which runs between Kakunodate and Takanosu in Akita Prefecture are treated to panoramas of rice paddies and tree-covered hills And every summer volunteers create works of rice-paddy art along this train line using ornamental varieties of rice plants with colors including black The best period for viewing this year’s rice-paddy art from the Akita Inland Line will extend through early September Passengers can also enjoy the photographs of Akita dogs decorating train car interiors A ride on this line is sure to be fun for both dog lovers and train fans Created in cooperation with Cable Networks Akita.) The TimesThe official advice on encountering a bear is to walk backwards very slowly without showing your back but when Keiji Minatoya surprised one in his garage all he could think to do was run It was an ordinary Thursday morning last month in the small town of Takanosu in northern Japan and the 66-year old confectioner was about to climb into his car When he lifted the shutter he found himself face to face with an Asian black bear Within seconds it had caught up with him and pinned him to the ground in his back garden Its fangs and claws were around his head and it was growling into his ear An aggressive dolphin attacked an elderly man off a Japanese beach The wild animal attack was caught on video and uploaded on social media and re-affirms previous warnings by experts that marine mammals can also be aggressive or defensive in the wild The culprit behind the incident was apparently a bottlenose dolphin which had a track record of harming humans in shallow waters wild dolphins are often mistaken for always being friendly to us a paradigm shift regarding our understanding of dolphins shows that their portrayal in movies and shows is not always the case experts have pointed out that dolphins are not at all smiling at us but it is only due to the shape of their faces there have been several recorded cases of dolphin attacks in the wild the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) even warned the public of an "aggressive dolphin" in the waters of North Padre Island In a video uploaded by the YouTube channel Akihiro Tada in August 2022 the beginning of the clip shows that beachgoers and paddlers noticing a dolphin swimming around the Japanese man The marine animal made several attempts to attack the swimmer who briefly went underwater until he resurfaced One of the nearby paddlers came to the rescue of the man Some of the commenters showed concern for the victim but several YouTube users acknowledged that dolphins are by nature dangerous the incident occurred on Takanosu beach in Fukui city Forget "Free Willy" and other claims that dolphins are the counterpart of dogs when in the ocean as being man's best friend are wild just like other animals in their habitats especially when they are disturbed or threatened According to the NOAA Fisheries dolphins should be treated with caution and respect since they are wild animals despite their reputation of being friendly emphasizing that interactions between the sea mammals and people change their behavior for the worse The NOAA stated that dozens of bites have been reported where people are being pulled underwater government agency also debunked the "Flipper myth" about a friend wild dolphin that gave people the wrong idea in the first place Dolphins do not actively seek and hunt humans as their prey the increased presence of humans in the world's oceans has led to a spike of interaction with the animal four swimmers sustained wounds after being attacked by a dolphin on a beach in Japan a bottlenose dolphin attacked a man swimming off the coast of Ireland a woman sustained multiple injuries after being attacked by a dolphin in Ireland © 2025 NatureWorldNews.com All rights reserved Your browser does not support JavaScript, or it is disabled．Please check the site policy for more information National Report Bears attacked multiple people in and near Akita Prefecture on Oct including at a central city bus stop and the entrance to a hospital in heavily populated areas were injured in bear attacks throughout the day when four women were savaged one after another over a 40-minute period leading to multiple hospitalizations for head and face injuries had to be flown by helicopter to a university hospital in Akita city due to blood loss and severe wounds including broken bones in her chest and hip the bear appeared at a bus stop and bit a first-year senior high school girl on her arm Three of the attacks occurred in a business district near the JR Takanosu Station where retail outlets a 14-year-old junior high school girl was attacked by a bear as she was going home from school Police believe that the five victims in the morning were attacked by the same animal Just over the prefectural border in Hachimantai a man and woman were attacked by a bear while picking mushrooms in a mountainous area and her body was found in a police search of the area suffered injuries to his head but managed to escape to safety and call the police He said the bear had mauled his female companion Yet another bear was spotted in a residential area in Yurihonjo A police officer eventually found the animal in the windbreak room of a nearby hospital The area was sealed off and local government officials captured the animal 51 people have been attacked by bears in Akita Prefecture this year This is more than double the previous record of 20 victims in 2017 Hiroaki Abe and Hideki Muroya contributed to this article.) Information on the latest cherry blossom conditions Please right click to use your browser’s translation function.) A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II In-house News and Messages No reproduction or republication without written permission Proceedings of Cambridge Ophthalmological Symposium Metrics details several groups have published new information regarding the origins and structure of the vitreous humour and the inner limiting lamina (ILL) of the retina This short article provides an overview of this new information It is proposed that vitreous proteins are derived from several different cell types with the posterior half of the non-pigmented ciliary epithelium being prominent in the expression of several connective tissue macromolecules some basement membrane macromolecules are also expressed by the ciliary body and may subsequently be assembled on the surface of the Müller cells to form the ILL New data suggest that the posterior half of the non-pigmented ciliary epithelium has substantial secretory activity and is likely to play a pivotal role in eye development current concepts of the origin of the connective tissue macromolecules present in the vitreous and the inner limiting lamina of the retina will be presented The source of vitreous and ILL macromolecules has been the subject of much speculation and it has only recently been clearly shown that these macromolecules can be synthesised by different cell types and synthesis can vary according to the developmental stage and possibly also with regard to different species most information has been derived from studies using mouse or chicken eyes and some caution should be exercised when extrapolating these data to human eyes these studies use in situ hybridisation to detect mRNA expression and it does not necessarily follow that the presence of a specific mRNA in a cell type will correlate with the biosynthesis of the corresponding protein they noted some COL9A1 expression also in the optic cup before day 2.5 (stage 15) and low levels in the retina later during development these results suggest that vitreous type IX collagen in chicken and mouse (and therefore probably in all vertebrate species) predominantly originates from the ciliary body type II collagen is expressed by the ciliary body but in the mouse other ocular tissues also express type II collagen so that its derivation in the vitreous remains uncertain and in particular the non-pigmented ciliary epithelium is the major source of at least one vitreous collagen (a) and (b) Bright and dark field views respectively of the pars plana (c) and (d) Bright and dark field views of the posterior part of the pars plicata Opticin message was observed specifically in the non-pigmented ciliary epithelium In the anterior parts of the pars plicata the opticin signal from the non-pigmented ciliary epithelium became much less intense A weaker signal was observed in the pigment epithelium with the antisense and sense probes (suggesting non-specific labeling) and no labeling of the non-pigmented ciliary epithelium was seen using the sense probe (data not shown) Of the wide variety of eye tissues that were analysed by DNA sequencing cDNA clones for vitrin were found only in a lens-specific library The function of this connective tissue macromolecule is at present uncertain but this observation reinforces earlier statements in this review that connective tissue macromolecules present in vitreous may be derived from more than one tissue In situ characterization of the human hyalocyte Collagen fibril organisation in mammalian vitreous by freeze etch/rotary shadowing electron microscopy Structural macromolecules and supramolecular organisation of the vitreous gel 1st edn Chapman and Hall: London 1997 135–143 Identification in vitreous and molecular cloning of opticin a novel member of the family of leucine-rich repeat proteins of the extracellular matrix VIT-1: the second member of a new branch of the vWFA superfamily The large chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan versican in mammalian vitreous Connective Tissue and its Heritable Disorders Wiley-Liss: New York 2001 131–141 Macromolecular organization of basement membranes Form and function: the laminin family of heterotrimers Still more complexity in mammalian basement membranes Recombinant domains of mouse nidogen-1 and their binding to basement membrane proteins and monoclonal antibodies Perinatal lethality and endothelial cell abnormalities in several vessel compartments of fibulin-1-deficient mice Recombinant domain IV of perlecan binds to nidogens fibronectin and heparin to different IG modules of perlecan Expression of mouse alpha1(II) collagen gene is not restricted to cartilage during development Extracellular matrices of the developing chick retina and cornea Localization of mRNAs for collagen types II and IX by in situ hybridisation Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1990; 31: 1271–1276 Development and roles of collagenous matrices in the embryonic avian cornea Differential localization of collagen type IX isoform messenger RNAs during early ocular development Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 1994; 35: 470–478 chromosomal location and tissue-specific expression of the mouse opticin gene Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2001; 42: 2202–2210 Developmental patterns of two alpha 1(IX) collagen mRNA isoforms in mouse A large-scale in situ screen provides molecular evidence for the induction of eye anterior segment structures by the developing lens Age-dependent changes in the expression of matrix components in the mouse eye Expression of type II and IX collagen isoforms during normal and pathological cartilage and eye development The transient expression of type II collagen at tissue interfaces during mammalian craniofacial development The biology of the small leucine-rich proteoglycans: functional network of interactive proteins and chromosomal localization for a small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycan (SLRP) family member expressed in human eye Isolation of a novel iris-specific and leucine-rich repeat protein (oculoglycan) using differential selection Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2000; 41: 2059–2066 Expression pattern and gene characterization of asporin Leucine-rich repeat glycoproteins of the extracellular matrix How often do duplicated genes evolve new functions? Preservation of duplicate genes by complementary Birth and death of duplicated genes in completely sequenced eukaryotes Biglycan-like extracellular matrix genes of agnathans and teleosts Inner ear localization of mRNA and protein products of COCH mutated in the sensorineural deafness and vestibular disorder Mutations in a novel cochlear gene cause DFNA9 a human nonsyndromic deafness with vestibular dysfunction NMR structure of the LCCL domain and implications for DFNA9 deafness disorder Structural basis of collagen recognition by integrin alpha2beta1 Vit-1 is synthesized by the lens during the development of the mouse eye origin and turnover of glycoproteins of the rabbit vitreous body Transferrin production by the ciliary body of rabbits: a biochemical and immunocytochemical study and assembly of the embryonic chick retinal basal lamina Temporary disruption of the retinal basal lamina and its effect upon retinal histogenesis Jaeger E (eds) Duane’s Foundations of Clinical Ophthalmology Embryology and Teratology Lippincott: Philadelphia 1999 pp 1–38 Development of the ciliary body: a brief review Trans Ophthalmol Soc UK 1986; 105: 123–130 Developmental analysis of ocular morphogenesis in αA-crystallin/diphtheria toxin transgenic mice undergoing ablation of the lens Central role for the lens in cave fish eye degeneration Pax6 activity in the lens primordium is required for lens formation and for correct placement of a single retina in the eye Deletion in the promoter region and altered expression of Pitx3 homeobox gene in aphakia mice A double-deletion mutation in the Pitx3 gene causes arrested lens development in aphakia mice Regression of vessels in the tunica vasculosa lentis is initiated by coordinated endothelial cell apoptosis: a role for vascular endothelial growth factor as a survival factor for endothelium Differential gene expression in the human ciliary epithelium Light and electron microscopic observations on the ciliary epithelium in man and rhesus monkey The Human Eye: Structure and Function Sinauer Associates: Sunderland Retinal stem cells in the adult mammalian eye Identification of neural progenitors in the adult mammalian eye Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2000; 270: 517–521 Molecular evidence that human ocular ciliary epithelium expresses components involved in phototransduction Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2001; 284: 317–325 Expression of the receptor for parathyroid hormone-related protein in normal and malignant breast tissue Download references Supported in part by grant R37 AR30481 from The National Institutes of Health EyeSight Foundation of Alabama and Fight for Sight PNB is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science The authors would like to thank David McLeod Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research School of Biological Sciences and Research Group in Eye & Vision Sciences The Medical School University of Manchester Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.eye.6700199 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Please view the main text area of the page by skipping the main menu. 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