author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
Rowan Hooper

Meta

Twitter

@rowhoop

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 Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2008
Let science empower you
The setting: The 350-year-old Royal Society in London, whose magnificent neo-Classical base overlooks the Mall, which has Buckingham Palace at one end of the boulevard and Trafalgar Square at the other. The speaker: Lord Rees of Oxford, the Astronomer Royal. Martin Rees is the current president of the...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Feb 13, 2008
Black-headed gull
Japanese name:Yurikamome
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 30, 2008
Mass ignorance on 'half-human embryos'
On Sunday a couple of weeks ago, an extraordinary statement was read out in many churches in Britain. It had been prepared by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales with the aim of fomenting protests to Members of Parliament.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jan 23, 2008
Common kingfisher
Japanese name: Kawasemi
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 9, 2008
Can we be forever young?
Jeanette Winterson's latest novel, "The Stone Gods," is set in the future on a distant planet whose resources have been over- exploited by colonizing humans.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jan 9, 2008
Cave cricket
* Japanese name: Kamadouma * Scientific name: Atachycines apicalis * Description: A hump-backed insect with huge hind legs and long, sweeping antennae, the cave cricket is easily recognizable. It is brown, wingless, and the body is 3-4 cm long. The hind legs, with the femurs shaped like chicken drumsticks,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 26, 2007
Giant water bug
*Japanese name: Taikouchi *Scientific name: Laccotrephes japonensis *Description: Also known as water scorpions and "toe-biters," these are ferocious, tough insects with strong, sharp front legs for catching prey (and biting toes or fingers) and a beaked hypodermic-type mouth with which they stab...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 12, 2007
How do chimps top us in a brain test?
"We are 98.77 percent chimpanzee," Tetsuro Matsuzawa told me last week. "We are their evolutionary neighbors."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 12, 2007
Wasp spider
* Japanese name: Naka-koganegumo * Scientific name: Argiope bruennichii * Description: You wouldn't really mistake this spider for a wasp, but its egg-shaped abdomen is dramatically striped in yellow, black and white, and the legs too are striped, though the overall pattern is perhaps more tigerish...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Nov 28, 2007
Osprey
* Japanese name: Misago * Scientific name: Pandion haliaetus * Description: A distinctive, magnificent bird, with a wingspan of 180 cm, a body up to 60 cm long, and pure white underparts. The top side of the body is a deep brown, the head is white with a masklike stripe over the eyes that drapes onto...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 14, 2007
In vino veritas — or not
I was drinking a beer and eating sashimi in a tiny bar in Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district last week when one of the office workers there wondered aloud, "Is evolution the same as progress?"
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Nov 14, 2007
Rosy bitterling
* Japanese name: Tairiku baratanago * Scientific name: Rhodeus ocellatus ocellatus * Description: A small freshwater fish in the carp family, native to Taiwan, the rosy bitterling grows to some 6.5cm long. It's a pretty thing, with a flat silver body touched with green behind the head, blue on the sides...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 31, 2007
Meditations on meditation and enhancing the mind
At Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, at dawn on a March morning several years ago, I came as close as I ever have to satori, the Zen term for spiritual enlightenment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming any sort of deep insight, just that there, in that corner of Kanagawa Prefecture, I came to understand...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Oct 24, 2007
Little red damselfly
* Japanese name: Beni-itotonbo * Scientific name: Ceriagrion nipponicum * Description: The clue's in the name: This insect is small (just 35 mm long) and red — although the females, which are a slightly duller orange, or even brown, don't sport the vivid vermilion of the males. The four wings are...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Oct 10, 2007
Freshwater blue goby
* Japanese name: Ruri-Yoshinobori * Scientific name: Rhinogobius sp. * Description: Gobies have a slender body with a rather large head, bulbous eyes, fleshy cheeks and a full-lipped mouth, giving them something of a cartoon appearance. Males have shining bright blue spots on their cheeks and body....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 10, 2007
Not all of us know how to play fair
I remember, as a child, seeing in a museum the skeletons of birds, bats and apes, and someone pointing out to me that they all had the same bones in their arms. It was the first time I grasped that we all had a common evolutionary ancestor, though at the time I hardly thought about it in those terms...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 26, 2007
Horned turban shell
* Japanese name: Sazae * Scientific name: Turbo cornutus * Description: One of the most prized of all marine gastropods, the horned turban shell — more familiar to sushi aficionados as sazae — has a large, thick, green-gray shell and a snail-like body. The shell has about five spirals, which turn...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 12, 2007
Feelings we share?
To what extent do animals consciously experience emotions?
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 12, 2007
Carp
* Japanese name: Koi (Nishiki-goi) * Scientific name: Cyprinus carpio * Description: A big, colorful fish, with large scales and barbels (those are the "whiskers" growing down from the upper lips). They can grow to well over a meter in length, and live for more than 15 years. They are related to other...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 29, 2007
Let's (try to) get serious about silliness
August is known as the "silly season" in the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, as newspaper editors faced with legislators all gone on holiday struggle in vain to fill their pages and resort to, well, silly stories.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER