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Recent News

Growing pains（2000.12.28）：If you regret you have no time to read the many books you have, or if you hope you could reduce the number of business trips, or else, if you wish people around you to be more kind and helpful (like opening doors for you), here is an extreme solution (which I don't recommend): try running on a rocky ground, get your right (or left) foot snatched by a dip, fall strongly down onto the ground in a direction unnatural for your joints... A serious drawback of this method is that it is enormously painful. Besides, the intermedullary nail inserted in the broken tibia (X-ray) will trigger the metal detector every time you proceed to the boarding gate, and it's your task to explain what it is all about.   AGU fall meeting 2000（2000.12.15-19）：Three people from the lab attended the AGU fall meeting. This year, we really were having sober and serious life in San Francisco, simply going back and forth between our hotels and the conference, only talking about science and nothing else all the time, drinking mineral water and eating vegitables. Result: One of us broke his right leg (see above).   SGEPSS fall meeting in Tokyo（2000.11.20-23）：Just one person from our lab attended the usual SGEPSS meeting, this time held in Itabashi, Tokyo. Possible reasons for the low participation rate could be: (1) there were a number of space plasma physics related meetings around this period and lots of our members felt fed up, (2) our lab members already got used to the living style in country-side Kasuga, and they were afraid of stepping into air polluted and over-crowded Tokyo region, and (3) there was nothing to present.   Visit of Dr. Lembege (2000.10.15-17): The stormy visit of Dr. Krassnosselskikh (see below) was almost immediately followed by another typhoon visit by Dr. Bertrand Lembege (Sept-Oct is a typhoon season in Japan). Bertrand was here only for a few days also, but we had intensive discussions with him everyday, from early morning to late at night. Although, unlike Voldoya, Bertrand did not invent any new sports during his stay, he gave a seminar on collisionless shocks with a remarkable animation on his new portable Mac, in which he emphasized the nonstationarity of the shock waves(photo). He also emphasized the importance of croissant in French breakfast.   Visit of Dr. Krassnosselskikh (2000.10.07-10): Volodya was kind enough to make a detour visit to our lab after the S-ramp conference in Sapporo. During his stay of only a few days, he gave two seminars (on Langmuir turbulence and cavity mode of auroral kilometric radiation), made intensive discussions on various topics with our lab members, initiated the French-Japan tennis match, and furthermore, invented an ecologically oriented ping-pong game (photo). Needless to say, after Volodya has left to France, all the lab members found themselves having a severe muscle ache.   The first S-ramp conference (2000.10.2-6): Seven members attended the international conference held in Sapporo (travel report).   Asia Month 2000 (2000.09.15): Asia Month is back, and some folks from our lab made a trip to downtown to view an Indian film again (history repeats). This year the film was not as good as last year, but the folks discussed over it in a local drinking place (history repeats).   Workshop on "Frontiers in Plasma Sciences" (2000.07.27-28): Five members from our lab attended the workshop held in NIFS (National Inst for Fusion Studies), located in a small city of Toki in Gifu prefecture. Some of our students were impressed by cleanliness of the NIFS cafeteria, and some others by friendliness of NIFS people after finding that they had prepared special lunch boxes for workshop attendees... And what was the visit for?   Geophysics meetings assembly (2000.06.25-28): Six members from our group attended the annual assembly of Japanese geophysics and planetary physics related societies. The SGEPSS is one of the members of the assembly. All the meetings were held together at the same time period in a big campus of National Olympics Memorial Youth Center, Yoyogi, Tokyo (which gives us an opportunity for annual reunion with our old classmates). Results of attending the assembly: every member grew with new experiences, some in science, some in the way of presentation, and some in geography of Yoyogi.   Open Campus (2000.05.27): Once a year around this season, we have this event called the Open Campus, in which we welcome any interested people on our activities to Kasuga campus, show them around our labs, and explain what we are studying about. In our lab also we had some hundred (?) of visitors, ranging from kindergarten kids to retired professors. The day is also an important ocassion for recruiting new graduate students. In any case, we welcomed everybody, preparing some introductory exhibitions on space and astrophysics, demos on nonlinear waves, space plasma waves called whistlers (with real sounds!), animations on auroras and plasma instabilities, among others (Scenes from the open campus).    Trip to Dazaifu (2000.04.29): This sunny day was a good pretext, if any required, for a touristic expedition in nearby Dazaifu (see our unofficial space tourists crew). Beautiful Tenmangu shrine is devoted to Michizane Sugawara, a man who endured a humble life dedicated to study, from which he earned such respect and admiration that a plum tree flew from Kyoto to follow his beloved master in exile. This lead us to meditate why no tree ever followed us through the air from wherever we are coming from. Actually, we would all enjoy a garden of flying plum trees on campus, but there are none...   O-Ha-Na-Mi (2000.04.03): O-hanami (literally, flowers viewing, and flowers as a default stand for cherry blossoms) is a traditional Japanese occasion (excuse?) of having parties under cherry trees full of blossoms. Since cherry trees bloom in a short time and also the blossoms will be gone after only a week or so, quick decision making (when/where/with whom) lies in the central part of the art of ohanami parties. I think we did a pretty good job this year, thanks to some of the experienced graduate students. The place we had the party was right next to a parking lot inside the Kasuga campus, but this hidden spot was surprisingly calm and quiet. Also, cherry blossoms were breath-takingly beautiful, and off course sake was just excellent (snapshot) .    Bertrand is here ! (2000.03.30):Dr. Bertrand Lefebvre, a recent graduate from CNRS Orleans, France, has made a dramatic appearance in Fukuoka: after missing his international flight from Paris to Japan, he was able to catch an alternative flight on the same day, even with upgrade to the first class! Whew! Apart from being an apparent expert on travelling, Dr. Lefebvre is also known as a specialist on theoretical and numerical studies of nonlinear dynamical systems, and so we expect to have fruitful collaborations on various issues in nonlinear space plasma physics.   Resolutions of the new year (2000.01.01): (1) We will observe rules in general (in particular, deadlines of any sort, like those for conference abstracts, proceedings, referees, etc). And off course we will observe our own resolutions. (2) Staff members won't torture grad students, neither will grad students annoy the staff members. (3) We will welcome our guests sincerely. For example, after the seminar if they wish to have typical Hakata-style dinner, we will take them to a Hakata-style restaurant, not to a Hokkaido-style pub.