“Insect Sex Intersections” is a new episode (the seventh episode) in the series “Laugh Then Think: Japan’s Offbeat Science” broadcast by the Japanese TV network NHK. You can watch it online. The series looks closely and lovingly at some of Japan’s many Ig Nobel Prize winners. The producers summarize the new episode this way: “An […]
The Foreign Press Center of Japan [FPCJ] televised this special preview [in both Japanese and English] of the Ig Nobel Prize events, and discusses their place in Japanese Society. The FPCJ’s accompanying announcement says: The FPCJ invited Prof. Kiyoshi Furusawa, Specially Appointed Associate Professor, Science Communication Office for Liberal Arts [SCOLA], College of Science, Rikkyo […]
“One bright spot amid the gloom surrounding the state of scientific research in Japan is the fact that the nation keeps winning the Ig Nobel Prize, a parody of the Nobel Prize, whose aim is to “honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.” Japanese scientists have been among the Ig […]
Cuteness can be powerful on a national level and also internationally, according to this study: “Soft Power: ʻCute Culture’, A Persuasive Strategy in Japanese Advertising,” Oana-Maria Bîrlea, TRAMES, A Journal Of The Humanities And Social Sciences, 2023, pp. 311–324. The author [pictured here] explains: “The article addresses the ways in which soft power is used […]