For restless Balinese writer Oka Rusmini, the fight for feminism is far from over. “Many people think that in Indonesia, feminism has succeeded in the form of texts and theories,” Rusmini says. “But for as long as some women are still being discriminated against by their societies, cultures and religions, gender equality has not been established yet ― not here, not anywhere.” And that is the re...

A study on mice has suggested that eating at night can affect metabolism and cause weight gain. “A relatively modest shift in food consumption into what is normally the rest period for mice can favor energy storage,” said Georgios Paschos from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who participated in the research. According to the study, mice that had the “clock gen...

An exoplanet that may be capable of supporting life has been found, according to European researchers. The distance between the planet HD 40307g and its host star HD 40307 suggests the planet may have liquid water on its surface, according to a study led by Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. This increases the possibility that the planet may support living orga...

Children talk to animals at the zoo all the time, but one gregarious Asian elephant talks back. Koshik, a 22-year-old male elephant, can imitate at least five Korean words and does so in a very creative way: by sticking his trunk inside his mouth. “Koshik is capable of matching both pitch and timbre patterns (in human speech),” said Angela Stoeger of Austria’s University of Vienna, who led the ...

The latest photo of Ri Sol-ju, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has led some to speculate that the hermit kingdom’s first lady is pregnant. North Korea’s state paper Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday published a photo of Ri attending a concert with her husband this week. In the photo, Ri is sporting a visibly rounded belly, and her face appears to be swollen. “Ri’s face is swollen and her b...

Japanese scientists claimed that they have found a way to decipher dreams, according to a report in science journal Nature. By analyzing activity in certain brain regions of a person who is dreaming, it is possible to predict the contents of the dream, according to Yukiyasu Kamitani of ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan. “We built a model to predict whether each categor...

Wang Xuzhong, 84, never thought his children would disown him because of his part-time job as a nude model at universities. Wang, along with many other senior residents without stable incomes, has found that nude modeling can be a good job but also a secret that can never be shared with family. Wang’s wife died 15 years ago and his youngest son passed away in 2007. Gray-haired but in good healt...

Interest in portable supplies rises as quake-ridden Japanese prepare for the worst Whenever Mami Tomikawa goes out, she is prepared for a disaster. Tomikawa, an illustrator from Musashino, Tokyo, always carries snacks, a map and a card with emergency contact information, including details of her daughter’s kindergarten. “My daughter carries the same card so it’ll be easier to contact each othe...