Biological Sciences in Space
Online ISSN : 1349-967X
Print ISSN : 0914-9201
ISSN-L : 0914-9201
Volume 6, Issue 1
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • Yukishige Kawasaki
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 3-4
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Yasushi Kurihara
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 5-20
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    To explore the avenues leading to stable coexistence between man and his environment in a closed ecosystem, a microcosm was examined from the standpoint of the stability involved in the sundry interactions between man, other organisms and the environment. The microcosm developed for this study simulates the ecosystem of the earth. It is a selfsustaining system where the organisms are able to coexist and a delicate recycling of materials is achieved. This study demonstrates that a system resembling the microcosm can ensure peace and stability in a closed ecosystem, such as CELSS.
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  • Mitsuo Oguchi
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 21-38
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Junko Fujise, Masamichi Ishikawa
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 39-49
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The world population is predicted to reach 10 billion up to 2050. It is urgent to estimate the potential feeding capacity on the earth. The current study, using vegetation map by satellite data, concluded that available farm areas support at most 10 billion people who consume the average amount of the world wide food consumption. So it is crucial to raise the efficiency of food production as a function of growing population. However, the consequence of the uncontrolled food supply causes the never recoverable damage of our ecosystem. New technologies, such as biotechnology, soil managements, energy-saving technologies, and utilization of outer-space, are keys to solve the problems. In addition to developing new technologies, we should pay much attention to economical rules which balance ecology and social systems.
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  • Shoji Machida
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 50-56
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Ecological pressures are principally responsible for species difference in social behavior. Aspects of social organization such as average group size can be adaptive responses to problems of obtaining food or avoiding predation. However, the relationship between ecology and social organization is not very clear. Intergroup competition and species' evolutionary history both affect primate social structure. Individuals' social behavior is a determining factor of variation of intraspecies social structure. Studies of provisioned groups is affected by environmental factors.
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  • Akira Ashida
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 57-65
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Ecology is important for considerations of behavior of living things, because they have evolved through interactions with their surroundings.It is pointed out that Drake's equation includes speculation for numbers of ecologies for microorganisms, lower living things and intelligent lives. Generalization of the equation, done applying it to Earth, brings a solution of more than one, which gives meaningful relationships between parameters. Key to solve the Drake's equation is to speculate length of civilization constructed by intelligent life. As problems relating to civilization crisis of humankind, environmental disruption, evolution of brain, life style cultures are discussed from a viewpoint of ecology including life style. Earth type living things are considered to be a solution as a carbon type life born in the natural history of Earth. Robots controlled by computers are discussed as a silicon type Iiving things, which is considered to be another possible type of life than the carbon type. The carbon type life is a fluid type with ion behavior phenomena, on the other hand, the silicon type is a solid type with electron behavior phenomena. Robots, carbon type life, are strong in mental aspect and severe environment like extraterrestrial space. SETI by using spacecrafts with onboard robots is proposed as a possible and effective method, because it is expected that intelligent robots can perform sophisticated activities as human does.
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  • Masahiko Fujiwara
    1992 Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 66-71
    Published: 1992
    Released on J-STAGE: February 01, 2006
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This study was designed to assess lunar influence on birth rate. Subjects for the study were 2531 deliveries occurring over a seven-year period at midwife's clinics in Japan, where all the deliveries were spontaneous and vaginal. Our findings were as follows: (a) more births occur within two days before the new or full moon and three to four days after the new or full moon; (b) fluctuations of birth rates in the half lunar cycle centered at new moon and at full moon have a similar tendency; (c) under the hypotheses that parturient women react to."accumulation" and "rate of change" of cosmic force, (a) and (b) can be clearly explained through mathematical means; and (d) our theory predicts that lunar influence on birth rate would be obscure in northern areas up from 50°N.
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