SCIENCE
LayV test developed
Taiwanese researchers have developed a polymerase chain reaction-based test to diagnose Langya henipavirus (LayV), a recently discovered animal-derived virus that has been detected in eastern China, the Centers for Disease Control said yesterday. LayV, which was first described by Chinese scientists in an Aug. 4 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, has infected dozens of people, mainly farmers, in China’s Shandong and Henan provinces. Many patients had symptoms such as a fever, fatigue and coughing. The virus is believed to have been transmitted to humans from shrews, but there is no evidence that it can be spread from person to person.
AVIATION
Tsai inaugurates R&D center
The research and development (R&D) of uncrewed aerial vehicles is crucial for the nation to achieve self-reliance and boost its asymmetric defense capabilities, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said on Saturday as she inaugurated a government-run drone R&D facility in Chiayi County. As part of the government’s efforts to develop drone technology, expand the market and foster talent, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in March established an alliance of drone manufacturers to grow the industry and expand the scope of drone applications, she said. Chiayi is home to plains, mountains and coastal areas, making it the perfect testing ground for drones, Tsai added. Twenty companies have set up offices in the R&D center, and there are plans to establish a testing site, a drone operator licensing facility, a drone-related academy and a national arena for drone-related competitions, she said.
CRIME
Man held over murder
Police in Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City (竹北) early yesterday arrested a man on suspicion of killing his girlfriend after she rejected his marriage proposal. The Philippine man, who was identified only as Dioni, had previously dated the victim in the Philippines, although they broke up before traveling separately to Taiwan for work, police said. The pair resumed their relationship after a chance encounter in Taiwan, although the victim repeatedly refused Dioni’s proposals, they added. The couple were staying in a hotel in Jhubei on Saturday night, when the topic of marriage came up again, police said. They argued after the victim turned down Dioni’s marriage proposal and he allegedly strangled her in a fit of anger, they said. Dioni later called the emergency services, but paramedics arriving at the scene at about 6am yesterday found that the victim had died and reported the incident to the police.
SOCIETY
Student wins gold medal
A Taiwanese high-school student on Wednesday won a gold medal at the International Economics Olympiad. It was Taiwan’s first gold in the annual competition that began in 2019. This year’s Olympiad — a competition that tests high-school students’ knowledge of economics, business and finance — was hosted by China, but took place online. Other Taiwanese contestants won two silver, one bronze and a special award for best economic theory, placing the country in 11th place globally and fifth in Asia, said SimEd Taiwan, a group that promotes simulation-based learning in education. Gold medal winner Shih Chun-yu (施俊佑) is a student at the Taipei-based Dominican International School.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the