Fossils unearthed in China are helping scientists get a better grasp on one of the marvels of evolution: the giant panda’s false thumb, which helps this veggie-loving bear munch the bamboo that makes up most of its diet. Researchers said on Thursday they discovered near the city of Zhaotong in northern Yunnan Province fossils about 6 million years old of an extinct panda called Ailurarctos that bore the oldest-known evidence of this improvised extra digit — actually a greatly enlarged wrist bone called the radial sesamoid. It closely resembled the false thumb of modern pandas, but is a bit longer and lacks the inward hook present on the end in the extant species that provides even greater ability to manipulate bamboo stalks, shoots and roots while eating. The false thumb is an evolutionary adaptation to augment the existing five actual digits of the panda’s hand. A bear’s hand lacks the opposable thumb possessed by humans and various primates that enables the grasping and handling of objects using the fingers. The false thumb serves a similar function. “It uses the false thumb as a very crude opposable thumb to grasp bamboos, sort of like our own thumbs except it is located at the wrist and is much shorter than human thumbs,” said Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County paleontologist Xiaoming Wang, lead author of the research published in the journal Scientific Reports. Ailurarctos was an evolutionary forerunner of the modern panda, smaller but with anatomical traits signaling a similar lifestyle including a bamboo diet. The modern panda’s false thumb has some advantages over the earlier version. “The hooked false thumb offers a tighter grasp of the bamboo and, at the same time, its less-protruded tip — because of the bended hook — makes it easier for the panda to walk. Think of the false thumb as
As the monsoon storms bear down on India, a dedicated group of women hope that after years of backbreaking labor, water shortages will no longer leave their village high and dry. The world’s second-most populous country is struggling to meet the water needs of its 1.4 billion people — a problem worsening as climate change makes weather patterns more unpredictable. Few places have it tougher than Bundelkhand, a region south of the Taj Mahal, where scarce water supplies have pushed despairing farmers on the plains to give up their lands and take up precarious work in the cities. “Our elders say that this stream used to run full throughout the year, but now there is not a single drop,” said Babita Rajput while walking past a bone-dry fissure in the earth near her village. “There is a water crisis in our area,” she added. “All our wells have dried up.” Three years ago, Rajput joined Jal Saheli (“Friends of Water”), a volunteer network of around 1,000 women working across Bundelkhand to rehabilitate and revive disappeared water sources. Together they carry rocks and mix concrete to build dams, ponds and embankments to catch the fruits of the June monsoon, a season which accounts for about 75 percent of India’s annual rainfall. Agrotha, where Rajput lives, is one of more than 300 villages where women are chalking out plans for new catchment sites, reservoirs and waterway revitalizations. Rajput said their work had helped them retain monsoon rainwater for longer and revive half a dozen water bodies around their village. Though not yet self-sufficient, Agrotha’s residents are no longer among the roughly 600 million Indians that a government think-tank says face acute water shortages daily. The women’s efforts provide a rare glimmer of hope as national shortages worsen. Water utilities in the capital New Delhi fail to
The production of wild and farm-raised fish, shellfish and algae reached record levels in 2020, and future increases could be vital to fighting world hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday. Driven by sustained growth in aquaculture, global fisheries and aquatic farming together hauled in 214 million tonnes, the UN agency said in a report. The total first-sale value of 2020 production topped US$400 million, with US$265 million coming from aquaculture, a sector poised for further expansion. These trend lines are good news for a world facing price hikes and food shortages due to the war in Ukraine, disrupted supply chains, and inflation. “The growth of fisheries and aquaculture is vital in our efforts to end global hunger and malnutrition,” said FAO director Qu Dongyu. But overfished oceans, climate change and pollution — if left unaddressed — could threaten that potential, the UN agency warned. “Aquaculture growth has often occurred at the expense of the environment,” Qu noted. Many shrimp farms in Vietnam, China and Cambodia, for example, have displaced mangrove forests that are nurseries for marine life and critical barriers against storm surges. Climate change poses additional challenges, experts say. “Warming waters will create environments where there’s more likelihood of bacterial disease,” said Josh Madeira, director of fisheries and aquaculture policy at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. That means a sector already highly reliant on antibiotics will likely become even more so, he said. Production of aquatic animals in 2020 — totaling 178 million tonnes — was evenly divided between fisheries and aquaculture, according to the FAO report. The remaining 36 million tonnes was algae production. OVERFISHED STOCKS Yields of fish, shrimp and other shellfish destined for human consumption are more than 60 percent higher than during the 1990s, far outpacing population growth, according to the report, released during the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon. On average, people worldwide
Fossil fuel firms are misleading the public about their moves to cut greenhouse gases and curb climate change — and social media are hosting ads that perpetuate this “greenwashing,” researchers say. TALKING THE TALK Many companies have vowed to reach the “net zero” level of greenhouse gas emissions needed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius under the Paris climate accords, the threshold established by scientists for avoiding the worst impacts. At the same time, research shows, they are advertising and lobbying for more drilling and burning of the fossil fuels that are heating the Earth’s surface. Leaders and businesspeople agree that changing how we warm our homes and power industries is no simple task. But critics say the gap between slogans and action undermines meaningful efforts to cut emissions. In a study published by the open-access science journal PLOS, scientists analyzed the gap between talk and deeds on climate and low-carbon energy by four big oil companies: BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron. Their green strategies “are dominated by pledges rather than concrete actions,” concluded the study, under lead author Mei Li of Tohoku University in Japan. “Until actions and investment behavior are brought into alignment with discourse, accusations of greenwashing appear well-founded.” A search on the Facebook pages of big oil and gas firms and the social platform’s Ad Library shows that companies are posting green slogans while also running ads urging customers to “fill up your tank” or win “a year’s worth of gasoline”. Contacted by AFP, the companies detailed plans to develop lower-carbon energy sources and measures such as carbon capture and storage — a method currently not advanced enough to be very helpful, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). ExxonMobil and Chevron spokespeople insisted that due to energy demand, the scenarios foreseen by the Paris deal and the IEA mean fossil fuels will have to
To the consternation of its biological father — China — the young nation of Taiwan seems to prefer its step-dad, Japan. When the latter was forced out, a semi-modernized iteration of the former returned. And just as some people thrive as adults, despite an unstable childhood, Taiwan has become a democratic success. Unfortunately, the island’s biological father behaves like a parent who is no use, yet who continues to meddle. A combination of rose-tinted retrospection and growing mutual respect has given many Taiwanese a highly positive attitude toward Japan. Physical reminders of the 1895-1945 period of Japanese rule are treasured, especially in towns like Huwei (虎尾) where — it’s not difficult to argue — Tokyo’s efforts to organize the island’s economy for the benefit of Japanese corporations and consumers brought noticeable local progress. Huwei is in the very center of Yunlin County, and in recent decades this location has brought it a few advantages. The county’s high-speed railway station is northwest of the downtown, as is the Yunlin Branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. Having made a couple of previous visits, I knew that Huwei would be ideal for exploring by bicycle. It’s flat, compact and the traffic isn’t heavy. Just over 70,000 people live here. Unlike much of Yunlin County, Huwei’s population hasn’t shrunk since the beginning of the 21st century. I began by pedaling to what, in colonial times, was the government quarter. Road names have changed and civil servants now work elsewhere, but it remains one of Huwei’s busier neighborhoods. Turning from Guangfu Road (光復路) onto Linsen Road (林森路), I parked my bike at a spot from which I could see three Japanese-era landmarks. One is highly distinctive, but in no way beautiful. Another is much more elegant. The third is alluring, if not substantially different to dozens of other buildings
The dramatic rescue of 12 youth football players and their coach from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018, a captivating operation already revisited in an award-winning documentary, is now getting the big-screen dramatic treatment from Ron Howard. Thirteen Lives hits theaters in North America on July 29, and the Oscar-winning Howard — who cast a mix of bankable stars and untested talent in the movie — says making the film was an “exciting challenge.” He called his latest a “very extreme version of my favorite kinds of films — you know, the kinds of films that prove that remarkable outcomes are not the stuff of fiction, that when people pull together, incredible things can happen.” Thirteen Lives — which stars Joel Edgerton, Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen — retells the story of the spectacular rescue of the 12 boys and their coach who, in June 2018, found themselves trapped in Tham Luang cave for more than two weeks. Recreating the conditions of the intense incident was both physically and psychologically challenging for the actors. Farrell, who plays British cave diver John Volanthen, said during a screening of the film’s trailer on Monday that it was “terrifying” to film most of the time under water, even under expert supervision. It didn’t help that Farrell, by his own admission, “can’t really swim.” “It’s a different world beneath the surface of the water,” the Irish actor said. “Water’s wet, no matter how much control you have or don’t have.” ‘MANY BRANDS OF HEROISM’ The spectacular rescue is already the subject of the 2021 National Geographic documentary The Rescue, which featured some never-before-seen footage obtained from the Thai military after two years of tough negotiations. Howard attempted to delve even more into the personal drama, and highlight the work of those who volunteered to help, at risk of their own lives. “It was this
In the new world of work, there’s a new type of employee: The business-leisure traveler. It’s the latest attempt to find a happy medium between working arrangements like Airbnb’s — where staff can work anywhere, anytime — and those at companies like Tesla Inc, whose chief executive officer Elon Musk tweeted that unless employees turn up in the office, “we will assume you have resigned.” Business-leisure travelers are a subset of digital nomads, living and working abroad for longer than a typical holiday without taking up permanent residence. They usually spend weeks or months overseas before returning home, while other nomads may spend years on the road. David Abraham realized there was a market for this type of ultra-remote working while at his laptop in a Tokyo Starbucks. When he noticed the customers around him were working too, he asked himself “why couldn’t they be in an amazing place like Bali?” Abraham now runs Outpost, a company that provides temporary living-working spaces in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Employees’ growing enthusiasm for business-leisure travel is slowly being met with policy momentum. Governments are trying to work out visa and tax regulations while businesses fret about compliance and corporate culture. Officials in tourism hotspots Thailand and Indonesia see the longer-term travel trend working in their favor — if everyone can get the rules right. On the Indonesian island of Bukabuka, a four-hour-plus journey by airplane and boat from the capital city of Jakarta, eco resort Reconnect is seeing a surge in inquiries from foreigners. Now that borders have reopened, overseas visitors with plans to work remotely are booking sojourns of anywhere between a month and half a year. The resort features large communal spaces and work stations, ready to accommodate the new cohort of business-leisure travelers. Most days, the Internet is stable enough too. “But the main selling point is
The fossils of our earliest ancestors found in South Africa are a million years older than previously thought, meaning they walked the Earth around the same time as their East African relatives like the famous “Lucy,” according to new research. The Sterkfontein caves at the Cradle of Humankind world heritage site southwest of Johannesburg have yielded more Australopithecus fossils than any other site in the world. Among them was “Mrs Ples,” the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus found in South Africa in 1947. Based on previous measurements, Mrs Ples and other fossils found at a similar depth of the cave were estimated to be between 2.1 and 2.6 million years old. But “chronologically that didn’t fit,” said French scientist Laurent Bruxelles, one of the authors of a study published Monday in the PNAS science journal. “It was bizarre to see some Australopithecus lasting for such a long time,” the geologist said. Around 2.2 million years ago the Homo habilis — the earliest species of the Homo genus that includes Homo sapiens — was already roaming the region. But there were no signs of Homo habilis at the depth of the cave where Mrs Ples was found. ‘CONTEMPORARIES’ Also casting doubt on Mrs Ples’s age was recent research showing that the almost-complete skeleton of an Australopithecus known as “Little Foot” was 3.67 million years old. Such a big gap in ages between Mrs Ples and Little Foot seemed unlikely given they were separated by so few sedimentary layers. Because the fossils are too old and fragile to test, scientists analyze the sediment near where they were found. The previous dates underestimated the age of the fossils because they measured calcite flowstone mineral deposits, which were younger than the rest of that cave section, the study said. For the latest study, the researchers used a technique called cosmogenic nuclide dating, which looked
Astronomers have observed in a relatively nearby galaxy a star that not only survived what ordinarily should have been certain death — a stellar explosion called a supernova — but emerged from it brighter than before the blast. Meet the “zombie star.” The star at issue, observed with the Hubble Space Telescope, is a kind known as a white dwarf, an incredibly dense object with about the mass of the sun crammed into the size of Earth. A white dwarf is the remaining core of a star that blew off a lot of its material at the end of its life cycle, as our sun is expected to do about 5 billion years from now. This white dwarf is gravitationally locked in orbit with another star — a pairing called a binary system — and with its strong gravitational pull siphoned off and incorporated a good deal of material from this unfortunate companion. That is where the trouble started. In doing so, the white dwarf reached a mass threshold — about 1.4 times that of the sun — that caused thermonuclear reactions in its core that made it detonate in a supernova, an event that should have killed it. “We were quite surprised that the star itself had not been destroyed but had actually survived and is brighter than before it exploded,” said Curtis McCully, a senior astrodata scientist at California-based Las Cumbres Observatory, lead author of the research published this month in the Astrophysical Journal. “During the explosion, radioactive material was produced. This is what powers the brightness of the supernova. Some of this material was left over in the surviving remnant star and acted as fuel to heat the remnant,” McCully added. This white dwarf resides in a spiral galaxy called NGC 1309, about three quarters the size of our Milky Way. Like the Milky
Leonard Cohen was deep in his career when he finally finished Hallelujah. Well, the first version of Hallelujah — there would be many, many versions when all was said and done. He’d toiled on the lyrics for seven years. Yet when he submitted the album, Various Positions, to his longtime record company Columbia Records in 1984, the company’s president Walter Yetnikoff decided not to release it in the US. What would become Cohen’s seminal anthem was dead on arrival. But in the new documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, in theaters Friday, directors Dayna Goldfine and Dan Gellar examine how despite the odds, the song managed to take on a life of its own thanks, in varying degrees, to Bob Dylan, John Cale, Jeff Buckley and Shrek. Yes, Shrek. Now, four decades after its initial recording, it’s downright ubiquitous, a regular feature in movies, television shows, and singing competitions around the world. It’s an interestingly stitched together film that starts at the end — his final performance in 2013, singing Hallelujah, of course — and rewinds to the beginning of his songwriting career to trace how he got there. It feels, in some ways, like two different films: The first part is a standard biographical documentary that then shifts focus to Hallelujah’s resurrection outside of Cohen, before finally turning attention back to Cohen and his triumphant final tour. As the title says, it is a journey and a long one at that. The filmmakers are enamored of their eloquent subjects, from Judy Collins and composer/arranger John Lissauer to a childhood friend and his rabbi Mordechi Finley. One of the main voices is journalist and author Larry “Ratso” Sloman who interviewed Cohen many times over 30 years and whose tapes of those interviews are used to let Cohen speak for himself. The
In 1950, the overseas Chinese community of the Philippines numbered 230,000 — just over 1 percent of the country’s population. This made it among the smallest overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. In comparison, Thailand had more than 3 million Chinese residents that same year. Yet, throughout the decade and well into the next one, donations from Philippine Chinese — the preferred term in this book — to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) coffers dwarfed those from other Southeast Asian nations. In several years, they amounted to more than the “patriotic voluntary contributions” from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaya and South Vietnam combined. More importantly, for the KMT, this fealty manifested itself through the creation of what Kung Chien-wen (龔建文) calls an “intra-Asian anti-communist ecumene” in which the Philippine Chinese Cold Warriors of the book’s title represented the vanguard. “For two decades from the KMT’s flight to Taiwan in 1949 to the early 1970s, no overseas Chinese community was as active in identifying and rooting out suspected Reds from its midst,” writes Kung in the book’s introduction. There were many factors behind Philippine Chinese support of the KMT. Around 85 percent of Philippine Chinese at that time were Hoklo, with 90 percent of that figure originating from the same three counties in what was then Quanzhou prefecture (泉州), the community was anomalously homogenous. This, Kung asserts, “largely inhibited feuding” of the type seen among Chinese in other countries, which in turn may have made Philippine Chinese more malleable. (An interesting aside that is perhaps beyond the author’s remit, and thus not remarked upon, is the fact that the KMT’s inculcation of overseas support from a predominantly Hokkien-speaking population in the Philippines was contemporaneous with the drive to all but extirpate the language in Taiwan.) Another reason was the KMT’s link
How does Hong Kong look to people born in the year of the handover — for whom the city has always been under Chinese sovereignty? Some feel their fate is tied to Hong Kong’s, while others feel like bystanders as Beijing tightens its grip. Many plan to leave sooner or later. We spoke to six 24 and 25-year-olds about the Hong Kong they grew up in, and the one they expect to exist in another 25 years. THE RETURNING PROFESSIONAL “I feel helpless witnessing the changes that Hong Kong has been through,” said Keanne Lee. “At the same time, I want to keep a glimpse of hope alive that the city won’t lose its uniqueness.” Lee studied at a Hong Kong school where lessons are taught in English, then went to university in the UK. She returned to her home city after graduation, where she’s now a marketing executive for an e-commerce company. She has no plans to move abroad permanently in the near future. The growing pressure on school pupils to learn Mandarin is one of the biggest signs of change she’s witnessed. The Chinese government wants 85 percent of citizens to speak the national language by 2025, which critics fear will erode regional languages like Cantonese. “I don’t think Hong Kong can escape the fate” of becoming “more culturally homogeneous,” Lee said. She believes mainland China’s rapid development, especially in technology, makes some people proud of their motherland. By comparison, she feels Hong Kong’s progress since 1997 has been relatively limited. But she worries that closer ties with the mainland would make Hong Kong “just another city in China” and that the former British colony risks losing its status as an international financial gateway. “Hong Kong is unique because of its sophisticated blend of East and West culture. When there wasn’t such a strong sense of
Born in Aldershot in 1959, Russell Foster is a professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford and the director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. For his discovery of non-rod, non-cone ocular photoreceptors he received numerous awards including the Zoological Society scientific medal. His latest book — the first he has written without a co-author — is Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health. The Guardian: What is circadian neuroscience? Russell Foster: It’s the fundamental understanding of how our biology ticks on a 24-hour basis. But also it’s bigger than that — it’s an understanding of how different structures interact within the brain and how different genes and their protein products generate a complex behavior. And that is then embedded throughout our entire biology. TG: Is it an exciting field? RF: What’s happened over the past 25 years has been a move into understanding how these internal 24-hour oscillations are generated and I think it’s one of the amazing success stories in biomedicine. One of the great aims of neuroscience is identifying different bits of the brain with different functions and here we’ve got one: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), with 50,000 cells, is the master circadian pacemaker. If you don’t have that, then all of our 24-hour rhythms just disappear. TG: How did you first get interested in circadian research? RF: It was largely through photoreceptors. During my second year as an undergraduate — I did zoology at Bristol — I was reading the extraordinary The Life of Vertebrates by JZ Young and I came across a bit about lampreys. They have a parietal third eye, which mammals don’t have; we only have ocular photoreceptors, whereas fish, reptiles, birds, all have multiple photoreceptors. And I just thought: wow, this is so cool. For my PhD, I
The second expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry of the US to Japan in 1854 sent ships to Formosa on the way back to the US to assess Keelung’s potential as a coaling station. Far-sighted, Perry recommended that the US establish a presence on Formosa, as Taiwan was then known. His suggestion went unheeded, but others were watching, few more closely than Prussia. The Prussians had wanted to follow up the Americans with an expedition of their own. In 1858, when William I became regent, the idea of entering the colonial race in the Far East began to take shape in the Prussian policy imagination. Prussia Far Eastern policy would exhibit an off-again, on-again yearning for the island, until the Japanese put a lid on it in 1895 when they annexed it. PRUSSIAN FAR EAST EXPEDITION In August of that year the Prussians made the decision to send an expedition to the Far East. It was headed by Count Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg, who was not a career diplomat but a commercial expert, signaling that the expedition was primarily commercial in nature. Eulenburg, who then had no experience of the Far East, traveled to Paris in the early spring of 1860 to meet with British and French diplomats. According to historian Bernd Martin (“The Prussian Expedition to the Far East, 1860-1862”), the representatives of the two powers encouraged the Germans. The French diplomat Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gros, who had commanded the French troops in the Anglo-French Expedition in China from 1856-60 and was a famous photographer and politician, suggested to Eulenburg that the Prussians occupy Formosa. Gros argued that a Prussian colony in Formosa would help blunt southward pushes by the Chinese and British, and support the French in Vietnam. In his book France and Germany in the South China Sea, c. 1840–1930, Bert Becker describes
June 27 to July 3 “The Sacred Tree (神木) is on fire!” Tseng Tian-lai (曾添來) didn’t believe it at first as it was pouring rain, but he sensed the urgency in the caller’s voice. The Alishan Forest Railway station master stepped out and saw smoke billowing from the direction of the beloved 3,000-year-old red cypress. The tree was struck by lightning in the afternoon of June 7, 1956, and a fierce blaze raged inside the eroded trunk, requiring nearly 200 people 20 hours to put it out. The authorities were especially nervous, according to a 1997 Liberty Times (Taipei Times’ sister paper) report, because they had built a pavilion next to the tree to wish then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) a long life on his 67th birthday. What would it symbolize if the tree died? While the tree didn’t survive the fire, forestry workers kept it standing and planted red cypress saplings on the top of the towering trunk so that it appeared to still thrive. And it continued to be a famous tourist attraction until July 1, 1997, when half of it collapsed onto the adjacent train tracks during a heavy storm. Today, “sacred trees” (神木) can refer to any red or yellow cypress that are over 1,000 years old. But for nearly a century, this was the Sacred Tree. The Japanese deemed it to be divine when they first saw it in 1906, and even though they heavily logged the surrounding area over the next few decades, they left the Sacred Tree alone. After much deliberation and public discussion, the Forestry Bureau on June 29, 1998 made the painful decision to cut the giant down. Workers sawed through its base then severed the eight supporting steel wires one by one. The mostly-intact trunk was left where it
There was a pivotal moment in Queen Pangke Tabora’s life that eclipsed all others: It was the moment, she says, when she first slid her legs into a mermaid tail. For the transgender Filipina woman approaching middle age, seeing her legs encased in vibrant, scaly-looking neoprene three years ago was the realization of a childhood dream. And it marked the beginning of her immersion into a watery world where she would find acceptance. The former insurance company worker described the experience of gliding under water, half-human and half-fish, as “meditation in motion.” “The feeling was mermai-zing,” Tabora said one recent morning while lounging in a fiery red tail on a rocky beach south of Manila, where she now teaches mermaiding and freediving full-time. “The world outside is really noisy and you will find peace under water. … It’s a good skill in the real world, especially during the pandemic.” Across the world, there are thousands more merfolk like her — at its simplest, humans of all shapes, genders and backgrounds who enjoy dressing up as mermaids. In recent years, a growing number have gleefully flocked to mermaid conventions and competitions, formed local groups called “pods,” and poured their savings into a multimillion-dollar mermaid tail industry. On a planet plagued by war, disease and social upheaval, many merfolk have found life in the water a refuge. Perhaps Sebastian, the ornery crab in the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, said it best in his warning to land-loving mermaid Ariel: “The human world, it’s a mess. Life under the sea is better than anything they got up there!” Away from the critics and chaos of life on land, mer-world is the kinder, gentler and more joyful alternative to the real world. It is also a world, merfolk say, where you can be whoever and whatever you want. That
On the outskirts of Vienna, farmer Andreas Gugumuck tosses some extra cereal to thousands of snails inching over planks and lush greenery. Far from being pests, the slow-moving molluscs have become his main produce. “It started as a joke,” said 48-year-old Gugumuck, a former computer scientist who now raises more than 300,000 snails annually in an effort to resurrect a lost culinary tradition of the Habsburg empire. Twelve years ago, an article featuring a renowned Vienna chef serving snails piqued his interest. After some research and poring over old cookbooks, he “found out that Vienna was a real snail capital”. Back when this predominantly Catholic country strictly observed religious holidays, wealthy priests and monks were forced to give up meat during Lent and other religious holidays — and found snails to be a worthy, less sinful substitute. In the 19th century, snails gained popularity across the city of Vienna, with a market in the center serving them deep fried, sprinkled with sugar or with a side of cabbage or bacon. Though France is well-known for its garlic and butter escargots, in Vienna, snails used to be so popular they were shipped down the Danube by the barrel load. ‘IT’S A GREAT TASTE’ In Gugumuck’s restaurant next to his farm, he now serves snails in risottos and on pizzas, stuffed in dumplings, with sausages, as “snail and chips,” and even in sweet cinnamon buns. Making it in the snail business wasn’t easy, he said. He recalled how chefs around the city initially turned their noses up, thinking diners would steer clear of intimidating invertebrates. But Gugumuck started setting up events and guided tours at his snail farm to re-establish the tradition, and today, some of those chefs look enviously at the small burgeoning enterprise which, Gugumuck said, is fully booked eight weeks in advance. Greater awareness of meat-eating’s environmental
In the space of a few decades, Taiwan has changed from a place where characterful old buildings were thoughtlessly bulldozed to make space for wider roads or bigger homes, to a society much more likely to cherish physical reminders of the past. The authorities have poured money into restoration and renovation work. According to a Nov. 10, 2020 post on Tainan City Government’s Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage Web site, in the first nine months of 2020, the Ministry of Culture’s (MOC) Bureau of Cultural Heritage approved 13 such projects in the southern city, setting a total budget of NT$281.6 million. The MOC committed to providing 52 percent of the funding. The city government took responsibility for 33 percent, with the rest of the money coming from building owners. As Taiwan’s former capital and a stronghold of tangible and intangible tradition, it’s no surprise that Tainan gets a lion’s share of public-sector restoration spending. XIZHUWEI HILLS CULTURAL AND CREATIVE PARK One such project is now the centerpiece of Xizhuwei Hills Cultural & Creative Park (西竹圍之丘文創園區) at 197 Yule Street (育樂街), 500m from the rear entrance of Tainan TRA Station. The Former Tainan Prefecture Governor’s Residence (原臺南廳長官邸) is a single-story house that was built no later than 1906, and repaired and redecorated in 2016-2017. The building now labeled as the residence — a sublime combination of Western and Japanese architectural features — was in fact the governor’s office and reception area. He and his family actually inhabited a neighboring Japanese-style wooden bungalow that was destroyed by fire more than 20 years ago. The residence is open to the public every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, from 9am to 5pm. There’s no admission charge. Ongoing renovation projects include major undertakings at two sites in Tainan’s ancient downtown and at a third in Sinying (新營). CHEN SHIH SING HOUSE Work at the Chen
You’re in the mood for fish and your server suggests a dish of invasive carp. Ugh, you might say. But how about broiled copi, fresh from the Mississippi River? Here’s the catch: They’re the same thing. Illinois and partner organizations kicked off a market-tested campaign Wednesday to rechristen as “copi” four species previously known collectively as Asian carp, hoping the new label will make them more attractive to US consumers. Turning carp into a popular household and restaurant menu item is one way officials hope to rein in a decades-old invasion threatening native fish, mussels and aquatic plants in the Mississippi and other Midwestern rivers, as well as the Great Lakes. “The ‘carp’ name is so harsh that people won’t even try it,” said Kevin Irons, assistant fisheries chief with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “But it’s healthy, clean and it really tastes pretty darn good.” The federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is funding the five-year, US$600,000 project to rebrand the carp and make them widely available. More than two dozen distributors, processors, restaurants and retailers have signed on. Most are in Illinois, but some deliver to multiple states or nationwide. “This could be a tremendous breakthrough,” said John Goss, who led the Obama administration’s effort to halt the carp invasion and worked on the renaming project. “The next couple of years are very critical for building confidence and acceptance.” Span, a Chicago communications design company, came up with “copi.” It’s an abbreviated wordplay on “copious” — a reference to the booming populations of bighead, silver, grass and black carp in the US heartland. Imported from Asia in the 1960s-70s to gobble algae from Deep South sewage lagoons and fish farms, they escaped into the Mississippi. They’ve infested most of the river and many tributaries, crowding out native species like bass and crappie. Regulators have spent more than
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