Ashura is a statue with three faces and six arms. This can be found in Kofukuji Temple. It is considered one of the most famous Buddhist statues in Japan. This three-faced statue shows three different emotions. The emotion of the left face is a young angry man. Second, the right face expresses pain and regret. Lastly, the front face shows repentance.

Many buildings and statues in Kofukuji Temple have been destroyed by natural disasters. While the Ashura remains strong up to this day.

Ashura is light that is why it could be carried easily during an emergency. It stands 153 centimeters tall and weighs 15 kilograms. This was believed to be one of the reasons why it is able to survive for almost 1,300 years. Although its original colors have faded over the past years, people can still see its original colors and how it looked before through its replica that can be seen in Nara National Museum.

The Hayabusa project in 2003 was considered an ambitious one. The Hayabusa was sent to space to get a soil sample from a tiny asteroid named Itokawa. Asteroids like Itokawa that have been existing since the beginning of the solar system were believed to help solve mysteries of the system’s origin.

Getting to Itokawa and collecting soil samples was almost impossible. Their first landing attempt to Itokawa caused damage to Hayabusa. They tried to get a sample again after a week and they were able to succeed.

When Hayabusa was heading home, its fuel began to leak. The battery almost failed, too. Fortunately, the team managed to solve the problems. However, things got much worse after a few days. Their communication was cut off for 43 days. They were able to regain their communication, however, they had to stay in space for three years more since they missed the opportunity to re-enter the Earth. On June 13, 2010, the Habayusa had safely landed on Earth.

Installation art is typically strange and disrupts people’s lives. It is usually seen in ordinary streets and buildings. It is sometimes called as an urban prankster.

A famous example of this is the installation art of the Merlion Statue in Singapore. A Japanese installation artist named Tatzu Nishi copied and created the Merlion Statue in 2011. The statue was placed inside a hotel room. Many people had become interested in it. Because of that, the hotel room was opened to the public from March 13 to May 15, 2011.

Nashi explained his art by saying that art is not limited to museums and galleries, its home is the people who are connected to the environment.

Mark Jenkins, an American installation artist, said that he created this kind of art because he wanted people to notice the world around them and understand it on a deeper level. He also described installation art as a stage wherein the people who see it are the actors. They become actors through their reactions and response to art.

Antipersonnel mines are under or on the ground and explode when stepped on to injure or kill people or animals. Many people who are injured by mines die slowly while others live in misery. To stop the misery, the Ottawa Treaty was signed and took effect in 1999. However, it is important to know how to eliminate the mines.

Hirose Shigeo, who has been building robots for many years, had an idea. He has been helping to eliminate mines since the 1990’s. His first mine-removing robot was called Titan IX. A snake-type robot was also being developed by Hirose. To help Afghanistan, the Japanese government joined Hirose and formed a study group to remove mines in 2002. They watched how the people find, dig, and disarm the mines. It was very dangerous, so Hirose thought of using mine-removing robots. When Hirose explained how Titan IX could eliminate mines, the Afghan people did not agree. They said it was too expensive and very difficult to fix when broken. But the main problem was they thought it would take away their mine-removing jobs.

Hirose worked on to solve the problems and developed a robot which he called Gryphon V. It is simple, cheaper than Titan IX, can easily be fixed, and uses its movable arm to mark where the mines are located. Workers will not lose their jobs because they can still remove the mines using their tools. Some scientists, researchers, and engineers from Japan have been working and making progress in developing different types of mine-removing robots. They believe that time should not be wasted, so they are working fast to remove mines around the world.

Have you ever wondered how people’s perception change? Imagine that there are two lines in front of you. Those lines have the same length and they are connected by an arrow-like shape. The left line has an opposite arrow, so it looks shorter compared to the other line. The way people perceive an image may change dramatically even with a very slight change. Same goes with their perception of situations, problems, and the likes.

Let us go back to the two lines mentioned above. It was said in the first paragraph that the two have the same length although the left one looks shorter. How would you know that these two lines have the same length? The answer is by using a ruler to know its correct length. It goes the same way with our perceptions. If we change our conventional thinking patterns, the way we see situations and problems will also change.

Nowadays, most people base their judgments on assumptions. People must learn how to challenge their assumptions as they are not a hundred percent correct. When deciding or solving a problem, people are supposed to look for facts to prove their assumptions.

The way people see and understand an image may change dramatically even with a slight change. For example, imagine two lines that have the same length are both connected by an arrow-like shape. One of the lines has an opposite arrow-like shape, this would change people’s perception as it creates an illusion of a shorter line.