In an amazing display of honor and integrity possibly extinct amongst American businesses, Toyota Motor Corp. CEO and President Akio Toyoda declined to accept an award from the Japanese Government for the Prius model’s energy efficiency. The Prius was one of 3 products selected this year to receive the Grand Prize for Energy Efficiency and Ecological Quality from Japan’s Trade Minister.
Referring to the recent voluntary recall of 437,000 Prius for possible brake problems, Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said, “We declined to accept the award because we thought it was not appropriate.” Toyota made the decision to recall the Prius amongst the recent recall of a total of 8.5 million other Toyota autos after receiving only 200 complaints total in both the U.S. and Japan of the hybrid experiencing a braking delay in very specific cold weather conditions over very bumpy roads.
It seems that every week finds a new eye-opening discovery being made in relation to monkeys and this week is no different. A study will soon be appearing in the journal Primates that discusses a macaque named Chonpe, currently residing in Japan. It is currently believed that Chonpe discovered how to floss through the natural course of grooming. Macaques are known to bite into their hair and run it through their mouths in an attempt to remove parasites. It is through this action that Chonpe may have discovered some food remnants on the hair.
The hair might have become stuck in Chonpe’s teeth, and as she drew the hairs out, “she may have noticed the presence of food remains attached to them.”
“The immediate reward of licking the food remains off the hair may have encouraged her to repeat the behavior for the same effect in the future,” he added.
Leca and colleagues Noelle Gunst and Michael Huffman noticed Chonpe’s flossing while studying a population of Japanese macaques living at the Iwatayama Monkey Park in a mountainous region at the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan. Although the monkeys at the park are free to roam, he said they are provisioned with food several times a day and may therefore have more “free time on their hands.”
Chonpe apparently used her time wisely, as she devised three different ways of flossing, Leca said.
I guess the film is called Grotesque for good reason, as it is simply too gross for British audiences, according to the government’s British Board of Film Classification. Hence, it has been banned.
Here is the trailer for Grotesque. It looks like Saw, but with the typical Japanese over-the-topness.
According to BBFC director David Cooke, Grotesque presented “little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism”.
Its “unacceptable content”, he added, meant cuts were “not a viable option”.
The distributors of Grotesque had hoped to receive an 18 certificate for the film, which includes scenes involving amputation and eye-gouging.
“The chief pleasure on offer seems to be in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake,” said Mr Cooke.
Its “minimal narrative or character development,” he continued, set it apart from such other “torture-themed” works as the Saw and Hostel movie series.
Muscle March is being developed in Japan for Wii Ware. Once you start viewing the trailer, it will become all too obvious that Muscle March is a Japanese game. It exudes strangeness. What is it? Tough call, but judging from the trailer I’d say it’s Track & Field, as interpreted by Timothy Leary, the guru of LSD.
