Sharks are the most feared predators in the sea, and their survival hinges on fearsome teeth that regrow throughout their lives. But changes in the ocean’s chemistry could put those weapons at risk.That is the takeaway from a study performed by a group of German scientists who tested the effects of
Francis William White, an Englishman who late in the 1860s served as Commissioner of the Imperial Customs Service in Tainan, published the tale of a jaunt he took one winter in 1868: A visit to the interior of south Formosa (1870). White’s journey took him into the mountains, where he mused on the d
Jan. 19 to Jan. 25In 1933, an all-star team of musicians and lyricists began shaping a new sound. The person who brought them together was Chen Chun-yu (陳君玉), head of Columbia Records’ arts department. Tasked with creating Taiwanese “pop music,” they released hit after hit that year, with Chen con
The 2018 nine-in-one local elections were a wild ride that no one saw coming. Entering that year, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized and in disarray — and fearing an existential crisis. By the end of the year, the party was riding high and swept most of the country in a landslide, i
Inside an ordinary-looking townhouse on a narrow road in central Kaohsiung, Tsai A-li (蔡阿李) raised her three children alone for 15 years. As far as the children knew, their father was away working in the US. They were kept in the dark for as long as possible by their mother, for the truth was perhap
Growing up in a rural, religious community in western Canada, Kyle McCarthy loved hockey, but once he came out at 19, he quit, convinced being openly gay and an active player was untenable.So the 32-year-old says he is “very surprised” by the runaway success of Heated Rivalry, a Canadian-made series
You know what zombie movies never seem to have enough of? Dancing. They’ve got gore and screaming and lots of guttural snarling, but no boogie. That all changes with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and the dancing here is to — naturally off-kilter — 1980s heroes Duran Duran.The fourth entry in an ev
Snoop Dogg arrived at Intuit Dome hours before tipoff, long before most fans filled the arena and even before some players.Dressed in a gray suit and black turtleneck, a diamond-encrusted Peacock pendant resting on his chest and purple Chuck Taylor sneakers with gold laces nodding to his lifelong Lo
Rest of World, which reports global tech stories, had a piece out this week on wind energy and farmers and fishers in the south that was widely passed around. The title didn’t mince words: “AI’s green-energy goal is devastating Taiwan’s coastal villages.” The article summarized the situation, which
Successful politicians have a very particular set of skills. In public, they need enormous stamina; appearing likeable and approachable for long hours, seven days a week. Behind the scenes, they need to be relentlessly ambitious, capable of marshalling allies and ruthless towards their enemies. Part
The central government sets the nation’s environmental strategy and directs the push for net zero. It proposes laws and decides how most tax dollars are spent. The country’s local governments aren’t powerless, however. They draft local ordinances, assign manpower to carry out inspections, and — a re
In a room at the back of her house, Vera Alves da Silva Oliveira keeps the air-conditioning on day and night to protect bags of seeds gathered by hand from Brazil’s Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savannah.Oliveira is one of more than 700 seed gatherers in the Xingu Seeds Network working to help recov
As devices from toys to cars get smarter, gadget makers are grappling with a shortage of memory needed for them to work.Dwindling supplies and soaring costs of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) that provides space for computers, smartphones and game consoles to run applications or multitask was a
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) invaded Vietnam in 1979, following a year of increasingly tense relations between the two states. Beijing viewed Vietnam’s close relations with Soviet Russia as a threat. One of the pretexts it used was the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. T
Jan. 12 to Jan. 18 At the start of an Indigenous heritage tour of Beitou District (北投) in Taipei, I was handed a sheet of paper titled Ritual Song for the Various Peoples of Tamsui (淡水各社祭祀歌).The lyrics were in Chinese with no literal meaning, accompanied by romanized pronunciation that sounded clo
The primaries for this year’s nine-in-one local elections in November began early in this election cycle, starting last autumn. The local press has been full of tales of intrigue, betrayal, infighting and drama going back to the summer of 2024. This is not widely covered in the English-language pres
There’s a few special words that will perk the ears of many a dog — hungry, park and of course T-R-E-A-T.But a choice group of gifted canines appear to have remarkable capacity for learning human vocabulary, to the point that they acquire language by eavesdropping the way young toddlers do.That’s ac
Hsu Pu-liao (許不了) never lived to see the premiere of his most successful film, The Clown and the Swan (小丑與天鵝, 1985).The movie, which starred Hsu, the “Taiwanese Charlie Chaplin,” outgrossed Jackie Chan’s Heart of Dragon (龍的心), earning NT$9.2 million at the local box office. Forty years after its pre
It plays a little loose with facts but the righteous rage of Dog Day Afternoon is present enough in Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, a based-on-a-true-tale hostage thriller that’s as deeply 1970s as it is contemporary.In February 1977, Tony Kiritsis walked into the Meridian Mortgage Company in downto
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