Twentythree

Giving them a gold medal for it would probably be rude.

Most people are probably aware of the precious metals gold, silver, and platinum, but in fact there are eight in the world which are considered worth of the title “precious” because of their rarity, brilliance, and practical use. The other five are palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, and osmium.

The properties of these metals are often enhanced by creating alloys, in which they are mixed with other metals or substances to create materials like white gold and sterling silver.

But now, a team of researchers at Kyoto University have made an alloy that no one has ever accomplished in human history by combining all eight precious metals into a single alloy.

▼ A lot of people just kind of gave up on that and started using precious metals as food toppings instead.

It’s a extremely difficult task, and comparable to attempting to mix water, oil, yogurt, tabasco sauce, orange juice, vodka, maple syrup, grape Kool-Aid, and green tea in to a unified substance. You might be able to get a couple of those ingredients to mix, but not all of them at once.

To accomplish this unprecedented alloy, the researchers created a solution with ions of all eight metals in equal measure and added them to a reducing agent at a temperature of 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit). The reducing agent donates the necessary electrons for the different ions to bond and the alloy can be successfully made.

That is of course way easier said than done, and something that humankind has dreamed of but been unable to do in the past 5,000 years since the Bronze Age began. Needless to say, readers of the news in Japan were quite jazzed about it.

“Does this mean we can finally make a Gundam?”
“This could mean a Nobel Prize!”
“Wow! A real chogokin (super alloy)!”
“Is this alchemy?”
“Time to make a legendary sword!”
“Is it the gundarium alloy?”
“What color will it be if you mix them all together? I want to see it!”

Unfortunately there isn’t much to see at the moment. The successful experiment has yielded an amount only measurable in nano-meters which is around the scale of DNA strands. However, with the technique they developed, the team says that mass production of this alloy is possible with the right funding.

That’s great because even though the feat itself is impressive, it also has the potential for life-changing applications. Up until now, platinum has been the go-to catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells, but in 2020 this team discovered that an alloy of platinum and five precious metals was twice as efficient. Now, the eight-metal alloy showed a 10-fold increase in catalytic activity in hydrogen fuel cells.

This was also achieved only when making an alloy of the eight metals in equal amount. By adjusting the relative quantities in different ways, an even more efficient catalyst could be found to help power hydrogen fuel cells, making their widespread use more of a realistic alternative to current energy sources.

And if we can do that, then maybe we finally can get that Gundam we’ve always wanted.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun, My Game News Flash
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: ©SoraNews24
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Light up the darkness with a little love from your idol. 

In Japan, “penlights” are glowsticks commonly used by otaku, who take them along to live performances, where they wave them about in the audience as they perform coordinated movements in sync with their beloved performers on stage.

After the concert, these penlights become a fond memory of a good time well spent, so they’re usually stored at home with other related memorabilia in preparation for the next big event. As they come in a wide variety of colours and designs, it’s easy to amass a large number of them, though, and that’s what’s happened to our Japanese-language reporter and resident manga artist Udonko.

She and her sister currently have 11 penlights kicking about the house in total, and ever since Udonko has been opting out of attending concerts due to the pandemic, she’s been thinking about ways she might be able to use them in everyday life.

So one night, when she was cleaning out the drawers she gathered all the penlights together and decided to find out how good they would be at lighting the darkness of her house in the event of a blackout.

Udonko is a fan of Musical: Touken Ranbu, a series of stage musicals based on the online browser game Touken Ranbu, and so her penlights are adorned with branding from the series.

Her sister, on the other hand, is a big fan of the popular four-member Japanese male vocal unit Urashimasakatasen, so her penlights are branded with their logos and the names of the members.

All these penlights have done a great job of lighting up the hearts of Udonko and her sister during live performances, so in the unnerving event of a blackout they would be able to provide a sense of comfort too.

So she flicked the switches off in her house to mimic a blackout, and because she lives in the countryside, her house became jet-black.

Using penlights in a blackout is something that’s caused a bit of a buzz online recently, as people shared photos of the glow sticks lighting up the darkness after a recent earthquake in Japan caused widespread blackouts.

The penlights she saw in these viral posts seemed to create enough of a glow to rival an emergency torch, but would the effect work as well in Udonko’s house? She turned each one on, one by one, and…

▼ …ta daaaa!

Udonko felt the same butterflies of excitement begin to stir in her belly as they do before a live show, only this time there was nobody around except for her and her sister.

▼ The penlights shone brightly, producing so much light that it cast shadows on the curtains.

During a previous penlight experiment, Udonko had discovered that the light of a penlight could be seen from a distance of 200 metres (656 feet). However, this was her first time experimenting with multiple penlights together, and even she was surprised at how much light they produced.

With all 11 penlights on, it became bright enough to work in the room. Of course, the light wasn’t as bright as a lantern or a standing lamp, but Udonko could clearly see everything around her, and she’d be happy to read or write by penlight if there were no other light sources available.

So how many penlights would you need in the event of a blackout? Well, 11 was a bit overkill, even by Udonko’s penlight-loving standards, so she flicked each one off one by one, until there was a solitary penlight lighting up the darkness.

As you can see from the image above, you only need one penlight to help guide the way in a blackout. The result may have been a no-brainer to some, but Udonko never leaves things to chance, and through her experiment, she discovered that you actually need to make sure the penlight you use is a bright-coloured plain one, as some of her more decorative penlights failed to cast enough of a light to get by in the jet-black darkness.

So next time you find yourself in the dark without a torch, you can always reach for a penlight instead. That’s enough justification for Udonko to stock up on more of these stick lights, and she might even use them for a spot of at-home wotagei dancing too.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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”They’re all pretty good!” was NOT our taste-tester’s verdict this time.

If you’ve been following our series “Which Japanese conveyor belt sushi chain has the best [whatever our taste-tester P.K. Sanjun wants to eat that day] sushi?”, you know by now that even when one restaurant is the best, that doesn’t mean the others are bad. This is Japan, after all. Restaurants that serve bad-tasting sushi across the board don’t last very long, let alone become chains, because it’s never a very long walk to a restaurant that does serve good sushi.

So when P.K. makes the rounds to compare a single type of sushi at Kappa Sushi, Kura Sushi, Sushiro, and Hama Sushi on a single day, he usually finds they’re all pretty good in their own ways. Today, though, things are different.

Today P.K. is taste-testing negitoro, minced fatty tuna with green onion, and he’s got some strong opinions about which chain’s are worth ordering and which he’d say “nope” to a second plate of. Each restaurant prices its negitoro exactly the same, at 110 yen (US$0.89) for two pieces, so today’s contest is all about the eating experience, with no economic advantages for any contender over another.

▼ Clockwise from top left: Kappa Sushi, Kura Sushi, Sushiro, and Hama Sushi, all of which P.K. visited on the same day within a span of three hours for this taste test.

A few linguistics appetizers before we start: negitoro (meaning “green onion and fatty tuna”) is also sometimes called negimaguro (“green onion tuna”) or magurotataki (“minced tuna”). Also, negitoro/negimaguro/magurotataki sushi is usually served gunkan (“battleship”) style, in squat, oval pieces with a seaweed wrapping.

And now, let’s turn things over to P.K.!

● Kappa Sushi Negitoro

“To be blunt, this doesn’t feel like I’m eating tuna at all. I mean, I know it’s tuna, but texture-wise it’s an oily paste. If you’re into that sort of thing, you might say ‘It’s smooth and rich,’ but for me, personally, it felt like something that got squeezed out of a tube.”

● Kura Sushi Negimaguro

“It pains me to say it, but this isn’t much better than Kappa Sushi’s. Yeah, the fat is flavorful, which is usually a good thing, but it feels unnaturally rich. If I was still a constantly hungry little kid, I could probably devour a bunch of this stuff, but as a regular-appetite adult I don’t think I could handle a second plate. Oh, and this one’s texture also felt more like paste than fish.”

● Sushiro Gunkan Negimaguro

“Now this feels like proper minced tuna. It’s got that great mix of lean tuna umami and fatty tuna umami, and just the right amount of little firm pieces of fish for a great texture. Sushiro always puts their pride on the line in offering top-quality tuna for a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, and they’ve done that again here.”

● Hama Sushi Magurotataki Gunkan

“There’s no pastiness here, unlike the Kappa and Kura Sushi negitoro. Like Sushiro, Hama Sushi’s negitoro lets you enjoy both the fatty and lean flavors of the tuna. I especially liked the seaweed, which had a great aroma, and the moment when you bite through it and get to the tuna inside was wonderfully delicious.”

While P.K. slips into his food coma to quietly digest, we’ll slide into the evaluation and note that he’s particularly particular about the texture of his negitoro. If you, like P.K., aren’t into liquidy smooth negitoro, you might want to keep your eye out for restaurants that call theirs “magurotataki.” While it’s not a hard-and-fast rule, marketing-wise “magurotataki” is often used to refer to negitoro with slightly larger chunks of fish in the mix, as was the case with Hama Sushi’s Magurotataki Gunkan.

Oh, hey, it looks like P.K. is waking up, so let’s ask him which of the four was his favorite, though that’s really down to Sushiro vs. Hama Sushi.

“If I had to pick just one, I’d go with Sushiro. But Hama Sushi’s is really good too, so I’ve got no problem saying ‘Sushiro and Hama Sushi both have good negitoro.’”

Of course, there’s more than just negitoro on the menu at these four chains, so P.K. isn’t saying you should never eat at Kappa or Kura, especially if you’re also planning to eat some yellowtail, salmon, or ikura too.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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If you’ve got space for all of the Eevee-lutions in your heart, but not a lot of space to show them off in your home, this is the solution.

Because Pokémon can evolve into stronger forms, a lot of fans don’t have just one favorite Pocket Monster. A species’ lower-tier evolutions are usually the most charmingly cute, but the heightened combat capabilities of their more evolved versions make them stalwart allies in the toughest battles, earning all stops along the evolution scale their own special place in an aspiring Pokémon Master’s heart.

Still, showing your love for a species’ whole evolution line isn’t too hard, since most Pokémon are only able to evolve one or two times. There’s a very big exception, though, with Eevee.

▼ An array of Eevee evolutions

Even though Normal-type Pokémon only has two evolution tiers, it doesn’t have an evolution path so much as an evolution tree, with eight different ways it can evolve, each with its own name, appearance, and elemental properties. Of course, since they’re all variations on Eevee’s baseline design, odds are if you like one of them you’ll like them all, but nine different Pokémon is a lot to account for if you’re decorating your room with plushies or posters.

But Japanese Twitter user @pokeyugami has imagined a clever and compact way to make room in your home for all the Eevee-lutions.

これはイーブイたちのネオン看板！#Pokemon pic.twitter.com/lFSgLHVfxr

— ポケモン時空の歪み研究員 (@pokeyugami) March 24, 2022

At first glance, it’s just a neon Eevee, with a tangle of black tubing behind it. Then Eevee blinks away and, after a momentary flicker, is replaced by Vaporeon, Eevee’s Water-type evolution!

From there, the neon goes through the rest of the Eevee evolutions, in the order that they made their debuts in the video game franchise: Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, Umbreon, Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon.

Currently, this is just a CG concept prepared by @pokeyugami. However, the 3-D rendering proves that it could be done, given sufficient amounts of neon tubing and electrical engineering skill, and Twitter commenters have reacted with:

“I would buy this in a heartbeat if it were for sale.”
“Just moved into a new apartment, and I would love to hang this on my wall.”
“I want this so bad…”
“I could watch this all day.”

Out of the nine Eevee forms in @pokeyugami’s video, the biggest crowd pleaser has been the cleverly captured likeness of Umbreon.

“I love how you incorporated the unlit parts of the tubing into Umbreon.”
“It looks so cool how it’s cloaked in darkness.”
“So awesome how it makes the yellow parts really pop!”
“Didn’t expect to run into so many Umbreon fans.”

Now that everyone can see how awesome this would look, here’s hoping it’s only a matter of time until someone runs with the idea and makes an actual neon Eevee-lution sign. And for those who’re looking for a way to display their otaku goods without so many bright lights, if you enlist the help of a few other Pokémon you could get enough to make an awesome clock, sort of like what this Dragon Quest-loving father and son did in their house.

Source: Twitter/@pokeyugami via IT Media
Top image: Twitter/@pokeyugami
Insert images: SoraNews24, Twitter/@pokeyugami
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All you need is a vase and some water to bring sakura season to your living space.

The sakura have started blooming in the Tokyo area, and like any unabashed Japanophile, I’m excited. There’s something that’s limiting my cherry blossom cheer this year, though.

The weather has been lousy.

Since the sakura started to open, it’s been pretty much nothing but cold, overcast weather, with all those pretty pink petals backed by slate-gray skies, if not straight-up rain clouds. This is an especially big problem because once they reach full bloom, cherry blossoms only stay on their branches for a few days before starting to fall en masse, and there’s no guarantee you’ll catch a day with good weather before the sakura are all gone for another year.

But you know where it’s never cloudy or rainy? Inside your house or apartment, and it turns out there’s a way to enjoy at-home cherry blossom viewing with real sakura, even if you’ve got zero gardening skills.

Walking by a branch of Aoyama Flower Market (a Japanese florist chain), I spotted what looked like little bundles of twigs.

But take a closer look at the sign, and you’ll see that it says “bouquet” in English, because these are sakura bouquets!

“Wait a second,” you might be thinking. “How can they be bouquets if they don’t have flowers?”

That’s the cool part: they just don’t have flowers yet. Take the bundle of branches home, put them in water, and after enough time passes, their cherry blossoms will bloom, indoors and without any soil.

The specific type of cherry blossom for this bouquet is called keio-zakura. The bouquet is compact enough to fit into even the most modestly sized Japanese apartment, and at just 1,100 yen (US$8.90), it’s impulse-buy-friendly.

It doesn’t require any special pot or complicated care. Just put the branches in a vase and change its water once a day (the florist also gave me a small packet of complimentary one-time-use plant food to pour into the water after the flowers bloom). You should see the buds start to open within three or four days, and have full-bloom flowers in somewhere around seven to 10 days.

▼ Sakura bouquet + Daiso vase = At-home hanami cherry-blossom viewing for just 1,200 yen

The exact amount of time it takes for the flowers to bloom depends on how warm the room is, but the florist recommended keeping the vase near the entryway, which tends to be one of the cooler places in an apartment.

If you try to force the sakura to bloom earlier by, say, sticking them under your heater, you’ll shorten the amount of time between the flowers opening and falling, giving yourself a much shorter time to actually admire the cherry blossoms. It’s best to let them do things at their own pace, since if you’re lucky, you can enjoy keio-zakura for up to a month after they bloom.

Another advantage of keeping the flowers in your entryway is that unless you can see your front door from your bed, every morning when you wake up you get a nice little surprise as you see how much closer the sakura have come to blooming.

Tokyo is supposed to get a brief reprieve from the gloomy weather on Saturday, but the clouds are coming back on Sunday, with rain forecast the day after. That’s right about the time my sakura should be reaching full bloom, though, so even if it pours, it’s not going to dampen my hanami spirits.

Photos: ©SoraNews24
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Now you can wear your love of classical art on your chest with The Birth of Venus panties and bra!

Japanese lingerie brand Peach John is often coming out with cute underwear. Sometimes it’s anime-themed, like the Gundam lingerie that came out earlier this year, and sometimes it’s more traditional in design. But would you have ever expected them to take a classical work of art like Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and put it on a bra and panties?

Well, they did! Meet the Peach John Boticelli Green lingerie.

Featuring one of the most famous Italian Renaissance paintings, this lingerie is almost like a work of classical art all on its own. The main images of the painting are depicted on the bra (4,378 yen/US$36.06) over a base of sea green to represent the spring ocean depicted in the painting, so there’s no mistaking the inspiration behind this unique lingerie set.

On the left cup is Venus herself, standing on her scallop shell with her hand to her chest and holding her golden hair, flanked by one of her attendants holding a cloak for her. On the right is the wind god Zephyr holding a young woman as they blow Venus to shore.

They’re meticulously embroidered on to the cups of the bra, giving it quite a luxurious feel. The lacey border on the cups and the decorative straps give the embroideries the feel of being in a frame, and the lightly translucent back strap is equal parts sexy and pretty.

It’s not only beautiful but also functional, as it has an L-shaped wire supporting the cup as well as removable padding inside the cups, providing a nice lift and great support. It’s available in a range of sizes, from B to F cup, with underbust sizes available in 65, 70, and 75.

The matching panties have the same blue base color and are printed with a scattering of the roses that blow around Zephyr and his companion, making for a more subtle connection to The Birth of Venus. With their lacey frills, they have a delicate, fleeting femininity that you (or your partner) may not be able to resist. They come in a bikini and a thong (1,628 yen each), depending on your preferences. The bikini is available in small, medium, and large, while the thong is available in an S/M size and a M/L size.

These pieces are part of the Peach John line of lingerie called “Kyosho no Bra”, or “Master’s Bras”, which include lingerie embroidered with other famous works of art like Monet, Alphonse Mucha, Pieter Bruegel, Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, and even Hokusai. We’re looking forward to finding out what work of art they’re going to recreate next!

You can purchase both the bra and the panties (in the style or your choice) from Peach John’s online shop. If you’re an art fan, you won’t want to miss the chance to wear this classic painting!

Source, images: PR Times
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When is a door not a door?

A few years ago a fairly strong earthquake rocked the area I lived in. Luckily, damage was relatively limited, but it certainly was an intense few minutes. During that moment, while I was rounding up the kids into a safe part of the room, I was surprised to see that the first thing my wife did was immediately rush towards the front door and open it.

Not being nearly as experienced in earthquakes I had no idea why at the time, but after she explained that strong tremors have a tendency to warp the frames of doors, making them impossible to open and trapping the people inside. That could be a worst case scenario, but even if people were swift enough on the uptake to open their door during a quake, the warping might still leave it impossible to close and lock properly, causing a whole other set of security issues.

It’s a big problem, but one that Shin Nihon Entrance in Tokyo has developed an elegant solution for. Tasukaru Door (“Lifesaver Door”) is quite simply a door within a door.

To put it less simply, the door within a door is actually a taishin door (seismic door) which has features to make it less likely to become jammed when deformation occurs. If you look closely at the pictures and video, the inner door has more space between the edges and its frame. This means that in the event that the door bends, the frame is less likely to make contact with the edge of the door and prevent it from moving. The extra clearance between the inner door and its frame is then covered by a flat lip that runs along all sides on the outer and inner surfaces.

▼ That might be a little hard to visualize, so here’s a rough diagram

Image: ©SoraNews24

In addition, what’s the point of having an emergency escape door if you can’t enjoy it every once in a while too? That’s why Tasukaru Door has the added benefit of safely opening with a screen cover to let some fresh air in and rescue us from not only earthquake damage, but the sweltering summer heat.

▼ This could be you!

Image: YouTube/株式会社新日本エントランス

It’s a pretty solid idea all around, and as a result Shin Nihon Entrance has been receiving requests for Tasukaru Door to be installed in 290 condominiums in Saitama Prefecture alone since it was first released in February of 2021. So, everyone in condos and apartments should keep their eyes out for these double-door designs, because they may become the norm before too long, and help save a lot of lives in the process.

Source: Shin Nihon Entrance, PR Times
Top image: PR Times
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