A PhD candidate from Israel won $100K in the Singapore Challenge 2014 for his project using genetically engineered bacteria to detect pollutants in municipal water systems.

By Avigayil Kadesh

Yossi Kabessa, a 33-year-old applied physics PhD candidate from Israel, won the $100,000 Singapore Challenge 2014 at the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore (GYSS) for his project using genetically engineered bacteria to detect pollutants and hazardous materials in municipal water systems.

In an interview at Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Peter Brojde Center for Innovative Engineering and Computer Science, Kabessa says the futuristic notion began with a related project to use genetically engineered bacteria to detect explosives. This project is led by his faculty adviser, Prof. Aharon Agranat, and Prof. Shimshon Belkin.

“We’re working on an interesting project with the Ministry of Defense aiming to map buried landmines using this bacterial biosensor. If you spread the bacteria on a minefield, they will sense explosives, and an airborne vehicle will detect the optical signal they produce.”

Kabessa suspected these “designer” bacteria could also detect pollutants in large water systems. As the university’s Bryant and Lillian Shiller Fellow, he has been working to design the proper optoelectronics for such a scheme.

“The truth is, I didn’t do all this work alone,” says the father of four. “Prof. Agranat had the basic idea and gave me so many tools to work with. And there are very talented students in the lab who helped me in all levels of the project.”

This is why Kabessa is funneling his $100,000 prize back into the project. “I thought the right thing to do is to invest this money to further develop the idea. I believe that everyone gets what he deserves, and I had to think whether this money was really mine.”

A shining moment for Israel

Competition in the Singapore Challenge was formidable. The GYSS is a five-day program where bright young researchers meet with eminent scientists to discuss technologically innovative solutions to global challenges. The 10 proposals judged most promising get to vie for the cash prize.

Kabessa explains that scientists have known about engineered bacteria for about 15 years, “but using it for detecting pollutants in water is what is new. No one had harnessed engineered bacteria for an application like this.”

He was surprised to find fellow Israelis at the GYSS.

“There were four other students from Hebrew University, whom I had never met, but I was the only one from the physics department. There were also students from the Technion, the Weizmann [Institute of Science], Ben-Gurion University and Tel Aviv University,” Kabessa says.

“What’s interesting is that five of the 10 finalists were from Singapore, one was from France, one from Germany and three from Israel. That is quite a remarkable achievement, considering there were students from MIT, Cambridge, Harvard -- the best universities.”

A microscopic menorah

The Singapore Challenge win was the second time Kabessa’s name was in the Israeli news over as many months.

In December 2013, the religiously observant scientist shared photos of the world’s smallest Hanukah menorah that he and fellow doctoral student Ido Eisenberg fashioned in the lab out of a bit of polymer too small for the naked eye to see. They used a German-made 3D microprinter called the Nanoscribe – the first one in Israel and one of only about 100 globally.

“When we got the Nanoscribe system, we wanted to do a test to investigate its abilities … because 3D nanometric photography is brand new,” he explains. “People haven’t yet thought of what to do with it. We are just now trying to think out of the box to do something that nobody could do before.”

As Hanukah was coming up, the scientists decided that an eight-branch candelabrum would be an appropriate form with which to experiment. “We were amazed at the results -- so clean and clear on a scale of a speck of dust,” he says, adding with a smile, “Perhaps next year we’ll light it with quantum particles!”

The Nanoscribe will help Kabessa turn his award-winning biosensor into a micro lab on a chip, including all the optics and electronics and sensors that go inside it.

How does that work?

Kabessa recalls that when he was a boy, he wondered about the mechanisms behind the seemingly magical ability to warm food by pushing buttons on a microwave, or turning on the car with the crank of a key.

Though he was initially planning to study psychology after his army service, “I was very curious about the laws of nature and everything around us, and it drove me to go into physics or electrical engineering.”

With a bachelor’s degree in physics, he decided to go for a master’s in applied physics after hearing Agranat lecture on this discipline.

DNA-based programmable circuits would be more sophisticated, cheaper and simpler to make

Jerusalem, Oct. 26, 2014— In a paper published today in Nature Nanotechnology, an international group of scientists announced the most significant breakthrough in a decade toward developing DNA-based electrical circuits.

The central technological revolution of the 20th century was the development of computers, leading to the communication and Internet era. The main measure of this evolution is miniaturization: making our machines smaller. A computer with the memory of the average laptop today was the size of a tennis court in the 1970s. Yet while scientists made great strides in reducing of the size of individual computer components through microelectronics, they have been less successful at reducing the distance between transistors, the main element of our computers. These spaces between transistors have been much more challenging and extremely expensive to miniaturize – an obstacle that limits the future development of computers.

Molecular electronics, which uses molecules as building blocks for the fabrication of electronic components, was seen as the ultimate solution to the miniaturization challenge. However, to date, no one has actually been able to make complex electrical circuits using molecules. The only known molecules that can be pre-designed to self-assemble into complex miniature circuits, which could in turn be used in computers, are DNA molecules. Nevertheless, so far no one has been able to demonstrate reliably and quantitatively the flow of electrical current through long DNA molecules.

Now, an international group led by Prof. Danny Porath of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reports reproducible and quantitative measurements of electricity flow through long molecules made of four DNA strands, signaling a significant breakthrough towards the development of DNA-based electrical circuits. The research, which could re-ignite interest in the use of DNA-based wires and devices in the development of programmable circuits, appears in the prestigious journal Nature Nanotechnology under the title " Long-range charge transport in single G-quadruplex DNA molecules."

Prof. Porath is affiliated with the Hebrew University's Institute of Chemistry and its Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The molecules were produced by the group of Alexander Kotlyar from Tel Aviv University, who has been collaborating with Porath for 15 years. The measurements were performed mainly by Gideon Livshits, a PhD student in the Porath group, who carried the project forward with great creativity, initiative and determination. The research was carried out in collaboration with groups from Denmark, Spain, US, Italy and Cyprus.

According to Prof. Porath, "This research paves the way for implementing DNA-based programmable circuits for molecular electronics, a new generation of computer circuits that can be more sophisticated, cheaper and simpler to make."

The research was supported by the European Commission, the European Science Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation, the Binational Science Foundation, the Minerva Center for Bio-Hybrid complex systems, the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Italian Institute of Technology project MOPROSURF, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation.

The Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University (CFHU) is proud of JERUSALEM winning the Best Film, Short Subject; Best Cinemtography; and Big Idea Community Outreach at the 2014 GSCA Awards!  The 45-minute National Geographic Entertainment film was produced in partnership with Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University being one of the film's main sponsors.

JERUSALEM triumphed at the 2014 Giant Screen Achievement Awards!

“We are honored to have won these prestigious awards and grateful to the hundreds of people who worked tirelessly to make this extraordinary film, which celebrates the ancient city of Jerusalem like you’ve never seen it before."
- The Producers: Taran Davies, George Duffield and Daniel Ferguson.

THE JERUSALEM TEAM AT THE GSCA CONFERENCE
From Left to Right: Director of Film Distribution, Antonietta Monteleone, Sales Director of Film Distribution, John Wickstrom (National Geographic Studios); Writer/Director/Producer, Daniel Ferguson, Producer, Taran Davies, Producer, George Duffield, and Executive Producer, Dominic Cunningham-Reid; VP of Integrated Film Marketing, Nikki Lowry, President of Distribution, Mark Katz, and Coordinator of Film Distribution, Bethany Jones (National Geographic Studios).

Taran Davies (Cosmic Picture), Cinematographer Peter Chang (Golden Gate 3D), and Daniel Ferguson (Cosmic Picture).

NOW PLAYING IN SELECT GIANT SCREEN THEATERS WORLDWIDE AND ACROSS CANADA.

For Paul Davidson, the head of an umbrella group of Canadian universities, seeing is believing when it comes to Israel.

“I was there in 2012 and visited all your universities,” Davidson told The Times of Israel. “I saw the many innovations in all areas of technology, and understood the phenomenal pressures you face, as well. It’s one thing to read the book ‘Start-Up Nation’ and another thing to actually see that incredible story in action.”

And Davidson, president and CEO of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, is not going to allow the BDS movement to prevent his country’s 97 universities and colleges from building beneficial relationships with Israel.

“Boycotts are not a way to solve anything, and we strongly believe in developing and encouraging dialog to solve problems of all kinds. It’s for that reason we are holding a special conference this week to enhance that dialog, and allow institutions in both countries to develop better relationships,” Davidson said.

Davidson was referring to an international gathering of university and research leaders taking place in Ottawa this week to discuss national innovation systems and how they help universities drive the advancements that build prosperity. University presidents and innovation experts from Canada, Israel and Germany gathered for a policy dialogue called “Optimizing Canada’s Innovation system: Perspectives from Abroad.” About 100 academics – mostly university presidents from Canada, Israel, and Germany – took part in the event sponsored by the AUCC, which is an advocacy group that represents Canadian universities in the political and business spheres.

Because it’s such a large country and a neighbor of the US, people tend to think of Canada as more advanced technologically than it really is, said Davidson, but in truth, Canada has a few things to learn about developing technology and successfully deploying it in the country’s economy. That’s something that Germany, and especially Israel, have learned to do well. “Israel has a good tolerance for high risk, and that is an important factor in the development and success of its start-up infrastructure,” said Davidson. “We want to adopt some of Israel’s strategies here.”

One reason Israeli academic tech research is able to get out into the economy – both locally and internationally – is due to the diligent efforts of the university tech transfer companies in Israel, which develop university research into products and technologies that can be sold or licensed commercially. “Canadian universities have had some success with their tech transfer companies, but there are definitely lessons we can learn from Israel about how to integrate technology in the economy. Israel has been extremely successful at this, and innovations from Israel are helping people around the world.”

There’s a lot Israel can do to help out Canada. “Brain technology is an important area of research both here and in Israel, and we’d like to expand the cooperation and joint projects that are already going on in this area,” said Davidson. “Information and communications technology is another important area for us. And Israel has a lot of important water technology that can do a lot for Canada.”

Here, said Davidson, is another example of the “Canada myth” at work. “Most people are very surprised to hear that Canada has water issues, but there many Israeli water technologies that can help Canada such as in water purification, delivery, more effective use of resources, and others.”

And BDS is not going to stand in the way of the budding Israel-Canada tech relationship. “Like elsewhere, there is a BDS movement in Canada, stronger or weaker depending on the campus, political circumstances, and other factors,” said Davidson. “The American Studies Association last year rejected a boycott of Israel, saying that only dialog, and not closing doors, will solve problems, and we feel the same way. One of the advantages of a small forum like this week’s conference is that it encourages that dialog, especially among the top decision makers. This is the kind of dialog that will help us solve problems.”

Davidson maintained that many of the accusations made by BDS activists against Israel just aren’t accurate; Israel is a complicated place, and gleaning information about what goes on there from just the headlines – as many people in the West do – won’t provide a full picture of what is going on there. “Israel has developed some incredible technology that is helping people all over the world,” said Davidson. While not denying that there are burning political issues, “we have to keep in mind the difficult pressures and circumstances Israel faces.

“I don’t want to diminish the contention that the political situation in Israel has engendered in Canada – and in Israel, as well, where there are vigorous debates on the direction of the country,” added Davidson. “But academic debate is good too, and by enhancing our relationship with Israeli institutions, we can engage them on those issues – and work together to develop technology that will help everyone.”

Age and political engagement predicted cutting ties, but living in rocket-battered south didn’t

Jerusalem, October 30, 2014 — New research conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem paints a picture of the Jewish Israelis who cut ties with their Facebook friends during the recent Israel-Gaza conflict. Dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” in Israel, the fighting began in early July 2014 and lasted about seven weeks. With the Internet serving as an important forum for discussion and debate among Israelis, the conflict presented an opportunity to investigate the emerging role of social media in Israel, and how people create echo chambers and filter out content they don’t want to hear.

Ten days after the final cease fire between Israel and Gaza, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Dr. Nicholas John conducted a survey of 1,013 Jewish Israeli Facebook users. John is an Assistant Professor and Lecturer in the Hebrew University’s Department of Communication.

Among the survey respondents, 60% defined themselves as right-wing, 20% considered themselves in the center, and 20% defined themselves as left-wing, consistent with Israel Democracy Institute figures.

Overall, Jewish Israelis’ activity on Facebook during Operation Protective Edge was more political than in the 12 months leading up to it. While nearly half the subjects said they did not post content related to the conflict with Gaza at all, 6.4% said they posted such content “a great deal.”

Furthermore, John found that 1 in 6 respondents unfriended or unfollowed someone during the conflict, with 50% of the “unfrienders” cutting contact with between 1 and 3 people.

Age played an important role in whether someone cut ties with others on Facebook, with younger users significantly more likely to unfriend someone. John suspects this is because for younger people, a Facebook profile is a more integral part of their identity.

The intensity of a person’s political engagement both on and off Facebook was also found to be predictive of unfriending. The more left-wing or right-wing respondents considered themselves, the more likely they were to unfriend someone. However it was their distance from the political center, and not whether they were left- or right- wing, that predicted whether they ended a Facebook relationship.

Because people unfriend those they disagree with, and there are more right-wing than left-wing Jewish Israelis on Facebook, those on the left stood a greater chance of being unfriended.

From this research, a profile emerged of the kind of Jewish Israelis who unfriended others during the conflict: young, politically engaged people with strong political views, regardless of whether those views were left-wing or right-wing. These unfrienders were most likely to drop people with whom they had weak ties, and the reasons they unfriended included taking offence at the content that someone posted, and simply disagreeing with their content.

Surprisingly, people from Israel’s south, which suffered the most rocket attacks during the conflict, were not more likely to unfriend or unfollow someone.

Interestingly, 25% of those surveyed thought of unfriending or unfollowing someone on Facebook, but ultimately chose not to. Only 3.4% of respondents thought they themselves had been unfriended, and of those people, 70% didn’t care.

According to Dr. John, this research helps us understand the social processes taking place in the relatively new world of social media. “It shows that unfriending on Facebook is quite a new phenomenon through which people create homogeneous media environments or ‘echo chambers,’ filtering out content that either offends them, that they disagree with, or that they don’t want to be associated with,” he said.

An 'Unofficial Ambassador' to China appears on "Who's Still Standing", adapted from hit Israeli show Lauf al Hamiliyon

Jerusalem, October 26, 2014 — In an international test of knowledge watched by millions, a Chinese student of Bible and the Ancient Near East represented Israel's leading university (and by extension the state of Israel) on China's highest-rated game show.

Lechao Tang, a 24-year-old student pursuing a master's degree at the Hebrew University's Rothberg International School, is originally from Wenzhou, China. He was invited by China’s national TV channel to participate in a knowledge competition against students from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge and other leading universities.

"Who's Still Standing (China) " is an adaptation of Israel Channel 10’s hit TV game show Lauf al Hamiliyon (לעוף על המיליון‎), in which contestants who give the wrong answer plummet into a hole. As the biggest national intellectual entertainment show in China, it offers contestants the opportunity to win prizes while competing in trivia battles. This season, in honor of the National Day of China (a one-week celebration that started on October 1), the competitors are all students from top universities in China and around the world.

In the first episode, Lechao defeated a female student from the University of Cambridge (U.K.). She promptly plummeted into a hole in the floor. A YouTube HD video of the show is available at http://bit.ly/lechaoyoutube (start at 30:50).

Despite the intense competition among TV programs during the national holiday season, that episode was the second highest ranking TV show of the day, and the sixth highest ranked of the week — the program's best recent achievement.

Lechao said, “I'm glad to be a link between the Hebrew University and my home country of China. It's an exciting cultural opportunity for me to introduce Hebrew U to China from the point of view of a Chinese student. The hosts of the TV show are a couple and they've been to Israel. They shared an anecdote about the wife placing a note in the Western Wall for good luck to have a baby — and this year they had a son! They also showed a video I made of my classmates' multilingual blessings wishing me luck.” The video is available at http://bit.ly/lechaovideo.

Lechao then joined a team of Chinese international students competing against a team of Chinese domestic students. That episode can be viewed at http://bit.ly/lechaoyoutube2.

Lechao, whose name means "Happy" in Chinese, completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon in the US. He originally went there to study linguistics but he quickly fell in love with Judaic studies. “I couldn't resist the beauty of the Hebrew language, so I chose to study further,” he says.

While at the university of Oregon, he was appointed the first Hebrew tutor from China in the university's history. Today he teaches Hebrew online through "One-Man University," a non-profit Chinese educational start-up. He also maintains a personal blog where he introduces Hebrew and Israel to Chinese Internet users.

Lechao sees many similarities between the Jewish and Chinese peoples, from customs to festivals and philosophies. “I believe that these two important peoples should cooperate in the course of globalization. My people should know more about the Jewish people and vice versa. And I would like to be a messenger between them,” he said.

Israel Antiquities Authority: This is among the most important Latin inscriptions ever discovered in Jerusalem.

A rare fragment of a stone engraved with an official Latin inscription dedicated to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, discovered in the capital in July by the Antiquities Authority, was unveiled at Rockefeller Museum in east Jerusalem Tuesday morning.

According to Dr. Rina Avner, who led the Antiquities Authority’s excavation north of Damascus Gate, the relic from the Roman period is among the most important Latin inscriptions ever discovered in Jerusalem.

“This is very rare,” said Avner, standing a few meters from the fragment, which was displayed on a grass enclosure at the museum’s entrance. “We found the inscription incorporated in secondary use around the opening of a deep cistern.”

The archeologist noted that the large limestone rock containing the inscription was subsequently recycled to create a floor.

“In antiquity, as today, it was customary to recycle building materials, and the official inscription was evidently removed from its original location and integrated in a floor for the practical purpose of building the cistern. Furthermore, in order to fit it with the capstone, the bottom part of the inscription was sawed round.”

Upon finding the inscription, Avner said it was immediately clear to the excavators that they had uncovered an especially significant discovery, as indicated by the size and clarity of the letters.

The inscription, consisting of six lines of Latin text, was read and translated by Avner Ecker and Hannah Cotton of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The English translation of the inscription is as follows: “To the Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, son of the deified Traianus Parthicus, grandson of the deified Nerva, high priest, invested with tribunician power for the 14th time, consul for the third time, father of the country (dedicated by) the 10th legion Fretensis Antoniniana.”

Ecker, a PhD candidate, said the inscription was dedicated by Legio X Fretensis to the Emperor Hadrian in the year 129/130 CE.

“The fragment of the inscription revealed by the IAA archeologists is none other than the right half of a complete inscription, the other part of which was discovered nearby in the late 19th century, and was published by the preeminent French archeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau,” he said.

The second stone is currently on display in the courtyard of Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Museum near the Lions’ Gate in the Old City.

“Only a small number of ancient official Latin inscriptions have been discovered in archeological excavations throughout the country, and in Jerusalem in particular, and there is no doubt that this is one of the most important of them,” he added.

According to Avner, the significance of the inscription stems from the fact that it specifically mentions the name and titles of Hadrian, who was an extremely prominent emperor, as well as a clear date.

“The [date] is a significant and tangible confirmation of the historical account regarding the presence of the 10th Legion in Jerusalem during the period between the two revolts, and possibly even the location of the legion’s military camp in the city, and of one of the reasons for the outbreak of the Bar-Kochba revolt several years later and the establishment of Aelia Capitolina,” she said.

The events of the Bar-Kochba revolt are ascribed to the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, who is remembered in Jewish history for having issued dictates imposing the persecution and forced conversions of Jews, which the sources referred to as the “Hadrianic decrees.”

The history of the Bar-Kochba revolt is known from, among other events, the works of the contemporary Roman historian Cassius Dio, who also mentions Hadrian’s visit to Jerusalem in the year 129/130 CE, within the framework of the emperor’s travels in the eastern empire.

Avner said these travels are also documented on coins issued in honor of the occasion and in inscriptions specifically engraved prior to his arrival in different cities.

“This is apparently exactly what happened in Jerusalem,” said Avner. “The completion of the two parts of the text reveals an especially large inscription that is quite impressive. The inscription itself might have set in the top of a free-standing triumphal arch on the city’s northern boundary such the Arch of Titus in Rome.”

The fate of Jerusalem following the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), and prior to the Bar-Kochba revolt (132-136 CE), is one of the major issues in the history of the city and in terms of the Jewish people’s connection to it, she noted.

“We know from ancient writers and the inscriptions on coins that the new city, which Hadrian established, was granted the status of ‘colonia,’ that is a city whose citizens and gods are Roman, and its name was changed to Aelia Capitolina, or COLONIA AELIA CAPITOLINA in Latin,” Avner said.

“There is no doubt that the discovery of this inscription will contribute greatly to the long-standing question about the reasons that led to the outbreak of the Bar-Kochba revolt: Were the reasons for the rebellion the construction of Aelia Capitolina and the establishment of the pagan temple on the site of the Jewish Temple Mount; or conversely perhaps, these were the results of the revolt – that is, punitive action taken by Hadrian against those who rebelled against Roman rule?” All of the information regarding the inscription will be presented in a conference open to the public entitled “Innovations in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Surroundings,” to be held Thursday on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"Maintain the status quo because the Temple Mount issue can explode everything," says Israel's Ambassador to Jordan

At Truman Institute Event, Analysts and Diplomats Talk Temple Mount, Israel-Jordan Relations

JERUSALEM, November 10, 2014 — Ambassadors and analysts from the United States, European Union and Israel, along with a senior Israeli cabinet minister and a former head of the Mossad, spoke at a conference today marking 20 years since the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.

The conference, titled "Peace and Diplomacy in a Changing Middle East: 20 Years after the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty," was hosted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement for Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

While panelists expressed different views on a variety of issues at the conference, there was a consensus that it is essential to maintain the status quo on the Temple Mount.

Video of the first session, featuring United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel B. Shapiro and Israeli Ambassador to Jordan Daniel Nevo, can be viewed online at http://bit.ly/hujordan2. Among other topics, both ambassadors addressed the current complications in relations between Israel and Jordan, and the critical nature of the status of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Israeli Ambassador to Jordan Daniel Nevo explained that no issue is more important to Jordanians on the street than the Temple Mount. Estimating the Palestinian population of Jordan to be between 60 and 70 percent, Nevo cautioned that what happens at that holy site affects the security of Israelis and Jews not only in Israel, but around the world. Video of Nevo's comments begins at 29 minutes 35 seconds.

Nevo said, "This is a situation in which most of the 1.8 billion Muslims in the world don't really care about the facts or the status quo. What they care about is that some imams say that the Jews are penetrating Al Aqsa, and that is enough to put every Israeli and Jew all around the world in jeopardy, and enough to put the peace agreement in jeopardy… We have to take precautions and do our utmost in order to maintain the peace and quiet and the status quo in Haram al-Sharif [the Temple Mount], because this can explode everything."

Describing the many fruits of peace resulting from Israeli-Jordanian cooperation, Nevo added, "Our strategic projects with Jordan like water and energy are not enough, and even our very tight security ties are not enough. We have to realize that the fragile situation in the Temple Mount is above any other thinking for the Jordanians...

"The government of Israel cannot allow extremists to take over Al Aqsa and change the status quo in which they will not allow tourists and Jews to go up on the Temple Mount. On the other hand, we have to take real steps to stop radicals from trying to provoke on the Temple Mount."

United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro asserted that America's intervention has prevented the current unrest in Israel and the region from spiraling further out of control. Video of Shapiro's comments begins at 11 minutes 30 seconds.

According to Shapiro, "President Obama and his administration are constantly striving to identify new opportunities to nurture, sustain and expand peace in this region. Here in Israel, you've seen this drive up close every time Secretary Kerry arrives in the region, drawn by his deep commitment to help Israelis and Palestinians resolve their long-running conflict.

"When leaders have stepped forward to make historic decisions, they have done so with vision, courage and trust.. It was trust that brought together King Hussein and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin … The untimely deaths of these two exceptional leaders were some of the harshest losses that President Clinton experienced during his presidency.

"President Clinton was struck by the warmth and indeed the trust that these two leaders felt toward one another….  And there is a lesson in their example: whenever leaders are ready to overcome obstacles and resolve historic conflicts, building trust is very simply a basic precondition. Trust alone is not enough, but its absence, and the absence of efforts even to establish trust, are like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they all but ensure perpetuation of the conflict…

Shapiro also reiterated Kerry's position that the United States believes in the critical importance of maintaining the status quo at the holy sites.

Addressing the Islamic State / ISIL,  Shapiro said, "The fight against ISIL today is one of the United States' highest priorities." Shapiro then described the steps the United States is taking to degrade and destroy the organization.

What time is it? No not approximately, not about, but exactly. What is the exact time, and not in minutes and seconds, or even in hundredths or thousandths of seconds, but even more accurately? And by the way, who determines the time? Where is this clock, which is the authority to set the exact time for all other clocks in Israel wherever they are: in your phone, computer, or on your wrist; or at the stock market or bank; on a cruise missile or the Iron Dome? And how does all this work, this master clock? How can we trust it? And who gave it the authority to be the one, supreme clock?

Welcome to the Coordinated Universal Time Laboratory at Hebrew University on Givat Ram in Jerusalem. Meet Dr. Nadya Goldovsky, the person legally in charge of time in Israel. From the door of her modest lab you can see the Knesset, Israel Museum and Bank of Israel; about as symbolic as you can get. Her lab holds a few computer servers, and the only thing that makes a real impression in the small lab is the clock itself: A large red screen, with the seconds ticking off authoritatively, as if it knows it is correct. This is Israel’s national clock.

Officially, Goldovsky is the head of the Laboratory of Frequency and Time of the National Physical Laboratory of Israel, which is under the auspices of the Economy Ministry.

So why does Israel need an official clock, and why is the Economy Ministry responsible for it? Goldovsky explains:

“I am employed by the Economy Ministry, which in the past was the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment. Industry needs us, since someone is supposed to hold the standards for all sorts of physical units, according to international standards. For units of length, meter; for units of mass, kilogram; and for units of time, second. My responsibility is the second standard.”

In other words, the ministry decided that if you want to know what exactly a kilogram weighs to test the scale for your greengrocer, or what exactly is the length of a meter to check the table you bought at Ikea, there will be an official authority in charge of these standards.

In 1992 the Knesset passed The Law Determining the Time, which replaced the Time Act from 1940 during the period of the British Mandate. The law states: “The accepted basis for time in the world, for legal purposes, for international coordination and other purposes, is based on the rate of change of atomic time, with adjustment for the movement of the Earth, and is set by the National Physical Laboratory in the Industry and Trade Ministry.”

The lab sets Coordinated Universal Time in Israel. This is abbreviated as UTC, based on the French term. UTC is the international standard, for all clocks around the world – and local time is adjusted by time zones. Once upon a time GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, was the standard, but UTC has replaced it.

Who controls time?

Israel’s official atomic clock looks like a not particularly modern computer case, but inside the box is quite a bit of sophisticated technology. Goldovsky explains how it works:

“In the past we would measure the time according to the rotation of the earth. You would take the day and divide it into 24 hours, then divide the hour into 60 minutes, and the minute into 60 seconds, and that is how you reached a single second. But since then it’s been discovered that the earth’s rotation is not stable and not very precise, but with a deviation of milliseconds. Therefore, we switched to another method: The atom has a nucleus that around it circles the electron, so it is sort of clock in itself. Scientists found a specific atom named cesium [Cs in the Periodic Table] in which the electrons spin around the nucleus at a stable speed and perfect precision. To measure a second you need to look inside the atom with a beam and count the [atomic transitions].” The most accurate clocks have their cesium atoms cooled by lasers down to almost absolute zero, minus 273.15 Celsius.

Every time the electron in the atom completes 9,192,631,770 revolutions, a second has passed. “The accuracy of a cesium clock is 10 to the power of minus 14. An atomic clock is off by one second once in a million years. The atomic clock has been here since 2010 and its working time is between seven to 10 years, and then we will have to replace it,” says Goldovsky.

If you think we have reached the highest extreme of precision, you are wrong: Goldovsky has two clocks, which average each other out all the time – but on the roof of the building are three antennas, which are used to synchronize the local Israeli clocks with dozens of other clocks around the globe in other government standards labs, as well as with dozens of satellites. Many of these atomic clocks don’t actually show the time, but are used to broadcast precise frequency signals, which are then used by other clocks.

“We conduct comparisons all the time with atomic clocks in 60 countries,” she says. “In addition, we conduct comparisons with atomic clocks on the American GPS system of satellites, the European satellite system Egnos [European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service], and the Russian satellite system Glonass. Every second we collect data from all of these,” she said.

The control of time is to a great extent also a matter of global politics. The Russian Glonass system, which competes with the American GPS system, was rather neglected until Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to revive it. The Europeans, who do not want to remain dependent on either the Russians or the United States, are building their own system named Galileo. The institution at the center of all this time coordination sits in Paris, and is named BIPM. By going to their bipm.org website you can see the almost perfect UTC time, since it also adjusts itself for the time delay you see over the Internet. But BIPM is still dependent on the Americans, who control the movement of the satellites, from Colorado.

Clock for Iron Dome

You can find atomic clocks outside labs too. “There are 10 such clocks in Israel,” said Ehud Sharar, owner and CEO of Focus Telecom, which sells and implements atomic clock systems in Israel. “Atomic clocks are behind the scenes in almost every system we use. In communications systems there are atomic clocks since they need to be synchronized, and sometimes inaccurate clocks lead to dropped calls. Banks and other financial institutions also use such clocks since every financial transaction comes with a time stamp, as does all stock market trading. The government’s websites are also synchronized with Focus Telecom’s clocks, as well as the Bank of Israel, Israel Electric Corporation control rooms, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the IDF’s communications networks.

Take for example a military system such as Iron Dome: It has a radar system that identifies the attacking missile, it transfers the information to a computer that estimates where the missile will fall, and then it needs to give an order to the launcher so the missile will hit the attacker. All this must be synchronized and the atomic clock is the conductor of the orchestra. There are atomic clocks in cruise missiles, in shells and i other weapons systems,” said Sharar.

The use of atomic clocks is growing too, he says. One of the major uses in recent years is in the area of geology and offshore gas and oil exploration. Geologists use acoustic waves to search below the sea bottom and, based on the time it takes for these waves to return, they can calculate the density of the earth – and whether there is gas or oil and at what depths. To analyze the data requires extremely exacting time readings, and they use atomic clocks, says Sharar.

As for the cost of such a clock, he says it varies. The one in the national laboratory costs about $70,000. The smallest one ever developed was made for the U.S. military, and can fit in a soldiers’ equipment pouch, and is used in helping neutralize explosive devices. Such models can cost only $1,500 to $3,000, says Sharar. There are cheaper models, costing only a few hundred dollars apiece, but instead of cesium they use rubidium atoms, and are a bit less accurate. Accubeat, a subsidiary of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, sells such clocks. And if you really want one, you can buy a wristwatch atomic clock from Bathys Hawaii for only $12,000.

The daily routine in the Israeli national time lab includes a long list of tests for all the clocks, the satellite receivers and continual checks with the BIPM in Paris, as well as repairs and calibrations. Much of the time is used for providing services: Many well known technology companies and defense contractors make pilgrimages to the lab and give Goldovsky their atomic clocks for calibration, which can take up to 10 days in some cases.

Once every few years there is a dramatic moment in the time-keeping world, or rather a dramatic second. It is necessary to change the clocks and add a leap second, explains Goldovsky. Because the earth day is not exactly 24 hours and the rotation speed of the earth changes, it is sometimes necessary to add a second to adjust UTC to the actual physical time of the rotation of the earth. In such a case it is announced six months in advance. Twenty-five leap seconds have been added since 1972, the last one coming on June 30, 2012. Otherwise the small difference would add up and “in a couple of hundred years we would be eating lunch in the middle of the night,” said one of the experts.

Just before we leave the time lab, I stop for a second in front of the big clock and adjust my watch. After all, there are very few such opportunities in life.

By Chuck Bednar

A team of researchers from Israel and the UK are looking to add to the number of medical devices that can be used to treat visual impairments by developing a new prosthetic unit for use by retinal degeneration patients.

Writing in a recent edition of the journal Nano Letters, researchers from the The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and the Newcastle University Institute of Neuroscience detail how their new device could help counter vision loss due to conditions such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

While scientists are using different approaches to develop implants capable of detecting light and sending visual signals to a person’s brain, Yael Hanein of the TAU School of Electrical Engineering and colleagues set out to design a unit that was more compact and less cumbersome without sacrificing resolution, the American Chemical Society (ACS) explained in a statement.

“The researchers combined semiconductor nanorods and carbon nanotubes to create a wireless, light-sensitive, flexible film that could potentially act in the place of a damaged retina,” the ACS said. They then tried their new device out using tissue from laboratory animals and the results were positive.

“When they tested it with a chick retina that normally doesn’t respond to light, they found that the film absorbed light and, in response, sparked neuronal activity,” the society added. “In comparison with other technologies, the researchers conclude theirs is more durable, flexible and efficient, as well as better able to stimulate neurons.”

Other authors include Lilach Bareket, David Rand, Gur Lubin, Moshe David-Pur, Jacob Ben-Dov, Soumyendu Roy and Ori Cheshnovsky of Tel Aviv University; Nir Waiskopf and Uri Banin of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Cyril Eleftheriou and Evelyne Sernagor of Newcastle University. The Israel Ministry of Science and Technology, the European Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council funded the study.

This isn’t the first attempt to develop an artificial retina. In August 2012, researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College revealed that they had developed a device with the capability of restoring normal vision by deciphering the retina’s neural code for brain communication. The device, which could accommodate for blindness in mice, was hailed as the first of its kind and a major breakthrough in working to restore vision for the blind.

“It’s an exciting time,” Dr. Sheila Nirenberg, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell, said in a statement at the time. “We can make blind mouse retinas see, and we’re moving as fast as we can to do the same in humans… This has all been thrilling. I can’t wait to get started on bringing this approach to patients.”

A few months later, in February 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, a high-tech artificial retina that was the first device of its kind to treat a form of progressive blindness known as retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The device, which was developed by Second Sight Medical Products, does not restore vision entirely, but it does allow users to detect differences in light patterns and some shapes.

The Argus II unit consists of a small video camera and transmitter attached to a pair of glasses. The camera converts visual input to electronic data, and that data is then transmitted to electrodes implanted on the patient´s retina. From there, the optic nerve carries the data to the brain, where it can be interpreted. The FDA authorized its use to treat patients who are at least 25 years of age with advanced RP and some remaining retinal function.

Brain tumor patients can extend their lives by wearing a device on their scalp that creates an alternating electric field, a company founded by a former Hebrew University professor announced Saturday.

Novocure, a commercial stage oncology company announced at a conference of the Society for Neuro-Oncology in Miami, Florida, that "Tumor Treating Fields" delivered by the system it has developed, in combination with standard chemotherapy, extended the lives of patients who received solely chemo in a phase III trial. The portable system, called NovoTTF-100A, "slows and reverses tumor growth by inhibiting mitosis, the process by which cells divide and replicate," Novocure announced. "The system creates a low intensity, alternating electric field within a tumor that exerts physical forces on electrically charged cellular components, preventing the normal mitotic process and causing cancer cell death."

Overall survival improved from 16.6 months to 19.6 months in the study, according to Novocure, which funded the trial. The percentage of patients surviving two years increased from 29% to 43% for those who received both chemo and the Tumor Treating Fields.

“These results are spectacular – a lot better and much more convincing than we ever would have dreamt of,” said Dr. Roger Stupp, director of the University Hospital Cancer Center at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, who was the trial's principal investigator. “A new standard of care for patients suffering from glioblastoma is born.”

Glioblastoma is the most common form of primary brain cancer with approximately 10,000 patients diagnosed each year in the United States, according to Novocure. Overall survival with standard of care temozolomide chemotherapy alone is approximately 15 months.

Kristina Sirca, a retired school teacher, was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2012 and began treatment with NovoTTF in August 2013, according to the UC Irvine Health website. Shewas referred to the treatment after she was unable to tolerate chemotherapy.

Sirca described the device as a "head zapper" on the UC Irvine Health website. "I don't necessarily feel the electrical impulses," she said. "But I do feel some tingling and they sometimes generate a little heat."

She said she knows the tumor is terminal but credited the device with giving her an extra year of life. "They say that only 10 percent of people with this survive more than five years," said Sirca. "But there's no reason why I can't be part of that 10 percent."

Novocure was founded by Yoram Palti, who currently serves as Chief Technology Officer. Palti previously served as a R&D physicist at AccuBeat and a micro-electronic devices lab instructor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Based in the Isle of Jersey, the company also has U.S. operations and a research center in Haifa, Israel, as well as offices in Switzerland and Japan.

The trial group consisted of the first 315 patients, about half the number of people in the entire trial.

As individuals, we often seek our place in society by comparing ourselves with other people. As religious or national groups, we may measure ourselves positively in relation to other groups. And as a species, we seek our place in nature by comparing ourselves with other animals. But these egocentric, ethnocentric and species-centric comparisons miss the big picture about humans as a species, as Homo sapiens. We miss the fact that from a historical point of view, we are but a blip in the history of the world, and a minor piece in the history of human species.

Indeed, humans have been around for over 2 million years, while Homo sapiens, our type of human, evolved only in the past 200,000 years or so. It may be a bit disconcerting to have to face the fact that as early as 70,000 years ago, we humans were, as Yuval Noah Harari describes in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” an insignificant animal living quietly in a small part of East Africa.

Harari, 38, a senior lecturer in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, first published “Sapiens” in Hebrew in 2011, and it held its place on best-seller lists here for some two years. Since then, it has been published in more than two dozen languages, and spawned a wildly successful online course (MOOC) in which more than 100,000 students participated. The English-language edition, which was translated by the author, has just come out in Britain and the book will appear in the United States this coming February.

While sapiens were still a minor human species 70,000 years ago, several other types of humans had been thriving in the expanses of Europe, the Middle East and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years. Many of these species, including the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalis) and Homo erectus, had mastered the use of tools and fire and hunting. But over the next 60,000 years all human species except Homo sapiens would go extinct, while sapiens multiplied and migrated to all corners of the world.

What is it about us as Homo sapiens that allowed us to literally take over the world in the past 12,000 years, while other human species faded away?

Pondering our own extinction

Harari tackles the question of what set our species apart from other human species, and explores the processes that have brought us to the brink of being the first species to instigate, and even ponder, its own extinction. Harari discusses this issue at the end of his book, and comes up with several surprising predictions. His answer to what sets us apart from other human species is a series of four revolutions, each of which was dependent on the previous one.

The first of these he terms the “cognitive revolution.” Around 70,000 years ago, our forefathers figuratively ate from the tree of knowledge and developed intellectual capabilities foreign to other human species. Sapiens quickly developed advanced tools such as lamps to light the night and needles to sew warm clothes, and invented modes of transportation such as boats. These tools enabled the species to migrate and thrive in diverse climates, even enabling our ancestors to cross seas and colonize Australia – and wipe out almost all the large animals there within a few thousand years.

Actually, mass animal extinctions accompanied human movements worldwide; whenever sapiens migrated to a new land – be it Australia, Asia or the Americas – the large fauna were quickly hunted into oblivion.

Most importantly, however, these new cognitive abilities enabled humans to do something truly novel – to imagine. These humans started making art – but not just crude renditions of reality: Sapiens 40,000 years ago could imagine the impossible. A human body with the head of a lion for example. A god. Humans could conceptualize that which does not exist.

This ability to conceptualize the abstract is still a major force for modern sapiens. Harari points out that this includes not only the ability of some modern sapiens to believe in God, but of all sapiens to believe in such bodiless concepts as “corporations” and “inalienable rights.” These constructs exist because at some point humans decided that they did – not because of some physical entity.

With the ability to conceptualize arose a new type of interaction between humans: trade. Although Neanderthals roamed Europe in small troupes for hundreds of thousands of years, there is no evidence of developed communication or trade between these groups. Sapiens, however, started to perceive themselves as members of a common species. Bands of sapiens traded with each other, interacted and developed new vocabularies and customs to enable this interaction.

Four revolutions

The cognitive revolution eventually led to a series of three technology-based revolutions. First, about 12,000 years ago, was the agricultural revolution, which enabled the development of civilization as we know it today. The scientific revolution commenced about 500 years ago, when humans actively started seeking to understand their place in the universe, and that was followed by the industrial revolution, 300 years later. These latter two revolutions set the stage for modernity, and to the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens.

By “success,” I do not claim – and neither does Harari – that humans are better off now than we were 10,000 years ago. Well-being is a matter for philosophers to debate. Rather, I mean that more human DNA is present in the world today than ever before. At the time of the agricultural revolution, world population is estimated to have been about 15 million, or about the number of people living in metropolitan Moscow today. By the scientific revolution, the earth’s population had reached some 300 million, while at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution 1 billion humans inhabited the earth. In other words, it took 2 billion years, more or less, for Earth’s population of humans to reach 1 billion. But once science and industry were married, there was no stopping human progress, so that the second billion was added within 120 years, to be followed 30 years later by the third billion, and 40 years later by the seventh billion.

“Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” spells out the foundations of these revolutions. Harari juxtaposes historical methodology with sociology, anthropology and a bit of biology, to examine how these developments influenced individuals, society and the world around us.

The strength of “Sapiens” – its scope and sweep – is also the source of its weakness: superficiality. If you naively anticipate an in-depth analysis of the entire history of humankind in 400-plus pages, then you are in for disappointment. Harari uses wide strokes to paint a canvas comprised of several major conceptual revolutions and stochastic events that have brought humans to dominate every part of the world as a connected collective. This is not a history book filled with dates and names, but rather a book of themes and concepts.

Harari does, of course, enhance his canvas with essential facts to back up his theses, but in general the book reads like a very entertaining novel, with tension building as our ancestors developed (some would say progressed, but that question remains open) from cavemen, essentially irrelevant to the Earth’s ecosystem, to being farmers, bureaucrats and scientists, who eventually took control even of evolution itself.

Harari succeeds masterfully in arranging this canvas for the first 16 or 17 chapters of the book. And for these alone, I highly recommend it. However, in his final few chapters, in which he deals with our present time, he partially abandons his historical perspective to embark on a philosophical analysis of our current state, which at times smacks of New Age philosophy books. This probably should not be a surprise, as Harari has never denied juxtaposing his own personal philosophy with historical analysis, and one could claim that modernity is not readily analyzed solely with the tools of a historian.

Thus Harari leaves the historical trail to ask: Have we, during the past 20,000 years, both as individuals and as a collective, grown more “happy”? While the author takes great pains to emphasize that he is not taking a “New Agey” approach – and it must be said that he has an excellent grasp of the diverse academic fields he employs in his analyses – there were moments when I became uncomfortable with the tone, which can border on self-righteous.

Harari is decidedly pessimistic in his diagnosis of our current situation. Between the threat of an impending environmental apocalypse and the increasing alienation of individuals from society, he exposes society’s weaknesses and laments the future of our race and planet.

Personally, I think he sells humanity short. The Ezekiels, St. Johns and Malthuses of the world have been predicting our downfall almost since the agricultural revolution. But the cognitive revolution, with its ability to imagine, has allowed us to dream of better futures, and to create them, in our own image.

When I was a child, for example, India, with a population of half a billion, was on the brink of famine. Few could have predicted that today, with a population of over 1 billion, India exports food. Indeed proportionally, there is less hunger in the world today than at any time in history. Surely this gives hope that a future historian, say 500 years from now, will have interesting comments to make about the historical times of the 21st century, and the advances that humans made to assure their successful survival. Harari, though, plays with the idea that this historian may not be a Homo sapien at all, but a member of a new human species that evolved from us. Time will tell.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari

U.K.: Harvill Secker, 443 pages, ₤25 (hardcover), ₤15 (paperback); $30 (to be published by Harper in February 2015)

The author is dean of the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University, and author of “What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses.”

Hebrew University researchers surveyed a 5,000 km long strip of the sea and measured the calcification rates of coral reefs and open sea plankton over the whole Red Sea area

Jerusalem, Nov. 19, 2014 — Following a 5,000 km long ocean survey, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents a new way to measure how the acidification of water is affecting marine ecosystems over an entire oceanic basin.

As a result of man-made emissions, the content of CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans has increased dramatically during recent decades. In the ocean, the accumulating CO2 is gradually acidifying the surface waters, making it harder for shelled organisms like corals (Figure 1) and certain open sea plankton to build their calcium carbonate skeletons.

Since this process impacts the functioning of many marine ecosystems, it has been intensively studied in recent years. However, getting an accurate measure is complicated because the effect of ocean acidification on the rates of calcium produced by marine organisms is highly variable and species specific. Since scientists tend to use local and site-specific field measurements, treating reef environments and open sea environments separately, their measurements reflect the local response of individual organisms to elevated CO2 levels, and not the overall picture.

To get a clearer picture of how ocean acidification is affecting large marine areas, a group of Israeli researchers studied a 5,000 km long strip of ocean (Figure 2), from Eilat to the Seychelles crossing the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Western Indian Ocean.

The group was led by Profs. Boaz Lazar and Jonathan Erez and the Ph.D. student Zvi Steiner, together with Prof. Amitai Katz, all from the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, together with Prof. Aldo Shemesh and Dr. Ruth Yam of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The researchers developed a new method to simultaneously assess the overall calcification rates of coral reefs and pelagic (open sea) plankton over a whole oceanic basin, based on variations in surface water chemistry. These variations result from the tendency of organisms that precipitate calcium carbonate skeletons to replace some of the calcium in their skeletons with other elements (e.g. the element strontium). These replacements depend on growth conditions and are typical for each group of organisms. Owing to this characteristic, corals produce calcium carbonate with a different chemistry than calcareous (composed largely of calcium carbonate) plankton, and their overall effect alters the chemistry of the ocean water. This is the first study that demonstrates the feasibility of quantifying this type of information on an oceanic basin scale.

The group estimated that pelagic plankton precipitate 80% of the Red Sea calcium carbonate, and coral reefs precipitate about 20%. This data is a crucial milestone if we wish to track the effect of anthropogenic activity originating from human actions, since it is not possible to quantify change without having objective baseline conditions.

Monitoring the variations in coral and plankton growth rates every few years can provide essential information regarding rates of environmental change in tropical and subtropical seas like the Red Sea, Caribbean and South China Sea.

The research was published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) as ”Basin scale estimates of pelagic and coral reef calcification in the Red Sea and Western Indian Ocean”. The research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology.

Oft-maligned creature genetically sequenced for first time by international team

Jerusalem, Nov. 25, 2014– Centipedes, those many-legged creatures that startle us in our homes and gardens, have been genetically sequenced for the first time. In a new study in the journal PLoS Biology, an international team of over 100 scientists today reveals how this humble arthropod’s DNA gave them new insight into how life developed on our planet.

Centipedes are members of the arthropods, a group with numerous species including insects, spiders and other animals. Until now, the only class of arthropods not represented by a sequenced genome was the myriapods, which include centipedes and millipedes. For this study, the researchers sequenced the genome of the centipede Strigamia maritima, because its primitive features can help us understand more complex arthropods.

According to Prof. Ariel Chipman, senior co-author of the study and project leader at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science, the genetic data reveal how creatures transitioned from their original dwelling-place in the sea to living on land.

“The use of different evolutionary solutions to similar problems shows that myriapods and insects adapted to dry land independently of each other,” said Chipman. “For example, comparing the centipede and insect genomes shows that they independently evolved different solutions to the same problem shared by all land-dwelling creatures — that of living in dry air.”

According to Chipman, the study found that despite being closely related to insects, the centipede lacks the olfactory gene family used by insects to smell the air, and thus developed its own air-sniffing ability by expanding other gene families not present in insects.

In addition, Chipman said, this specific group of centipedes live underground and have lost their eyes, together with almost all vision genes and genes involved in the body’s internal clock. They maintain enhanced sensory capabilities enabling them to recognize their environment and capture prey.

Published in the latest edition of PLoS Biology, the research is a collaborative effort by over 100 scientists from 50 institutions. Thousands of human-hours went into looking at specific genes in the centipede genome, with each researcher looking at a limited set of genes or at specific structural characteristics to address specific questions.

Other leaders of the international research effort include Dr. Stephen Richards, Baylor College of Medicine; Dr. David Ferrier, University of St. Andrews; and Prof. Michael Akam of Cambridge University. The research paper is titled “The First Myriapod Genome Sequence Reveals Conservative Arthropod Gene Content and Genome Organisation in the Centipede Strigamia maritima.”

While early studies of genomics focused on humans, as sequencing equipment and expertise became more readily available, researchers expanded into animals directly relevant to human wellbeing. In the latest research, genomic sequencing has become more broad-based, investigating the workings of the world around us.

In explaining the purpose of the research, Hebrew University's Chipman said: "If we have a better understanding of the biological world around us, how it operates, and how it came to be as it is, we will ultimately have a better understanding of ourselves.”

According to Chipman, the research will have applications for other researchers ranging from conservation to dealing with crop pests.

The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences is the largest research institute in the Hebrew University's Faculty of Sciences. Members of the Institute of Life Sciences devote themselves to two parallel and complementary endeavors: advanced scientific research at the forefront of contemporary biological sciences, and broad-range biological education aimed at endowing the students with the knowledge, skills and research tools essential for participating in the continuously changing field of life sciences. The Institute of Life Sciences maintains diverse undergraduate (B.Sc.) and graduate (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) teaching programs.

On Wednesday, November 12, 2014, Untold News presented the inaugural Untold News Awards to Israeli inventors. Professor Shlomo Madgassi of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem was one of the three Israeli winners selected for the award out of many candidates submitted by prestigious Israeli institutions including, Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute of Science and Technion Israel Institute of Technology, among others. Each winner received a $10,000 prize. Professor Magdassi is the Enrique Berman Chair at the Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry, the Krueger Family Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at The Hebrew University.

Professor Magdassi won the prize for inventing a bendable plastic touch screen display for smart phones. The display can be made with a commercial inkjet printer, reducing the number of manufacturing steps by 80 percent. Optoelectronic and electronic devices, such as touch screens of smartphones, solar cells and smart windows use transparent conductive coatings (TCC). The invention, which is based on “coffee ring” phenomena, presents a new, simple process to create bendable and flexible touch screens, while printing silver nanoparticles which self-assemble into invisible structures. A new start-up company, Clear-Jet, was established about a year and a half ago, for making touch screens for smartphones and automotive panels.

Professor Magdassi’s research focuses on colloid science, in particular, on formation, stabilization and applications of micro and nanoparticles in dispersions. In addition to basic scientific research he conducts industrial R&D projects for various companies. He is the author of numerous scientific publications, and the editor of three books: Surface Activity of Proteins, Novel Cosmetic Delivery Systems and The Chemistry of Inkjet Inks. Professor Magdassi also has many patents and patent applications, which are related to applications of dispersed systems in various industries.

Untold News is an American non-profit dedicated to promoting Israeli inventors and educating Americans on the positive news generated from the State of Israel. A jury of American leaders including Mr. David Schizer, former Dean of Columbia Law School; Dr. Barry Coller, Chief Medical Officer, Rockefeller University; Tony Tether, former Director of DARPA; and Heidi Jacobus, Chariman and CEO of Cybernet Systems selected the winners.