Emperor of a cover-up?
QUESTION Why wasn’t Emperor Hirohito of Japan put on trial after World War II?
In 1945, it was widely believed that as the figurehead of a regime that sanctioned massacres, human experimentation, starvation and forced labour resulting in millions of deaths, Emperor Hirohito would be tried as a war criminal.
That this did not happen was due to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, who arrived in Japan on August 30, 1945, to oversee the rebuilding of the country.
MacArthur, the de facto ruler of Japan between 1945 and 1948, believed the country might collapse into chaos if Hirohito was prosecuted for war crimes.
He fostered the narrative that militarists had betrayed the emperor and dragged Japan into catastrophe, but that Hirohito could step forward and nobly lead the country into peace. The emperor had already attempted to make the peace as honourable as possible for himself and deny his involvement in the war. His surrender broadcast of August 15, 1945, didn’t even contain the word surrender.
It was also considered taboo in Japan to talk about the emperor’s involvement in the war. In this way, Hirohito was able to distance himself from war crimes.
MacArthur ignored the fact that under Japan’s Meiji Constitution of 1889, the emperor had absolute authority over the army and navy, so was not a powerless constitutional monarch.
Hirohito had a war room under the Imperial Palace, gave direct instructions to his commanders and had authorised the establishment of Unit 731 in 1936 — a covert operation researching biological warfare that used human guinea pigs — in occupied China. He awarded a special service decoration to the head of medical experimentation, Surgeon General Dr Shiro Ishii — Japan’s equivalent of Germany’s Josef Mengele.
MacArthur’s reasoning was that the emperor, a living god, was such an important symbol to the Japanese people that the country would become ungovernable if he were removed. But by giving Hirohito a free pass, MacArthur undermined any sense of Japanese guilt for the genocidal acts of its military.
On the other hand, this pragmatism had clear benefits for the U.S. — Japan would become prosperous, peaceful and a staunch ally of the West. Justine Riley, Glasgow.
QUESTION How is it possible for a bald man to grow a long beard?
AnDrOGEnETIC alopecia or male pattern baldness affects 95 per cent of men to some degree.
Key factors are a genetic predisposition to baldness and the amount of testosterone produced. While an increase in this sex hormone leads to baldness, it works in the opposite way on the beard.
Testosterone stimulates the production of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) — an androgen hormone responsible for the biological characteristics of males — which signals head hair follicles to shrink to such an extent that growth ends.
Hair loss is a function of sensitivity to DHT, not the amount of the hormone in the body. This is where the genetic element comes in.
Two men may have the same amount of DHT, but only one has enough androgen receptors (Ar) to cause baldness.
The gene responsible is the Ar gene and its frequency is proportional to the extent of balding.
The more testosterone you produce, the more chances of it converting via enzymatic activity to DHT. The more Ar genes you have, the more DHT and androgen receptors you have.
The more receptors you have, the more likely they are going to bind together and the greater your chance of going bald.
However, androgen receptors in the beard work in the opposite way to those on the scalp. Instead of signalling the hair follicle to shrink, they tell them to grow. That is why, as men get older, their beard becomes fuller while their head hair becomes thinner.
This may be due to an evolutionary response. Studies have shown the combination of baldness and a thick beard can be attractive. Baldness is associated with social maturity as well as a non-threatening form of dominance.
Catherine Lewis, Bedford.
QUESTION How has city life affected the evolution of animals?
THE city environment can speed up the process of evolution. The rapid construction of a new habitat can encourage evolutionary adaptations in the space of decades or even years.
Cities have urban heat islands, sound and air pollution, artificial light blurring the distinction between night and day and a concrete landscape.
Evolutionary pressures increase dramatically in extreme environments. Some subspecies disappear, but others adapt to new conditions. This process is called human-induced rapid evolutionary change (HIrEC).
The famous case is the London Underground mosquito. Its ancestor, culex pipiens, is a common house mosquito that lives above ground, feeds on birds and forms large mating swarms.
During the Blitz, when people sheltered in Tube stations, a subspecies emerged, culex pipiens molestus. It feeds on human blood and the female doesn’t require a blood meal before it lays eggs.
Even more remarkably, it’s been shown that isolated mosquito populations in the Underground network can become genetically distinct from one another. Mosquitoes on the Victoria line differ from those on the Bakerloo line.
City blackbirds are unlike their country cousins. They have shorter beaks, don’t have a seasonal migration, breed earlier in the year and sing at a different pitch.
They are unable to crossbreed with forest blackbirds, a major evolutionary step in producing a new species. This is similar to the process described by Darwin of finches in the Galapagos Islands evolving into 15 different species. C. P. Pritchard, Southampton.
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