Japan

All right, stop. Pyongyang time.

The Associate Press is reporting that North Korea has decided to set up its own time zone. The official time, as announced by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), will be half an hour earlier than it currently is and it appears that the reason for this change is just to mess with Japan.

The new time zone will take effect Aug. 15 — the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese rule at the end of World War II, North Korea's official Central News Agency said Friday. The establishment of "Pyongyang time" will root out that legacy, it said.

Local time in North and South Korea and Japan is the same — nine hours ahead of GMT. It was set during Japan's rule over what was single Korea from 1910 to 1945.

"The wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time while mercilessly trampling down its land with 5,000-year-long history and culture and pursuing the unheard-of policy of obliterating the Korean nation," the KCNA dispatch said.

You can watch a video of the announcement on The Guardian's website.

North Korean officials named the new time "Pyongyang time" and probably has nothing to do with M.C. Hammer's catch phrase.

It was awfully nice of both North Korea and Russia to give us examples today of what weird countries they are.

When America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, a great many things were destroyed in the devastating blast but some survived it to this day.

Marking the 70th anniversary of the bombing Aug. 6, the United States government will also honor the survival of a white pine bonsai tree that managed to live through it.

Housed in the National Arboretum in Northeast Washington D.C., no one guessed about the tree's significance until 2001.

The tree, donated by a bonsai master named Masaru Yamaki, was part of a 53-specimen gift to the United States for its 1976 bicentennial. Little was known about the tree until March 8, 2001, when — with no advance notice — two brothers visiting from Japan showed up at the museum to check on their grandfather's tree.

Ensuring the continued survival of such an important piece of the collection is no easy task. It falls to Jack Sustic, who has been the curator of the Bonsai and Penjing Museum since 2002.

Bonsai, Sustic said, refers not to the type of tree but rather the manner in which it is cared for. It is the blending of nature and art, he said.

On Aug. 6, 1945, a 9,700-pound bomb exploded over the city at 8:15 a.m. A walled nursery belonging to the Yamakis was less than two miles from the site of the bomb blast, but the ancient tree, Sustic said, was just far enough away to survive.

"Location, location, location," Sustic said. "It was up against a wall. It must have been the wall that shielded it from the blast."

Keep going little tree. In the words of Dr. Ian Malcom:

We all know Japanese culture appreciates some cute things and it's found another one in a sea slug.

The jorunna parva, or adorable bunny slug of the sea, has been making the rounds of Japanese social media and setting a new standard for cuteness in slugs.

We admit, it's not a very high bar.

Just look at them:



Oh, and they are also absolutely tiny, growing to a maximum of 21 millimeters.

As we say, the lovely little things have been crawling their way across the international Twittersphere. Unfortunately, we don't read Japanese, but we can assume these admirers are big fans of the bunny slugs.

@saaan_rina こいつ可愛い！ゴマフビロードウミウシ🐧 pic.twitter.com/vDnoe0z3JE

— ウィンドネル@ねるさーん (@toshihiro1225) July 14, 2015

@__No711 おっしー！正解はゴマフビロードウミウシだよっ☆惜しくも外れちゃったキミにはシロウサギウミウシの写真をあげちゃうねっ！！ pic.twitter.com/C1Tlo2TIst

— むしゃ (@mushaaas) October 6, 2014

ゴマフビロードウミウシ http://t.co/jzsZDPdE0U #ウミウシ pic.twitter.com/AkTM9h53vz

— のぶろぐ (@nob_log_info) July 14, 2015

せっかくなので私が自信を持っておすすめする海のクソカワ生物「ゴマフビロードウミウシ」をご覧下さい pic.twitter.com/p4iyfUsHc1

— 九梨詩 (@kurishi_orikabi) July 13, 2015

Go ahead and watch the adorable things in action.

While you’re waiting for your Burger King Whopper cologne to go on sale, why not snack on a tasty KitKat sandwich?

Japan is at it again, with fast food chain First Kitchen offering the sugary treat for a limited time.

And it only costs 220 yen ($1.80)! Which is a steal really, compared to the cost of your future medical and dental bills after gorging yourself on bacon-wrapped pizzas and jelly donut hot dogs.

The sandwich consists of a “KitKat for Cafe” candy bar placed in between two pieces of fluffy bread smothered in whip cream and sprinkled with orange peels for some extra kick.

You can check out some more detailed images of the latest food pr0n here.

The Central Japan Railway Company is in the midst of an 8-day testing period for its maglev (magnetically levitated) train, which can travel at speeds up to 311mph. Japan's bullet trains currently run at about 200mph.

One hundred passengers got to go for a ride this week during the first trail run in Yamanashi Prefecture.

But… should they really be "testing" this thing out with people on board?

If all goes as planned, the maglev trains will be operational 2027, providing a 40-minute trip between Nagoya and Tokyo (normally 80 minutes).

The people of Japan were surprised Monday night by a giant fireball shooting through the sky.

Was it Godzilla warning of his arrival or an alien pod soaring down to Earth to initiate an invasion?

Not quite, but it was still cool to watch. Experts say it was probably a bolide or "fireball" meteor, a piece of an asteroid that ignites upon entering Earth's atmosphere.

But that's what the aliens would want us to think, right?

Eargasm alert... and we call Japan's commercials weird.

If you're planning to visit Japan this summer, you might want to check out the Oigawa Railway in Shizuoka Prefecture, as the railway line has dressed up one of its steam engines as Thomas the Tank Engine, and will be offering rides on the train as a special attraction.

On July 1st, 2014, Japanese politician Ryutaro Nonomura held a press conference in which he aimed to apologize for his suspected misuse of 3 million yen. However, during the conference, this 47-year-old provincial politician started to break down in to tears while trying to defend his actions, and began wailing uncontrollably.

The shops and parodies are already rolling in:

DJ　NONOMURA pic.twitter.com/y0pKzdiTxR

— キノ子 (@KINOcom) July 2, 2014

Here they are leaving the plane they actually arrived in:

Created by telecoms company SoftBank, "Pepper" is programmed to recognize users' emotions based on voice recognition and facial analysis and respond in kind. Basically, Pepper is designed to make you happy, which is why he's primarily being marketed as a home companion or caregiver for children and the elderly.

Also, don't do this...