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July 16, 2024
 

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NATURAL SELECTIONS

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 27, 2003
How much pain can your brain take?
Japanese TV became famous abroad in the 1980s and created an image of Japan for outsiders that still lingers. The shows were the gaman taikai (endurance contests), where members of the public carried out tasks in which they suffered pain: The winners were the ones who endured the most.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 20, 2003
No taste for obesity
In the British cult comic 2000AD, future lawman Judge Dredd patrols the streets of Mega City One, a vast metropolis on the eastern seaboard of what was once the United States. Mega City One makes Tokyo seem spacious, and its residents make Harajuku's weirdest seem tame: One group of future misfits are...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2003
Ensuring age is the crown of life
The English scholar John Bailey said his wife Iris Murdoch, a prolific, perfectionist novelist and lecturer, became like "a very nice 3-year-old" as her Alzheimer's disease progressed. The disease made the proteins in her brain "misfold" and collapse, forming clots called amyloids that disrupt normal...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 6, 2003
Freaks that are something to quack about
In 1832 the young Charles Darwin embarked on one of the most epic journeys in the history of biology, if not of all science. As a naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle, Darwin saw things that challenged the prevailing view of how life arose. On returning to England five years later, he began work on what he...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 30, 2003
Insects simply a breath apart
Insects are the most numerous, diverse and successful group of animals in the history of the planet. They are found in almost every environment, and range from the minute (less than a millimeter long for the feather-winged beetle) to the large (more than 15 cm for the South American longhorn beetle)....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 23, 2003
Casting light on the aurora
"The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound and fiery crimson like the fires of...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 16, 2003
When two hemispheres of the brain work as one
The French surgeon Paul Broca had a patient in his care in 1861 who had fallen and broken his hip. Eighteen months earlier the man, called Lelong, had collapsed with a stroke that left him unable to speak. When Lelong died on Broca's ward, a hip fracture being a fatal condition in those days, an autopsy...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 9, 2003
Cultured 'man of forest' in peril
Culture, from a biological point of view, is behavior that is passed on through social contact. But what are the origins of culture? And what is it about humans that has allowed us to develop such rich and diverse cultures?
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 3, 2003
The mice with the windows in their skulls
The British entertainer Derren Brown has caused a stir by apparently demonstrating mind control. He's not psychic, he says, but he can see into other people's brains.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 26, 2002
It came from the alphabet soup
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 19, 2002
Autoimmune disorder may kickstart anorexia in some
At the beginning of the Manic Street Preachers song "4st 7lbs," a girl is heard saying: "I eat too much to die. And not enough to stay alive. I'm sitting in the middle waiting."
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 / 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 / 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 / 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 / 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 / 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 / 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.
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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals
Exploring Japanese culturevia Tohoku’s festivals

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