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Tokyo University’s Wildlife Research Center has discovered that a group of monkeys living on Awaji Island are more laid-back than all other monkeys in Japan.  The cause of this, they claim, is a gene that dictates our gentleness.

Researchers put an ample supply of monkey bait within an 8 meter circle marked out on the group and then observed the monkeys.  Of the monkey population on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture a whopping 180 monkeys came out to enjoy the treats inside the circle together with minimal conflict. Read More

[Breakthrough] A Cursive Lower Case Y Looks Just Like Lupin III

Hot on the heels of the latest Higgs boson development, leading graphologists are in a frenzy to confirm a new hypothesis set forth by one Twitterer: A cursive English letter y bears a striking resemblance to anime’s favorite criminal Lupin III when you add little eyes, a nose and an ear.

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Was KFC’s Great Chicken Give-Away a Success? Depends on How You Look at It

This past Fourth of July, while Kentucky Fried Chicken was celebrating Independence Day in the US, KFC Japan was busy commemorating the anniversary of the fried chicken chain’s entrance into the Japanese market.

On this day they held a one-day all-you-can-eat sale where customers could get 45 minutes of non-stop chicken for 1,200 yen.  A very generous deal but how much did KFC stand to lose on such an offer, or did they lose?  Let’s crunch the numbers and see.

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Sony is releasing a new product, their HF Series cassette tapes. There will be 10, 60, and 90-minute versions and prices are expected to range from around 100 to 230 yen for individual tapes, though they’ll also be available in 10-packs. Possibly in consideration for its target clientele (hint: not the young), Sony has made the printed font big, as well as made the labels and index sheets easy to write in big letters. As could be expected, the netizen response to this unveiling has been colorful … Read More


  • Jul 6, 2012

“Little Green Man” to Appear at Tokyo Disney Sea – But Not in Humanoid Form

According to a post on the official Tokyo Disney Resort Blog, “Little Green Man” will be making an appearance at Tokyo Disney Sea starting July 5th. So, does this mean that the theme park will be overrun by aliens? No, but it does mean that there will be some tasty new snacks available at Disney Sea, and you’ll love them if you’re a fan of the Toy Story series. Read More

We Check Into the Cheapest Hotel in Japan, US$6 a Night

Located near the center of Osaka City is an area called Kamagasaki which was once known to be a gathering place for day laborers.  Now, it’s a rather charming place where street cars run that kind of takes you back half a century.  On the other hand, beneath the surface runs some violent energy as this area is often ground zero for riots and other acts of civil disobedience.

It’s here that I went in search of the cheapest hotel in Japan, The Kimiya, where it is said one could spend the night for a mere 500 yen (US$6).

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  • Jul 4, 2012

That’s the Power of Music – It Really Does Bring Joy to the World!!

A delightful surprise performance that recently took place in Spain has been receiving acclaim from around the world on the internet, and we thought we’d share the feel-good story with you. It’s all captured in a video clip titled “Som Sabadell flashmob” and it begins when a girl drops a coin in a musician’s hat on May 19, 2012, in the city of Sabadell, Spain. But what follows is no ordinary musical performance. Everyone who happened to be there was in for a real treat!

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Tomato Juice Fad Dead at 6 months

We had a lot of fun here at RocketNews informing you of the tomato juice diet fad earlier this year, followed by the shocking announcement of tomato juice preventing drunkenness.

Despite my own personal hatred for this beverage that tastes like vomit chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes, it was good to see people get into this otherwise healthy drink.

Sadly, it looks as if this fad has run its course, based on the latest tomato juice based research sponsored by juice maker Kagome.  Coroners have estimated the time of death for the fad to be 9:20pm on July 2nd.

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  • Jul 4, 2012

Pile It On! Beef Rice Bowls May be Japan’s Favorite Rice Bowl Dish, But This Pork Bowl Certainly Offers a Tasty and Voluminous Alternative

Okay, it’s a fact that the Japanese love “gyu-don“— braised beef and onions on rice, sometimes topped with a raw egg. All over Japan, you can find a gyudon shop on almost every street. But what if you’re in a mood for something other than a beef rice bowl? Well, we’ve found a shop that offers an excellent alternative, “buta-don“, or pork on rice. And we’re not talking about just any regular buta-don. At this shop, you can order an extra-large buta-don that really piles the pork on – so much, in fact, that you can barely see the bowl beneath all the pork! Read More

There’s a Camel that Drinks Coca-Cola? RocketNews24 is There!

Tunisia as we recently discovered by their beautiful can designs, seems to be a loadstone of Coca-Cola related paranormal activity.  For now our intrepid reporter has found a camel renowned for its love of Coke.  It chugs the stuff down in one swig!

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Smarter, Better, Faster, Stronger: Roachbot 2.0

The hottest toy of 2012, Roachbot, was released earlier this year amid great fanfare with its eerie resemblance everyone’s favorite kitchen guest, the cockroach.  But as Japan enters the middle of cockroach season, we find ourselves casting aside our robotic roaches to play with the real ones.

Sensing this, Japan Trust Technologies have given it a severe amping up, including support for the iPhone and iPad.

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One Man’s Junk Food is Another Monsieur’s Gourmet

There’s this new potsticker (aka gyza, aka dumpling) restaurant that opened in Paris, that people are actually lining up to get into. We wondered what all the fuss was about, so we went there to check it out ourselves. Read More

Take the “Public” Out of Public Bathing and Make a Natural Hot Spring in the Comfort of Your Own Home

One of Japan’s greatest features is its many natural hot springs called onsens. Thanks to its highly volcanic location, Japan’s countryside is dotted with resorts welcoming tourists all year round.

For some foreigners visiting or living in Japan, public bathing isn’t a very appealing recreation.  Reasons for this include tattoos which are considered verboten in many onsens, and the fact that foreigners tend to stick out like a sore thumb and might draw uncomfortable stares while bathing.

Now there’s another way to enjoy the relaxing and curative properties of a natural hot spring in the comfort of your own bathroom.  If you want to know how, then give our easy manual “How to Set Up an Onsen in Your Own Home” a quick read.

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Mankind Dealt Further Blow As Robot Which Never Loses at Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Developed

Rock-Paper-Scissors, the longstanding arbitrator of riding shotgun or eating the last slice of pizza has been celebrated for hundreds of years for its simple yet elegant balance of psychology and chance.

It’s such a part of the human experience that a robot could never out match the human mind in the RPS arena.  Until now that is, as Engineers from the University of Tokyo decided to stick their noses in and build a robot that never ever loses at Rock-Paper-Scissors – ever! So how does it do it?

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A Couple of Train Stations Create Their Own Cutie Gods in an Effort to Boost Tourism

Sadly with Japan’s many recent economic woes, visitation to the remote stations of Kofuku and Aikoku has been low.  So in an effort to drum up some visitors, the local communities did what anyone would do in this situation.  They made some gods.

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  • Jun 29, 2012

Treat Yourself to this Japanese Delicacy if You Dare – Ovaries From a Poisonous Fish!

You may think it’s crazy to voluntarily eat poisonous fish, but in the case of pufferfish, or “fugu” in Japanese, it’s something the Japanese have been doing for a long time. We understand how the idea of eating a potentially deadly poisonous fish could be off-putting to some, but most Japanese people wouldn’t think twice about going to a restaurant and having pufferfish; in fact most of us would welcome it as a treat, as a full-course fugu meal usually doesn’t come cheap. Well, this time, we have a story from one of the reporters at the Pouch website about an unusual way to have pufferfish, and this is definitely a recipe you won’t be able to recreate at home! Read More

Maybe, along with the drive to to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before, we also want to explore our minds and consciousness. And maybe inevitably that sometimes comes out to be inventing new ways to mess with our own heads. And so, the eggheads at Riken Research have developed the “Substitutional Reality System“. Read More

Omiya Station’s Platform 8 Becomes the Scene for a Rare Mass Influx of Train Enthusiasts, Things Get Ugly

23 June, 2012, marked the 30th anniversary of the Tohoku Shinkansen Line. Its original first stop, Omiya Station, acted as a lightning rod for Japanese railfans called toritetsu (lit. Photographers of Iron). A normally peaceful trainspotter, when packed into small spaces the toritetsu can become noisy and obnoxious to those around it.

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New Glasses Designed Exclusively for Hackers

Glasses maker JINS have announced that on 2 July they will sell a limited release of 1,500 pairs of their confusingly named JINS PC for Hackers, which are glasses tailored to meet the needs of hackers.

JINS makes it clear on their website that they are referring to hackers in the traditional sense of someone with a lot of experience and skill using computers and networks, rather than the criminal sense often used in the media.

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No Escape! Fuji-Q Highland’s New Unforgiving Maze

This July 28, Fuji-Q will open the doors to its new attraction, “Fortress of No Hope”. They say they’re aiming for a 0% success rate of escape from the walk-through maze building. Guests will contend (presumably enjoyably) with innumerable doors, halls, and rooms, all under a time limit. In addition, you progress through levels of increasing difficulty, with more and more hidden clues and invisible doors. Read More

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