Poet Craig Arnold has apparently gone missing in Japan while working on a book about volcanoes and the end of the world. Paper Cuts has details.

Last week I mentioned Japan's renewed interest in the construction of a space elevator, so I'd be remiss to skip this CNN article on NASA's own plans to try and build one. The artist's conception, at least, is lovely. Via The House Next Door.

In the Guardian, John Gray takes the Wall Street crisis alongside the first Chinese spacewalk as a watershed moment: the end of American hegemony. I'd say that's still a bit premature—for one, the turnover of administration will restore at least some of America's luster internationally and reorient our still-immense wealth towards more productive ends, and second the sheer interconnectivity of the global economy means that our financial crisis threatens to take everybody else down with us—but we're certainly moving towards a truly multipolar world, with all the good and bad that will bring.

And we're moving there faster and faster: the Japanese are working on a space elevator, while the Chinese say they can complete an "impossible" Emdrive for use in space. This puts Obama's support for NASA in particular (and science research in general) in context—this stuff really does matter.

Best news I've heard all day: Wild monkey loose in Japanese subway eludes police.

World News:

* Tim goes soft on the Latin American menace.

* Via Vu, the new Indiana Jones movie has angered some of our Russian comrades.

* This "We Are the World" parody from Japanese TV is like a three-minute glimpse into the next universe over. The original is a pretty classic cultural document of the '80s, as well, if it's been a few years since you've seen it...

Contemporary Japanese Prints, an online exhibit at the Library of Congress, via RaShOmoN.