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May 03, 2024
 

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Rowan Hooper

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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.
For Rowan Hooper's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 9, 2012
My seminal link with manga god Osamu Tezuka
In this month's column I am going to claim an audacious link with that great "god of manga," Osamu Tezuka.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 12, 2012
Excuse this proud new father — it's time to indulge in some baby talk
I'll preface this column by admitting that it is fairly common, among journalists on the science and health beats, that after they personally reproduce they experience a burning desire to write about the science of childbirth. Seasoned editors know to expect that postnatal reporters will start pitching stories on the psychology of the newborn child, on fetal brain development and on hormonal and genetic influences on natal behavior.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 8, 2012
How astrology and superstition drove an increase in abortions in Japan
I like to think of myself as a rational human being most of the time, but I have to suppress a shudder if someone opens an umbrella indoors, and I'd probably comment if a black cat crossed my path.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 10, 2012
Is sci-fi becoming sci-fact in Japan, too?
Where is Japan's equivalent of Elon Musk? Where's the young entrepreneur with a huge bank balance and dreams to match? Where is that someone raised in these isles on sci-fi manga and space movies who wants to make human travel in space a reality?
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 13, 2012
Though spooked by new threats, Japanese accept mass killers
Before March last year, if you'd asked a child in Japan about nuclear radiation you would probably have been told about Godzilla, the monster powered by mutations caused by radiation, or Tetsuwan Atomu, aka the nuclear-powered robot Astro Boy. Not any more.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 8, 2012
Procreation begets problems for pandas
Just how cute are giant pandas? The public can't get enough of them. The star attractions at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo are Ri Ri and Shin Shin, a male and female pair who helped attract some 4.4 million visitors last fiscal year — the highest number for 19 years.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 11, 2012
Obesity on the rise as Japanese eat more Western-style food
When Japanese people are ordering food, how many times do you hear them asking for "oomori" (large size)? It's the equivalent of asking for "supersize" in a U.S. fast-food joint.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 12, 2012
A future free from nuclear energy? Yakushima may be ready
I once took a ferry from Kagoshima on the southernmost tip of Kyushu to Amami Oshima, halfway to Okinawa. Just 60 km out from the massive Sakurajima volcano that dominates Kagoshima City, our ship passed a huge granite hunk of rock some 50,000 hectares, covered in forest.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 8, 2012
Japan's Super-K to resume seeking why anything exists
To start the year, here's an appreciation of a site in Japan that would have left even the Zen-imbued architects of Kyoto's sublime Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion) open-mouthed with awe.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 11, 2011
It takes a supersize brain to drive a London taxi
Visitors to Japan often comment on the way taxi doors open as you approach — at the touch of a button by the driver; and that those drivers generally wear smart white gloves. I apologize for the competitive tone, but there is something far more remarkable about London taxis: their drivers.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 13, 2011
'Calamity' awaits those unready for climate-change refugees
There is a wonderful expression in Japanese: Fūdo ni nareru, which means something like "to become acclimatized to natural conditions."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 9, 2011
Like Astro Boy, humans may be able to live with radiation
"It makes good media. It's the emotional pulling on the idea that radiation kills you. But you talk to our cancer patients: Radiation cures you."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 11, 2011
An English school for orangutans
You may have seen the YouTube footage of an orangutan cooling her face with a wet towel. Filmed on a sweltering day in August at Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo, the ape is seen dipping a towel in a pond, wringing it out, and patting it on her face.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 14, 2011
Delving into 'white matter'
Last week I watched "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," a new film about superintelligent chimps that bust out of captivity and rampage across San Francisco in a bid for freedom.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 10, 2011
Up close and personal with MIT robots
I'm in a lab surrounded by computer and video equipment, toys, and robots. Lots of robots. I'm like a kid in a candy shop. It's the modern equivalent of an Aladdin's cave for otaku (geeks).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 12, 2011
Warp-drive quest for the Big Bang's 'lost' material
What do these three things have in common: a mysterious, donut-shaped belt of plasma wrapped around the Earth; the warp engines on the starship USS Enterprise; and a laboratory at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) outside Geneva, Switzerland?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 8, 2011
'Transcendent Man' denies life ends with death
When Ray Kurzweil was a child he tried to invent a homework machine: He didn't accept that he had to waste time doing his dumb school assignments. Half a century on, nothing much has changed, though the authority Kurzweil challenges has got loftier: Now, says the American futurist and inventor, he doesn't accept that life ends with death.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 10, 2011
From salamanders to little green men?
When I was a child, I remember wondering why there were no animals that could photosynthesize. Maybe that's a bit odd, but it's not that I was especially geeky; I just felt almost indignant that there weren't animals with green skin. It seemed to make so much sense.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 20, 2011
Solace for some in the nuclear science
The few, seemingly miraculous, stories of survival are passed on from person to person, and some are given as much media coverage as the horrific devastation. The rescue of a 60-year-old man from the roof of his house, washed 15 km out to sea; the survival of a 4-month-old girl who was swept away from her family but later reunited with them; the safe birth of a baby by flashlight, in the cold, in a hospital with no power. These are stories we can understand, gain a morsel of sustenance from. The stories of the giant waves, the thousands of deaths, the bodies: these are too big to comprehend.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 13, 2011
Study chips away further at humans' uniqueness
Time for some self-love, people: We're pretty damn cool. As animals, we're special.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

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When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
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