English news for Sunday, September 13, 2026

Scientists in Germany have tested how people see pictures of food made by AI^*1. They found that people think AI pictures look less real than photos of real food. People also want to eat the food in AI pictures less. The study was published in the journal^*2 Scientific Reports on August 15.

The research team was led by Alexander Diel. The team works at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the LVR University Hospital Essen in Germany.

The team did an online test with 87 people. Each person looked at 60 pairs of pictures. In each pair, one picture was a photo of real food. The other picture was made by AI. For each picture, people answered four questions. How real does it look? How much do you want to eat it? How many calories^*3 does it have? How healthy is it?

The AI pictures got lower scores for looking real. People also said they wanted to eat the food in the AI pictures less. But for the other two questions, there was no difference. People gave the same scores for calories and for how healthy the food looked.

The team also found one more thing. Sometimes an AI picture looked even more real than the real photo. When that happened, people gave the AI picture higher scores. They said the food looked healthier, and they wanted to eat it more. So when an AI picture looks extremely real, people rate the food higher.

1. *1 AI: computer programs that can make pictures, text, and other things by themselves
2. *2 journal: a magazine where scientists print their studies
3. *3 calories: a measure of how much energy is in food

On September 4, 2026, a road office of Japan's transport ministry announced a new rule for a road in Kushiro. Kushiro is a city in Hokkaido, in the north of Japan. The office looks after national roads in the Kushiro area. It will now close the Asahi Underpass^*1 on Route 44 before heavy rain can flood^*2 it. The office will work with the police and other groups to do this.

The reason is a disaster in August 2026. Very heavy rain fell in Chiba, an area in Japan. An underpass there filled with water, and people were hurt. After this, the ministry decided it should not depend only on the drains^*3 that take water out of the underpass. It wants more than one way to keep people safe. Also, if the electricity stops or a machine breaks, the road should still move to the safe side and close. This idea is called "fail-safe^*4."

The office will close the road when any one of three things happens. First, when a Level 4 heavy rain warning is given. Second, when 40 millimeters^*5 of rain falls in one hour, or when that much rain is forecast^*6. Third, when the road office or the police think the underpass may flood.

The closed part of the road runs from the Asahicho 19 intersection^*7 to the Shin-Kushiro-cho 6 intersection. Both are in Kushiro.

The office also wants to stop cars from driving into the underpass when it is full of water. It is thinking about keeping "road closed" signs, barricades^*8 and traffic cones^*9 ready near the road. It is also thinking about gates that close by themselves, or that workers can close from far away.

1. *1 underpass: a road that goes under another road or a railway
2. *2 flood: to fill a place with water
3. *3 drains: pipes or holes that carry water away
4. *4 fail-safe: a way of building something so it stays safe even when a part stops working
5. *5 millimeters: a very small measure of length; 10 millimeters are 1 centimeter
6. *6 forecast: expected to happen, as told by the weather report
7. *7 intersection: a place where two roads cross
8. *8 barricades: fences or blocks put across a road to stop people or cars
9. *9 traffic cones: orange cone-shaped objects put on a road to show where cars must not go