Rowan Hooper - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

May 3, 2001

Antlion symbiosis story to make Darwin smile

Antlions, insects resembling feeble, intoxicated dragonflies, flutter briefly in summer, hardly eating, only copulating, reproducing then dying. But their life as larvae is all about food. Living for two to three years at the bottom of a funnel-shaped pit/trap in the ground, the antlion larva waits with open jaws for a smaller insect to fall in, whereupon it paralyzes its prey and sucks out its vital juices.

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Apr 27, 2001

Scorpion fly

*Japanese name:Shiriage mushi *Scientific name: Panorpa japonica * Description: Males are unmistakable -- the abdomen is curled like a scorpion's. The wings, which are held flat when resting, are clear with black spots at the ends, and the head has a large "beak" that is used for feeding. Adults are 15-22 mm long. *Where to find them: On bushes and around forest edges in lowland areas from April to May, then after the rainy season, from July to September. *Food: Scorpion flies will catch live insects such as caterpillars, but will also scavenge dead insects and steal prey from spiders' webs. They will also feed on ripe fruit and pollen. They stab their prey with their beak and drain the insides. * Special features: Like in other species, males fight among themselves to get females. Male scorpion flies have different methods of getting females. Some males will catch a caterpillar and offer it to the female as a gift. While she is eating it, he will attempt to mate with her. Males also release a pheromone to attract females, and it turns out that males that smell best to females also have the best-developed bodies. That doesn't mean they have the biggest bodies, just the most symmetrical. Some males, if they can't catch a gift or attract females with pheromones, try to mate females by force.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Apr 26, 2001

Vaccine theory of HIV debunked

A tempest that has been raging in the outwardly dignified world of academia is set to die down with the publication today of three papers in Nature and one in Science. The story -- about the origin of AIDS -- is one of intrigue, mystery and death. Mostly, however, it is about death.

CULTURE / Film

Apr 25, 2001

Science fare

There are two scientist types that have traditionally made it to the big screen: the mad and evil (Dr. Frankenstein) or the bold and dashing (Dr. Indiana Jones). Sometimes they are bold, dashing and mad (Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"). If women, they are usually babes (Linda Fiorentino in "Men in Black," or Scully from "X-Files").

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Apr 20, 2001

Tiger beetle

*Japanese name: Hanmyo *Scientific name: Cicindela chinensis japonica * Description: Tiger beetles have strong jaws and metallic blue, red and green bodies. The pattern on their bodies makes it difficult for them to be spotted by enemies -- and by us, too. You're most likely to see tiger beetles flying short distances, close to the ground. Watch for where they land, and sneak up on them. Adults are 20 mm long. *Where to find them: Tiger beetles are active on sunny days from April to August. They live in flat, sandy or rocky areas, on trails and in forest openings. * Food: The eating habits of tiger beetles are hinted at in their name. They are predatory insects that ambush and kill other insects with their strong jaws. Their larvae are also predatory, lurking in holes in the ground into which they drag unsuspecting insects. *Special features: Predators have to move fast to catch their prey. Tiger beetles run in zig-zags along the ground on their long legs and can quickly take flight, unlike most other beetles. Hidden folded under their shiny, protective elytra is a pair of wings that can instantly unwrap.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Apr 19, 2001

Intelligent elephant mamas never forget

Elephants form some of the most intimate social relationships seen outside primates. The female-led society provides a high level of care to its members: Little elephants are bathed and carried over obstacles, and mothers frequently touch their young with their trunks. If disturbed, calves and the matriarch leader are protected at the center of the herd.

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Apr 13, 2001

Paper wasp

*Japanese name: Futamon ashinagabachi *Scientific name: Polistes chinensis * Description: Paper wasps are social insects, meaning that they live together in a colony. A queen lays eggs, and worker insects feed the larvae. They have yellow and black stripes like regular wasps, but paper wasps are easy to identify because they dangle their long legs under their body when they fly. They also have bright orange antennae. They grow up to 16 mm long. * Where to find them: Around humans -- houses, sheds, buildings and parks. In spring the queen wasp builds a nest of hexagonal cells made from chewed-up wood fibers. Paper wasps are active from April to October. Colonies can contain up to 30 adult wasps, but do not approach a paper wasp's nest to see for yourself: The workers may sting you to drive you away. * Food: As well as pollen from flowers, paper wasps eat other insects. They especially like caterpillars, and some butterfly populations have been wiped out because of paper wasps. Sometimes they even cannibalize paper wasps from other nests. * Special features: The queen paper wasp is the only member of the colony to lay eggs. The workers are females, but they can't lay eggs as their ovipositor is modified into a weapon -- a sting that feels like a hot needle. Male paper wasps look for queens to mate with, and then die. Males can't sting because they have no ovipositor. The queen sleeps throughout winter.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Apr 12, 2001

Scientists find munchies has physiological basis

The anecdotes and folklore that filter out from the hazy world of cannabis users attest to the drug's stimulating effect on the appetite as well as on the brain. Now scientists have confirmed that the munchies has a physiological basis, establishing the first firm link between cannabinoids (chemicals that occur in cannabis and also naturally in the body) and the normal regulation of body weight.

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Apr 6, 2001

Bee-fly

* Japanese name: Birodo tsuriabu

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Apr 5, 2001

Climate change blamed for Okinawa coral death

Scientists at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa have published evidence showing that global climate changes in 1998 devastated coral reefs around Sesoko Island. The report, published in the April edition of the journal Ecology Letters, comes on the heels of George W. Bush's unilateral abandonment of the 1997 Kyoto treaty on climate change.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Mar 19, 2001

Earthlings, meet your parent

The four planets closest to the sun are siblings of a sort. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars have similar core properties and densities, suggesting that they probably formed from the same dust cloud in the early solar system, but they have very different surfaces and atmospheres. Mercury is hot, has low gravity and almost no atmosphere, Venus is hot and dense, Mars is dry. Its average surface temperature is minus 55 C. Earth is the only planet covered with oceans.

JAPAN

Mar 16, 2001

Gene find could harness power of photosynthesis

A team of Japanese researchers has identified a gene in the mustard plant Arabidopsis that controls the movement of light-gathering cells in leaves. The discovery could lead to the construction of artificially enhanced plants, they say.

ENVIRONMENT

Mar 11, 2001

Calcium pulses clue to nerve cell growth

Like an insect's antennae, filapodia are the fingerlike projections sent out by a developing nerve cell to detect environmental cues. Scientists at the University of California at San Diego have discovered how the filapodia communicate with the main body of the cell: through a kind of biological Morse code.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Mar 5, 2001

Paleolithic technology and the boom in cultural evolution

About 300,000 years ago something happened that was unlike anything in the previous few billion years, something that would have ever-expanding repercussions.

ENVIRONMENT

Feb 26, 2001

The bite of a Jurassic killer

A combination of advanced medical scanning techniques and sophisticated data-analysis used in engineering has revealed the biomechanics of dinosaur feeding.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Feb 19, 2001

Genome decoded: evolution, religion and what it all means

The publication of the human genome sequence has been compared to the detonation of the first atomic bomb and the landing of the first human on the moon.

LIFE / Travel

Feb 19, 2001

Coming soon: cheap space travel

If all goes well, American millionaire Dennis Tito will this year become the world's first space tourist, flying on the Soyez rocket to the International Space Station. The ticket price? A cool $20 million. But a new fueling system developed by Andrews Space & Technology of Segundo, Calif., could soon make space tourism far cheaper.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Feb 5, 2001

Animals and nature's remedies

Michael Huffman of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute was watching a group of wild chimpanzees in Western Tanzania in 1987 when he saw something that first puzzled and then astonished him. His subsequent work has changed how we think about animal feeding behavior and has important implications for human medicine.

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Jan 29, 2001

Toward the future of medicine

How alternative is alternative medicine these days?

LIFE / Travel

Jan 25, 2001

Legally blind woman realizes dream in trek across India

Last week, a woman from Ireland embarked on an epic three-month, 1,000-km unsupported trek across India on elephant-back. Caroline Casey is caring for her elephant herself, and camping at every stage of her journey, accompanied only by an elephant feeder and Indian guides. What makes the already daunting undertaking all the more remarkable is the fact that Casey is registered legally blind.

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