五十嵐杏南
1991 年愛知県生まれ。日英両言語でものを書くサイエンスライター。トロント大学で進化生態学と心理学を専攻。インペリアルカレッジロンドン修士課程修了（科学コミュニケーション）。時にはシリアスに、時には肩の力を抜いたタッチで、科学誌やオンラインメディアを中心に記事を執筆している。著書に『世界のヘンな研究 世界のトンデモ学問19選』（中央公論新社／2023年）、『生き物たちよ、なんでそうなった!?: ふしぎな生存戦略の謎を解く』（笠間書院／2022年）、『ヘンな科学 “イグノーベル賞" 研究40講』（総合法令出版／2020年）。雑誌『子供の科学』（誠文堂新光社）で「動物園の動物」連載中。
Features
Credit: Akihiro Ikeshita
Hitachi High-Technologies’ electron microscopy innovations help push the limits of scientific discovery.
Credit: Reiko Kono, Keio University
By using computed tomography to analyze hominin bones, researchers at Keio are revealing the history of Japan's first inhabitants
Credit: OIST
Japan needs to embrace strategic research and globalization to remain at the forefront of innovation. Having joined the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) at a critical phase of its growth, Peter Gruss shares his vision for the institution and its contribution to Japan’s future.
Press Releases
Credit: Nobuaki Mizumoto
Termites not only raid people's homes, but also the humble abodes of other happy termite couples. In new research, Kyoto University scientists have found that male Japanese termites form homosexual couples when no females are around -- and when the chance arises, they take over a heterosexual couple's nest and kill the male so that one of them can mate with the now spouseless female. The research team's observations support a theory that homosexual couplings in invertebrates have evolutionary advantages.
Credit: Nahoko Tokuyama
Bullying happens in the primate world too, but for young bonobo females, big mama comes to the rescue. Japanese primatologists report in Animal Behaviour that older bonobo females frequently aid younger females when males behave aggressively towards them.
Credit: Eiri Ono / Kyoto Unviersity
Researchers have found that fish oil transforms fat-storage cells into fat-burning cells, which may reduce weight gain in middle age. The team explains in Scientific Reports that fish oil activates receptors in the digestive tract, fires the sympathetic nervous system, and induces storage cells to metabolize fat.
Credit: Kyoto university
Exercising, meditating, scouring self-help books... we go out of our way to be happy, but do we really know what happiness is?
Wataru Sato and his team at Kyoto University have found an answer from a neurological perspective. Overall happiness, according to their study, is a combination of happy emotions and satisfaction of life coming together in the precuneus, a region in the medial parietal lobe that becomes active when experiencing consciousness.