Morearticles

 
Menu
Search
 
August 30, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

More Environment stories

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),...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 19, 2004
Distance lends enchantment
By Mark Brazil
Take a look at a map of the west side of the Pacific and you'll find a fractured scatter of islands from the Kuriles south of Kamchatka, through Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and New Caledonia all the way to New Zealand and its sub-Antarctic Islands straddling the Roaring 40s and the...
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.
Akazawa's trip to Washington for tariff talks abruptly canceled
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, had been set to fly to Washington on Thursday.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.
Japan looks to build drone ‘shield’ in record defense budget request
A group of Ground Self-Defense Force service members discuss drone operations and capabilities at a joint static display during the Orient Shield 24 opening ceremony at the Yausubetsu Training Area in Hokkaido in July last year.
Jesse Kirkwood: ‘Languages are entire cultural universes with all sorts of baggage’
Jesse Kirkwood is part of a vibrant field of translators who have nurtured what might be called a “post-Murakami era of Japanese literature and translation,” one book at a time.
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
Virtual singer Kaf's music becomes magic in 'Kamitsubaki City Under Construction'
Virtual singer Kaf got her start in 2018 by posting songs and covers to YouTube. Now, after having performed live shows at major venues including Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan, she is turning to voice acting and starring in the new anime series “Kamitsubaki City Under Construction.”

Podcast

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

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER