HEALTH
Darkening indicates diabetes
Overweight people with abnormal thickening and darkening of their skin creases should be on alert for diabetes, a doctor at Taipei’s Shuang Ho Hospital said. Most patients assume that dark, thick patches in skin folds are the result of lack of personal hygiene, but in fact, they are common symptoms of diabetes, said Liou Tsan-hong (劉燦宏), chief the hospital’s medical rehabilitation department. Acanthosis nigricans, the medical name for the skin disorder, is characterized by excessive melanin deposits in skin folds such as in the armpit, groin and neck, Liou said. Overweight people with insulin resistance have excessive insulin that tends to thicken and darken skin, and can sometimes even lead to small lumps, he said.
SOCIETY
Zoo collects panda sperm
The Taipei Zoo yesterday collected sperm from its male panda for future artificial insemination after its female panda went into heat, but failed to attract her mate this week, zoo officials said. The zoo collected sperm from Tuan Tuan (團團), one of the two pandas that China gave to the zoo in 2008 to signify warming relations with Taiwan, because he did not seem interested in mating with Yuan Yuan (圓圓), zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) said. Yuan Yuan, who showed signs of estrus a few days earlier, lost her appetite and kept walking around and trying to cool down by soaking in her pool, Yeh said. Tuan Tuan, however, did not appear as passionate as Yuan Yuan, and the six-and-a-half-year-old panda was interested only in feeding and sleeping, Yeh said. Because of the lukewarm interaction between the pandas, the zoo collected Tuan Tuan’s sperm in case the animals fail to mate during the female’s estrus, Yeh said.
AGRICULTURE
Farms suffer losses
The agricultural and fisheries sector reported losses of NT$84.46 million (US$2.9 million) last month as a series of cold fronts damaged crops and fish farms in several areas, the Council of Agriculture said. As of Tuesday, financial losses from crop damage reached NT$21.58 million, with a total of 455 hectares affected, the council said. The heaviest damage was to high-stem grafted pears in Greater Taichung, with losses reaching NT$10.96 million, followed by wax apples and Hai-li tangors (a type of citrus fruit), the council said. In the fishery industry, total losses reached NT$62.88 million, the council said. Penghu County — the worst-hit area — suffered losses of NT$24.86 million, followed by Greater -Kaohsiung with NT$16.43 million and Greater Tainan with NT$16.1 million, it said. The council said it had approved plans to compensate tangor farmers for their losses and would decide on subsidies for Penghu County’s fishery industry after an inspection of the affected areas.
TOURISM
Kinmen to invite DFS bids
The Kinmen County Government said yesterday it would invite tenders to build duty-free shops at Kinmen airport later this year as part of the county’s plan to develop the island into a duty-free zone. Kinmen County Commissioner Li Wo-shi (李沃士) made the announcement during an inspection of the planned location for the airport duty-free shops. “[Management] will invite tenders for the duty-free shops, and the winning bidders will start operations in four months’ time,” he said. The first duty-free shops in Kinmen opened in 2005 at Suitou Wharf, which serves boats that provide direct transportation between Kinmen and Xiamen in Fujian Province, China. Several duty-free shops also opened in the county’s downtown area in December.
ENVIRONMENT
New reservoir approved
Taiwan will construct a new reservoir in the south after the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) gave its final approval to the project yesterday, a move that drew criticism from local environmentalists. The Water Resources Agency plans to use the Hushan Reservoir to solve the problem of overuse of groundwater in Yunlin County and said it would only be for residents’ use and would not provide water for several major industrial development projects in the area. Construction of the reservoir is to be completed in three years. The government passed an original environmental impact assessment on the reservoir in 2000, and an EPA committee gave its nod to a proposed change of plans on how to channel water to the reservoir. The change became necessary to address the issue of several major typhoons that have hit Taiwan in recent years. Critics, including some members of the committee itself, expressed concern that such a change may pose risks in the event of earthquakes.
CULTURE
Fusion concerts planned
Some of the nation’s best concertmasters will come together to perform at two fusion concerts on Saturday and Sunday at the National Concert Hall. Wu Ting-yu (吳庭毓), concertmaster of National Symphony Orchestra; Roger Chiang (姜智譯), principal violin player with Taipei Symphony Orchestra; Evergreen Symphony Orchestra’s principal violinist Kuo Wei-pin; and Jimmy Hsueh (薛志璋), former first violinist with National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, have been invited to perform at the concert titled “Ultimate Beauty, Crazy Love.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,