When a koala dies, a new occupant won’t move into its home range (a group of several trees that they regularly visit) for about a year — the time it takes for scratches on the trees and scent markings to disappear. Then, as long as they are not disturbed, koalas keep their home ranges throughout their lives — up to 18 years.
Often called koala bears because of their cuddly teddy-bear appearance, they are in fact marsupials — and can be aggressive. They breed once a year (koalas usually only produce a single cub, or joey, though occasionally give birth to twins), and once a cub is born — 2cm long, blind and hairless after a gestation period of 35 days — it relies on its sense of smell and touch to crawl into its mother’s pouch, where it stays for the next six months, feeding on milk. After it emerges, the cub will remain with its mother until it is one year old, riding on her back or clinging to her belly.
The adult koala’s days are filled with sleeping and eating. They survive on a diet of predominantly eucalyptus leaves and bark — to most animals, eucalyptus leaves are incredibly poisonous, but the koala’s digestive system has evolved to manage the toxins. It is often said that eucalyptus makes koalas “stoned” — probably because they sleep for up to 18 hours a day, wedged between branches of eucalyptus trees — but this isn’t true: Their high-fiber, low-nutrition diet means they have to sleep to conserve energy.
They also don’t tend to drink, getting almost all the water they need from leaves. Indeed, the name koala is thought to come from a name in one Aboriginal language meaning “doesn’t drink.”
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Art and cultural events are key for a city’s cultivation of soft power and international image, and how politicians engage with them often defines their success. Representative to Austria Liu Suan-yung’s (劉玄詠) conducting performance and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen’s (盧秀燕) show of drumming and the Tainan Jazz Festival demonstrate different outcomes when politics meet culture. While a thoughtful and professional engagement can heighten an event’s status and cultural value, indulging in political theater runs the risk of undermining trust and its reception. During a National Day reception celebration in Austria on Oct. 8, Liu, who was formerly director of the
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Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
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