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Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL

Oct 24, 2002

Aliens add to autumn show

By Gerard Taaffe

Autumn in Japan is a colorful season, and not only because of the famed koyo foliage of its trees. In gardens, fields and roadsides, too, flowers burst forth as if to celebrate the return of sensible weather after the long, sweaty rigors of summer. However, some of the best-known blooms of this fall...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 18, 2002

By Rowan Hooper

* 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 Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 17, 2002

Ticks: playing a waiting game to gorge on blood

By Mark Brazil

Being in the field for several months each year in search of wildlife to study, photograph and write about may sound wonderful, and it certainly does make for an exciting life. There is a downside, though, because there's also wildlife out there looking for me. Well, not me specifically, but warm-blooded...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 11, 2002

By Rowan Hooper

* 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...

ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH

Oct 10, 2002

Women are the key to conserving Mother Earth

By Stephen Hesse

Danielle Nierenberg may work in the shadow of the White House, but she is clearly more enlightened than the man who lives there. At the end of April, the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute released a policy brief written by Nierenberg, a staff researcher. The title of her paper is a succinct statement...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL

Oct 10, 2002

Nurturing nature in an urban sprawl

By Gerard Taaffe

At a mere 374 meters high, Arima-Fuji in Hyogo Prefecture is hardly on a par with the Kanto peak whose name it shares, but its conical shape does bear a passing resemblance. Though it's almost all clothed with pleasent woodland, from the bare rocky areas near the summit there are good views of the surrounding...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 4, 2002

By Rowan Hooper

* 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...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 3, 2002

Homing in on a sound of autumn

By Mark Brazil

Thump . . . thud . . . and thump again. It's a perennial autumn sound -- the sound of falling fruit. Overripe on the branch, sometimes already rotting, apples, pears, persimmons and plums fall and burst, splattering strong-smelling juices that don't long go wasted.

ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK

Oct 3, 2002

A tale worth telling of (our) nature in the raw

By C.W. Nicol

I've been away in sunny climes for a while, and now I'm back at my desk in Kurohime. Actually, it is sunny and fine here as I write this, too, but there is a chill in the air, and flocks of small birds are twittering through the trees, migrants, coming down from higher up the mountain. Looking over my...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT

Sep 29, 2002

How is marine Miyakejima now?

By Jack Moyer

In early July 2000, Miyakejima Island's 7,000-year-old volcano roared back to life. Continual eruptions led to the entire population being evacuated over the next two months as emissions of very fine, extremely heavy ash were replaced by lethal gases gushing daily from a new 400-meter-deep crater. What...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Sep 27, 2002

By Rowan Hooper

* 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 / GARDENS FOR ALL

Sep 26, 2002

Trees that tower over the past and present

By Gerard Taaffe

An visitor to Kyoto's world-famous gardens and temples could not fail to be awed by the stands and avenues of towering Kitayama sugi (Japanese red cedar, or peacock pine; Cryptomeria japonica).

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

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.

Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.

By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

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