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April 28, 2025
 

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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 22, 2004
Amago salmon
By Rowan Hooper
* Japanese name: Amago * Scientific name:Oncorhynchus masou ishikawa * Description:Salmon are handsome fish with streamlined silver bodies. The scientific name means "hooked nose," and you will understand why if you see one. There are seven species of Pacific salmon, two of which occur in Asia. In...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 15, 2004
Fungal alchemists snatch bodies to live
By Mark Brazil
Step back in time a mere 1,000 million years and the three great domains of the Plantae, Animalia and Fungi shared a common ancestor.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 8, 2004
Cuttlefish
By Rowan Hooper
* Japanese name: Kouika * Scientific name:Sepia esculenta * Description:Cuttlefish are marine animals in the same group as octopus and squid (cephalopods). They are soft-bodied but have a "bone" (actually an internal shell), which supports the mantle (body) and acts as a buoyancy regulator. Lying underneath...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 8, 2004
Report condemns Bush's corruption of science
By Stephen Hesse
Kurt Gottfried, professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University and Chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), is very concerned about the Bush administration.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 1, 2004
Ways of weathering winter
By C.W. Nicol
I had to attend a college graduation ceremony and an Environment Ministry meeting in Tokyo; otherwise I could easily have made it in a day from Okinawa to northern Nagano Prefecture where I live. As it was, the trip from that balmy Pacific isle to my home amid the snows of Kurohime took me until nearly...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 1, 2004
Water demon
By Rowan Hooper
* Japanese name: Kappa * Scientific name:Suijin kappensis * Description: Some sources claim that kappa are primates, but in fact they are the only known examples of an order of primitive mammals related to the duck-billed platypus. Remarkably for a mammal, kappas are bipedal. They have a curved duck's...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 25, 2004
Bell cricket
By Rowan Hooper
* Japanese name: Suzumushi * Scientific name:Homoeogryllus japonicus * Description: The bell cricket is a 2-cm-long insect in a family called Phalangopsidae. It's a small, not particularly attractive cricket, but it is very well known -- and loved -- in Japan for its song. It has a dark body and long,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 18, 2004
The wonder that is winter
By Mark Brazil
The seasons have a powerful effect on me, which perhaps explains my need to anthropomorphize and personify them. Temperate Japan's six distinct seasons roll on inexorably: spring, rainy, summer, typhoon, autumn and winter. Though battered and bruised by the perceptible effects of global climate change,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 11, 2004
River shrew
By Rowan Hooper
* Japanese name: Nihon kawanezumi * Scientific name:Chimarrogale platycephala * Description: Shrews are small mammals and are thought to be similar to the first mammals that evolved. Fur is dark gray-brown with a white-gray underside; the hindquarters are fringed with silvery hairs. They have small...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 11, 2004
Bush majors in suppression of science
By Stephen Hesse
It comes as no surprise that U.S. President George W. Bush is calling for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. He is simply using the age-old tactic of picking on others to save his own hide.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 4, 2004
Pottering in a paradise too easily lost
By C.W. Nicol
Whenever I get the chance I like to spend time in Okinawa, which is where I am writing this. As I said to my long-suffering editor, who is getting this article in longhand, I am here to work on the first draft of a novel in Japanese, so I sit at a table loaded with books and dictionaries, a big window...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Feb 26, 2004
Pond turtle
By Rowan Hooper
* Japanese name: Ishigame * Scientific name:Mauremys japonica * Description:Also known as the stone turtle, the pond turtle is semiaquatic and a strong swimmer. It has a yellowish-brown carapace (shell) and an olive-brown head. Females are bigger than males, growing up to 21 cm long (carapace length),...
China seizes disputed reef near key Philippine military outpost
China Coast Guard officers unfurl a national flag on Sandy Cay reef, near the Philippine-held Thitu Island, in disputed waters of the South China Sea this month in this screen shot taken from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Japan to resist Trump efforts to form trade bloc against China
As Japan gears up for the trade talks, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is also seeking to cushion the blow that the U.S. tariffs may have on the domestic economy.
As many as nine dead after driver plows into Vancouver festival crowd
An ambulance is parked at the site of the Lapu Lapu day festival, where a vehicle drove into a crowd killing several people in Vancouver on Saturday.
Arunima Mazumdar: ‘Japanese literature has a niche but deeply engaged readership in India’
Arunima Mazumdar, a New Delhi-based communications professional, began sharing her love of Japanese literature online in 2022. The platform has grown into a robust community known as Dokusha Book Club.
Japan struggles with gray zone of AI deepfakes exploiting children
AI-generated content — including those made using pictures of real people, which are known as “deepfakes” — is not explicitly covered under Japan's current legal framework, nor are human-drawn illustrations that depict child abuse.
‘Wildcat Dome’ challenges Japan's historical narratives
On the surface, "Wildcat Dome" tells a personal story of damaged children — now adults — bound together by tragedy. Underneath, there’s a constant undercurrent of political consequence, invisible and pervasive like radioactive particles.
Reclaiming Sanya, one meal at a time
Magokoro Yoshihira (center) is the managing director of Yui Associates, which operates the neighborhood fixtures of Sanya Cafe and Juyoh Hotel. Yusuke Takahashi (left) met Yoshihira during a difficult period in his life and now works as the cafe’s chef. Nancy Anne (right) has worked for over 10 years at Juyoh Hotel and enjoys the multicultural environment.
Amid uncertain tariffs, is now the time to buy a new iPhone?
An Apple store in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward in September. Prices for the newest iPhone models start at around ¥100,000 ($700) in Japan.
Built in a flash, Osaka Expo pavilions wrestle with sustainability
Kengo Kuma & Associates oversaw the construction of the Malaysia pavilion, which is encased in interwoven rows of bamboo that appear to ripple.
Japan weighs using U.S. rice imports as tariff negotiation tool with Trump
A restaurant owner pours California-grown Calrose rice into a rice cooker at his restaurant in Tokyo

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami
By Alex K.T. Martin

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Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027
Looking ahead to Yokohama’s Green × Expo 2027

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