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Dragon Ball Creator Akira Toriyama’s Newest Work Released… to Japanese Environmental Groups

Dragon Ball Creator Akira Toriyama’s Newest Work Released… to Japanese Environmental Groups

Since the end of Dragon Ball’s massively successful series, creator Akira Toriyama has been putting out a fairly steady flow of one-shots, the most recent of which being 2010’s Kintoki.

Now, Toriyama’s newest work titled Lord Wu of Delicious Island (Oishi Shima No Wu Sama) is available for limited release.

How limited?  Well, your best chance is to become a primary school student participating in an environmental study group in Anjo, Aichi Prefecture.

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A Lost Renoir? River in China Looks Like an Oil Painting

A Lost Renoir? River in China Looks Like an Oil Painting

With its saturated colors, a picture of a lake in China’s Anhui Province looks like a painting that could have been done by the French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. No Photoshop trickery here though, the above image is an actual photograph of the lake. But how did it get this way?
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Artificial Nature: Is China Really Spray Painting Its Grass Greener?

Artificial Nature: Is China Really Spray Painting Its Grass Greener?

Along with some of the most worrying and bizarre images we’ve seen this week so far, rumour has begun circulating online that the grass is some parts of China is being sprayed with green dye to make it appear more lush and verdant.

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Beijing Smog Makes the City Look Like Another World — You Know, the Uninhabitable Kind

Beijing Smog Makes the City Look Like Another World — You Know, the Uninhabitable Kind

If you can look past the devastating damage it causes to your respiratory system, air pollution in Beijing has become so dense that it actually makes the Chinese capitol look like something from a fantasy or science fiction world.

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Measure Asia’s Air Pollution with a Map Based on the Length of Your Nasal Hair!

Measure Asia’s Air Pollution with a Map Based on the Length of Your Nasal Hair!

In recent years along with many other developing Asian nations, China has been increasing its level of industrial manufacturing as it readies itself for remarkable industrial growth. However, neglecting its environment for the sake of industry has brought with it the problem of dense smog pollution, with microscopic smog particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less having been detected in overwhelming large amounts in China’s air in recent days.

The smog is the same as that found in factory exhausts, car fumes and the like. Measured per cubic meter, at one instance the observed value of pollution in Beijing reached levels 10 times the Chinese government’s recommended safety level. If one were to go by the Wealth Health Organization (WHO)’s recommended value, the figure rises to 40 times greater than normal. When it comes to pollution, it is thought that of the asian nations undergoing remarkable growth, 70% of nations are reaching a critical level. The toxic substances that seep out into the environment cause asthma, pneumonia and even in some cases death.

Of course, those living in highly polluted areas will surely want to know how their air compares, but measuring the levels each time can prove tiresome and expensive. With this in mind, one innovative company called Clean Air Asia has stumbled upon a way determine just how polluted your air is, and has designed an interactive map based on – wait for it – nostil hair.

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Chinese Air Pollution Expected to Cross Over to Western Japan

Chinese Air Pollution Expected to Cross Over to Western Japan

For days now Beijing has been suffering from a prolonged spell of the worst air pollution in the city’s history, a crisis so bad that it has been dubbed the “airpocalypse”.

The air has been classified as hazardous to human health and has already sent countless people to the hospital for respiratory ailments. The city is blanketed in a thick grey fog that is said to smell of coal and sting the eyes, leading officials to close highways, force the cancellation of flights and outdoor activities, and warn people in affected areas to remain indoors.

According to a researcher at Kyushu University, China’s giant toxic cloud of pollution is now expected to cross over to western Japan sometime later today.

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Amazing New Garbage Bags Just Made Cleaning Up Your Town Cool (No, Really)

Amazing New Garbage Bags Just Made Cleaning Up Your Town Cool (No, Really)

As much as it might sound like a speech that one of those creepy, smile-flashing, tracksuit-wearing guest speakers might have given at your school when you were a kid, it genuinely is cool to be seen cleaning up your town in Japan right now.

In a joint venture between Garbage Bag Artwork and Columbia Sportswear Japan, a range of artistically-designed garbage bags has been launched, along with a swanky new website that aims to encourage both local groups and handsome folks like you and me to get out and clean up our towns. Read More

New Source of Rubber: Dandelions?!

New Source of Rubber: Dandelions?!

You might think natural rubber only comes from rubber trees, but that’s not the case! Bridgestone announced that it has been able to get viable, useable, tire-grade rubber from Russian Dandelions! Bridgestone is part of a collaborative research group that has been trying to find alternative sources of rubber, with Bridgestone focusing specifically on Russian dandelions. The collaboration is named Program for Excellence in Natural Rubber Alternatives, and aims to find alternative sustainable and renewable sources of rubber. PENRA is based at the Ohio State University’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. They discovered that they can extract rubber from the fleshy roots of Russian Dandelion.

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