The Council of Agriculture (COA) on Wednesday unveiled a new orchid species for use in traditional Chinese medicine, saying it took eight years to breed and contains high levels of polysaccharides that are good for people undergoing chemotherapy.
The Golden Emperor No. 1, a crossbreed that contains more polysaccharides than the premium orchid species, Dendrobium huoshanense, that originated in China’s Anhui Province, the council said.
Polysaccharides play a role in stimulating the immune system and can aid the recovery of patients from chemotherapy, said Wen Chi-luan (文紀鑾), a research assistant at the council’s Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station.
Patients recovering from eye surgery can also benefit from polysaccharides, as they activate the retinal cell layers, Wen said.
The Golden Emperor No. 1, which will soon be mass produced, takes only two years to grow and can yield 8g to 12g of dried polysaccharides annually, he said.
That means the new species matures in half the time required by the Dendrobium houshanense, and its yield is five times higher, Wen said.
One of the most expensive orchid types in Chinese medicine, 600g of dried Dendrobium huoshanense herbal medicine can cost NT$8,900.
Dendrobium orchids are recorded as a high-class traditional medicine, similar to ginseng, in the traditional Chinese medical encyclopedia The Divine Farmer’s Herb-Root Classic (神農本草經), which was written by legendary ruler Shennong (神農) about 5,000 years ago, Wen said.
Some medical uses of dendrobium orchids recorded in the encyclopedia include a cure for dryness, thirst and inflammation; protection of the stomach; cleansing of the liver and improvement of eyesight, Wen said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS