Two Taiwanese researchers were elected members of the prestigious Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), while two other local scientists also won top awards from TWAS, academic sources said yesterday.
The announcements were made at the academy’s 25th anniversary meeting in Mexico City from Monday to yesterday, an Academia Sinica press release said.
Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池) — a professor at National Taiwan University’s college of medicine and an Academia Sinica scholar — was selected to be a TWAS member because of his contributions to understanding lung cancer, Academia Sinica said.
Yang’s group has identified several lung cancer-related genes and biomarkers that may revolutionize lung cancer treatment, Taiwan’ s top research institution said.
Lee Der-tsai (李德財), a distinguished research fellow at the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Information Science, was elected a TWAS member because of his focus on the areas of design and analysis of algorithms, computational geometry, VLSI layout and systems, bioinformatics, digital libraries, software security, Web- based computing and algorithm visualization.
Meanwhile, two other Taiwanese scientists, Shaw Jei-fu (蕭介夫) and Lin Chun-hung (林俊宏), were honored with the 2008 TWAS Prize in Agricultural Sciences and the title of 2008 TWAS Young Affiliate, respectively.
Shaw was awarded for his achievements in three areas — functional genes and plant biotechnology, biocatalysis technologies for produce-based industrial products and functional food, and lipases-related protein engineering and biotechnology.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Taiwan yesterday issued warnings to four Chinese coast guard vessels that intruded into restricted waters around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The four China Coast Guard ships were detected approaching restricted waters south of Kinmen at around 2 pm yesterday, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu Branch said in a statement. The CGA said it immediately deployed four patrol boats to closely monitor the situation. When the Chinese ships with the hull numbers "14512," "14609," "14603" and "14602" separately entered the restricted waters off Fuhsing islet (復興嶼), Zhaishan (翟山), Sinhu (新湖) and Liaoluo (料羅) at 3 pm, the Taiwanese patrol
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56