science – Page 17 – Kiyoshi Kurokawa.com

Seize the Opportunity, Time for Big Change. But Where are Leaders?

Posted on 2009/05/182014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

Situation of Japan is not good at all. Of course, same can be said for the rest of the world. Everybody is trying to make changes and searching for future perspectives of politics, industry, economy, education, etc.

As for the national vision as I see it, I have been sending out messages again and again from the start of the New Year. On the April 25 issue of Diamond Weekly Magazine(in Japanese only) an article based on interview with me was published under the title of "Let Japan go and sell clean energy technologies to China & India ! "(the article is in Japanese only). Here, as always, people give countless reasons why they cannot change, why they cannot do. In politics, industries, or whatever, I urge the leaders to straighten up.

Mr. Hatoyama was elected the President of the Democratic Party. How will the politics move?

In Japan, people are talking mostly about the revised budget which is almost "dumping" of public resources, and this is greatly affecting the political situation. It appears to be "scattering money" to vested interest groups, "lucky dips" by Ministries and Departments. No one is drawing visions for the future nor seizing this rare chance for a drastic change. I can even hear irresponsible big laughter of some people.

Same thing for science and technology policies. A mega budget of 300 billion yen( 3.1 billion dollars) was appropriated like a bolt from the blue. But for what and how? Please watch carefully. It is of a very different kind compared to the science and technology policies of President Obama.

A nation not investing to young generation has no future. It is very important to let young people see and experience the broad world outside so to prepare them for the global age. Young people are precisely "the" asset of the nation in the future.

From Toronto-2

Posted on 2009/05/152014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

It’s Saturday, May 2nd and the "swine flu" news are all over the place. In the afternoon, I went to the University of Toronto again, this time to the Massey College. The College is located just on the opposite side of yesterday’s Munk Center. I went to see my old friend, Dr. John Dirks who is in charge of the Gairdner award. It’s been 5 years since we met last time. Dr. Arimoto joined us from Washington DC where he was participating in the AAAS meeting. We spent approximately 1 hour in an old fashioned, elegant, somewhat small library of the College.

As I have reported in this blog, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the award two Japanese scientists-Drs. Yamanaka and Mori-were awarded so I went to pay a courtesy visit. I also heard about the awarding ceremony that will take place in October as well as various events being planned in celebration of the anniversary.

After this, I had an opportunity to see Prof. Jun Nogami. Dr. Nogami is the leading scientist of Canada Nanotech, nano-materials and I met him at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo this February when he was visiting Japan with Nanotech research promotion inspection party of Canada.

Photo1: At the Massey College with Drs. Dirks and Arimoto.

Photo2: With Drs. Nogami and Sunami.

Then, discussion with Dr. Peter Singer (Ref. 1, 2) on common topics including the agenda of next year’s G8 summit to be hosted by Canada.

In the evening, Prof. Ito Peng, her friend, Drs Arimoto, Sunami and I enjoyed nice dinner at "Sotto Sotto". The dessert was of course "Ice Wine." I was told that Japanese are the best customers.

Washington-3: From the World Bank

Posted on 2009/05/112014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

I did a lecture at the World Bank in January 2008 (Ref. 1, 2 ) and right after that we co-organized a Global Health Summit in Tokyo in February 2008. I believe that these activities were very helpful in building strong mutual trust and understanding. During my visit to Washington DC, from the morning of April 30, schedule was arranged for me to discuss about science and technology policy with special focus on African development for 4 hours.

In Japan, through 2008 TICAD4 (Ref. 1, 2 ) and meetings related to G8 Summit, policies are made to reinforce African development and eventually develop "Science and Technology diplomacy" (I have been advocating this for many years・・・) the movement which is prominent also in academies of Japan, U.S., and other countries where they are together working to build a system of mutual cooperation

What role is the Science and Technology policy of the World Bank capable to play to address the global issues of today’s drastically changing world is a great challenge. It was a good opportunity to advertise Japan’s policies since Japanese delegates had just returned from their tour on Science and Technology in Africa and their findings were reported at a conference in Tokyo recently. JBIC (Japan Bank for International Cooperation) and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) also participated from Japan and contributed to making the discussion lively. It was well received.

Photo1: At the World Bank with Secretary Ueda of the Embassy of Japan.

Below are some of the scenes from the Science, Technology and Innovation Capacity Building Partnership Meeting at the World Bank .

Photo2: Breakfast

Photo3: Drs Nina Fedoroff （Ref. 1）and Peter McPherson

Photo4: Dr. Alfred Watkins (Ref. 1） of the World Bank and Dr. Andrew Reynolds of UNAID

Photo5: From left; Drs Victor Hwang （T2 Venture Capitaｌ）, Christian Delvoie, Phillip Griffiths

Expectations of the world is high for Japan and indeed Japan is capable in making large contributions in many different ways but it seems to me that current domestic climate is somewhat sadly introverted. For current crisis, it is crucial for the political leaders to catch this opportunity of "once in 100 years" disaster to show national vision that shows strong determination to change reluctant Japan to meet today’s global needs. If not, the cool-headed world would treat Japan accordingly; as a nation not-worth-taking-seriously, and no international negotiations or top diplomacy would make meaningful differences whatsoever (by Funabashi, Editor in Chief). How much are we, although still economically the 2nd largest, communicating to the world our will, determination, and policies and how seriously does the world take them? I regret to say that "Japan Missing" is the world’s feeling towards our nation.

President Obama’s speech and science & technology policies

Posted on 2009/04/302014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

I am now in Washington DC. In the evening of 27th, the night before my departure, I saw and heard in Tokyo via internet the speech of President Obama on Science and Technology Policies given at the National Academy of Sciences annual meeting. President Obama is the fourth president to address the National Academy and it has been 20 years since the last. You are able to see, hear, and read the transcript of the speech at this website. It is a strong message with clear vision for the future that has great content and wonderful structure.

President Obama set a goal of investing 3% of the nation’s GDP to R/D of Science and Technology. Also, as the most important policy for the future, he showed a clear commitment to education in math and science through raise of budget with quite a concrete description on how this will be done. These policies are based on recommendations from independent "think tanks" such as National Academy so their objectivity is trustworthy and evidence is clear. Budgets were set to carry out these policies. Such process is important.

In today’s economic crises, a "clear message for the future," i.e., clear vision and commitment for the future, is very important.

For the large scale supplementary budget or new budget of Japan during this economic crisis, I would recommend 1) budget for the care of current bleeding 2) budget to create jobs for the next 2-3 years, and support social infrastructures such as social securities, health care, etc. (in short, provide a sense of being safe), and 3) more investments on new industries and their growth that can draw picture of the future society – i.e. basic research providing the "bud" for the possible new industries and education – (although I don’t think it pays to invest in current education system expecting it to provide good education for students of the global age. In the first place, Japan’s budget for teachers is too small when compared to other OECD nations・・・) and so on. Policies made by ministries and governmental offices are not enough to make changes. Take a look at recommendations that were given by experts to the Prime Minister at the Kantei (residence of the prime minister). See for yourself how much those recommendations (in Japanese only) have the viewpoint of "1, 2, and 3" as I have described above. Apparently everybody is trying hard. My recommendation is also uploaded in the section of "low carbon and environment."

The leadership and message of policy makers have power to encourage so many citizens, but・・・.

The “out of the box” Grand Challenges of the Gates Foundation

Posted on 2009/04/242014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

There is no room for argument that "peer review" is indispensable for application of research and evaluation of research papers. However, "Innovation" as I put it is "Creation of new social values" and they are more likely to rise from new ideas or "unreasonable," "out of box" type people or "nails that stick out." Therefore it can be said that "By definition, peer review is not compatible with innovation."

Peer reviews are necessary to guarantee the quality of research through evaluationar of methods or ideas, but by its nature it is inevitable that their thinking will be constrained within the framework of "the common sense of that age."

Activities of the Gates Foundation in the field of global health are already well known throughout, but another new program "Grand Challenges Explorations" launched two years ago. The program recruits bold unorthodox "out of box" plans and ideas from all over the world. Applicants must write a bold suggestion in two pages. If approved, they will win 100 thousand dollars’ grants. If the project produces a good looking outcome there is a possibility that the fund will be increased and continued.

Variety of amazingly fun and interesting ideas and research proposals are being selected. Three were selected from Japan. Among them was(were) research application(s) that were rejected by NIH – the grant known as highly competitive – for being too bold. Naturally!

The deadline for this round is May 29th. Why not visit the site above and think about applying?

Similar kind of competitive research funds are being set up in Great Britain etc. within these few years. Canon foundation also joined this movement and I am gladly helping them.

But how do we select? Here is another place where we can be imaginative. This is innovation, too.

Gairdner Award – Dr. Yamanaka, Dr. Mori and their wonderful predecessors

Posted on 2009/04/172014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

There are awards given in recognition of outstanding achievements in academic research. Variety of awards in the field of medicine or bioscience also exist, but I would count Gairdner Award, Lasker Award, and Nobel Prize as the most distinguished of them.

The Nobel Prize was founded in the dawn of the 20th century, 1901, and is well known throughout the world. Announcement of the recipients in October every year creates big news that are covered in full by mass media. It can be said that the list of award winners represent the history and progress of 100 years of science from the end of 19th century throughout the 20th century. Last year four Japanese (I will leave it to each one of you to ponder on the definition of "Japanese".), Drs. Nanbu, Kobayashi, Masukawa, and Shimomura were awarded this prize in the field of natural science and it was a big topic that allowed us to restore confidence in ourselves.

Lasker Award was founded in 1945. Its main awards are clinical medical research awards and basic medical research awards. Basic medical research awards were given to Hidesaburo Hanafusa in 1982, Susumu Tonegawa in 1987, Yasutomi Nishizuka in 1989, and Yoshio Masui in 1998. Clinical medical research award was given to Akira Endo in 2008. Among those recipients, Dr. Nishizuka and Dr. Endo were the only persons whose work in Japan were recognized as the major basis for the prize.

Gairdner Awards is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. This year two scientist from Kyoto University – Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Mori – won the prize. Dr. Yamanaka is famous in and out of Japan for his research on “iPS”, but the work of Dr. Mori is also wonderful though it is not as conspicuous.

As you can see from the article in Asahi Shinbun (2009/4/10), the winner of Gairdner Awards in Japan are – besides Tonegawa, Masui, and Nishizuka who are also Lasker Award winners – Kiminari Ishizuka, his spouse Teruko Ishizaka, and Seiji Ogawa. Dr. Nishizuka and the two (Yamanaka and Mori) of this year are the only people who was awarded basically for their research in Japan.

It looks as though both Lasker Award and Gairdner Award are sensitive about how many Nobel Prize winners will emerge from their award recipients. There also seems to be subtle difference in criteria of selections so it would be interesting to imagine what kind of arguments have taken place at the occasions. Especially, a number of discussions appeared in Nature etc. on why Dr. Masui was not included in the 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

The only Japanese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine is Dr. Tonegawa for the time being, but I look forward to see more winners in the future.

Dr. Seiji Ogawa is the only Japanese appearing on the list of 125 scientists who has contributed to the progress of science in the history of mankind. The list is in the "in binding" (if you by any chance find this on the web, please let me know…) of July 1st edition of 125th anniversary issues of "Science". He discovered fMRA theory which is now widely used in the research of human brain functions.

Tahiti-3 (Captain Cook、Battleship Baunty、Lighthouse of Stevenson)

Posted on 2009/03/222014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Photo1

Tahiti is famous for Paul Gaugin (1848-1903) (Ref.1) but is well known for Captain Cook (1728-1779) also.

The three great voyages of Cook are without doubt extraordinary. He sailed to Tahiti in 1769 by the request from Royal Society to observe ‘Transit of Venus across the Sun’.

By the way, as you may be familiar from movies etc., in 1788 (nine years after Cook), Battleship Bounty known for “Mutiny on the Bounty” arrived at this very same place. A monument is built in memory of the Bounty (Photo2).

Photo2: Monument of Bounty landing

Lighthouse in Photos3~5 also stands at this place. This was built by the famous company “Lighthouse Stevenson” (founded by Robert Stevenson, 1772-1850), 100 years later in 1867 (first year of Meiji era).

Photo3: The lighthouse

Photo4

Photo5: Entrance of the lighthouse

I found a very interesting thing as I looked close to this lighthouse. It is shown in the photo on the top, an enlarged picture of something seen in the left part of photo5. In my next posting I will write about it. It is about the “Story of coincidence in history ? in relation to the Meiji Restoration.”

At about the same time, i.e. the early period of Meiji era, several lighthouses were build in Japan and major ones were designed by Richard Branton who was trained at “Lighthouse Stevenson.”

Tahiti-2

Posted on 2009/03/172014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Tahiti (Ref.1) is a place anyone would dream of visiting once in a lifetime, it’s image is a beautiful resort far off in the Pacific Ocean. Bora Bora Island in the Tahiti island chain is especially a popular destination for honeymooners.

This is a follow up of my last blog and I feel very lucky to have an opportunity to come to this place as an attendee of Pacific Science Association, a distinguished academic conference that has a history of 90 years.

Since I may not have so many chances to come back, it would be a waste if I didn’t enjoy the nature at least a little, like swimming in the coral sea or canoeing.

So, I made some time to drive around the Tahiti Island. I also drove to the foot of Mont Orohena （2,241m） stands high in the center of the island. Further in the heart of the mountain, there is a hotel called Le Relais de la Maroto Mountain Hotel and "marae" which is a sacred place for the local people where they do open air rituals for the local god (Ref.1).

I also went to the Gauguin museum (although I wasn’t able to go inside), enjoyed canoeing, and snorkeling in a small island far off.

Dr. Ichida said that there are not so many butterflies or birds here and the species are few.

But the blue sea, blue sky, white sand and green trees are fantastic and I recommend you to come here by all means.

I have uploaded some photos in Picasa for you to enjoy.

Tahiti-1

Posted on 2009/03/072014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Photo1

For the first time, I came toTahiti, a southern island far away from Japan. It was an 11 hours’ non-stop flight by Air Tahiti Nui from Narita. The Narita ? Tahiti Island(Papeete) flight flies twice every week.

I am visiting here to attend the Inter-Congress of Pacific Science Association. At the venue, they even had a large tent set up at the beach(Photo1), which was very nice in atmosphere. You could see Moorea Island, an island often used for movie location because of its very Tahitian view, was right before your eyes. The Congress was held last time at Okinawa two years ago as I have written before.

Photo2: Moorea Island

Since Tahiti is a part of French Polynesia the French government also strongly supported the conference and the number of attendee reached up to 800 people. Many of the speeches given on the opening day sounded very patriotic, maybe a bit too much, at least from my point of view.

Photo3: Opening Session

There were so many topics connected to Pacific Ocean such as climate change, coral reefs, wild life diversities, human society v.s. nature preservation, etc. and I think it was what characterized this Pacific Science Association Inter-Congress.

Dr. Ichida, who is an expert on bird watching from the BirdLife International and Professor Isao Nakajima, Director of eHealth, ITU, also came and they each delivered wonderful speech on relations between avian influenza and migratory birds, and the feasibility of observation of the birds.

Photo4: With Dr. Ichida

Photo5: Dr. Nakajima at lecture

At night, receptions were held by different hosts every day. The first night was co-hosted by the Chairman of this meeting, President of French Polynesia, and High Commissioner. The second night was hosted by PSA and President of French Polynesia, and the last night was a farewell party hosted by PSA with performance of charming Tahitian and Polynesian dances.

I have uploaded some photos on Picasa for you to enjoy.

Embassy of Canada and France

Posted on 2009/02/252014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

On the 18th, a reception to welcome Dr. Arthur Carty, former Science & Technology advisor to the cabinet and his Nanotech team of about 6 people was held at the Embassy of Canada. We all enjoyed a very lively time. His Excellency Ambassador Fried, who was appointed to the Ambassador to Japan last September was also present so I had the honor to talk to him on various topics, such as the "Young Woman Scientists Exchange Program" between Japan and Canada, which I started 5 years ago as President of the Science Council of Japan to commemorate the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It was a great opportunity to meet old friends and get acquainted with new people.

19th was a dinner at the Embassy of France with Dr. Nathalie KOSCIUSKO-MORIZET, Minister of Forward Planning, Assessment of Public Policies and Development of the Digital Economy. So I was involved in conversation of mixed languages of English and French for two days, but unfortunately, I don’t speak French at all.

Photo1: From right, Minister Kosciusko-Morizet, His Excellency the Ambassador Philippe Faure, myself, Minister of French Embassy Dr Jean-Louis Armand, in charge of science and technology.

Photo2: Minister Kosciusko-Morizet and myself

By the way, the photographer of these photos has a good taste, don’t you think? His blog is great, too.

The Minister has her blog ( 1 , 2 ) to dispatch information, comments, etc. which is very impressive. She commented on us in the blog also.

This day, there was also a reception for the gathering held in honor of Dr. Gozo Sato. I will report to you in detail soon in a separate posting, but Dr. Sato is a physician who has contributed tremendously in the history of the Modern Medical Education of Japan and Korea. The meeting was planned to learn about his works and to think on how to extend his will to the future generation of the two countries. I had the honor to greet all participants. I look forward to coming days.