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July 16, 2024
 

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NATURAL SELECTIONS

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 31, 2003
Figuring it out for those that forget
Right now, in the brain cells of 12 million people around the world, there are messy, abnormal tangles of a protein called tau. Surrounding the neurons of these people (there are 1.6 million of them in Japan and 4 million in the United States) are plaques of a protein fragment called beta-amyloid.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 24, 2003
Whaling safe with the IWC
In 1635, under pressure from the Church of England for his nonconformity, the Rev. Richard Mather decided it was time to leave England with his wife and sons and start a new life in New England.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 17, 2003
Safe hydrogen power needs nuclear energy
...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 10, 2003
Sifting through the goo
It's been hailed as the first major scientific breakthrough of the 21st century, but in his recent book, "Prey," Michael Crichton envisioned it taking over the world.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 3, 2003
When males lead to miscarriages
At temples all over Japan, there are stone statues wearing aprons and caps of red cloth. Someone once told me that the cloth was supposed to keep the statues warm at night and protect them when it rained. What my friend neglected to say was that many of these statues are dedicated to mizuko, literally...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 26, 2003
Hard-core S&M sex . . . on the web
In 1996 Cosmopolitan magazine ran a humorous piece about men who had died during sex. One of the most famous cases is that of the former French President Felix Faure.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 19, 2003
Men stripped to their Ys
Edward Lambert, born in the 1700s in England, was to all appearances a normal boy until he entered puberty, whereupon his skin turned black and thickened, hardening into scales, solid like the shafts of feathers.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 5, 2003
Losing your mind may produce great art
Inevitably, we learn a lot about ourselves when something goes wrong. By studying what happens to people afflicted by various forms of brain degeneration, for example, we have learned a lot about how the brain works. This generally means that by understanding what goes wrong when specific parts of the...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 29, 2003
Best to remember this
A couple of years ago the British artist Damien Hirst explained why he now lays off alcohol: "Blackouts. I used never to get blackouts. . . . I was walking around in the morning, and they'd be going, 'You did this.' Did I? I couldn't even remember the violence."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 22, 2003
Reading the mind through the face
Victorian Englishmen were not known for feeling comfortable displaying their emotions. Charles Darwin, exceptional in so many other ways, was like his countrymen in this regard, and considered the display of emotions in adult humans to be vestigial, something left over from our evolutionary past. That...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 15, 2003
Fish have feeling too
"It's OK to eat fish 'cos they don't have any feelings." So sang Kurt Cobain on "Something in the Way," from 1991's "Nevermind" album.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 8, 2003
Ethicists bid to unscramble egg argument
It's often been said that philosophy lags behind science. Bertrand Russell's "The ABC of Relativity," for example, was published in 1926, 21 years after Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 1, 2003
Radioactive fallout courtesy of U.S.
In 1789, a German chemist, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, announced that he had discovered a new element in the dull black mineral pitchblende. He named it after the planet Uranus, itself discovered only eight years earlier.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 24, 2003
Happy b'day double helix
This week is the anniversary of what some have called the most important intellectual innovation in human history, the discovery of the structure of DNA. From a paper originally published in Nature on April 25, 1953, DNA has made it into the pantheon of chemical structures instantly known to all members...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 17, 2003
Not now, maybe never
As far as self-publicity goes, the U.S.-based Raelian cult has done better than most. Based on the alleged experiences of a one-time motor-racing journalist, Claude Vorilhon, who claimed to have been inspired by an extraterrestrial power lunch with Mohammed, Christ and Buddha, the cult drew attention...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 10, 2003
Immune system linked to mating habits
David Beckham might wear a sarong and Takuya Kimura of SMAP may sometimes wear lipstick, but in humans, most males are dull compared to the females. In other animals, of course, the opposite is true: it is the males that are showy, brightly colored, flashy.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 3, 2003
An egg's just a sniff away from the battling sperm
Not many of us have won a marathon . . . hell, most of us would struggle to even finish one. But even the least competitive, most couch potato-like among us are the result of winning the most difficult of races in the most appalling of conditions: the race between sperm in an ejaculate to fertilize a...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 27, 2003
Gambling on dopamine
Paul Newman's character in the 1967 movie "Cool Hand Luke" earns his eponymous nickname by bluffing wildly in a poker game, winning with a hand that amounts to nothing. "Yeah, well," he mumbles, "Sometimes nuthin' can be a real cool hand."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 20, 2003
Happiness and how to achieve it
We are all in search of it, and while some have it, many don't. The pursuit of it was even written into the American Declaration of Independence. We're talking about happiness, surely an ancient and universal human desire, a desire that arose in our brains when we arose on the Ethiopian savanna. But...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 6, 2003
Do you want to live forever? We might do soon
The Anglo-Irish poet Jonathan Swift said "Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old."
Who needs AI when you have Hatsune Miku?
Over the first six months of 2024, a handful of songs using Vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku’s voice have enjoyed widespread attention, underlining a global interest in the character and the technology she represents.
Bloodied Trump survives assassination attempt at political rally
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is surrounded and evacuated by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Trump was rushed off stage at the rally after shots rang out.
Shooter came within inches of killing Trump, but left few clues as to why
An aerial view shows the stage where Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Sunday.
Yen’s woes seem too big for even a BOJ hike this month to solve
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.
How to tweak your diet when temperatures spike
Most people think of hydration as a strictly liquid-based concept, but eating foods with high water content is an essential part of making it through a Japanese summer unscathed.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

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