Toys R Us is where all the DS owners and Pokemon fans will be going this week. Well, hopeful DS owners too. The store’s January 30 – February 5, 2011 ad is now online and its catering to handheld gamers this week. But even if you’re broke, you’re going to want to stop by. That’s because it’s pokemon distribution time!

This week, all Toys R Us stores will have Ash’s pikachu from the Pokemon series and anime…

If you happened to be by Nintendo’s booth in the West Hall at E3 2010, searching for a cute and casual game to play, Pokepark Wii: Pikachu’s Adventure was a perfect place to stop. Nintendo had two demo stations set up for the forthcoming Wii game that’ll be out this holiday season. One allowed you to roam around the Pokepark and the other allowed you to sample some of the mini-games. Being a Pokemon fan and sucker for cute characters, I immediately got in line to play…

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver released last week and now comes the announcement of a special Pokéwalker course.

The new course will be aptly named Yellow Forest and it will involve a forest and the sheer number of Pikachu inside lends to the color in the title.

The Pokéwalker is a Pokéball-shaped device that is essentially a pedometer with some minigames in it. Don’t get me wrong, that hasn’t stopped me from carrying mine clipped to my belt from day to day. I caught an Oddish earlier, so everyone who thinks I’m weird can just chew on that.

As is expected for every portable Pokemon game, Nintendo has announced that there will be preorder incentive items for Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver designed to encourage people to place their orders early. Not like the game really needs it in the first place, given it’s Pokemon, one of the best loved and best selling portable games series in existence. Nonetheless, it is nice to get something for free when buying a game you already knew you were going to buy.

The preorder program starts February 1, 2010, and will give every person who takes the time to reserve a copy a statue of one of two legendary pokemon found in Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver. If you place your preorder for HeartGold, you get a figurine of Ho-Oh that appears to be preparing to soar up into the skies. If you prefer SoulSilver, you get the Lugia figurine pictured at the right.

Amazon isn’t mentioning the preorder offer yet, but…

Pokemon and one of its most famous creatures, Pikachu, made their way into the world’s vocabulary years ago. Now, Pikachu is making its way into medical vernacular. A newly discovered protein has been dubbed “Pikachurin” by Japanese scientists.

The July 20, 2008 web edition of Nature Neuroscience (which requires a subscription to view) discussed the Osaka Bioscience Institute’s discovery of pikachurin, a protein which aids kinetic vision. The protein was named specifically for Pikachu, because of the character’s agility.