Dolphin activist detained at Tokyo Narita Airport Ric O’Barry, a longtime supporter of sea mammal rights, was detained by Japanese immigration authorities when he arrived at Narita Airport on January 18th. The 76-year-old O’Barry has made numerous trips to Japan, and has often spoken out against fishermen at Taiji, Wakayama-ken in Japan, who stab wild dolphins while they are in the water. The killing of the wild dolphins was the subject of the Academy-Award winning film The Cove. O’Barry has stated that his detention was politically motivated to silence his activism. O’Barry stated “I will try my best to enter Japan. I am not an enemy of the Japanese people.”

New handheld gluten testing device The recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is famous for its tech innovations, saw a biotech startup company reveal “Nima,” a simple device for testing if a meal contains gluten. The device is intended for use by people who have allergies to gluten or similar ingredients. It is about the size and shape of a triangular Japanese ‘onigiri” and can give results within 2 or 3 minutes.

gluten: 麩質

munch on (some snacks)

Ella: I’m so hungry but I don’t have time to eat lunch.

Savannah: Perhaps you could just munch on some snacks such as grapes, banana chips or nuts. That way you can still have the energy to work until the afternoon.

Explanation: To “munch on (X)” means to eat something small like a snack, just to gain energy or to have something light to eat while talking with friends or family. Sometimes small snacks are called “munchies.”

munch on (verb): 齧る・むしゃむしゃ

inoperable

Patient: Can you perform surgery to defeat the cancer that I have?

Doctor Brown: The cancer is inoperable because it has spread throughout the area, but I believe that we can destroy it with chemotherapy.

Explanation: To “inoperable” means that it is not possible to operate on a disease, usually because it is in a sensitive area, or because it has spread widely within the body.

front end and back end

Hello Aly:

We need to improve our front end and back end services, and think we should start first on improving the back end. Once we have our production going well, we can start working hard on our front-end customer services.

Explanation: The phrase “back end services” means the production side of the company while front end means the customer service side of the business. You can think of the back end as the part where employees and products come into the back of a shop, and the front end as the entrance where customers enter the shop.

front end: 前端