Bank of Japan issued new designs of the ¥1,000, ¥5,000 and ¥10,000 banknotes on July 3. Each note is adorned with holographic elements – anti-counterfeit technology – and a new set of historical figures.

Much like the current ¥1,000 note, the modernized version still has the classic blue hue. On the front is a portrait of Kitasato Shibasaburo, a Japanese physician and bacteriologist renowned for his significant contribution to medicine. Shibasaburo has been continuously commended throughout history, for his professionalism, scientific curiosity and impactful work. His face on the note acts a symbol of dedication and focus, something we can each carry in our daily lives.

In 1894, Shibasaburo was sent to Hong Kong during the devastating outbreak of the bubonic plague. Here, his determination was challenged, but he prevailed with a fantastic discovery. Within a few weeks, he identified the causative organism of the plague, which we now recognize as yersinia pestis.

Following this, Shibasaburo aided thousands of people and gained recognition from the Japanese Medical Association founded in 1923. He was honored as the first president and later appreciated as baron by Emperor Taisho the following year.

The back of the banknote exhibits a famous Japanese woodblock print (or ukiyo-e) by Katsushika Hokusai. Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, derives from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. This particular piece has remained highly influential ever since its creation in the Edo period, back in 1831. The wave demonstrates towering waves framing Mount Fuji and proves as a culturally significant graphic of Japan. Three fishing boats are depicted beneath the wave, struggling against the sea, representing the dynamic between nature’s force and humanity.

Retaining its iconic purple shade, the note features wisteria flowers on one side.

Tsuda is admired for actively contributing to society and encouraging women to recognize the opportunities in education. Her legacy has been honored into the present day through Tsuda University, which continues to reinforce empowerment and academics for women.

Encouraging women to reflect on their capabilities, Tsuda inspired generations of women and rapidly modernized 20th-century Japan. The ¥5,000 aims to bring her efforts to light and further integrate gender equality into Japanese culture.

In support of Tsuda’s legacy, Japanese wisteria flowers enhance her teachings of courage, symbolizing love and longevity. Commonly seen in art, poems and kimonos, wisteria have been appreciated for their gracefulness and represent forthcoming generations. This is interpreted as a demonstration of progression within Japan’s society where men and women can live in harmony. Wisteria flowers are cherished by Buddhists who view the flower as if they are bowing which connotes ideas of peace and respect for all.

Shibusawa Eiichi is featured on the front of the new ¥10,000 banknote. A highly prominent industrialist and banker, Shibusawa was known as the father of Japanese capitalism. As one of the founders of the modern Japanese industry, he brought Western capitalism to Japan and introduced several economic reforms that have benefited the structure of present Japanese banking.

During the Meiji Restoration, a period of industrialization in Japan, he pursued a career in business and finance and was acknowledged for his ethical business practices and social responsibility. He brought the importance of balancing economic growth with social welfare and ethics, which laid out a clear and humane infrastructure for the industrial society of Japan.

Highly regarded for his entrepreneurial spirit and ethical leadership, his strength is reflected by the Tokyo Station Marunouchi Station Building printed on the banknote’s back. Famous for surviving the Great Kanto earthquake and World War II fire bombings, the Marunouchi Building towers 180 meters over Tokyo Station, and currently houses shops, restaurants and offices. After being rebuilt to restore the damage from the war, the Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building has become a historic landmark for its functional representation of Japanese modernization and the country’s evolution in architectural and cultural landscape.

It all starts with the seeds of the plant themselves, which are modified in a laboratory. Genes are extracted from other foods to give the food new properties, such as a longer expiration date. They are already present in the soil, and are bombarded with pesticide chemicals called herbicides, to which there is already greater resistance due to the genetic crossing process. The result is a food that is externally identical to organic food, but with different properties, which are nevertheless still surrounded by controversy.

Some argue that some of these foods can affect health, for example by increasing allergies. In genetically modified farms, more chemicals are used in the farming process, which, combined with genetic modifications, makes it difficult to know what the short-term effects are. What impact does it have on health? In other words, we still don’t know more than we do about these genetic changes, explains Susana Fonseca, vice president of the environmental association ZERO.

In fact, when it comes to the possibilities arising from gene crossing, the sky is the limit. For example: you could introduce a peanut gene into an apple. But this change could cause problems. For example, if someone with a peanut allergy eats that apple, they will still have an allergic reaction, even though it is a different food. At the very least, it would be an unpleasant surprise, adds biologist Margarida Oliveira.

At the moment, it’s not unusual to see the letter T on packaging in Portugal – the symbol that distinguishes GMOs from organic ones – in regular supermarkets. The reason? These products are subject to strict regulations within the European Union, of which Portugal is a member, and were used mainly in animal feed. The exceptions to human consumption in our country are corn, beets and soybeans, most of which are still produced and exported from the United States, the country where they were born. Climate change is certainly still one of the major challenges facing global agriculture, but genetic hybridization is not a solution to improving the productivity of this industry, says Susana Fonseca.

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The number one thing that people in the U.S. are dying from in terms of drug overdoses is the combination of fentanyl and a stimulant,” said Joseph Friedman, a researcher at UCLA and the study’s lead author. Black and African Americans are disproportionately affected by this crisis to a large magnitude, especially in the Northeast.”

I had just written a book about the U.S.-Mexico border, about migrants dying in the desert. And he said something very simple to me, he said, ‘Everybody talks to migrants about their stories, but no one ever talks to smugglers like me and my friends here.’ And he says, ‘People always think of us as the bad guys, but they never ask us about our lives and about why we’re here,’ said UCLA’s Jason De León.

Any time you have a policy that is going to be contentious, that is somewhat untested or people aren’t familiar with it, a good rule of thumb is that it always helps if someone else has gone first, said UCLA’s Michael Manville.

It’s looking at these legacy businesses: the film studio, the TV network in CBS, their array of cable networks at of course, the emerging Paramount Plus. There’s a lot to do here, said UCLA’s Tom Nunan.

All of this could reverse the progress that the Biden administration has done to advance gender-affirming care across the country. There hasn’t been any president that has more explicitly supported access to gender-affirming care, said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

New research led by UCLA Health revealed that Black patients with Huntington’s disease in the U.S. and Canada received their diagnoses, on average, one year later compared to White patients after symptoms first appear. Dr. Adys Mendizabal, lead author of the study and UCLA Health assistant professor of neurology, said early diagnosis is essential for allowing patients to access appropriate care and prepare for the significant life changes resulting from the neurodegenerative disease.

New research led by UCLA Health has found a drug that treats insomnia works to prevent the addictive effects of the morphine opioids in mice while still providing effective pain relief. The annual U.S. rate of opioid overdose deaths now exceeds 80,000, greater than the annual rates of automobile or gun deaths, said the study’s senior author, Jerome Siegel of UCLA Health’s Jane & Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, the UCLA Brain Research Institute and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

What we really know about COVID is based on wastewater sampling, not on people going to get community testing or hospital testing or home testing. Most people aren’t testing for COVID at all. And if they are, they’re using antigen tests, said UCLA’s Anne Rimoin.

Mitchell and his team have something that looks like it could be a really useful tool, says Beth Ann Bell, a geochemist at the University of California, Los Angeles. This is significant not only for the early Earth, but for going throughout the geological record.

A common housing fallback in Latino communities is doubling up with other renters in a single unit — what Rosa was doing at the time she became injured. This was prevalent even before the economic sting of the pandemic: A UCLA study released late last year concluded that between 2016 and 2020 in L.A. County, Latinos made up 76% of those who self-identified as experiencing doubled-up homelessness.