Minister Without Portfolio Simon Chang (張善政) flew to New York on Saturday to embark on a three-day tour aimed at reviving high-level science and technology exchanges with the US that have not been conducted for several years.
Starting yesterday, Chang and more than 20 local senior academics and experts are to hold talks with leading US research institutes in Washington, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Chang said.
The talks are to focus on a proposal to establish a platform for exchanges between Taiwanese and US research institutes, he said, adding that the two sides are to exchange views on issues in the fields of natural and earth sciences, as well as healthcare and medicine.
Chang said the two countries have maintained close cooperative ties in the field of climate research, which have helped make Taiwan an important platform for typhoon research in the Asia-Pacific region.
However, bilateral academic exchanges in some other fields “have turned cold,” the minister said.
“We have not tried to reheat them until recently,” Chang said, referring to a proposal to establish a platform for joint bilateral technology research.
Among the Taiwanese academics and experts set to attend the meetings in Washington are National Taiwan University President Yang Pan-chyr and Academia Sinica academicians Andrew Wang (王惠鈞) and Ho Ing-Kang (何英剛).
After the meetings, Chang and his delegation are to head to Silicon Valley in California, where they are to meet venture capitalists to try and raise funds for a proposed US$100 million Taiwan-US Silicon Valley Investment Fund.
Chang said the government in Taipei may put up as much as half of the capital for the fund in the hope of reconnecting the nation with the US technology hub.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its