レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

The pet of choice in Japan, as much as cuddly kitties and playful puppies, is the humble bug. The bug has been a key part of Japanese culture from the Heian era classic The Tale of Genji to popular modern-day manga and animation like Mushishi, featuring insect-like supernatural creatures.

Japanese people appreciate the glitter of fireflies let loose in the garden or the gentle chirping of crickets kept in a little cage. You can feed the bug pets watermelon, but special jelly pet food for bugs is also available at stores. Naturally, bugs are for sale as well, with the more esoteric ones selling for 20,000 yen ($133).

The bug as companion is an essential part of what's observed, enjoyed and cared for in everyday life, reflecting a deeply rooted celebration of humankind's oneness with nature.

They are so tiny. If you catch and study them, you're sure to discover something new, says Munetoshi Maruyama, professor of bioenvironmental sciences at Kyushu University, whose fascination with bugs began as a child, like many Japanese.

They are so beautiful in shape and form.

One thrill that comes from studying insects is discovering a new species, simply because there are more than 1.2 million known kinds of insects, far more than mammals, which translates to a lot of undiscovered ones, said Maruyama, who has discovered 250 new insect species himself and shrugs that off as a relatively small number.

Japan differs from much of the West in encouraging interaction with bugs from childhood, with lots of books written for children, as well as classes and tours.

In Japan, kids love bugs. You can even buy a net at a convenience store, he said. It's fantastic that bugs can serve as a doorway to science.

The love affair with bugs was clear at an exhibit in Tokyo, aptly called The Great Insect Exhibition, which ran through the end of last month at the Tokyo Skytree Town, where crowds of children gathered around trees inside indoor cages so they could observe and touch the various beetles.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Whether it serves as a chill escape from the onslaught of the real world or simply a way to beat vacation doldrums, a viral Roblox game about gardening has become the surprise hit of the summer.

Grow a Garden, created by a 16-year-old in a few days, has shattered records for the most concurrent players of any game in history, beating out video games that take years and millions of dollars to develop.

Grow a Garden is as simple as its name suggests—players can fill a plot of land with plants and animals, harvest and sell, trade or steal each other's bounty. The game is low stress, with an aesthetic reminiscent of Minecraft and a soundtrack of soothing classical tunes such as Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca” playing in the background.

Its popularity has further cemented Roblox’s place not just in the gaming world but in popular culture—for better or for worse, it’s where the kids hang out.

“The word I keep hearing used over and over to describe this particular game is that it’s chill, which is just such a nice alternative. I get a lot of sort of that Animal Crossing vibe from it. You know, like you can check in, you can check your gardens, you can get some new seeds, you can plant them,” said Betsy Bozdech, editorial director at the nonprofit Common Sense Media.

“I have an 11-year-old son who (plays it) and he says to him the big difference is that a lot of games have a big giant objective that you have to do, but in Grow a Garden, you can just kind of hang out and do what you want,” Bozdech said.

Coincidence or not, Grow a Garden soared to popularity around the same time that Take-Two Interactive announced it would delay the launch of its wildly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 until next year.

In late June, the gardening game logged 21.6 million concurrent players, surpassing Fortnite’s previous record of 15.2 million according to Roblox. Analysts who follow Roblox’s stock say Grow a Garden is helping boost the company’s revenue and will push the company’s quarterly earnings numbers above Wall Street’s expectations.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A high-tech district in the Chinese capital opened an all-service robot store on August 8 to push a national drive to develop humanoid robots.

From plucking boxes off a pharmacy shelf to serving drinks from behind a bar, robots at the government-run facility showcase how far humanoid robot development has come—and how far it has to go.

The goal is to help robotics companies commercialize what has been largely a research-focused endeavor to date. China has produced eye-catching shows of two-legged robots dancing in sync, but can they be put to practical use?

With the mass production of humanoid robots, we believe that both enterprises and customers will face pain points, said Wang Yifan, the director of the Robot Mall in Beijing E-Town, about 40 minutes southeast of downtown by car.

Many of the companies have no experience in sales and marketing, and there are few opportunities to display their products, he told a pack of journalists at a media preview.

The four-story facility is dubbed a 4S store, meaning sales, service, spare parts and surveys—or collecting and analyzing customer feedback. It is the first such store in China, though other cities are building them too, Wang said.

Besides those performing tasks, the robots on display include ones that play soccer or Chinese chess, as well as historical figures from scientists Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton to Li Bai, considered one of China's greatest poets.

Robots, showing perhaps a humanlike tendency, are not infallible.

One was designed to recognize and separate trash from dishware returned by customers at a cafe. Its hand picked up a coffee cup and swung to one side, but then held the blue-green mug in the air, not putting it down on a tray. A worker intervened to reset the software.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

“I have been receiving medical bills my whole life,” said Leroy Brown, a 61-year-old part-time worker at a local nonprofit in Indianapolis that helps people in prison.

Brown said he was diagnosed with diabetes in 1997, a condition that requires regular doctor visits. He also underwent knee surgery after a workplace accident.

These medical conditions have left him with a debt of $40,000, which is the amount not covered by his health insurance.

About 41 percent of American adults have some form of medical debt, according to a 2022 survey, the most recent healthcare debt research conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a nonprofit organization focused on health policy.

“Medical debt is fundamentally different from other kinds of consumer debt because it’s debt that consumers don’t choose,” said Helen Colby, an Indiana University professor who researches consumer financial and health decision-making.

In early January, the Biden administration introduced a federal rule barring medical debt from being included in credit reports. But on July 11, a federal judge in Texas struck down the rule, saying it exceeded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s authority.

Colby said the inclusion of medical debt in credit reports will make it more difficult for people to find apartments, buy cars, and get jobs.

Brown said he retired from a 30-year career in hospital transportation and now receives disability benefits. With the help of a lawyer, he filed for bankruptcy last month because the debt had become unmanageable.

“I am tired, and I’m getting older,” he said. “I don’t need anything at this age stressing me out.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Australia’s cocoa industry is poised for significant growth, driven by rising demand for high-quality, locally made chocolate. With global supplies under pressure, producers in Queensland are aiming to seize the opportunity to fill a gap in the market.

Australian-grown cocoa beans are at the heart of the country’s premium chocolate industry, and demand for them is the highest it’s ever been.

“I’ve actually got a waiting list of people wanting to buy Australian cocoa beans, and we just don’t have enough to supply them,” says cocoa farmer Chris Jahnke.

Since the drop in cocoa supply, prices have increased sharply and made Australian-produced chocolate more competitively priced than ever.

“We have the demand, and that’s not just in Australia, we do get inquiries from overseas now that we’re becoming a bit more well-known,” says Jahnke.

Cultivated solely in far north Queensland, Australian cocoa production usually caters to a niche, boutique local market. Now, farmers are quickly expanding their plantations by planting more trees.

“We just don’t have enough beans, it’s as simple as that. So, we’re furiously trying to do the things that are necessary to expand,” says Jahnke.

In Europe, a new trade deal scheduled to take effect later this year may boost demand for Australian-grown cocoa even more.

“Effectively, the outline of the agreement is that any cocoa or other commodities which have come from deforested land after 2020 will effectively not be allowed to be imported into the European blocs,” explains Rabobank analyst Paul Joules.

And that will put Australian cacao in a very advantageous position.

“Deforestation to grow cocoa in Australia doesn’t happen, so right from the get-go, we’ve got a significant advantage in the compliance, especially into the European market,” concludes Jahnke.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Many rural school districts have begun offering college-level courses and working to remove academic and financial obstacles to higher education, with some success. But college doesn't hold the same appeal for students in rural areas, where they often would need to travel farther for school, parents have less college experience themselves, and some of the loudest political voices are skeptical of the need for higher education.

College enrollment for rural students has remained largely flat in recent years, despite the district-level efforts and stepped-up recruitment by many universities. About 55 percent of rural U.S. high school students who graduated in 2023 enrolled in college, according to National Student Clearinghouse Research Center data. That's compared to 64 percent of suburban graduates and 59 percent of urban graduates.

College can make a huge difference in earning potential. An American man with a bachelor’s degree earns an estimated $900,000 more over his lifetime than a peer with a high school diploma, research by the Social Security Administration has found. For women, the difference is about $630,000.

A lack of a college degree is no obstacle to opportunity in places such as Wyoming County, where people like to say there are more cows than people. The dairy farms, potato fields and maple sugar houses are sources of identity and jobs for the county just east of Buffalo.

Around the country, many students feel jaded by the high costs of college tuition. And Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value of college, polls have shown.

In upstate New York, high school junior Devon Wells grew up on his family farm in Perry, but doesn't see his future there. He's considering a career as a welder or as an electrical line worker in South Carolina, where he heard the pay might be double what he would make at home. None of his plans requires college, he said.

“I grew up on a farm, so that’s all hands-on work. That’s really all I know and would want to do,” Devon said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The best of the internet’s cat videos came to the big screen earlier this month. CatVideoFest is a 73-minute, G-rated selection of all things feline—silly, cuddly, sentimental and comedic—that’s playing in more than 500 independent theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

A portion of ticket proceeds benefits cat-focused charities, shelters and animal welfare organizations. Since 2019, it’s raised over $1 million.

The videos are curated by Will Braden, the Seattle-based creator of the comedically existential shorts, Henri, le Chat Noir. His business cards read: “I watch cat videos.” And it’s not a joke or an exaggeration. Braden watches thousands of hours of internet videos to make the annual compilation.

“I want to show how broad the idea of a cat video can be, so there’s animated things, music videos, little mini documentaries,” Braden said. “It isn’t all just what I call ‘America’s Funniest Home Cat Videos.’ It’s not all cats falling into a bathtub. That would get exhausting.”

Now in its eighth year, CatVideoFest is bigger than ever, with a global presence that’s already extended to the UK and Denmark, and, for the first time, to France, Spain, Japan and Brazil. Last year, the screenings made over $1 million at the box office.

In the early days, it was a bit of a process trying to convince independent movie theaters to program CatVideoFest. But Braden and indie distributor Oscilloscope Laboratories have found that one year is all it takes to get past that hurdle.

“Everywhere that does it wants to do it again,” Braden said.

Current theatrical partners include Alamo Drafthouse, IFC Center, Nitehawk, Vidiots, Laemmle and Music Box. The screenings attract all varieties of audiences, from kids and cat ladies to hipsters and grandparents and everyone in between.

“It’s one of the only things, maybe besides a Pixar movie or Taylor Swift concert, that just appeals to everybody,” Braden said.

And the plan is to keep going.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Fireflies are lighting up summer evenings across the U.S. Northeast, putting on dazzling shows in backyards and city parks. There's no official count, but experts say a particularly wet spring may have created the ideal conditions for young fireflies to grow into adults to set summer nights aglow.

Fireflies light the night everywhere: There are over 2,000 known species across the globe. They use their characteristic flashes to communicate and find the perfect mate.

In New York City, the lightning bugs are out in the five boroughs, sparkling once the sun goes down in places like Central Park and Prospect Park. The summer months are ideal to spot them as they start to dwindle throughout the month of August.

While northeastern nights may seem brighter this summer, the bugs are still on the decline, and they're waning at a faster rate than ever before. It would be a mistake to say firefly populations are high this year; therefore, there's no decline, said Matt Schlesinger with the New York Natural Heritage Program, who is part of an effort to count fireflies in state parks.

Some firefly species could be doing well this year, Schlesinger said, while others are still on the decline.

Habitat loss, pesticide use, and light pollution are responsible. In cities, blaring lights from billboards, cars and storefronts can drown out the bugs' glow, making it harder for them to find their kin and pass their genes onto the next generation.

Fireflies are part of the story of summer, said entomologist Jessica Ware with the American Museum of Natural History. Her children grew up seeing them flash in her backyard, but the bugs started to disappear once her kids hit their teenage years.

In the past few months, her family has seen the fireflies come back. Their return made her think about all the kids who are glimpsing the glowing bugs for the very first time.

It shouldn't be new, Ware said. It should be something that is a universal part of summer.

To look out for fireflies, consider turning the lights off at night and avoiding spraying front lawns with insecticides.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A promenade of strollers, mothers wearing red sashes and toddlers trotting to keep up was part of a little festival in Flint, Michigan, where families received diapers and children gleefully played with each other and their parents.

It’s called a “baby parade.”

The sashes indicated the women were participants in a growing program that aims to help pregnant women and new moms by giving them cash at one of the most expensive times of their lives.

Backed by a mix of state, local and philanthropic money, Rx Kids gives mothers of newborns up to $7,500, with no income requirements and no conditions on how the money is used. Supporters believe the program could be a model solution to mitigate the high costs of having children, an issue that persists for many voters as President Donald Trump’s administration floats a policy to reverse the nation’s declining birth rate.

“The goal of Rx Kids is to improve health, to address this root-cause pathogen that makes so many of our kids sick and makes it really hard for them to be healthy and successful in their future,” said Dr. Mona Hanna, a Flint pediatrician and the founder of Rx Kids.

The program started in Flint last year.

Most participants need diapers, feeding supplies and baby clothes. The monthly payment can also help buy food and cover rent, utilities and transportation. One mom at the parade said diapers cost her $70 a month.

For some, the extra cash allows them to return to work earlier and pay for childcare. For others, it allows them to stay home longer with young kids.

Hanna said the program’s data shows nearly all pregnant women in Flint have signed up since it became available.

The program relies heavily on philanthropic donations. Hanna’s long-term goal is for the government to be the main provider in the future to ensure its longevity.

“We cannot wait to bring this plug-and-play program, this super-efficient, highly effective program to communities across the nation,” she said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Fatigue is a major challenge in today's fast-paced world. As the need for efficient rest and recovery grows, the recovery wear market is seeing a significant boom. This trend is not just about passive rest—it’s about actively promoting recovery simply by wearing specialized garments. From business professionals to athletes, a wide range of people are taking notice. This market expansion is fueled by increased health consciousness, driven by tools like smartwatch sleep trackers and the growing popularity of high-performance mattresses. Going beyond typical loungewear, the novel concept of promoting recovery by wearing perfectly matches the needs of busy modern individuals.

Leading this trend is TENTIAL's BAKUNE. BAKUNE is recovery wear that uses a special functional fiber called SELFLAME®︎. This material contains a fine ceramic powder that absorbs far-infrared rays emitted by the body and re-emits them back to the skin. This process is said to improve blood circulation and help reduce muscle stiffness, among other benefits. Notably, BAKUNE has been filed as a general medical device, and its functionality is backed by scientific evidence, ensuring its reliability. Through collaborations with universities, corporate partners, and joint development with athletes, the product has undergone continuous improvements, earning a high level of consumer trust.

BAKUNE's greatest feature is how easily it fits into your daily routine. Because it supports fatigue recovery simply by wearing it to bed, busy people can easily incorporate it into their daily lives. The three-dimensional cut, designed for ease of movement during sleep, and its comfortable feel are also key factors that contribute to high-quality rest. Many users report sleeping more comfortably. As a result, it is gaining popularity among those who prioritize physical conditioning, such as busy executives and athletes. Beyond its functionality, its wide range of colors and sophisticated design are also appealing. While positioned at a higher price point, this makes it an increasingly popular choice not only as an investment in one's own health but also as a health-conscious gift for parents, grandparents, and other loved ones.

The recovery wear market is expected to continue its growth. As technology advances, more effective and comfortable products will emerge, significantly changing how we approach rest and recovery.

This article was created in collaboration with TENTIAL.