Topic Reading-Vol.4643-1/9/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Welcome to the New World Order of automakers. Soon, only the big survive

Around 75 million new cars were sold in 2023 and 2024 respectively. The number of new energy vehicles (NEVs), including battery electric and plug-in hybrid cars, accounted for around 20% of the total sales in 2023 and over 22% in 2024. The growth of NEVs has been driven by China, where over 10 million NEVs were sold last year, or about one in three new cars. While the shift to NEVs from gasoline-powered vehicles has given advantages to newly born NEV-only automakers like the US’s Tesla and China’s BYD, it is putting pressure on traditional automakers in the US, Europe, and Japan. In fact, they are losing businesses, especially in China and Southeast Asia. Also, the cost of developing NEVs, especially the batteries and power units, has pushed the prices of NEVs and slowed sales growth in Europe and the USA. Furthermore, R&D investment for auto-driving is becoming too much of a burden even on large automakers like Toyota, GM, and Volkswagen. One way to manage the increasing costs and heating competition is a merger. Last year, Honda and Nissan announced that they agreed to merge by 2026. But will the size still matter as much as the focus and speed in the new auto market?

Read the article and learn about the survival game in the auto industry.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/03/business/automaker-mergers-to-come/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.4642-1/8/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Eight ways to stay happier this year, according to science

What makes you feel happy, pleasure, or satisfaction? Most people can become happier unless they are under extreme conditions like war or disaster. There are a few tips that help you feel happy. Having good friendships is a known way to be happy, especially when you become old (Vol.4641). Feeling sympathy for your friend’s suffering or delight in their happiness is the foundation of good friendship. Also, you will feel good if you do something for others, like volunteer work or pet caring. Interestingly, research suggests that learning about family history provides psychological benefits. Another simple thing you could do is to write down, or just remember a few good things that you have experienced. You can also think about fun activities or events that make you feel happy. True. Happy things make you see things and live your life positively. In the meantime, you might not want to think too much about being happier. Instead, it’s better not to worry so much about happiness. There are quite a few tips to be happier but none fits for all. 

Read the article and find the one that might make you feel happier.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241231-eight-ways-to-stay-happier-this-year-according-to-science

Topic Reading-Vol.4641-1/7/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Why later life can be a golden age for friendship

It is a known fact that friendships are beneficial for the well-being and even physical health of people of any age. Especially for older people, interactions with close friends seem to boost their happiness even more than with family members. Since friendships are relationships among those who want to interact and spend time with each other, being with friends is often more fun and less stressful than being with families or relatives. Interestingly, while young people tend to expand their social contacts, older people do the opposite because they prefer spending time with those who know and understand them well. As friends of older age tend to be more forgiving and positive with each other, they foster even closer relationships. Then how many close friends should they have? A study found that having four close friends seems ideal. 

Read the article and learn how friendships affect the well-being of older people.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241212-why-later-life-can-be-a-golden-age-for-friendship

Topic Reading-Vol.4640-1/6/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Seeking tourists: Four countries that are actively welcoming travellers

Because of over-tourism, some popular travel destinations like Barcelona, Venice, and Ginzan Onsen, Japan (Vol.4637) started limiting the number of visitors and/or charging fees for day visitors. Even though tourism stimulates the local economy and creates jobs, too many tourists and their outrageous behaviors are annoying to residents and destructive to local communities and infrastructures in some hotspots. In the meantime, there are some places where tourists are welcome. Greenland is constructing a new international airport to accept more tourists later this year, which allows larger aircraft to fly directly from both sides of the Atlantic. To prepare for the 2030 World Cup, Morocco is developing its tourism infrastructure and building new hotels. Serbia, a small, landlocked country in the Balkans, wants to bring in more tourists to help diversify rural livelihoods, local economies, and mountain tourism. Georgia, a former Soviet republic at the intersection of Europe and Asia, also plans to attract more visitors by improving accessibility, public transport, and cruise ship ports. So, before choosing your next travel destination by SNS, check out places where tourists are more than welcome.

Read the article and learn about four places that are open to tourists.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240905-seeking-tourists-four-countries-that-are-actively-welcoming-travellers

Topic Reading-Vol.4639-1/5/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Future of space travel: Could robots really replace human astronauts?

On April 12, 1961, a then-Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, orbited the Earth just once, and parachuted to the ground. On July 21, 1969, two US astronauts stepped onto the Moon. They spent 21 hours and 36 minutes there jumping around the landing module, shooting videos, and collecting samples. Both missions were more symbolic than scientific. On November 2, 2000, the first crew arrived to live on the International Space Station (ISS) to operate the crewed space laboratory for scientific research, including studies of dark matter and crystal growth for medicine. On August 6, 2012, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity landed on Mars to investigate the Martian climate and geology, environmental conditions for microbial life, and habitability for human exploration. While robotic spacecraft have reached all planets and many asteroids in our solar system and recently the Sun, humans have only orbited the Earth and landed on the Moon since Gagarin. Actually, robots and machines can conduct scientific research in distant and inhospitable locations far more easily and economically than humans as they don’t require oxygen, hydration, nutrients, toilet, or sleep even though they aren’t as fast or flexible as humans. So why do we still try to send humans to the Moon again and to Mars? In 203X, the first humans landed on Mars after a nine-month space journey…

Read the article and learn what humans and robots can do in space travel.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7keddnj31o

Topic Reading-Vol.4638-1/4/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

2024 has been a nerve-wracking year for plane travel. How safe is it really?

Last year, there were two fatal airplane incidents in December alone. One was the Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243, an Embraer 190 aircraft, that crashed, or shot down, in Kazakhstan on Christmas day that killed 38 people on board, leaving 29 survivors. On the 29th, South Korea’s Jeju Air’s flight 2216, a B737-800, arriving from Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew members crashed and caught fire at a local airport in South Korea, and all but two crew members were killed. In the meantime, on January 2 last year, a Japan Airlines A350 aircraft collided with a Japan Coast Guard aircraft on a runway at the busy Haneda Airport, Tokyo. Still, all 379 passengers and crew members of the plane evacuated from the burning aircraft, which was burnt to ashes only minutes later. How safe is it to fly? Statistics show that in recent years, the risk of commercial flight accidents was around one in every million or so flights and the risk of per boarding is around one in 14 million. If you compare these with those on the road, car accidents occur much more frequently and kill more people. Do these stats make you feel safer to fly?

Read the article about how safe, or unsafe, it is to fly on a commercial flight.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/30/business/plane-travel-crash-safety-record/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.4637-1/3/2025

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Japan’s scenic hot springs town restricting tourists amid fights over the best photo spots

Fueled by the weak Japanese yen, a record number of tourists visited Japan last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2019. Those visitors aren’t just visiting those historically popular towns like Tokyo and Kyoto but are now exploring hot remote destinations like Ginzan Onsen, or a silver mine hot spring, in Yamagata prefecture. It takes several hours from Tokyo by bus, train, or airplane because the hot spring town sits away from the highway, train station, or airport. This remote hot spring town has been visited by an increasing number of foreign tourists lately because of the famous snow-covered sights in the winter when the whole town and area are covered with heavy snow. There are a-century-old buildings in the center of the town. It is a pedestrian-only district whose bridges and streets are lit by gaslight. Like other SNS hot spots such as Kamakura-Kokomae station in Kamakura and Fuji-Kawaguchiko town, those tourists are so eager to get a hot photo spot that they often ignore traffic rules, cause congestion, and dispute or even fight each other. The hot spring had no choice but to require day visitors to buy tickets after 8 pm and drivers to park their cars away from the town and use the shuttle bus to the town. Overtourism is now everywhere. 

Read the article and learn how a remote hot spring town is trying to manage the surging visitors.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/27/travel/japan-ginzan-onsen-limiting-entry-overtourism-intl-hnk/index.html