Two of the top three awards at this year’s Taiwan International Science Fair held yesterday morning were won by Taiwanese students, including a first-grade high-school student who identified a protein that affects certain types of cancer and can be used to develop targeted therapy.
The National Taiwan Science Education Center began hosting an annual science fair in 1991 to select student representatives to attend international science exhibitions, and started hosting the annual Taiwan International Science Fair in 2002, inviting young competitors from around the world.
Center director Chu Nan-shyan (朱楠賢) said 294 projects from 21 countries were submitted to the fair this year, the highest number of projects in the fair’s history.
Photo: CNA
Fifty-three of the projects, or 18 percent, won awards.
Eight gained the top awards and three of those won the Young Scientist Award, the fair’s highest honor.
Kuo Chih-hsin (郭芷忻), a first-grade student at the Affiliated Senior High School of National Kaohsiung Normal University, showed that the protein resistin, which is secreted by the dendritic cells that are infiltrated by the human’s lung carcinoma cell line A549, is able to cause liver cancer to worsen through the activation approach of WHSC1/Twist, the center said.
The center also said her research results could contribute to molecular diagnostics in cancer testing or therapy development.
Since her childhood, Kuo, whose father is a professor in a university’s department of medicine, has spent many hours doing research experiments in science laboratories and learning about medicine.
“It is amazing to receive this award, because it was the first fair I attended. My research was sometimes a painstaking process, because I had to go straight to the laboratory after school,” she said.
Lin Jung-yaw (林榮耀), convener of the fair’s judges, said Kuo’s project was well designed and one of the best works he had seen in 20 years of judging science projects.
He said that Kuo was clear about the research details and able to answer all the judges’ questions.
Hsu Yu-fang (許毓芳), a student from National Nanke International Experimental High School, won a Young Scientist Award for her mathematic project, which proved a hypothesis about polygonal number.
The third winner is from Germany’s Hans-Thoma-Gymnasium high school, Carolin Charlotte Lachner, who won for her project creating a floating water bridge between two glasses of water, one set to ground potential, and the other on high voltage of up to 25kV direct current.
Lin said the winners of this year’s fair have shown the ability to innovate, completeness in their research design and attention to detail.
ENTERTAINERS IN CHINA: Taiwanese generally back the government being firm on infiltration and ‘united front’ work,’ the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association said Most people support the government probing Taiwanese entertainers for allegedly “amplifying” the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed on Friday. Public support stood at 56.4 percent for action by the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Culture to enhance scrutiny on Taiwanese performers and artists who have developed careers in China while allegedly adhering to the narrative of Beijing’s propaganda that denigrates or harms Taiwanese sovereignty, the poll showed. Thirty-three percent did not support the action, it showed. The poll showed that 51.5 percent of respondents supported the government’s investigation into Taiwanese who have
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS