Yellow Sand

A research team from the National Institute for Environment Studies has published a report that 5 million tonnes of yellow sand blow over Japan from China every year, and about half of that settles on the islands. Throughout the report and the newspaper articles everyone keeps referring to it specifically as "yellow sand", as if the fact that it's yellow is important. As if sand were like Kryptonite, with different effects for each colour.

The scientists say that the sand originally comes from the Gobi Desert, and that they can now "spot a source in a 40-kilometer radius". Whatever the hell that means.

What's clear, though, is that these 2.5 million tonnes of sand a year could be put to good use in reviving Japan's beaches. All they'd need is a series of huge funnels or something to catch the sand, then they could put it down over the tetrapods. Why don't they just do that? Come on, Japan, just do that.