CRIME
Man caught with cetaceans
Coast Guard Administration personnel yesterday seized 97kg of cetacean meat from a Yunlin County man surnamed Lin (林), 54. They said that they found two heads belonging to cetaceans, but could not determine the species. Lin reportedly loaded the meat onto his truck in Pingtung County’s Donggang Township (東港) and drove along Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3). Coast guard personnel stopped him at the rest area in Tainan’s Sinhua District (新化), where city officials collected samples of the meat from his truck and handed him over to police for breaching the Wildlife Conservation Act (野生動物保育法). Coast guard personnel said that Lin might have been planning to sell the meat at seafood stores in Yunlin County. In July last year, Lin was caught transporting cetacean meat in Yilan County. Whales and dolphins are protected under the act, and those caught killing them face six months to five years in prison, or a fine of NT$200,000 to NT$1 million (US$6,599 to NT$32,995).
CULTURE
Eslite auctioning collection
Eslite Bookstore’s Dunnan branch in Taipei is hosting an old book auction until April 15, as the three-decade-old outlet is to close on May 31. Established in 1989, the branch was the chain’s first store and made its name with books on arts and the humanities. The auction features a collection of art by Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang (張曉剛), The Beatles: The BBC Archives 1962-1970 and US photographer Annie Leibovitz’s collection Annie Leibovitz: The Early Years,1970-1983, which includes the iconic photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono cuddling.
HEALTH
New Taipei extends closures
New Taipei City’s public spaces, sports centers and museums are to remain closed for another 14 days, after having been shut on March 20 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Ahead of the long Tomb Sweeping Day weekend, which begins today, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) yesterday said that containing the disease is the most important thing right now, especially when the number of people in home isolation or quarantine continues to rise. A total of 9,635 people in the city are in home quarantine, while the number of people using the city government’s online memorial services for ancestors has grown 40 percent from last year, city government data showed.
HEALTH
Doctor warns on screen use
A Taipei City Hospital doctor cautioned against the excessive use of digital devices, citing a case in which a woman, complaining of persistently seeing a shadow out of her left eye, was diagnosed with acute posterior vitreous detachment. Huang Che-hung (黃哲宏), an ophthalmologist at the hospital’s Heping branch, on Sunday said that the vitreous humor is a gel-like substance in the eye that can slowly liquify from age and use. The posterior vitreous, suffering from a lack of support, can then detach from the retina and shrink toward the center of the vitreous cavity. For the most part, posterior vitreous detachment would not affect a person’s vision, but it is irreversible, Huang said. If there are no complications, people should only see small dots like flies, he said. However, if a person experiences vitreomacular adhesion, or the strong adhesion of the vitreous to the retina, the condition could cause them to see lightning-like flashes, he said. If a person experiences any of these symptoms, they should consult a doctor, Huang said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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