made looking at Facebook even more pointless — and eyeballs will go elsewhere. Source link

Two weeks after the U.S. election, hundreds of allies gathered at the White House to soothe Joe Biden in defeat. Tracking the closed-door bash for clues was a group rarely interested in the routine preening of Washington: arbitrage traders. The traders, who buy and sell the stock of companies in the middle of mergers and acquisitions, and investors were hanging on every event for a clue to the fate of the sale of U.S. Steel, a hallowed but humbled American giant, to Japan-based Nippon Steel. And the deal’s key opponent, steelworkers union chief David McCall, was at the party. Would McCall meet Biden? Did the party offer an elaborate cover? One question has swirled among investors and unions, from local mayors to the White House, since Nippon Steel announced its plans in December 2023: whether anyone could persuade Biden to back the sale, or whether McCall would succeed in having it killed. Source link