Archive for the ‘science’ Category
I’m currently in the middle of Typhoon Noru, which has been steadily dropping large amounts of rain over Osaka all day long. It’s a slow-moving typhoon, one that a friend of mine described as “drunken,” so despite the downpour there aren’t any heavy winds to rattle the windows. In fact, in addition to producing some […]
Filed under: books, culture, Japan, Kansai, literature, nature, Osaka, philosophy, poetics, poetry, science, society | 1 Comment
Tags: A Defense of Climate Tragedy, Amitav Ghosh, climate catastrophe, climate fiction, climate science, dam construction, David Wallace-Wells, Deidre Wengen, extreme weather, Ezra Pound's Proposition, Genevieve Guenther, global climate change, global finance capital, hyperobjects, Jorie Graham, literary realism, Melville, Moby-Dick, questions for our times, Robert Hass, Sea Change, The Uninhabitable Earth, Timothy Morton, typhoon, Typhoon Noru, whale oil, whaling
now for some sloth time
In the last couple of weeks I’ve finished writing a paper (handed in on deadline day), given a talk, and prepped like crazy for the new semester. It’s been just a bit tiring, so at the end of the week I rewarded myself with just a small glass of The Chita. The paper that I […]
Filed under: academia, daily life, drinking, Japan, literature, nature, personal, science, sweet story of Trout Monroe | Leave a Comment
Tags: academic living, avocados, megafauna dig tunnels, prehistoric sloths, relaxation, sloth evolution, sloth time, sloths, The Chita
the mask
The swine flu has finally managed to make its way to Japan, which was just about inevitable despite the high level of precaution taken by the Japanese health ministry, and ground zero is the Kansai area — especially the cities of Kobe, and Toyonaka-shi in Osaka, which is where I live. It’s suspected that the […]
Filed under: culture, Japan, Kansai, Osaka, personal, religion, science, society | 2 Comments
Tags: communal ethic, communalism, conformism, consensus society, 神戸, Danny Choo, disease, 関西, 豚インフルエンザ, facemask, flu transmission, H1N1, hand washing, infection, influenza, Japan, Japanese customs, Kansai, kobe, mask, mask culture, N95, Osaka, public health, ritual purification, Shinto, social interdependence, surgical mask, swine flu, virus, 大阪
Featured! Live humans!
It turns out that going to the aquarium is a much more exciting affair when the illusion of untainted nature that is presented is broken radically and repeatedly by the intrusion of human keepers into the scene. During spring vacation I went to the Osaka Aquarium, the Kaiyukan, with my friends Dirk and Nichole, who […]
Filed under: architecture, design, Japan, Kansai, nature, Osaka, philosophy, science, society | Leave a Comment
Tags: aquarium, aquarium workers, crabs, divers, dolphins, feeding time, fish, illusion of nature, Kaiyukan, marine animals, marine life, Osaka Aquarium, penguins, placostamus, romance, sealife, seals, tank cleaners, tanks, the life aquatic, whale shark, 大阪, 海遊館
I get a lot of questions from friends about my job here in Japan, and lots of requests for “descriptions of everyday life,” so here it goes. I’m currently working at Osaka University in the position of Gaikokujin Kyoshi (which is translated as “Visiting Foreign Lecturer”) in the Graduate School of Language and Culture. The […]
Filed under: culture, daily life, Japan, Kansai, Osaka, personal, science, society, technology | 2 Comments
Tags: alligator fossil, annual medical check, Black Jack, Cool Biz, early treatment, English conversation, female android, ginkgo leaf, ginkgo tree, Japanese health system, Japanese university life, Japanese university system, Kwansei Gakuin, Machikanewani, my job, national health care, osaka university, Osamu Tezuka, preventative care, Professor Ishiguro, robotics, robots, speech contest, teaching English, the power of the suit, 大阪大学
troutfactory notebook 