Believing that popularized scientific information is the driving force behind a knowledge-based economy, the National Science Council (NSC) plans to launch a mass media program later this month to help ordinary people better understand the world of science.
Wei Che-ho (魏哲和), minister for the NSC, said at a press conference yesterday that people's daily lives have been deeply influenced by ongoing scientific and technological developments. To most laypeople, however, the technical terms used to describe the developments are incomprehensible.
"Our new science education program will translate scientific jargon into plain language, shortening the distance between the public and scientific development," Wei said.
According to Lin Fou-lai (
The program gets its name from the 180-second segments that are to be broadcast on the radio.
The lessons will cover different areas of scientific research -- including genetics, bio-ethics, semiconductors, information technology, ecological conservation, environment, astronomy, physics and nanotechonolgy.
All 180-second segments will be broadcast between the end of this month and early March by contributing media agencies, including Best Radio (
Chao Ya-ly (
According to PTS, related teaching materials for Science 180 will be available to all elementary schools and high schools so that the program can be used in the classroom.
To ensure the quality of teaching materials, science teachers at leading high schools have been involved in the project, as has Sun Wei-hsin (
Ovid Tzeng (
"We should review the relationship between science and the humanities all the time," Tzeng said.
Media representatives attending the press conference said that the task of the communicators is to persuade the public to regard science as part of their cultural environment.
"When conveying scientific knowledge to the public, mass media should play the role of supervisor -- reviewing the relationship between it and democratic cultivation or it and cultural preparation," said Chang Ta-chun (
Chang said that having specialized scientific understanding become common knowledge in a civil society takes a long time.
He said that the government's promotion of science education should be well thought-out and not be just an improvisation.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching