Let’s see how a Taiwanese delicacy named by an English travel website as one of the top ten bizarre foods in the world can help protect you from smog’s harmful effects

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/04
By: Sophia Yang,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Named among the top 10 unusual foods in the world by travel website

VirtualTourist.com, pig’s blood cake, a Taiwan local delicacy, has recently been said carrying health benefits that can protect people against the effects of smog. A renowned traditional Chinese medicine practitioner backs the saying but suggests not to take more than two portions a week.

Articles about foods that can reduce harmful effects of air pollution have recently spawned on the Internet, which feature three local foods — pig’s blood cake, also known as “blood tofu” or “blood pudding,” lamb stew and white fungus lotus seed soup.

Pig’s blood cake is a street delicacy made of sticky rice and pig’s blood, which hold the rice cake together after steaming, and then is coated with powdered peanut butter and cilantro to give a faintly sweet taste and pleasant scent.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiw
Date: 2017/02/04
By Wang Shu-fen and Christie Chen

Taipei, Feb. 4 (CNA) Temperatures around Taiwan are expected to fall sharply beginning Feb. 9 due to

the arrival of a strong cold air mass from China and a frontal system, with lows in northern Taiwan expected to dip to 11 degrees Celsius, the Central Weather Bureau said Saturday.

Northern and eastern Taiwan can expect cold and wet weather, with brief showers in some areas, on Feb. 9, while cloudy to sunny skies can be expected in other parts of Taiwan that day, the bureau said.

On Feb. 10, temperatures in northern Taiwan could drop to as low as 11 degrees, with highs hovering between 14 and 15 degrees, it said.

Lows in central and southern Taiwan on Feb. 10 could fall to 12 and 13 degrees, respectively, but highs in both areas are forecast to remain above 20 degrees due to clear and sunny skies, according to the bureau.    [FULL  STORY]

’STOP FOOLING AROUND’:The pair also criticized a proposal to remove the images of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek from banknotes, with Hung Hsiu-chu calling it ‘psycho’

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 05, 2017
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin

(郝龍斌) both questioned President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) new picks to head four ministries, particularly focusing on newly appointed Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu (林美珠), who is Tsai’s cousin.

It is not entirely inappropriate to “recommend someone from your own family” if they are a good fit for the job, but people should refrain from holding the KMT to a different standard, Hung said.

“If the same situation occurred when the KMT was in office, many would have been likely to … lash out at the KMT,” she said.

“Take [former president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as an example: After he took office, members of his family such as his elder sisters could not hold any [official] position. I hope [the public] holds the KMT to the same standard when the party takes office again,” Hung said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: February 03, 2017

A Taiwan-Canada research team has discovered evidence of protein preservation in a

195 million-year-old dinosaur fossil, a significant finding that may provide more information on the biology and evolution of the long-extinct animals, according to Hsinchu City-based National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center Feb. 2.

The study was conducted by researchers from the NSRRC, National Central University, National Chiao Tung University, National Chung Hsing University and University of Toronto Mississauga. It was published online Jan. 31 in the journal Nature Communications.

Using the NSRRC’s synchrotron, a type of particle accelerator, the team found proteins known as collagen type I preserved inside the vascular canals of the rib of a Lufengosaurus, a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur from the Early Jurassic epoch. The animal’s remains were unearthed in Yunnan Province, mainland China.  [FULL  STORY]

Zushi has a strong following in the north of Taiwan and the centuries-old tradition is vehemently defended by organizers and worshippers

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Sanxia held its annual Lunar New Year Holy Pig festival Thursday in spite of criticism and protest by activists as inhumane. Local pig farmers compete to display the largest pig, with the winner taking home a trophy every year.

The annual festival marks the birthday of the Chinese deity Zushi and was held in a square outside the temple in the northern district of Sanxia, a traditional district in New Taipei City in northern Taiwan.

Animal rights activists say farmers have adopted inhumane methods to force-feed pigs to increase their weight. As a “holy pig” raised for the ceremony, it can weigh more than 800 kg compared to a normal weight of 120 kg.

Zushi has a strong following in the north of Taiwan and the centuries-old tradition is vehemently defended by organizers and worshippers.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Lin Chang-hsun and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Feb. 3 (CNA) Coast Guard officers found a dead cetacean on the shore of Wanli

Lion Park in New Taipei on Friday evening after receiving a report that a member of the cetacean family had grounded there.

The animal was about 150 centimeters long and 27 centimeters wide, but its species was not immediately identified, and authorities will wait until Saturday for the Taiwan Cetacean Society to help identify it.  [SOURCE]