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BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 3, 2008

Clubs take advantage of extended deadline to sign new foreigners

The deadline for signing new foreign players by Japanese teams was extended from June 30 to July 31 this year because of the Beijing Summer Olympics.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 30, 2008

Climate change in Costa Rica

A couple of weeks ago I was woken at dawn by the booming screeches of the aptly named Howler Monkey. I was in Costa Rica, in the cloud forest of Monteverde.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 9, 2008

Is there anyone out there?

W hat's the most incredible headline you could expect to read in a newspaper? For me, it would have to be something like: "We are not alone: Life found on other planets."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 6, 2008

Noguchi strives to be 1st female to win Olympic marathon twice

Mizuki Noguchi is chasing history.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 20, 2008

Yasaiya Mei: Bespoke veggies in Omotesando

It's been a very long time since we got excited about curry rice. In fact, this is certainly the first time that we've gone on record extolling the virtues of Japan's blanded-down version of the spicy stew that is British India's lasting contribution to the world of gastronomy.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 11, 2008

Of Darwin and Mishima . . .

If I said that I met Darwin last week, you might think I'd gone crazy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / GRAND OLD HOTELS
Jun 6, 2008

A grande dame on the waterfront

Urban planning can be a zero-sum game. A case in point is Yokohama. The city redeveloped the waterfront to create Minato Mirai (Port of the Future), where visitors shop in boutiques, revolve on a Ferris wheel and whoosh in one of the world's fastest elevators to the top of Japan's tallest building, the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 14, 2008

Space defense no reason to ax gentler projects

For a country with a constitution "forever renouncing war" (Article 9), Japan spends an awful lot of money on its military. In 2005 it was the fifth largest military spender in the world. And now there is the unsettling news that Japan is expanding its powerful self-defense capability into space.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 11, 2008

Alma mater addresses wartime treatment of its Japanese-Americans

When it comes to making amends, it's never too late. If there were a single principle to guide us in our relations with others — either on a personal or a broader scale — it would be this.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 9, 2008

Tour Tokyo's aging marvels

Talk of architecture in Japan tends to head in one of two directions — the very, very new (as in the mind-bending flagship stores for fashion brands in Ginza), or the very, very old (as in temples dating back centuries). So what, exactly, happened in between?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 2, 2008

In the carnal realm of Sin

[Note: Sin is no longer in business.]
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 30, 2008

Do bacteria make the man (or woman or child)?

What happens when Japanese people start eating a Western diet? Could it mean that their famed long life span starts to decline?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 9, 2008

Life and left-handed meteorites

I wonder if Empress Gensho, who ruled Japan for nine years and died in 748, had something against left-handed people.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Apr 6, 2008

Japan IBL team set for 2009

Life is full of surprises, isn't it?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 4, 2008

'Curse of the Golden Flower'

Having established himself in the 1990s as one of China's leading directors, Zhang Yimou spent the past decade making two types of film: small, contemporary and supremely sentimental ones such as "The Road Home" and "Happy Times," or big, lavish, action-packed period-epics like "Hero" and "House of Flying...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 2, 2008

Water in a 'howling wilderness'

John Oxley (c. 1785-1828) was among the first Europeans to ever explore this flat, brown and red land, after he was appointed surveyor-general of the British colony of New South Wales in 1817.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 20, 2008

Photos preserve architecture that's disappeared with time

Unless blessed with unlimited time and resources, visiting all the buildings around the world that you would like to see is rather unlikely. Even if you do manage to reach some of them, entrance inside may still be prohibited or restricted.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 12, 2008

Food for thought in our ways of seeing

W hen the famed Michelin food guide belatedly reached Asia recently, it seemed to make up for lost time, awarding more of its coveted stars to restaurants in Tokyo than are held by restaurants in New York and Paris combined. About time, too.
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
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
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
LIFE / Digital
Jan 9, 2008

At home with Dr. Nakamatsu: Japan's most eccentric inventor

The declining birthrate is a well-known issue in Japan, but for renowned inventor Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu, it is merely another challenge. Two weeks ago at a press conference in Tokyo, Nakamats, who prefers to drop the "u" from his name, unveiled a new bottle of Love Jet, a product first introduced nearly...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 8, 2008

Following in our fingerprints

It was a quarter of a century ago on an autumn day in 1982 that I decided to engage in a small act of civil disobedience by refusing to give my fingerprint. Little did I realize I was stepping into a decades-long controversy that would be both an education and a circus.
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2008

Embodiment of Pakistan's paradoxes

LOS ANGELES — A gift given to me years ago from Benazir Bhutto, an elegantly decorated wood jewelry box slathered in glossy lacquer, still adorns a sideboard in our home.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 26, 2007

Wrapping up the year with dollops of whale and tuna

With Christmas behind us and New Year's less than a week away, this month's column combines a bit of yearend desk clearing with some suggestions for belated stocking stuffers.
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?"

Longform

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The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan