Although Dr. Eger had drawn his idea from ancient texts, his findings were backed by scientific proof. His Arab neighbors concurred with the health benefits from olive oil. At that time, while the oil had been featured prominently in the diet of Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis hadn’t picked up on it. And so Dr. Eger had to get the unrefined oil from his neighbors. This oil was low in quality since it was prepared the traditional way. Yet, he consumed it, prescribing himself a spoonful a day until, within six months, it increased to eight spoonfuls a day. Due to this self-made prescription, Dr. Eger found that his arrhythmia, which used to make him black out, had disappeared.

Thirty years ahead into the future, Dr. Eger has invested money in science to create products which would hopefully put Israel’s olive oil on a competitive footing in the world market. Together with Prof. Ishak Neeman of the Technion Institute of Technology in Hafia, Dr. Eger developed the technology for the solidification of oil which was free from water, preservatives and trans fatty acids.

The resulting spreadable olive oil could then be used as a margarine substitute, and could also be used for the creation of various other goods. With his own brand, Dr. Eger Olive Oil Products, he manufactures health products with the oil as the main ingredient.
Despite modern medicine paving the way to finding new cures by matching DNA barcodes and such, it seems to me that traditional remedies still have much to offer. Traditional remedies are usually composed of naturally occurring ingredients, making them more practical than some modern counterparts, especially in developing countries.

Inspired by the late Egyptian natural building architect Hassan Fathy, Messinas will be heading a six-day architectural workshop from July 25 until August 1. The workshop, organized by the Greek-founded NGO Ecoweek, will involve workshops as well as practice sessions with some of the hottest green building architects in the world.

The guiding principle that motivates Messinas is that architects should be able to look to their surroundings in order to come up with suitable designs and materials for their buildings. As opposed to emulating Western designs for Eastern buildings, for example, local architects should work with appropriate technology, of which the late Hassan Fathy was a pioneer and advocate. “Young architects need to look at their community instead of looking at magazines,” says Messinas.

In Israel, the market for green buildings has allowed for some architectural firms to focus solely on green architecture, but the workshop aims to help put the Levant region of Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the green building map. Of the 120 people expected to attend the seminar, 15 to 20 of them will be fielded by the Palestinian Authority, which is run by the West Bank.

Though green architecture training is limited in the Palestinian Authority, the improvement of the economic and social reality of Palestinians in the last year has allowed for the resources required to develop and grow green building practices and the sustainable architecture industry.

Much of the world’s green technology was actually conceptualized in Israel. It’s only fitting that green technology is brought into the country’s urban setting.
View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel.

Zero-knowledge earned Prof. Goldwasser a trip to Philadelphia to receive the 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. The professor, who was born in New York to Israeli parents, has made fundamental contributions to the field of study which has become the basis for encoding anything from private messages to credit card numbers on the Internet.

Her first footsteps into the field of cryptography theory were evident when she discovered an affinity to math and physics while attending high school. After graduation, she attended Carnegie Mellon University, which “…already had a strong computer science and applied math department even then,” said Prof. Goldwasser, referring to the 1970s.

Indeed, there had not yet been any concept of personal computing in the 1970s. Prof. Goldwasser admits that some of the women in her computer science classes had never even seen a computer, though she adds that women were more mathematically inclined.

The idea for zero-knowledge came about as an attempt to answer a question posed to by her adviser, who asked what it might take for two people to engage a coin toss over a computer network or phone. Since then, she became obsessed with the finding the answer. And the answer that she came up with was randomized methods of encoding.

Impossible as it may seem, zero-knowledge allows one to process information without seeing it. For example, a merchant can verify whether or not a customer’s credit card information is valid, without having access to the actual credit card number.
Without the technology that stemmed from this theory, the Internet would be a vastly different place. Internet banking, e-commerce, and even email might never exist with any insurance of security.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel.

Studies done by both Meir Hospital located in Kfar Saba along with scientists of Bar-Ilan University launched a medical showed that three minutes of exposure to light results in increased sperm motility. The light used ranged in wavelengths from 400 to 700 nanometers and resulted in an increase in oxygen particles known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS, which contains oxygen ions and peroxides. Sperm samples also showed an increase in calcium as well as the protein Kinase A as a result of the visible light waves.

Whether infertility results from a low quality or low quantity of sperm, a light treatment could potentially increase the chances of success for in-vitro fertilization. The current live birth success rate for in-vitro fertilization is only 27% according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. “Our hope is that the new method which was tested, much like the additional methods that are currently being researched, could improve the success rate and provide hope to couples who are not helped by fertility treatments stemming from low-quality sperm,” says Professor Adrian Shulman, director of the In-Vitro unit at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of the Meir Hospital in Israel.

Although excessive amounts of radiation can have a bad effect on animal cells, 400 to 700 nanometers has been proven not to have any harmful effects on the sperm. If light is the answer, this could potentially be an affordable way to increase chances of fertilization.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel.

This project is being spearheaded by Dr. Koby Scheuer of the University’s School of Electrical Engineering, and is based on a new plastic-based technology developed for the nano-photonics market. Termed as a ‘filter,’ the physical system works through nanometer-sized grooves embedded in a plastic material. When this material is used in fiber optic cable switches, Dr. Scheuer says that the resulting communication devices will be smaller, more flexible and more powerful.

The term ‘filter’ is used in this case precisely because that’s what the device in question does. Every optical communication device system uses filters to clean up signals and interpret messages. These signals are passed using fiber optic cables, and experts say that in the next decade, such cables will run from city to city and will feed directly into every individual home. When that happens, Tel Aviv University’s new plastic-based switches will make slow connection speeds and spotty feeds a thing of the past.

“Once Americans have a fiber optics cable coming into every home, all communication will go through it – telephone, cable TV, the Internet,” Dr. Scheuer explains. “But to avoid bottlenecks of information, we need to separate the information coming through into different channels. Our polymeric devices can do that in the optical domain – at a speed, quality and cost that the semi-conductor industry can’t even imagine.”

This new and groundbreaking device material is a prime example of just how big Israel is becoming in terms of technological advancement. Already, the country has produced more than a few noteworthy contributions in fields such as medicine, communications and power. And with progress going strong despite the rocky socio-political climate, it is clear that Israel’s tech development scene really has nowhere else to go but up.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel.

An updated version of a 2006 report, Searching for the Study of Israel examines the scope of academic courses being taught about Israel on more than 300 leading American college and university campuses, and finds that the state of education about Israel has improved since the study’s first edition. A comparison of the institutions included in both studies shows a nearly 70 percent increase in courses that focus specifically on Israel over the three-year period.

“Our Foundation has been deeply invested in expanding opportunities to learn about Israel in academic environments that invite thoughtful discussion free from bias and intimidation,” said Lynn Schusterman, chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. “I am gratified to see a growing commitment to the study of Israel, in all its richness and complexity, taking root in classrooms across the U.S.”

The study also found that courses about Israel were offered by a variety of departments, with the majority coming from history and political science departments. Moreover, most courses went well beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict, suggesting a normalization of Israel as a subject within established disciplines.

What I personally find most exciting about the study is the dramatic growth in courses specifically focused on Israel and the broad scope of so many courses. Education is the core mission of the university, and in that arena, we have seen an impressive increase in the study of Israel – as a culture, as a society, as a government, as something more than a party to a conflict.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel

• Qatar Airways completed the world’s first commercial passenger flight powered by natural gas

• The fully automated Dubai Metro became the first urban train network in the Middle East

• In Saudi Arabia, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology opened its doors. Called “an oasis of freedom,” the university aims to fund research that will spawn economic diversity.

2009 has truly been a year of breakthrough achievements in the Middle East. It was also a year of disappointments. Who would have thought that the bottom would fall out of the real estate market in most of the Middle East? Or that unemployment would rise and workers without a stake in the Gulf countries would flee, leaving their debts unpaid? Or that Dubai World would need a $26 billion bailout?

Yet, as disastrous as these situations may seem, I believe they provide an unprecedented opportunity for the growth of innovation and entrepreneurs in the region. 2010 could finally be the year that start-ups and companies investing in innovative products, services, business models, and management come into serious play in the Middle East. The conditions are ripe:

Cheaper resources – The events of 2009 have made resources – office space, talented personnel, supplies – that are often too expensive more affordable.

Access to information – Newer businesses, which tend to place more value on individual contributions, know that information and knowledge is essential to growth. So, while traditional companies hunker down and wait for things to get better, innovators and entrepreneurs continue to make things better by continuously learning and adapting.

Process innovation – smart companies (many of them led by entrepreneurs) reduced job losses by focusing on management processes, making them more cost-effective, innovative, and efficient.

So here’s my question to the Middle East: Where will you put your money and effort this year? Should we continue to follow the U.S. model of bailing out established corporations, or should we increase support for entrepreneurs, start-ups, and innovators that can make a real difference and also turn a profit?

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about innovation in the Middle East

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu congratulated Yonath Thursday night on her being awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Yonath shared the 10 million Swedish kroner ($1.4 million) award with Britain’s Indian-born Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and American Thomas A. Steitz, who continued Yonath’s work.

Each of the winners received a gold medal and a document from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf as the royal family and relatives of friends of the laureates were present. Orchestral music was played, and an opera singer sang arias from Tosca and Don Giovanni.

The field involving the ribosome, which translates genetic code in the production of protein, has contributed to understanding the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics, and is expected to help in the development of new and more effective anti-bacterial drugs.

Before the ceremony, Yonath said she hoped her award would encourage Israeli children – both boys and girls – to develop an interest in sciences in general and specifically chemistry. “There is a great feeling here,” Yonath said. “There is a lot of pressure in it. I have my entire family here, and this is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with them. I can’t complain.”

I am extremely excited about the decision to award Professor Yonath the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and for the honor that her accomplishments have brought to Israel, its citizens, and the Israeli scientific community and institutions.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about science

I was asked about the project by the Israeli National News Service, Arutz Sheva. They included the following quote which I think sums up how we feel about the work being done there.

“I am proud to be part of the Kollel’s new initiatives. The direct relation between our contributions and ability to expand the study of the Torah is an extremely worthwhile and fulfilling result,” said Mouli Cohen.