Speaking 2 languages may delay getting Alzheimer's

WASHINGTON —

Mastering a second language can pump up the brain in ways that seem to delay getting Alzheimer’s disease later on, scientists say.

While the new research focuses mostly on the truly long-term bilingual, scientists say even people who tackle a new language later in life stand to gain.

The more proficient the person becomes, the better, but “every little bit helps,” said Ellen Bialystok, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto.

Much of the study of bilingualism has centered on babies, as scientists wondered why simply speaking to infants in two languages allows them to learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one. Their brains seem to become more flexible, better able to multitask. As they grow up, their brains show better “executive control,” a system key to higher functioning—as Bialystok puts it, “the most important part of your mind.”

Does that mental juggling in youngsters translate into protection against cognitive decline when in older people?

Bialystok studied 450 Alzheimer’s patients, all of whom showed the same degree of impairment at the time of diagnosis. Half are bilingual; they have spoken two languages regularly for most of their lives. The rest are monolingual.

The bilingual patients had Alzheimer’s symptoms and were diagnosed between four and five years later than the patients who spoke only one language, she told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Being bilingual does nothing to prevent Alzheimer’s disease from striking. But once the disease does begin its silent attack, those years of robust executive control provide a buffer so that symptoms do not become apparent as quickly, Bialystok said.

“They’ve been able to cope with the disease,” she said.

Her work supports an earlier study from other researchers that also found a protective effect.

What is it about being bilingual that enhances that all-important executive control system?

Both languages are essentially turned on all the time, but the brain learns to inhibit the one that is not needed, said psychology professor Teresa Bajo of the University of Granada in Spain. That is pretty constant activity.

That is not the only area. University of British Columbia psychologist Janet Werker studies infants exposed to two languages from birth to see why they do not confuse the two, and says bilingual babies learn very early to pay attention better.

Werker tested babies in Spain who were growing up learning both Spanish and Catalan. She showed the babies videos of women speaking languages they’d never heard—English and French—but with the sound off. By measuring the tots’ attention span, Werker concluded that babies could distinguish between English and French simply by watching the speakers’ facial cues. It could have been the different lip shapes.

“It looks like French people are always kissing,” she joked, while the English “th” sound evokes a distinctive lip-in-teeth shape.

Whatever the cues, monolingual babies could not tell the difference, Werker said Friday at the meeting.

But what about people who were not lucky enough to have been raised bilingual? Scientists and educators know that it becomes far harder to learn a new language after puberty.

Partly that’s because adults’ brains are so bombarded with other demands that they do not give learning a new language the same attention that a young child does, Bialystok said.

At the University of Maryland, scientists are studying how to identify adults who would be good candidates to master a new language, and then what types of training are best. Having a pretty strong executive control system, like the lifelong bilinguals have, is among the good predictive factors, said Amy Weinberg, deputy director of the university’s Center for Advanced Study of Language.

But people do not have to master a new language to benefit some, Bialystok said. Exercising your brain throughout life contributes to what is called cognitive reserve, the overall ability to withstand the declines of aging and disease. That is the basis of the use-it-or-lose-it advice from aging experts who also recommend such things as crossword puzzles to keep the brain nimble.

“If you start to learn at 40, 50, 60, you are certainly keeping your brain active,” she said.

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Online:

Science meeting: http://www.aaas.org/meetings/

Explosion did not occur at Fukushima reactor: Japan spokesman

Saturday 12th March, 10:02 PM JST

TOKYO —

Japanese authorities have confirmed there was an explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant Saturday afternoon but it did not occur at its troubled No. 1 reactor, top government spokesman Yukio Edano said.

The chief Cabinet secretary also told an urgent press conference that the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has confirmed there is no damage to the steel container housing the reactor.

Edano said the 3:36 p.m. explosion resulted in the roof and the walls of the building housing the reactor’s container being blown away.

The authorities expanded an evacuation area for all local residents from a 10-kilometer radius of the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants to a 20-km radius.

Officials of Japan’s nuclear safety agency also said after examination that they believe there has been no serious damage to the container of the No. 1 reactor, judging from the latest radiation data monitored around the facility.

The incident came after the plant lost its cooling functions after it was jolted by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake Friday and radioactive substances of cesium and iodine were detected near the facility Saturday.

The detection of the materials, which are created following atomic fission, led Japan’s nuclear safety agency to admit the reactor has been partially melting—the first such case in Japan.

A partial core meltdown also occurred in a major nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979. About 45 percent of nuclear fuel was melted in the incident, causing radioactive materials to be released.

According to the Fukushima prefectural government, the hourly radiation from the Fukushima plant reached 1,015 micro sievert in its premises before the explosion, an amount equivalent to that allowable for ordinary people in one year.

Four workers—two from the company and two others from another firm—were injured in the explosion, according to Tokyo Electric Power. The four were working to deal with problems caused by a powerful earthquake that hit northeastern Japan on Friday, it said.

The company said the injuries the four have suffered are not life-threatening and that they are conscious.

The operator of the quake-hit nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture, successfully released pressure in the container of housing one of its reactors to prevent a nuclear meltdown, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

Even before Tokyo Electric Power succeeded in reducing the pressure, which would involve the release of steam that would likely include radioactive materials, radiation had risen to an unusually high level in and near the No. 1 nuclear plant.

Work to depressurize the containers, aimed at preventing the plants from sustaining damage and losing their critical containment function, has been conducted under an unprecedented government order.

The agency said the core at the No. 1 reactor of the No. 1 plant may be partially melting, and the work to depressurize the container was necessary to prevent the container from sustaining damage and losing its critical containment function.

The agency said that as a result of reducing the container’s pressure radioactive levels at the plant went up. The depressurizing work involves the release of steam including radioactive materials.

But the agency denied that the radiation amount will pose an immediate threat to the health of nearby residents, as wind is currently blowing toward the sea in the northeastern Japan prefecture on the Pacific coast.

At the No. 1 plant, the amount of radiation reached around 1,000 times the normal level in the control room of the No. 1 reactor, and 70 times the normal level near the main gate of the plant.

It was the first time an external radioactive leak had been confirmed since the disaster.

Japan welcomes China becoming world's No. 2 economy

Monday 14th February, 01:41 PM JST

TOKYO —

Japan on Monday welcomed China’s advance to become the world’s second-biggest economy in 2010, with cabinet members expressing hope that Japan, now pushed into third place, and the wider Asian region would benefit from the emerging economy’s development.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a press conference that ‘‘the important thing is to incorporate such vitality of China’’ to seek growth in the Japanese economy, while economic and fiscal policy minister Kaoru Yosano separately said Japan wants to deepen its ‘‘friendly and favorable’’ economic ties with China.

‘‘We are not engaging in economic activities to vie for ranking but to enhance people’s lives. From that point of view, we welcome China’s economic advancement as a neighboring country,’’ Yosano said, while giving an upbeat view on the prospects for Japan despite its pausing economic recovery.

According to preliminary gross domestic product data released by the Cabinet Office earlier in the day, Japan’s economy contracted in the three months through December for the first decline in five quarters amid weak consumption.

‘‘The data for the October-December quarter underscored that the economic condition is at a standstill,’’ Yosano said, but noted that ‘‘the situation surrounding Japan’s economy is not necessarily bad’’ amid bright signs seen in the U.S. economy.

‘‘The Bank of Japan and the government have the same view that the economy seemingly is at a standstill, but will turn upward,’’ he said.

But Yosano warned that the domestic political situation could serve as ‘‘a risk’’ to the economy, given concerns among market players over whether the government would be able to ensure the passage of the fiscal 2011 budget and related bills by the March 31 end of the current fiscal year in the divided parliament.

The Cabinet Office also showed in its data that the value of Japan’s nominal GDP for last year totaled $5,474.2 billion, compared with China’s $5,878.6 billion.

Japan had maintained its position as the world’s second largest economy since 1968. But the latest data showed that Japan dropped to third place, behind the United States and China.

Yosano said he expects China’s advance to serve as ‘‘a cornerstone for the regional economy, including the East Asian and Southeast Asian regions, to develop in an integrated manner.’’

Film by 14-year-old director from Okinawa to hit cinemas

TOKYO —

A film directed by a 14-year-old boy has gained such popularity in his native Okinawa Prefecture that it will be commercially screened at theaters on the mainland beginning with three cinemas in Tokyo and Yokohama this weekend.

The feature film titled ‘‘Yagi no Boken’’ (adventure of a goat) by Ryugo Nakamura, a third-year student at Okinawa Higashi Junior High School in Okinawa City, has drawn 40,000 viewers during screenings at community centers in the prefecture last year, leading to the upcoming theatrical release.

The film depicts lives of local boys and other people in the Yambaru area in the northern part of Okinawa Island through the escape of a goat kept for food.

‘‘Goats are food in Okinawa,’’ Nakamura said. ‘‘Many films portray Okinawa like a tropical paradise. I hope people will know about its real culture and tradition.’‘

Producer Yuichi Ide said, ‘‘I would like people across the country to see this film because of its quality. You would not believe it was shot by a junior high school student.’‘

Nakamura, who will turn 15 on Monday, began shooting independent movies when he was eight with the video camera of his father who died in an accident. He has created more than 30 short films thus far.

Critics raved about his short film ‘‘Yagi no Sampo’’ (a goat on a walk), which served as the groundwork for the latest feature, at the Okinawa tourism drama competition in 2009.

For the latest movie, most actors and crew members were chosen from top local professionals, and Cocco, a renowned female singer born and raised in Okinawa, sings the theme song of the movie.

Nakamura wrote a letter to Cocco asking her to provide the song for the film.

The film is scheduled to hit theaters in many parts of Japan after being released in Tokyo and Yokohama on Saturday.

Tablets crowd gadget show, chasing iPad's tail

Saturday 08th January, 07:30 AM JST

LAS VEGAS —

Big tablets and small tablets, white ones and black ones. Cheap ones and expensive ones. Brand names famous and obscure at the starting line of a race where the iPad is already a speeding dot near the horizon.

It’s impossible to walk the floor at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show without stumbling across a multitude of keyboard-less touch-screen computers expected to hit the market in the coming months. With Apple estimated to have sold more than 13 million iPads last year alone, the competition is clearly for second place, but even that prize is worth pursuing.

Technology research firm Gartner Inc expects that 55 million tablet computers will be shipped this year, most of them still iPads, but there will be room for rivals to vie for sales of the remaining 10 million to 15 million devices.

A bevy of consumer electronics makers, including major names such as Motorola Mobility Inc, Toshiba Corp and Dell Inc, showed off their tablets in Las Vegas at CES, betting 2011 will be the year the gadgets finally take off.

Companies tried for years to popularize tablets, but the frenzy began only with the release of the iPad in April. Now companies whose names don’t include the word “Apple” are doing everything they can to differentiate themselves from the tablet front-runner.

They’re adding bells and whistles the iPad doesn’t yet have—such as front and back cameras for video chatting and picture taking and the ability to work over next-generation 4G data networks—in hopes of taking on the iPad, or at least carving out a niche.

Motorola’s Xoom sports a screen that measures 10.1 inches (25 centimeters) diagonally—slightly larger than the iPad’s—and dual cameras for video chatting and taking high-definition videos.

It will also include the upcoming Honeycomb version of Google Inc’s Android software. Honeycomb has been designed for the larger touch screens on tablets; current versions of Android, used in many of the tablets at CES, are meant more for the smaller touch screens on smart phones.

For example, Gmail on a Honeycomb tablet shows a list of e-mails in one column and the body of the one you’re reading in a second column. On a current Android phone, you’d only see one column at a time.

Motorola, at least, is confident that its offering is more full-featured than the iPad.

“A lot of people have been waiting for the definitive tablet,” said Paul Nicholson, Motorola’s marketing director. “This is the definitive tablet.”

The tablet, which will start selling in March for an as-yet-unknown price, will also work on Verizon Wireless’ existing, 3G network at first and later be upgradeable to work on its faster 4G network.

Tablets that work with a wireless carrier’s high-speed data network may be a key to success in the tablet space, said Ross Rubin, an analyst for NPD Group, a market research firm. While a version of the iPad can use AT&T Inc’s 3G network, Apple has not yet announced a plan for it to use any of the new 4G networks.

“Today we see a lot of tablet usage in the home. Perhaps tying it to a faster network can really expand the on-the-go use case for these products,” Rubin said.

No matter how well any of the new contenders are received, though, analysts expect Apple to dominate in the tablet market for at least two years. With Apple’s habit of annually refreshing its products, chances are the iPad will gain new features early this year that could launch it even further ahead of the competition.

And the company has something no one else has been able to match: mind share. Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said consumers are buying the iPad because they see their friends and colleagues with it, not because of its specific features.

“Just because Android tablets may have more features doesn’t guarantee they will sell,” Rotman Epps said.

But if the market opened up by Apple’s other mobile triumph, the iPhone, is any indication, they will. Since its 2007 debut the iPhone has been immensely popular, but it also sparked increased consumer demand for other smart phones—eventually including those running Android.

For AsusTek Computer Inc, the most important focus right now appears to be hardware and software diversification. The Taiwanese computer maker unveiled a number of tablets at the show, including the Eee pad Transformer, which is a laptop that splits in two to function as a tablet, and the Eee Pad Slider, a tablet with a keyboard that slides out of its left side.

The Transformer is set to begin selling in April for $399 to $699, depending on its configuration. And the Slider is set to be sold starting in May for $499 to $799.

This puts its cheapest Transformer $100 below the most inexpensive iPad, which sells for $499 to $829, depending on its configuration. Several other companies unveiled even cheaper tablets at CES, which could pique consumer interest, though lower prices could come with less-vivid screens and older software.

Richard Shim, a DisplaySearch analyst, said Asus’ tactics point to a wider trend in tablets: The market is branching out extremely quickly in an effort to appeal to a wider range of consumers.

This extends to operating software, too: Some tablets shown ran Microsoft Corp’s PC software, Windows 7. Research In Motion Ltd, the maker of BlackBerry phones, demonstrated its forthcoming PlayBook tablet, which is geared toward business users and runs new software built by QNX Software Systems, which RIM took over in 2010.

RIM plans to start selling a Wi-Fi version of the PlayBook early this year, and a version that operates on Sprint Nextel Corp’s 4G network is due to arrive in the summer.

Android was clearly the software of choice at CES, though, and Honeycomb in particular. Rotman Epps sees this as the software for the first “real” Android tablet, despite the arrival of several non-Honeycomb Android tablets such as Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy Tab last year. She thinks Honeycomb will help new tablets make their mark.

That’s hard to judge now, however: Honeycomb hasn’t been released yet. Many tablets at CES that will be released with that software were not showing off live versions of it at the show.

Several analysts said software—and the apps developed for it—are what will set winning tablets apart from the pack, but for now it’s too soon to tell how compelling they will be.

“At the end of the day, that’s what’s going to sell the device,” Shim said.

China boosting investment in Japan, holds shares worth Y1.5 tril

Saturday 08th January, 06:26 AM JST

TOKYO —

Two investment funds backed by the Chinese government are accelerating their purchases of stakes in major Japanese listed firms, with their total market value surging 10-fold to 1.5 trillion yen in less than two years, a recent study showed.

The two funds were major shareholders of a combined 86 firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s First Section as of last September, compared with 35 firms as of March 2010 and 13 firms as of March 2009, according to the study by Chibagin Asset Management Co based in Tokyo.

Their combined market capitalization last September came to 1,515.7 billion yen, in stark contrast to 624.2 billion yen as of March 2010 and 155.6 billion yen as of March 2009.

Chibagin Asset Management predicts the value could reach 3 trillion yen by the end of March 2011.

‘‘I assume the funds are buying Japanese stocks considering them low-risk assets in managing an increasing amount of foreign currencies,’’ Fujio Ando, an adviser at the asset management firm, said.

‘‘I doubt they will move to launch an aggressive bid to obtain controlling stakes (in Japanese firms) anytime soon, but I don’t know the future,’’ he said.

The funds, which are both based in Australia, have made a series of investments in Japanese companies in various sectors including finance, electronics, telecommunications, trading houses, and utilities, according to the study on the financial reports of 550 major listed firms.

As of last September, one or other of the funds was the third-largest shareholder in such big Japanese firms as Mizuho Financial Group Inc and NEC Corp, the fourth-largest in Nomura Holdings Inc, and the fifth-largest in Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.

Tokyo refuses local authorities permit to land on Senkaku Islands

Saturday 08th January, 07:23 AM JST

TOKYO —

The central government turned down Friday a request by the city government of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, for permission to land on the Senkaku Islands disputed by China which are under the city’s jurisdiction and partly privately owned but rented to Tokyo.

The request was filed in October after September’s maritime collisions between Japanese and Chinese vessels, which strained bilateral ties, by Ishigaki Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama and some city assembly members with the internal affairs ministry.

The local authorities said they planned to research nature and the ecosystem on the uninhibited isles in the East China Sea, but the ministry said they took into consideration that the landowner on the island did not want outsiders from the central government landing there.

The ministry also said in conveying its stance to the city office the government has rented the islands for ‘‘peaceful and stable management and control.’‘

‘‘Should anyone land by force, we will deal with the case under domestic law,’’ a ministry official said.

After leasing the nonpublic parts on the islands from the private owner, the central government has restricted landings on the islets.

2 Japanese policemen in Philippines admonished over bogus reimbursement claims

Saturday 08th January, 07:29 AM JST

TOKYO —

The Japan International Cooperation Agency has reprimanded two Japanese police officers assisting the Philippine National Police for fraudulent reimbursement claims for personal wining and dining expenses, Japanese police authorities said Friday.

The state-run JICA issued the reprimand last month on a 44-year-old senior superintendent at the National Police Agency, who worked as a manager for Japan’s cooperation with the PNP, and a 50-year-old inspector at the Kyoto prefectural police.

The NPA had the senior superintendent return home last month and reprimanded by the NPA chief, instead of a stricter punishment, as the amount of money involved was small, while the Kyoto police admonished the inspector Thursday and will have him return home next week.

They were the first police officers punished by the JICA since Japanese police authorities started sending officers to the Philippines in 1980 to offer technical assistance for investigation, according to the JICA, which implements projects overseas with Japan’s official development aid.

The Japanese police authorities said the two police officers used dozens of receipts they received through private eating and drinking with fellow Japanese police officers from last July through September to fraudulently charge about 10,000 pesos (about 20,000 yen) by alleging that the expenses were spent in meetings with the Philippine police.

The fraud was found in JICA’s in-house investigation last October before the actual reimbursements were made.

Kan says he intends to stay in power for long time

Saturday 08th January, 07:12 AM JST

TOKYO —

Prime Minister Naoto Kan expressed resolve Friday to remain in power as long as possible, despite a recent plunge in his popularity. Kan said during a live Internet program that a self-made politician such as himself will not give up his job easily like his predecessors.

‘‘Now I’ve come to understand somehow why past prime ministers decided to resign,’’ Kan said after a long pause, when asked about what he has learned after being in office since June.

‘‘You try hard but you start feeling people don’t recognize that. You find yourself not communicating many of your thoughts to others and feel down, thinking you can’t go on any longer,’’ Kan said.

‘‘But I won’t quit even if I feel down. I’ll go all the way as I could say I’m a bit of a political anomaly,’’ he said, making reference to being Japan’s first leader in years not born into a blue-blood political family.

Kan also said that he will continue to serve as prime minister until he opens ‘‘new horizons’’ in fiscal reconstruction, social security and diplomacy.

Kan, the fifth prime minister since 2006, made the remarks at a time when he is struggling with falling approval ratings for his cabinet.

He appeared on a live Internet program for the first time as a Japanese prime minister.

During the program on videonews.com, which lasted for more than an hour, Kan also said that he will review some of his Democratic Party of Japan’s key policy pledges for the House of Representatives election in August 2009, partly because of fiscal constraints.

‘‘One and a half years have passed since the change of government. So at least by the halfway mark of two years (in September 2011) I want to do that,’’ he said.

Kidman weeps in 'Rabbit Hole,' revels in home life

Nicole Kidman arrives for the premiere of the film “Rabbit Hole” in New York on Dec 2.
REUTERS

LOS ANGELES —

Nicole Kidman is giving audiences grief with her latest drama, “Rabbit Hole,” playing a disconsolate woman coping with the death of her child.

Yet 10 years after one of Hollywood’s most-publicized splits, the breakup of her marriage to Tom Cruise, Kidman is in the happiest of places, with little to sob about.

After a shaky few years when she made such duds as “The Stepford Wives,” “Bewitched,” “The Golden Compass” and “The Invasion,” Kidman is back in Academy Awards contention for the first time since back-to-back nominations for 2001’s “Moulin Rouge!” and 2002’s “The Hours,” which earned her a best-actress Oscar.

Kidman also is a producer on “Rabbit Hole,” which is the first release from her production company, Blossom Films.

She’s four years into her marriage with country music star Keith Urban. Kidman, who had a miscarriage while married to Cruise, now has a 2-year-old daughter with Urban. The family has settled so comfortably at their Nashville home that Kidman is not terribly inclined to rush out looking for work.

“I’m in a place where I just don’t want to take on too much,” Kidman, 43, said in an interview. “It’s not about, `Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get all these things for myself,’ because I love being at home. But you know, my husband and my mother will say, `You shouldn’t just abandon your talent. You should still get out there and do some things every now and then, because you’ll appreciate that over the next couple of decades.’

“And I suppose deep down, I know they’re right, because part of me could easily just keep nesting and staying at home. It’s really nice.”

Kidman never seems to stay in nesting mode for long. She is preparing to shoot the HBO movie “Hemingway & Gellhorn,” playing war correspondent Martha Gellhorn opposite Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway.

Then she is signed for director Lasse Hallstrom’s “The Danish Girl,” based on a novel inspired by painter Einar Wegener, the first man to have a sex-change operation.

Kidman also has a supporting role in Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston’s comedy “Just Go With It,” coming next year.

All this comes on top of her own filmmaking chores, some only as producer, some to develop good roles for herself, always an issue for actors as they get older and choice parts dry up.

“She’s my hero,” said “Rabbit Hole” co-star Aaron Eckhart. “Anybody who complains about their position or plight in this industry is not looking at things the right way. They’re not being proactive enough. They are not taking control of their destiny, and she is. She is first and foremost interested in acting and telling good stories. ... She works her ass off, and she’s totally committed to filmmaking.”

Rather than playing it safe, Kidman seeks out edgy filmmakers — Lars von Trier, who directed her in an arthouse variation of torture-porn in “Dogville,” or Noah Baumbach, for whom she delivered a mercilessly raw performance in the sibling drama “Margot at the Wedding.”

Likewise, for “Rabbit Hole,” Kidman brought in John Cameron Mitchell to direct, an unlikely choice for a somber drama given the outrageous sexual and social exploits in his previous films, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus.”

“She’s always willing to take a risk, which you don’t always see our other wonderful actresses doing. They’re content to relax into whatever Hollywood movie is next, and she’s got this hungry urge to expand her horizons,” Mitchell said.

“She actually says that she doesn’t feel like she’s as good in the popcorn movies. She’s like, `I just feel like I don’t know how to do them.’”

Kidman clearly knows how to do smaller, more personal stories such as “Rabbit Hole.” The film earned her a Golden Globe nomination, and she seems a safe bet for her third best-actress slot at the Oscars.

Based on David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Rabbit Hole” stars Kidman and Eckhart as a couple straining to save their marriage and make sense of the death of their young son in a traffic accident.

A tough story to watch. Even tougher to perform in.

“It was kind of like, why am I doing this? Am I masochistic? But at the same time, I felt compelled to tell the story,” Kidman said. “There’s no right or wrong way of navigating grief, and this is just a study, almost like a case study, of it, of two people and their marriage and their family, and how they somehow move through it.

“But they move through it moving toward each other rather than away. They say 80 percent of couples that go through this don’t make it, but I didn’t want to make that movie.”

The movies Kidman does want to make are varied. She and producing partner Per Saari are looking for stories that need a helping hand amid uncertain times in the film world, when studios are interested mainly in the next blockbuster and filmmakers with challenging scripts are scrounging.

“It’s not like some huge offices or anything. We have a laptop, and we make phone calls, but there’s just the two of us, and we just have a couple of things that we’re really invested in,” Kidman said.

Among potential projects are a remake of Marilyn Monroe’s “How to Marry a Millionaire,” in which Kidman would not star, and a film biography of singer Dusty Springfield, in which she’s not sure if she would act.

They have the rights for Chris Cleave’s novel “Little Bee,” a tale in which Kidman does hope to star about the relationship between an Englishwoman and a teenage Nigerian refugee who has undergone terrible trauma.

Kidman, who has two adopted teenagers with Cruise in addition to her and Urban’s daughter, said she was able to hurl herself into the role of bereaved mother with little preparation.

“It took me so long to get pregnant and have a baby, so I have enormous gratitude. I have two grown children with that enormous gratitude that they are healthy and sane and together and are great, great people. So my sense of knowing what I have, I’m not one of those people that needs to be reminded of what I have,” Kidman said.

“But I suppose my compassion, my ability to just — I can weep when I hear the stories that people tell me of what they’re going through. So my heart is open to that because of this film, because I’ve kind of put my toe in the water, in a way.”

More than 1,000 dead birds fall from sky over Arkansas town

Sunday 02nd January, 03:59 PM JST

BEEBE, Arkansas —

Wildlife officials are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 black birds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Saturday that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. The birds fell over a 1-mile (2-kilometer) area, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said the birds showed physical trauma, and she speculated that “the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail.”

The commission said that New Year’s Eve revelers shooting off fireworks in the area could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress.

Robby King, a wildlife officer for the agency, collected about 65 dead birds, which will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Wisconsin.

Rowe said that similar events have occurred elsewhere and that test results “usually were inconclusive.” She said she doubted the birds were poisoned.

New year begins with measures to discourage consumer spending

Sunday 02nd January, 07:51 AM JST

TOKYO —

The beginning of the new year marked some significant changes that economic analysts say will dampen consumer spending in Japan, most notably an eco-point subsidy cut and an end to tax breaks for certain families.

Consumer confidence in the country, already mired in the long-stagnant economy, is expected to be hit further after eligibility for the government’s eco-point program became limited on Saturday to only ‘‘five-star’’ energy-efficient home appliances.

Eco-points are now awarded for the purchase of top-tier energy-saving products designated under the country’s home appliance recycling system only for the purpose of replacing old appliances.

The latest step came a month after eco-points were cut by half due to concerns about funding shortages for the incentive program, which will expire at the end of March.

The slashing of eco-points led to a 40% drop on year in sales of flat-screen televisions at major retailers in the first half of December, according to research firm GfK Marketing Services Japan.

A number of analysts forecast sales declines of the same scale will continue although last-minute demand is expected to emerge prior to the expiration of the subsidy program.

Yusaku Yamagata, an analyst at GfK Marketing, described such a rush of buyers as a preempting of demand and said it is likely that home appliance sales will ‘‘decrease for two to three years’’ in reaction to the higher demand supported by the eco-point scheme.

Also denting consumer sentiment is the abolition this month of the dependent deduction for children up to the age of 15, adopted under the tax system reform for the current fiscal year through March to help fund child-rearing allowances.

Estimates by the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute say there will be a decrease of 76,000 yen in tax breaks or government support in 2011 from the previous year for a family of a salaried worker with an annual income of 8 million yen, a non-working spouse and a child attending an elementary school or junior high school.

Facebook, PayPal tycoon embraces sci-fi future

Sunday 02nd January, 05:38 AM JST

SAN FRANCISCO —

In the movie “The Social Network,” the character of Peter Thiel is played as a slick Master of the Universe, a tech industry king and kingmaker with the savvy to see that a $500,000 investment in Facebook could mint millions later.

Reality is a little more rumpled.

On a recent December night, Thiel walked, slightly stooped, across a San Francisco stage to make a pitch to an invitation-only audience of Silicon Valley luminaries—investors and innovators who had scored sometimes huge fortunes through a mix of skill, vision and risk-taking.

The billionaire PayPal co-founder didn’t tell them about the next big startup. He wanted them to buy into a bigger idea: the future.

A future when computers will communicate directly with the human brain. Seafaring pioneers will found new floating nations in the middle of the ocean. Science will conquer aging, and death will become a curable disease.

If anything can transform these wild dreams into plausible realities, he believes it is the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley—the minds and money that have conjured the technological marvels that have already altered everyday life.

“Do we try to pursue ideas that are weird and have optimism about the future, or do we give up on all new things and compromise?”

Sitting before him in the audience, among others: Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and technology publishing guru Tim O’Reilly.

As venture capital in Silicon Valley chases the next big mobile app or group discount service, Thiel was asking for them to fund technological breakthroughs that some believe in fervently and others see as sheer fantasy.

He even has a name for it: Breakthrough philanthropy.

Instead of just giving to help the less fortunate here and now, Thiel encouraged his fellow moguls to put their money toward seemingly far-fetched ventures that he believes could improve the lives of everyone for good.

Gathered on the stage were eight groups that Thiel thinks are on the right path.

One was the Singularity Institute, whose members believe in the near-inevitability of the arrival within the next century of computers smarter than the humans who created them.

The institute works to ensure that self-programming machines will create a world that looks more like “Star Trek,” less like the “Terminator.”

Another was the SENS Foundation, a group of biomedical researchers seeking a path to radical life extension based on the controversial aging theories of computer scientist-turned-gerontologist Aubrey de Grey.

And the Seasteading Institute, led by Patri Friedman, the grandson of famed economist Milton Friedman. It looks to establish distant ocean colonies to serve as laboratories for experimenting with new forms of government or “startup countries.”

“As innovators, you are the best at finding and nurturing the right big ideas that can change the world,” Friedman told the audience.

The history of Silicon Valley is filled with such ideas. The smartphone, the Web, the search engine, the personal computer itself _ these all seemed far-fetched until they became commonplace.

To raise money from the wealthy, it’s a time-honored strategy to flatter. Witness the names emblazoned across hospital wings and university buildings. But building important buildings has never seemed to especially interest Silicon Valley’s elite.

They have “the right kind of cultural DNA to at the very least pay attention,” said Greg Biggers, a longtime software executive who recently founded a startup, Genomera, that lets members conduct health studies using their own genetic data.

Biggers said Silicon Valley entrepreneurs would likely be receptive to Thiel’s unconventional message because they succeeded by not conforming to others’ expectations of what was possible.

“This is a roomful of people who bucked the system,” he said as he mingled, glass of wine in hand.

Charles Rubin, a Duquesne University political science professor and blogger who has written critically about some of the movements endorsed by Thiel, said these visions of the future align closely with the Silicon Valley outlook.

All share the view that “scientific knowledge and technical capacity will continue to increase at an accelerating rate,” Rubin said. “This is a core idea that practically defines what Silicon Valley is all about: ceaseless innovation.”

Thiel himself seems to thrive on flouting convention, sometimes in ways that have led to harsh criticism.

In September, he announced a program designed to discover the next Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, by paying $100,000 each to 20 young people under 20 years old to skip college for two years to learn about entrepreneurship.

Jacob Weisberg, editor of the online magazine Slate, excoriated Thiel for the program and what he sees as its underlying impetus.

“Thiel’s philosophy demands attention not because it is original or interesting in any way—it’s puerile libertarianism, infused with futurist fantasy—but because it epitomizes an ugly side of Silicon Valley’s politics,” Weisberg wrote.

Thiel is not a traditional conservative—he has donated to Republican candidates but also to California’s marijuana legalization ballot measure. But he does seem to believe in a trickle-down theory of technology.

Unlike the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has poured billions into providing basic health care for some of the world’s most impoverished people, Thiel said he wants to prioritize major scientific advances he thinks will spread to benefit humanity as a whole.

His faith appears grounded in a pervasive Silicon Valley belief that motivates gifted individuals to achieve on a grand scale, no matter the apparent hurdles _ death included.

But even Thiel admitted he has no idea how long that last obstacle will take to overcome.

“I would like to say that I would still be doing this even if I thought there was no chance I would benefit from this in any way,” he said in an interview. “I think we have to work on these things even if they take centuries.”

2010 traffic death toll at 4,863, down for 10th straight year

Sunday 02nd January, 11:58 AM JST

TOKYO —

The road traffic death toll in Japan during 2010 was 4,863, down 51, or 1%, from the previous year and marking the 10th straight year of decline, the National Police Agency said Sunday.

The figure, which fell below 5,000 in 2009 for the first time since 1952, decreased further last year owing to factors such as a rise in seat belt usage and a decline in the number of accidents caused by gross negligence such as drunk driving, the agency said.

The number of road traffic accidents during 2010 totaled 724,811, while the number of people injured in them stood at 894,281, both falling for a sixth consecutive year, according to the agency’s preliminary data.

By prefecture, Hokkaido and Tokyo had the largest number of traffic deaths last year at 215 each.

Dept stores begin 2011 business with lucky bags, winter bargains

Shoppers jostle to buy “fukubukuro” bags at Mitsukoshi department store in Nihonbashi on Sunday.
SANKEI

Sunday 02nd January, 04:30 PM JST

TOKYO —

Major department stores kicked off business for 2011 on Sunday as crowds of shoppers sought ‘‘lucky bags’’ filled with discount goods and other New Year bargains.

Department stores are hoping the New Year sales will help lead to a recovery in consumption among thrifty consumers.

Mitsukoshi Ltd’s flagship store in Tokyo’s Nihombashi district opened at 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes earlier than scheduled, as many people were lined up in front of the store. As one of the features of its New Year sales, the store was offering lucky bags filled with clothing for 10,500 yen.

Takashimaya Co prepared luxury lucky bags containing tickets for a cruise tour to the Antarctica, priced at 1.8 million yen, to mark the 180th anniversary of its founding.

The Seibu flagship store in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro, meanwhile, offered a series of lucky bags named after recent booms in Japan. They included lucky bags containing outdoor items for ‘‘yama (mountain) girls,’’ the nickname for the growing number of women taking to the hills in fashionable garb, and those including lunchbox and other items for ‘‘bento danshi,’’ or men who fix their own home-made lunches.

Ando 1st, Asada 2nd at national championships

FIGURE SKATING

Monday 27th December, 06:55 AM JST

NAGANO —

Miki Ando produced a near-flawless free skate to come out of second as she topped overnight leader Mao Asada to win the women’s figure skating national title for the first time in six years on Sunday.

Ando denied Asada a fifth consecutive title, nailing all of her jumps to perfection while dazzling the crowd with her straight line step sequence and foot spin combination for a total of 202.34 points at Nagano Big Hat.

‘‘I was so happy to win,’’ said Ando. ‘‘This was the biggest meet in Japan and the most nerve-wracking this season but I didn’t make any big mistakes in either the short or free program so I want to give my performance a passing grade,’’ she said.

While Asada shrugged off a lackluster Grand Prix season, coming alive with an equally dramatic performance, the 20-year-old Nagoya native fell short of Ando by 8.65 points.

‘‘I’ve gotten over a big hurdle. I thought I might be able to pull it off today. I feel more relieved than excited,’’ Asada said. ‘‘The hard work I’ve been putting in is finally paying off. I’ll keep getting stronger.’‘

Teenager Kanako Murakami, Japan’s latest 16-year-old sensation to grace the ice, placed third with 187.52.

‘‘I was able to do everything that I rehearsed in practice. I’m so happy. I finally was able to relax and perform,’’ said Murakami.

Asada under-rotated on the only triple axel she attempted but was otherwise error free.

‘‘Asada has a lot of guts. I’m amazed by her. I thought it would definitely take longer for her to get out of her slump but this is a big surprise. I feel there’s nothing to worry about with her now. She really did a great job,’’ said Asada’s coach Nobuo Sato.

Akiko Suzuki, who had also been in contention for a spot in the worlds, came out of seventh but finished just outside the medals in fourth with 175.96 points. Risa Shoji, who is just 14, made a strong showing in fifth place.

After the completion of the women’s event, the Japan Skating Federation announced that Ando, Asada and Murakami will represent the host country at the world championships in Tokyo next March, while the men’s squad consists of newly crowned national champion Takahiko Kozuka, Nobunari Oda and Daisuke Takahashi.

Asada and Takahashi are the reigning world champions.

Chipmaker Elpida in tie-up talks with Taiwanese firms

Monday 27th December, 05:51 AM JST

TOKYO —

Major Japanese semiconductor maker Elpida Memory Inc is in talks with Powerchip Technology Corp and several other Taiwan semiconductor companies on business collaboration that could include mergers and tie-ups in equity capital, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Elpida is the world’s third-largest manufacturer of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips. Economies of scale are believed to be essential in the DRAM chip market as competition is intensifying among manufacturers. If Elpida secures alliances with companies in Taiwan, it could rival South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world’s second-largest manufacturer after Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea.

Elpida President Yukio Sakamoto could visit Taiwan in January to further negotiations, the sources said.

To reduce production costs, Elpida is hoping to produce DRAMs for PCs in Taiwan, while producing high-end chips such as those for smartphones at its factory in Hiroshima, the sources said.

Stocks rebound despite China's rate hike

Monday 27th December, 03:13 PM JST

TOKYO —

Tokyo stocks rebounded Monday, as strong investor sentiment toward the year-end prompted inflows into equities, with the market largely taking in stride China’s second interest rate hike in two months. In thin trading, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average gained 76.80 points from Friday to 10,355.99. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange added 3.02 points to 904.68.

Expectations that the recent rally would continue toward the year-end and into next year gave a lift to the market, with shares of major Japanese exporters trading generally higher despite the yen’s firmness against the dollar, brokers said.

The day’s gains came on relief that Shanghai shares, closely watched after China’s weekend decision to raise interest rates to tame inflation and ensure sustainable economic growth, traded in positive territory for most of the day.

‘‘For the Japanese stock market, how Chinese stocks perform is important, but more so is how Chinese economic conditions will be,’’ said Masatoshi Sato, senior strategist at Mizuho Investors Securities Co. ‘‘We had the rate hike, but it’s not as if the Chinese economy will slow, just because of it.’‘

Shares of companies with close business links to China gained, in a sign that the market had already expected another rate hike would come sooner or later.

The dollar traded in the upper 82 yen range, and the euro stayed in the upper 108 yen zone when the stock market closed.

Sunrise Party snubs Kan's offer to join ruling coalition

Monday 27th December, 02:19 PM JST

TOKYO —

The Sunrise Party of Japan decided Monday not to be part of the ruling coalition, rebuffing a recent offer made by Prime Minister Naoto Kan in his attempt to avoid legislative gridlock, lawmakers said.

Kan, who heads the Democratic Party of Japan, has called on the minor opposition party to join the two-party coalition as he struggles to find ways to ensure the smooth passage of the fiscal 2011 budget and related bills through the regular Diet session due to begin in January.

The coalition led by the DPJ controls the House of Representatives but it does not have the two-thirds majority required to override vetoes on bills imposed by the opposition-controlled House of Councillors.

‘‘We are not considering becoming part of the coalition,’’ Takeo Hiranuma, a co-leader of the Sunrise Party, said at a news conference after a meeting of all of its six lawmakers to discuss Kan’s offer.

Kan asked Kaoru Yosano, another head of the Sunrise Party, on Nov. 18 to have a member of the opposition party take a cabinet post, and the two met again on Dec 4.

DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada also proposed that the Sunrise Party begin talks on policy adjustments, with the aim of inviting it into the coalition, when he met with Yosano and Hiranuma last Wednesday.

Yosano, who was finance minister before the DPJ’s ascent to power in 2009, was seen to be positive about playing a role in Kan’s government.

But other Sunrise Party members were reluctant to accept the offer, saying that cooperating with Kan would not make any sense given that the party was created to prevent the DPJ from staying long in power.

‘‘We decided not to discuss the matter for a while out of concern that we may create excessive expectations’’ within the DPJ, Yosano told reporters.

Okada had sounded out Hiranuma on becoming the minister in charge of dealing with North Korea over its past abductions of Japanese citizens, according to some Sunrise Party lawmakers.

The Sunrise Party was formed in the spring of 2010 by former members of the Liberal Democratic Party, the largest opposition party.

Waraimeshi comic duo wins coveted M-1 title

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Koji Nishida, left, and and Tetsuo of Waraimeshi hold their trophy.
SANKEI

Monday 27th December, 10:15 AM JST

TOKYO —

Comic duo Waraimeshi (Laughing Rice) became the last winners of the M-1 championship Sunday evening, the most coveted title for up-and-coming stand-up duos in Japan. Koji Nishida and Tetsuo, both 36, clinched the title in the 10th and final edition of the high-profile annual event for comic double acts who have been performing for 10 years or less.

‘‘As there was the M-1 championship, we were motivated to work hard. We wanted to win at any cost,’’ Koji Nishida said, referring to the pair’s delight at topping the record field of 4,835 competitors after being losing finalists for nine years in a row. Shinsuke Shimada, a mogul of the Japanese entertainment industry and the organizer of the competition, said that the popular event had ‘‘turned out many star comedians.’’