SK Engineering & Construction has won a large-scale petrochemical plant project in Thailand. The company said on August 29 that it clinched a deal worth US$210 million to build polyol plant within the Hemaraj industrial zone in Thailand's Rayong. This followed news that the company signed a $1.6-billion project to modernize an oil refinery in Iran earlier this month. The plant, located 150 kilometers southeast of Thailand's capital Bangkok, is commissioned jointly by PTT Global Chemical, ...

(MENAFN - Gulf Times) Japan's ruthless animated hitman has become the latest victim of the coronavirus, as the nation's longest-running manga comic an... ......

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's legacy depends on how he addresses the challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will Japan end up in the group of countries that is on the way to successfully containing the virus or in the group that experiences ...

The coronavirus crisis has exposed grave vulnerabilities in the nation's medical services.

The U.S.-Japan relationship is going to come through this pandemic even stronger than before.

From exotic animals to spectacles and chandeliers, Michael Laver’s “The Dutch East India Company in Early Modern Japan” shows how well-placed gifts were essential in ...

For the first time ever, Japan's national broadcaster, NHK, will show a condensed version of its famous year-long period drama in English.

The Fukuoka group has released its first major-label mini-album, and is firmly looking forward.

Shinichiro Ueda reunites the cast of his hit comedy "One Cut of the Dead" for an innovative teleworking sequel

As celebrities reveal details about their charitable giving during the COVID-19 pandemic, some feel it could be the start of a new attitude to donating ...

Since tea cultivation began around 800 years ago in what’s now Shizuoka Prefecture, it has been renowned as Japan’s largest tea-producing region. Benefitea repackages the ...

Japan is blessed with a growing number of artisan bakeries around the city that can fill that pain de campagne-sized hole in our diets.

Since most Japanese apartments are compact, it’s more important than ever to maximize storage space. The Japan Times talked to three experts about how to ...

One thing that's clear about the coronavirus pandemic is that if even one person is left behind, it could prove disastrous to us all.

With the West now taking another look at widespread use of face masks to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, it's worth noting another ...

Have you wondered what it's like to get tested for COVID-19 in Japan? With little Japanese, Joe Oliver learned the hard way after being sent ...

The current coronavirus pandemic has caused school closures around the world. While some have been able to make the jump to digital ways of learning, ...

Some customers are returning to restaurants, bars and other shops in night entertainment districts that resumed operations.

Overtime pay, a barometer of strength in corporate activity, also fell at a record pace in March, data showed.

Parents are being encouraged to monitor and set time limits for children's online and gaming activity as many schools remain shuttered.

Assistance includes returning a portion of students' tuition fees and giving cash for equipment and living expenses.

Small firms whose income has been halved by the contagion can get ¥2 million and independent businesspeople can get ¥1 million.

Japan will launch its first space operations unit within the Air Self-Defense Force on May 18 to monitor threats to Japanese satellites in outer space, ...

Despite legislative attempts to persuade mild and asymptomatic patients to isolate in hotels, most cooperating facilities are nearly empty.

While it is unclear what kind of chase it was, the Japan Coast Guard ordered the vessels to leave and deployed a ship to guard ...

A sea change in shopping habits amid the new coronavirus outbreak could impact marketing and distribution across the country for years to come.

Anyone with four days of mild cold symptoms is now being encouraged to consult a public health center about getting tested.

Japan said it deployed patrols and issued warnings to a group of Chinese coastguard vessels spotted pursuing a Japanese fishing boat in the hotly contested waters of the East China Sea on Friday.The Japan Coast Guard said on Saturday that four Chinese coastguard vessels entered waters close to the Diaoyu Islands – a group of uninhabited islands controlled by Tokyo and known locally as known as Senkaku – at about 4pm.The face-off took place about 50 minutes later, when two of the Chinese vessels…

Japanese exotic dancer Aya Yumiko has been living off her savings since March as she waits for the bars and clubs in Tokyo where she performs in burlesque shows to reopen.But a decision by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week to extend a state of emergency to tackle the coronavirus pandemic until the end of May means Yumiko could use up her last reserves of cash before she can get back to work.“I had enough saved up to last me for two or three months,” said the 40-year-old dancer, who performs…

Japan has fast-tracked the approval of the anti-viral drug remdesivir to be used to treat COVID-19 patients in that country.Speaking to reporters Friday in Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga confirmed the rare fast-track, four-day approval of remdesivir by the Ministry of Health,...

TOKYO: Japan on Thursday approved Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19, making it the country’s first officially authorised drug to tackle the coronavirus disease.

Japan reached the decision just three days after the US drugmaker filed for fast-track approval for the treatment.

“There has so far been no coronavirus medicine available here so it is a significant step for us to approve this drug,” a Japanese health ministry official said at a press briefing. Remdesivir will be given to patients with severe Covid-19 symptoms, he added.

With no other approved treatments for Covid-19, interest in the drug is growing around the world. Administered by intravenous infusion, it was granted authorisation last week by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Gilead says the drug has improved outcomes for people suffering from the respiratory disease and has provided data suggesting it works better when given in the early stages of infection.

Japan, with just over 16,000 infections and under 800 deaths, has recorded fewer cases than other major industrialised nations.

However, a steady rise in cases has put pressure on medical facilities in some parts of the country, and a drug that helps patients recover more quickly could help in freeing up hospital beds.

A trial performed by the US Institutes of Health (NIH) showed the drug cut hospital stays by 31 per cent compared with a placebo treatment, although it did not significantly improve survival.

On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe extended a month-long state of emergency until the end of May in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Japan as yet does not know when it will get its first doses of remdesivir or how much, the health ministry official said.

Gilead on Tuesday said it was in discussion with several companies, including generic drugmakers in India and Pakistan to produce remdesivir in large quantities.

Remdesivir, which previously failed as a treatment for Ebola, is designed to disable the ability by which some viruses make copies of themselves inside infected cells.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2020

It's unlikely they will murder you, but they pose a serious threat to apiaries.

ADB has provided several targeted interventions to support its developing member countries in combating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic from its early stages. In support of ADB’s effort, the Government of Japan is...

East Asia is setting the pace for the recent trend in regional and interregional integration, which is associated with multilateral infrastructure connectivity initiatives.

East Asia is setting the pace for the recent trend in regional and interregional integration, which is associated with multilateral infrastructure connectivity initiatives.

Palo Alto, CA – Aha™ by HARMAN today announced that the new 2014 Mazda3 to be launched in Japan, the United States, and a number of additional North American and Asian Countries this fall will offer access to the Aha free service with the ability to select presets from more than 40,000* audio and information stations from Japan and other countries.

Japan's time-honoured ritual of exchanging business cards face-to-face is under pressure as the government promotes a "new lifestyle" to combat the coronavirus.

Central Japan Railways says its magnetically levitating train has broken its previous world speed record in a test-run at a special track West of Tokyo. Rob Muir reports.

Robots welcome guests at the check-in counter, carry baggage and operate a locker room at a Japanese amusement park hotel. Sharon Reich reports

A small increase in water temperature near a Japanese nuclear power plant allowed tropical fish to colonise the area, suggesting global warming will drastically alter some marine ecosystems

Title: Japan Quake Shows How Stress Alters the Brain
Category: Health News
Created: 4/29/2014 12:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 4/30/2014 12:00:00 AM

ABSTRACT

Recent outbreaks of yellow fever virus (YFV) in West Africa and Brazil resulted in rapid depletion of global vaccine emergency stockpiles and raised concerns about being unprepared against future YFV epidemics. Here we report that a live attenuated virus similar to the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) vaccine JE-CVax/Imojev that consists of YFV-17D vaccine from which the structural (prM/E) genes have been replaced with those of the JEV SA14-14-2 vaccine strain confers full protection in mice against lethal YFV challenge. In contrast to the YFV-17D-mediated protection against YFV, this protection is not mediated by neutralizing antibodies but correlates with YFV-specific nonneutralizing antibodies and T cell responses against cell-associated YFV NS1 and other YFV nonstructural (NS) proteins. Our findings reveal the potential of YFV NS proteins to mediate protection and demonstrate that chimeric flavivirus vaccines, such as Imojev, could confer protection against two flaviviruses. This dual protection may have implications for the possible off-label use of JE-CVax in case of emergency and vaccine shortage during YFV outbreaks. In addition, populations in Asia that have been vaccinated with Imojev may already be protected against YFV should outbreaks ever occur on that continent, as several countries/regions in the Asia-Pacific are vulnerable to international spread of the YFV.

IMPORTANCE Efficient and safe vaccines against yellow fever (e.g., YFV-17D) that provide long-lasting protection by rapidly inducing neutralizing antibody responses exist. However, the vaccine supply cannot cope with an increasing demand posed by urban outbreaks in recent years. Here we report that JE-CVax/Imojev, a YFV-17D-based chimeric Japanese encephalitis vaccine, also efficiently protects against YFV infection in mice. In case of shortage of the YFV vaccine during yellow fever outbreaks, (off-label) use of JE-CVax/Imojev may be considered. Moreover, wider use of JE-CVax/Imojev in Asia may lower the risk of the much-feared YFV spillover to the continent. More generally, chimeric vaccines that combine surface antigens and replication machineries of two distinct flaviviruses may be considered dual vaccines for the latter pathogen without induction of surface-specific antibodies. Following this rationale, novel flavivirus vaccines that do not hold a risk for antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of infection (inherent to current dengue vaccines and dengue vaccine candidates) could be designed.

We characterized 29 bla_CTX-M-27-harboring plasmids of Escherichia coli sequence type 131 (ST131) sublineage C1/H30R isolates from healthy individuals and long-term-care facility (LTCF) residents. Most (27/29) plasmids were of the FIA, FIB, and FII multireplicon type with the same plasmid multilocus sequence typing (pMLST). Several plasmids (7/23) from LTCF residents harbored only bla_CTX-M-27 as the resistance gene; however, their fundamental structures were very similar to those of previously isolated bla_CTX-M-27/F1:A2:B20 plasmids, suggesting their prevalence as a newly arising public health concern.

Whether for maintenance or augmentation, robots that can use tools on themselves are more independent and capable