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J-Innovators:
Kazuhito Komatsu: Inventor of faceted pearls

Takumi: Japan's manufacturing innovators. Today's Takumi is the inventor of faceted pearls.
He grinds the surface of a pearl down by fractions of a millimeter to create diamond-like faceting. The result resembles a lotus flower more than a traditional round pearl, so he calls them "flower pearls." Michelle Yamamoto reports on this ground-breaking Takumi's one-of-a-kind technique... and how it highlights cultural differences between Japan and the West!

Science News Watch:
Global Change Observation Mission 1^st-Water

Science Watcher Kevin Short highlights the most interesting science and technology news from Japan. In our debut edition, he focuses on the GCOM satellite due to be launched by JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, in March 2012. Hear how this satellite will give Planet Earth a health check-up from space!

The Leading Edge:
The Biggest Optical Telescope Ever

This time we feature a project to build a telescope with a 30-meter mirror. It's called the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) and is being developed by a consortium of five nations, including Japan. Such a large telescope would be impossible without technology to make ultra-high-precision mirrors, and adaptive optics that boost the image resolution even further. We'll meet Japanese scientists and engineers involved in overcoming these daunting technical challenges.