Think the Earth

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF) has announced the "10 Most Outstanding Research Results in MAFF, 2007 "; this annual announcement has now become sort of customary. Let me introduce some of these topics to you:

"The technology that can identify the variety of raw materials used to make sake or wine has been developed." This technology can determine even the variety of raw materials used by extracting from the alcohol DNA of rice or grapes. So now you can identify the brand of rice or grapes used by DNA analysis.

Another topic on the list is, "Seema has successfully delivered healthy, non-crossbred rainbow trout." This achievement means that it may be used towards the conservation of extinct species or towards having small fish such as mackerel give birth to juvenile tuna.
And another outstanding research finding is the "Positions of 29,550 DNA out of approximately 32,000 found in rice has been specified." In fact, 5 out of 10 topics are related to rice. Because rice is the staple food in Japan, it seems to be one of the major focuses of scientific research.