Rowan Hooper - The Japan Times

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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

Feb 13, 2008

Let science empower you

The setting: The 350-year-old Royal Society in London, whose magnificent neo-Classical base overlooks the Mall, which has Buckingham Palace at one end of the boulevard and Trafalgar Square at the other. The speaker: Lord Rees of Oxford, the Astronomer Royal. Martin Rees is the current president of the...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Feb 13, 2008

Black-headed gull

Japanese name:Yurikamome

Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Jan 30, 2008

Mass ignorance on 'half-human embryos'

On Sunday a couple of weeks ago, an extraordinary statement was read out in many churches in Britain. It had been prepared by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales with the aim of fomenting protests to Members of Parliament.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jan 23, 2008

Common kingfisher

Japanese name: Kawasemi

Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Jan 9, 2008

Can we be forever young?

Jeanette Winterson's latest novel, "The Stone Gods," is set in the future on a distant planet whose resources have been over- exploited by colonizing humans.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Jan 9, 2008

* Japanese name: Kamadouma * Scientific name: Atachycines apicalis * Description: A hump-backed insect with huge hind legs and long, sweeping antennae, the cave cricket is easily recognizable. It is brown, wingless, and the body is 3-4 cm long. The hind legs, with the femurs shaped like chicken drumsticks,...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Dec 26, 2007

Giant water bug

*Japanese name: Taikouchi *Scientific name: Laccotrephes japonensis *Description: Also known as water scorpions and "toe-biters," these are ferocious, tough insects with strong, sharp front legs for catching prey (and biting toes or fingers) and a beaked hypodermic-type mouth with which they stab...

Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Dec 12, 2007

How do chimps top us in a brain test?

"We are 98.77 percent chimpanzee," Tetsuro Matsuzawa told me last week. "We are their evolutionary neighbors."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Dec 12, 2007

* Japanese name: Naka-koganegumo * Scientific name: Argiope bruennichii * Description: You wouldn't really mistake this spider for a wasp, but its egg-shaped abdomen is dramatically striped in yellow, black and white, and the legs too are striped, though the overall pattern is perhaps more tigerish...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 28, 2007

* Japanese name: Misago * Scientific name: Pandion haliaetus * Description: A distinctive, magnificent bird, with a wingspan of 180 cm, a body up to 60 cm long, and pure white underparts. The top side of the body is a deep brown, the head is white with a masklike stripe over the eyes that drapes onto...

Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Nov 14, 2007

In vino veritas — or not

I was drinking a beer and eating sashimi in a tiny bar in Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district last week when one of the office workers there wondered aloud, "Is evolution the same as progress?"

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Nov 14, 2007

Rosy bitterling

* Japanese name: Tairiku baratanago * Scientific name: Rhodeus ocellatus ocellatus * Description: A small freshwater fish in the carp family, native to Taiwan, the rosy bitterling grows to some 6.5cm long. It's a pretty thing, with a flat silver body touched with green behind the head, blue on the sides...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Oct 31, 2007

Meditations on meditation and enhancing the mind

At Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, at dawn on a March morning several years ago, I came as close as I ever have to satori, the Zen term for spiritual enlightenment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming any sort of deep insight, just that there, in that corner of Kanagawa Prefecture, I came to understand...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 24, 2007

Little red damselfly

* Japanese name: Beni-itotonbo * Scientific name: Ceriagrion nipponicum * Description: The clue's in the name: This insect is small (just 35 mm long) and red — although the females, which are a slightly duller orange, or even brown, don't sport the vivid vermilion of the males. The four wings...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Oct 10, 2007

Freshwater blue goby

* Japanese name: Ruri-Yoshinobori * Scientific name: Rhinogobius sp. * Description: Gobies have a slender body with a rather large head, bulbous eyes, fleshy cheeks and a full-lipped mouth, giving them something of a cartoon appearance. Males have shining bright blue spots on their cheeks and body....

Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Oct 10, 2007

Not all of us know how to play fair

I remember, as a child, seeing in a museum the skeletons of birds, bats and apes, and someone pointing out to me that they all had the same bones in their arms. It was the first time I grasped that we all had a common evolutionary ancestor, though at the time I hardly thought about it in those terms...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Sep 26, 2007

Horned turban shell

* Japanese name: Sazae * Scientific name: Turbo cornutus * Description: One of the most prized of all marine gastropods, the horned turban shell — more familiar to sushi aficionados as sazae — has a large, thick, green-gray shell and a snail-like body. The shell has about five spirals, which...

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Sep 12, 2007

Feelings we share?

To what extent do animals consciously experience emotions?

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER

Sep 12, 2007

* Japanese name: Koi (Nishiki-goi) * Scientific name: Cyprinus carpio * Description: A big, colorful fish, with large scales and barbels (those are the "whiskers" growing down from the upper lips). They can grow to well over a meter in length, and live for more than 15 years. They are related to other...

Japan Times

JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS

Aug 29, 2007

Let's (try to) get serious about silliness

August is known as the "silly season" in the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, as newspaper editors faced with legislators all gone on holiday struggle in vain to fill their pages and resort to, well, silly stories.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

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

Things may look perfect to the outside world, but today's mom is fine with some imperfection at home.

How 'Reiwa moms' are reshaping motherhood in Japan

By Mai Yoshikawa

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

Vol. 35: Travel in time — and stay there

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