National Chiao Tung University announced on Wednesday that it would build a prosthetic technology platform together with Chi Mei Medical Center and other academic institutions and enterprises to jointly develop intelligent prosthetics, especially electronic chips that can be installed in human brains to treat epilepsy and even Parkinson's disease.
The university hopes to complete animal experiments in three years and human trials in six years, so the new chips can be on the market within a decade.
Early last year, the university established its Intelligent Prosthesis Research Center and successfully developed special chips to assist the physically impaired with advanced bionic and biomedical technology. It says that the new chips will be the next breakthrough in the field and a milestone for bionic technology development that will bring significant benefit to patients.
University President Wu Chung-yu (
Chi Mei superintendent Chio Chung-ching (邱仲慶) said similar chips were first introduced in the US about two years ago, but that each chip costs as much as US$20,000 and its battery will only last two years. After the battery is dead, the patient needs to undergo more surgery to replace it. The locally-produced chips will be about half that price or cheaper.
Other organizations participating in the project are the Industrial Technology Research Institute, National Yang-ming University, Taipei Medical University, China Medical University and chip manufacturers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and United Microelectronics Co (聯電).
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:
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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