Study abroad isn’t just a luxury, these days it’s a rite of passage for many students around the world. While more and more students in Asia and the U.S. are venturing overseas, a recent survey shows that just 57.2% of Japanese students, once the prototypical image of expat learners during the bubble, are interested in an overseas academic experience.

The survey, published by the Japan Youth Research Institute, polled over 8,000 students from China, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. in 2011. Even though 58.1% of Japanese students had been abroad, they ranked lowest of the four countries in terms of interest in a study abroad experience. In comparison, 82.4% in South Korea and 62.5% in China and were interested.

So why has enthusiasm waned in Japan? It’s not economic reasons, as only 19.5% of Japanese said that money was a barrier. And it’s not because they’ll miss home – only 10.3% said that was a consideration, compared with 30.4% of Chinese, 54.2% of Koreans and 58.1% of Americans.

The biggest reason that Japanese students cited for not wanting to study abroad was that life in their home country was easier at 53.2%, followed by “language barrier” and “lack of confidence in living alone” with 48.1% and 42.7% respectively, three criteria that the other students also ranked highly.

It could be due to apathy among Japanese boys. Some 20.4% of Japanese high school boys surveyed said they had no interest at all in study abroad, the highest of any of the countries surveyed. In comparison, 65.9% of Japanese girls said they were very or somewhat interested.

The lukewarm enthusiasm for study abroad in Japan is not a surprise given other recent data. Up from a low in 1986 of only 14,297 students, the number of Japanese study abroad students has been declining since it hit a peak of 82,945 in 2004, according to the OECD. In recent years, their Asian counterparts seeking an academic experience abroad have surged, and 2.25 million Chinese studied abroad in 2011.

The survey gives some indication of why this might be so when it breaks down the reasons that students do want to study abroad. While all of the 42.1% of Japanese students who wanted to study abroad said they one day wanted to work in an international setting, only 14.4% said going abroad would help them get a job. That’s much different from the goals of Chinese students, many of whom gave better academics abroad and better chances of being hired as incentives for leaving home.

Most Japanese companies have fixed hiring schedules and only accept graduates immediately after they have left school. The rigid system could be a deterrent to Japanese students, compared with their Chinese, Korean and U.S. peers who don’t face such strict hiring practices and might be more flexible to study abroad while at university.

It's becoming more and more popular these days to back up your data to the cloud. Your iPhone does it. Your tablet does it. And one day, perhaps soon, your doctor could be able to send a backup of you to the cloud.

The concept sounds far fetched, but that's exactly what Amazon and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are up to. The collaborative effort is called the 1000 Genomes Project, and has already compiled 1,700 human genomes - essentially, the recipe for making 1,700 different people. Previously, this kind of data was only available to researchers by mailing data disks back and forth. The Amazon initiative now makes all that data available to genetic researchers via the Amazon cloud.

Already, the project has amassed 200 terabytes worth of data on human DNA, and is on track to add another 100 terabytes' worth of data soon. Researchers believe that by having so much data on human genetics readily available, they'll be better able to home in on the role genes play on disease. According to Matt Wood, head of the project at Amazon, "This is the seed to create a tree of data."

JAKARTA—A massive earthquake and strong aftershock rattled Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh on Wednesday, spurring fears of a tsunami in the same region where a 2004 tsunami killed more than 200,000.

The 8.6-magnitude earthquake was felt as far away as Thailand, Malaysia and India. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had issued a tsunami watch Wednesday afternoon in Asia but later canceled it, saying that while a significant tsunami was generated by the quake, the threat for most areas had diminished.

The initial alert said the tsunami watch was in effect from Indonesia to India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.

 

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that early reports were that there was limited damage. "There is no tsunami threat," he said Wednesday evening ahead of a news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron. "The tsunami early-warning system is working well and at the moment there are no casualties."

India also canceled its tsunami warnings and alerts for several states and territories, including the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean.

In a statement, India's Home Ministry said it had asked the chief secretaries of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and all east-coast states, to advise fishermen not to venture out to sea and to take other precautions.

Teams from the National Disaster Response Force were placed on standby in case they were needed to carry out emergency relief efforts, the agency said.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the powerful quake was centered about 20 miles beneath the ocean floor, about 300 miles from Aceh's provincial capital.

Indonesian television news showed crowded roads as people tried to drive away from the coast.

"It felt like the earthquake back when we had a tsunami in 2004," said driver and Aceh resident Edi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. "Everybody ran around in a panic and we ran up a hill."

People in Banda Aceh screamed "God is great!" as they jumped into cars and onto the backs of motorcycles, clogging streets as they fled to high ground, according to the Associated Press.

Coastal residents in Sri Lanka were told to move to higher ground. Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center issued an evacuation order to residents in six provinces along the country's west coast, including the popular tourist destinations of Phuket, Krabi and Phang-Nga. Thailand later canceled its tsunami warning.

Indonesia sits atop a web of fault lines that makes the sprawling archipelago prone to volcanic and seismic activity. A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.

Indonesia's government has improved its monitoring of earthquake data since then by positioning buoys to take sea-level readings and warn of potential tsunamis. Officials have noted the problem of getting timely information to people who live in remote areas of coastal Sumatra.

Experts said the kind of devastation seen in the 2004 disaster and last year in Japan was caused by a particular type of earthquake. During Wednesday's quake, the tectonic plates were likely shifting sideways rather than up and down, leaving less of a chance for the giant waves, said Susanne Sergeant, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey.

"The earthquake today was different from that in 2004 off Aceh and in Japan," last year, and less likely to create massive water displacement, she said.

India issued a tsunami warning for Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the eastern coast on Wednesday after a 8.7 magnitude quake in Indonesia shook major cities, causing panic and sending people fleeing onto the streets.

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service issued a red
high-level warning for the islands, and also put out lower alerts for the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

India's tsunami warning center said waves measuring up to 6 metres were expected along parts of its eastern coast, which was heavily hit by the 2004 tsunami. Smaller waves were expected to hit the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The US Geological Survey said the quake was centred 33 kilometres beneath the ocean floor around 495 kilometres from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh.

Said, an official at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on December 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh