Rowan Hooper - The Japan Times

September 17, 2024

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Rowan Hooper

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Rowan Hooper

Rowan Hooper has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Sheffield University, UK, and he worked as an insect biologist in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, for five years before spending a two-year period at The Japan Times in Tokyo. He is now news editor for New Scientist magazine, based in London.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Dec 12, 2002

A rotten trick to play on a fly

Off the coasts of the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearics, there are a number of smaller islands, studding the sea like olives in a vast focaccia. On these sun-kissed islands there grows a plant with a feature entirely appropriate to the almost mythical setting. When this plant...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Dec 5, 2002

GM crops get good press? Surely not

Everyone from religious scholars to British lords seems to have an opinion on genetically modified foods -- whether it is that they are "Frankensteinian" or that they are creations revealing the promise of biotechnology in the service of humanity.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Dec 2, 2002

* Japanese name: Ubatamakomeshiki * Scientific name: Paracalais berus * Description: Click beetles have a hinged body and a spine beneath the thorax that fits into a groove under the abdomen. They are 16-19 mm long, with flattened, elongated, bullet-shaped brown bodies. Also known as snapping, break-back...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Nov 28, 2002

Superfly just f- f- f- fades away, showing that insects age too

Neil Young referred to it with, "It's better to burn out than to fade away" while Pete Townshend echoed the sentiment with the line, "I hope I die before I get old."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 22, 2002

* Japanese name: Abura zemi * Scientific name: Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata * Description: The body length of this large cicada is between 32-40 mm as an adult. Like any true bug, the wings are held over the body and form an upside-down V-shape. The mottled wings look like they have a coating of oil...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Nov 21, 2002

Menopause for thought on heart attacks

In the years leading up to menopause, usually from the ages of 45 to 54, a woman's ovaries start to shrink, and the levels of the female hormones they produce, estrogen and progesterone, become irregular.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 15, 2002

Ryukyu damselfly

* Japanese name: Ryukyu hagurotonbo * Scientific name: Matrona basilaris japonica * Description: The Ryukyu damselfly is a sturdy, brightly colored insect. At 51-65 mm long, it is large for a damselfly. Males have brilliant electric-blue bodies and two pairs of dark-blue wings, although there is...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Nov 14, 2002

Mammals get early warning on climate change

President George W. Bush and the U.S. government might not be in denial of climate change these days, but their position is little more responsible than the cowboy stance Bush assumed on first coming to power. Climate change is happening, but hell, there's nothing to be done about it, they say.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 8, 2002

Loggerhead turtle

* Japanese name: Ao-umigame * Scientific name: Caretta caretta * Description: Turtles are reptiles with limbs modified into swimming paddles. Loggerhead turtles have a characteristically large head, but they don't have a big brain: It's their jaws that are large. The reddish-brown carapace of adults...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Nov 7, 2002

Say 'baaa' if you're glad to be gay

When domestic rams eschew female sheep, and instead hang around in the corner of the field with other rams, rubbing each other up, necking and even mounting each other, what is going on? Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde's lover, coined the phrase "The love that dare not speak its name," in his poem "Two...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Nov 1, 2002

Bean me down, Scottie, bean me down

"I don't think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 1, 2002

* Japanese name: Hasami mushi * Scientific name: Dermaptera species * Description: Earwigs are small (20 mm long), dark-colored insects with flattened bodies and a semi-circular, very thin pair of wings. The wings are elaborately folded under tiny elytra (wing cases), and it is the nature of the wing...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 25, 2002

* Japanese name: Himekamakirimodoki * Scientific name: Mantispa japonica * Description: Mantidflies are about 25 mm long. They belong to an unusual order of insects, the Neuroptera (the name means "network wing"). Like other neuropterans, such as lacewings, mantidflies have two pairs of fine, delicately...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 18, 2002

* Japanese name: Miyamakuwagata * Scientific name: Lucanus maculifemoratus * Description: This is a large, reddish-black, heavily armed (and armored) beetle. Males have a fearsome but elegant pair of antlerlike jaws, about 15 mm long, with sharp teeth. Body length ranges from 43-72 mm. Females do not...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Oct 17, 2002

Searching within ourselves for the vaccine against HIV

It is 2005, in what was formerly the state of California. After a massive earthquake, the golden state has been divided into two: So. Cal and No. Cal. Scrawled and sprayed on walls and wreckage is the name of the people's savior: J.D. Shapely.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 11, 2002

* Japanese name: Beniito tonbo * Scientific name: Ceriagrion nipponicum * Description: The red damselfly is small (body length 34-41 mm). Damselflies can be distinguished from dragonflies (both in the insect order Odonata) by the way they perch. Damselflies rest with their wings folded together over...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Oct 10, 2002

Giving you something to stretch your head round

Modern American anthropology owes a lot to one man: Franz Boas, widely regarded as the father of the discipline.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 4, 2002

* Japanese name: Torafunamako * Scientific name: Holothuria pervicax * Description: Despite their name, sea cucumbers are not plants but animals, close relatives of sea urchins and starfish. They are all echinoderms, and members of this group are radially symmetrical. This kind of symmetry is most familiar...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Sep 27, 2002

* Japanese name: Mizukurage * Scientific name: Aurelia aurita * Description: Moon jellyfish are soft-bodied, transparent animals that swim by gently undulating their bell-shaped bodies. They range in size from 5 cm to 40 cm in diameter. Unlike what you may have expected, size is not an indication of...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Sep 20, 2002

Japanese oakblue

* Japanese name: Murasaki shijimi * Scientific name: Narathura japonica * Description: If you catch sight of a butterfly flitting through the trees, it is likely to be an oakblue. The oakblue is a small (14-22 mm long) butterfly. Its black-bordered wings have beautiful, iridescent blue patches. It...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.

Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Sasakawa works for a sustainable blue economy

Sasakawa works for a sustainable blue economy

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