A research team led by Teruyuki Hirano of Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has validated 15 exoplanets orbiting red dwarf systems. One of the brightest red dwarfs, K2-155 that is around 200 light years away from Earth, has three transiting super-Earths. Of those three super-Earths, the outermost planet, K2-155d, with a radius 1.6 times that of Earth, could be within the host star's habitable zone.

Japan has again been forced to confront its work culture after labour inspectors ruled that the death of a 31-year-old journalist at the country’s public broadcaster, NHK, had been caused by overwork. Miwa Sado, who worked at the broadcaster’s headquarters in Tokyo, logged 159 hours of overtime and took only two days off in the month leading up to her death from heart failure in July 2013.

When a massive earthquake struck in 2011, Japanese oyster fisherman Atsushi Fujita was working as usual by the sea. Soon after, a huge black wave slammed into his city and killed nearly 2,000 people.

Japanese design meets produce.

A flashing, howling robot that protects crops from wild animals is going into mass production. By Tae-jun Kang, Alistair Coleman.

With its poppy history of battling with fellow sugar-giant PepsiCo, Coca-Cola has given us a lot of things. In its illustrious past spanning a century and a quarter, the beverage mammoth has finally gone and done it — it's finally coming out with a drink with alcohol in it!

The cryptocurrency mine launched by Japanese IT firm GMO Internet has generated more than $3 million in revenue over the past three months. According to a mining report released on March 5, the publicly-traded company disclosed that it had generated 23 BTC, 93 BTC and 124 BTC in December, January and February, respectively. All told, those coins are worth approximately $2.67 million as of press time according to CoinDesk's Bitcoin Price Index.

A volcano in southern Japan that appeared in a James Bond film had its biggest eruption in years Tuesday, shooting smoke and ash thousands of meters (feet) into the sky and grounding dozens of flights at a nearby airport, officials said. The Meteorological Agency said the Shinmoedake volcano on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu erupted violently several times, and some lava was rising inside a crater.

Last year, we cast the spotlight on a young girl setting Japan's junior motorsport series on edge: Juju Noda. She's the daughter of Hideki Noda, a driver with two decades of international racing experience, and a motorsport academy in his name. Juju has been quoted expressing a drive to be the first woman to win a Grand Prix in Formula 1, and if her racing so far is anything to go by, she may even have the X-factor needed to fulfill her ambitions.

One stubborn doctor pioneered a cure.

Say hello to Macrobiotus shonaicus, a completely new species of tardigrade—those incredibly resilient microscopic wee beasties that likely have what it takes to survive the apocalypse.

Japan is taking steps to help aging business owners find buyers for their companies rather than shut them down for lack of suitable successors. By doing so, it seeks to protect jobs and economic value as the population ages and shrinks. The country has 2.45 million small and midsize businesses run by those at or over the average retirement age of 70, roughly half of which are without successors. An even larger number are run by those aged 65 to 69. Around 28,000 businesses closed their doors in 2017, according to Tokyo Shoko Research -- a 30% increase in 10 years.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics organising committee has confirmed that 87% of the plywood panels used to build its new national stadium come from southeast Asian rainforests. But the timber cannot be traced back to its original source under the committees’s certification protocols, which have been censured by campaigners for a lack of due diligence.

Monster Hunter: World is getting a huge official guidebook that boasts 1,008 pages, full of all the info any Hunter could ask for, and it is releasing next month in Japan.

An American tourist is being questioned by Japanese police after a woman's severed head was found in a holiday flat he was renting in Osaka. Police believe the head, which was found in a suitcase, belongs to a Japanese woman who was last seen on CCTV footage walking with the suspect. The woman, 27, had apparently told friends she was going to see an American she had met on an app. The suspect has allegedly denied any connection with the case.

Known for their massive losses of cryptocurrency, Japan has now nearly scuttled the world of virtual finance by injecting 20 trillion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin into the financial system. Only one month after the mysterious crash of the Japanese exchange, Coincheck, which saw losses estimated around half a billion

As the worst flu season in a decade rages on, a potentially groundbreaking new drug that can kill the flu virus in just one day has won regulatory approval—in Japan. Japanese officials granted an accelerated approval to the treatment, Xofluza from pharmaceutical maker Shionogi, last week. It could soon prove to be a significant competitor to Swiss drug giant Roche’s Tamiflu, one of the most common antivirals used to treat the flu. But it could also take until at least 2019 for Xofluza to reach the U.S. market.

Japanese engineering researchers say they have created a tiny electronic light the size of a firefly which rides waves of ultrasound, and could eventually figure in applications ranging from moving displays to projection mapping.

Crime in Japan is dropping amid the longest economic expansion in almost three decades, making one of the safest nations even safer. The number of recorded crimes fell to 915,042 last year, the lowest level in the postwar era, according to data released by the National Police Agency earlier this month. That came as the nation’s economy had its longest run of sustained growth in almost 30 years, which drove the unemployment rate down to 2.8 percent.

A cryptocurrency exchange in Japan reportedly experienced a temporary glitch last week that suddenly offered investors their pick of coins for the low, low price of zero dollars. Several customers took advantage of the opportunity, but one really ran with it.