Three Germans received the highest academic award that Taiwan presents to foreign scientists yesterday, in recognition of their research.
Nobel laureate and virologist Harald zur Hausen, chemist Klaus Mullen and mathematician Ansgar Jungel were presented with the National Science Council’s Tsungming Tu Award, established by the council in 2006 to facilitate closer cooperation between international and local academics.
“We hope this award will bring the award winners from Germany to Taiwan to cooperate with Taiwanese researchers in making cutting-edge achievements,” National Science Council Minister Cyrus Chu (朱敬一) said at the award ceremony in Taipei.
Chu said the council and Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an academic award organization that jointly sponsored the award, would organize an international conference on renewable energy in Taiwan in November.
Zur Hausen, who touted the research abilities of Taiwanese researchers, said local studies in the past have led to “enormously prominent results” in the field of cancer research and that he hopes the cooperation with Taiwanese researchers would continue well into the future.
Zur Hausen’s research on the role of human papilloma viruses in causing cervical cancer won him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008. His research paved the way for the introduction of a vaccine to control cervical cancer and is believed to have helped save thousands of lives.
Meanwhile, Mullen, one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, is a winner of numerous international awards on polymer science, including the Polymer Award of the American Chemical Society. He has published more than 1,200 papers internationally.
Jungel is a professor at Vienna University of Technology’s Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing. His research has contributed to the understanding of multi-scale semiconductor and plasma models. He will be collaborating with Taiwanese researchers on the analysis of spintronic semiconductor models, which could help improve the performance of computer processors in the future.
The award winners, each of whom were awarded a medal, a trophy and US$75,000, have been invited to spend up to six months in Taiwan to collaborate with local researchers.
A science profession medal award was also given to Taiwanese researcher and former Department of Health minister Chen Chien-jen (程建人) and another to Tsai Ming-cheng (蔡明誠), professor and dean of National Taiwan University’s College of Law, in recognition of their contributions to scientific research in Taiwan.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its