This year’s annual meeting of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) opened at the Taipei International Convention Center yesterday afternoon, during which the National Science Council (NSC) accepted a proposal by Nobel laureate in physics Samuel Ting (丁肇中) to establish a control center for monitoring particle physics detectors from Taiwan.
The opening lecture of the five-day-long AOGS meeting began with a report on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) project, led by Ting’s international research group, which includes Academia Sinica and the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST).
The AMS is a particle physics detector designed to operate on the International Space Station, to search for antimatter and dark matter, measure cosmic rays and help researchers study the formation of the universe.
CSIST International Cooperation Program general director Jinchi Hao (荊溪暠) said that many physicists believed the origin of the universe required equal amounts of matter and antimatter, adding that 90 percent of the dark matter in the universe had yet to be discovered by humans.
The AMS-02, launched in May, is primarily controlled and monitored by the AMS Payload Operations and Control Center (POCC) located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland.
“These devices have been operating on the International Space Station for more than two months now and very smoothly, without any malfunction, so we have gained wide recognition,” Ting said of Taiwan’s contribution to the AMS-02.
“I, personally, and our group earnestly hope to have a control center in Taiwan, but it is up to the NSC to decide,” he said.
“We are happy to have just heard Ting say it in person, the council is certainly glad to accept Ting’s offer,” National Science Council Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) said.
“We will cooperate to establish a POCC and develop an AMS science research center in Taiwan,” Lee said.
The AOGS is a scientific society founded in 2003 for the geosciences in Asia and Oceania with 3,338 members, AOGS Outreach Committee chair David Higgitt said. He added that the eighth annual meeting in Taipei had the second-highest number of participants, with 1,550 people from more than 50 countries registering.
The annual conferences cover discussions on atmospheric science, hydrological science, ocean science, planetary science, solar and terrestrial science and solid earth science.
A special topic of discussion this year is the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
Naoshi Hirata, director of the Earthquake Prediction Research Center and a professor at the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, said the earthquake was the third-largest ever recorded.
“It changed our knowledge and predictions about earthquakes in that area, because specialists used to assume that each location had its specific maximum magnitude,” he said.
The annual number of deaths from earthquakes has risen from about 18,000 from 1990 to 1999 to about 60,000 from 2000 to this year, said Chen Yuntai (陳運泰), a professor and the Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration’s honorary director, adding that scientists should work to improve knowledge on earthquake occurrence and disaster prevention.
More detailed discussions on the geology of the Pacific coast of northern Japan related to the occurrence of such a large earthquake, submarine geological structure and seabed topography, the seismological characteristics of the March 11 event and its neighboring regions, as well as long-term forecasts of earthquake occurrences and its limitations, will be held at the Thursday session.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe