Intel gives firm commitment on new Israeli fab

Intel Israel sources: A senior Intel manager may have said what he said, but there are people more senior than him.

Hadas Manor 27 Jul 05 13:30

Sources inform ''Globes'' that Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) has informed Investment Promotion Center director Hezi Zaieg that it will build its next fab in Israel. The Investment Center has received a written commitment for the establishment of Fab 28 in Kirayt Gat from Intel Israel managing director Alex Kornhauser, so there is no doubt that Intel has decided to build it in Israel. Intel has bought a 300-dunam (175-acre) site in the Kiryat Gat industrial zone, adjacent to Intel’s current fab, for the new fab.

The decision belies statements by Intel SVP and general manager Technological Manufacturing Group Robert Baker in the US this week that no official decision had been taken concerning establishing the fab in Israel, despite a telephone call to that effect to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from Intel CEO Craig Barrett over the weekend. The Intel manager made the comment in an announcement on building the Intel Fab 32 in Arizona.

Intel also announced that it would officially apply to the Investment Center for a $4 billion investment next week. The Investment Center will then be able to send the application immediately to the Industrial Development Bank of Israel (TASE:INDD.P), which will carry out a viability study. Construction of Fab 28 will begin when the letter of authorization is received.

The Investment Center assumes that a grant to Intel amounting to 15% of the investment ($525 million) will generate a clear benefit to the economy, on the basis of preliminary studies, data presented by Intel, and Israel’s experience with Intel’s first fab in the country, which generated NIS 3.5 billion in added value within five-six years. Intel received a $580 million grant for that fab.

At a recent meeting between representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor with Intel VP finance and enterprise services and director, tax, licensing and customs Nanci S. Palmintere, she said, “Give me the money, and I’m authorized to tell you ‘yes’ today that the new fab will be built in Israel, without having to return to Intel for approval.”

Zaieg said, “There is no doubt that Intel has decided to invest in Israel. After examining all the alternatives, Intel decided that Israel was best. Intel received immediate tax breaks in Arizona, but in Israel, this is subject to a viability study, which will be completed by the end of the year.”
Intel Israel’s management issued a denial of Baker’s comment, saying, “Baker’s comments were taken out of context, and in no way referred to the establishment of Intel’s fab in Israel. They merely referred to the examination of sites for new fabs around the world.”

Sources at Intel Israel told “Globes” this morning, “A senior Intel manager said what he said, but there are people senior to him. There is a very solid basis for the Investment Center’s statements.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 27, 2005

Sesame seeds and their derivatives are blamed for the growing phenomenon of food allergies around the world and are the third most common food source of sensitization among Israeli children, after eggs and cow's milk.
These facts were revealed by Dr. Venu Gangur of Michigan State University in a just-published study in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. The article specifically cited Israel, as consumption of tehina, halva and other products containing the seeds is especially widespread, especially among children, and much more common than in the US.
Health Ministry Food and Nutrition Service director Dr. Dorit Nitzan-Kalusky, commenting on the US study, said that the ministry had indeed learned within the past year of the increasing number of cases of sesame seed allergies, especially among children. It has informed public health nurses at Tipat Halav (family health) centers, who now instruct parents to avoid giving children sesame products until the children are at least a year old.
Allergic reactions to sesame seeds were reported by the Michigan researchers to be second only to cow's milk as a leading cause of anaphylactic shock – a severe, system-wide allergic reaction that is potentially fatal.
Gangur said the inclusion of sesame seeds and oil in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries has greatly increased, but research and public awareness on sesame allergy are very limited.
Among the less severe reactions are vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps, indigestion, diarrhea, hives, headaches, acute asthma and other respiratory symptoms. Almost any food can trigger a hypersensitivity reaction in sensitized people, but most food allergies in the US are caused by eight major foods: milk, eggs, fish, wheat, tree nuts, legumes (particularly peanuts and soybeans), crustaceans and mollusks.
Nitzan-Kalusky told The Jerusalem Post that too little is known about what amounts of allergens cause reactions in sensitive people. While allergies can develop in any individual, she said, if there is an allergy to a given food in one member of a family, "we recommend not introducing it to the diet of babies and toddlers." It can be introduced gradually when the child gets older to see if there are any reactions.
The ministry lists sesame seeds and its derivatives on the list of major allergens but, at present, there is only a recommendation that companies list them on food labels as a warning to people allergic to them. Nitzan-Kalusky said that next year such labeling would be mandatory. The use of sesame oil is not widespread in processed foods, she said, because of the higher cost. The ministry wants to require food companies to designate the source of all oils, rather than just saying it is of a "vegetable source."
There is a difference of opinion among allergy experts and pediatricians on whether sesame seeds should be avoided by younger children. Prof. Yehuda Danon, a senior pediatrician and allergy researcher at the Schneider Children's Medical Center for Israel in Petah Tikva said he recommended not giving sesame seeds to children under the age of two.
"We check infants allergic to cow's milk at a year to see if they are also sensitive to sesame seeds," he said. He added that, unlike early exposure to bacteria or fungi which can reduce the prevalence of allergies to these substances in children, early exposure to allergenic foods does not reduce the frequency of allergies to them in children.
Danon is collaborating with a London researcher who is comparing the allergic tendencies of Jewish children there to peanuts and sesame seeds with those of Jewish Israeli children.
Prof. Meir Shalit, head of the allergy unit in the immunology department at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Medical Center, said his clinic has seen numerous cases of children with allergic reactions to sesame seeds.
"In the US, peanuts are among the most common causes of food allergies in children, but less so here. If they start eating allergenic food at an older age, allergic reactions are less common," he said.
But Prof. Yitzhak Katz, a leading pediatric allergy researcher at Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tzrifin, disagreed with his two colleagues. He said early exposure to peanuts (as in peanut-butter-coated corn snacks) reduces the prevalence of peanut allergies in children. While there is no scientific proof so far that early exposure to sesame seeds minimizes allergic reaction to them, Katz thinks there is no reason to avoid giving sesame seeds to children
under the age of two, or even one.

On estime que d’ici 5 ans, Israël sera le seul pays du monde à utiliser toutes ses eaux usées, principalement pour l’agriculture. Aujourd’hui, Israël utilise de 70 à 80 pour cent de ses eaux usées. Derrière Israël, l’Espagne n’utilise pour le moment que 12 pour cent des eaux usées.
La compagnie israélienne de l’eau, Mekorot, a lancé WaTech, un programme qui permet à des entrepreneurs de participer à la recherche sur l’eau et au développement de projets. Ainsi, la start-up Atlantium, créée en 2003, a développé un système hydro-optique de désinfection de l’eau. Ce procédé, qui permet de désinfecter de 5 à 200 m3 d’eau par heure, remplace avantageusement la chlorinisation de l’eau : pas de produits chimiques utilisés, pas de sous-produits créés et procédé faiblement consommateur d’énergie.

Israeli research shows it's the voice - not the eyes - that is the window to the soul
By Allison Kaplan Sommer July 17, 2005
Dr. Lan Lossos and her partner Dr. Yoram Levanon have developed a way in which to map 30 seconds of speech on an electronic graph.
They say that first impressions can often be misleading. But Israeli researcher Dr. Yoram Levanon believes that listening to someone for only 30 seconds can tell you everything you need to know.
Using a unique new tool for analyzing the human voice that Levanon has developed with his partner, Dr. Lan Lossos, a half a minute of speech is plenty.
In that small span of time, he says, he's able to outline the speaker's basic personality, likes and dislikes, and can even detect whether or not they have a learning disability or developmental disorder. In time, he says, he will even be able to tell if the speaker might be suffering from a disease - before any symptoms have appeared.
Potentially, this means that a telemarketer could someday get a quick and accurate idea as to what kind of a person they are speaking with on the phone, and thus, the best way to sell them a given product.
This would all sound far-fetched, coming from someone without serious credentials to back it up. And Levanon is a veteran Israeli marketing expert, with a long resume behind his newly patented ideas, which he has recently made public after six years of work. He's now in the process of creating three start-up companies to develop what he is calling the 'Emotional Marketing Method.'
Levanon's marketing consulting firm, MSR Communications is located in the bustling business district of Ramat Gan. He works behind a desk piled high with paper from his numerous projects. Above it hangs a fingerpainting by his one-year-old granddaughter. "It's a castle she made for Grandpa," he proudly tells ISRAEL21c.
Levanon, born and raised in Tel Aviv, holds advanced degrees in theoretical physics and operations research. His early expertise was applying mathematical models to management science - helping executives make decisions based on the best data possible.
Levanon first put his ideas to work in the Israeli Air Force during his army service, developing new weapons and methods of training soldiers to use them. After his service and while completing his doctorate, he worked in police intelligence.
Applying his scientific knowledge to the business world, Levanon became the vice president of a software company, and then became the chief scientist of the Eisenberg Group. In 1989, he left and formed his own marketing consultancy. At the same time he continued in academia, and is a senior lecturer in marketing at Bar Ilan University and in business administration at Netanya Academic College.
Levanon attributes the origins of his current project to a major shift in his philosophical orientation which occurred seven years ago.
"The focus of my work has always been decision-making," he explains. "But until seven years ago, I always concentrated exclusively on rational decision-making. But I came to the point where I knew I wanted to understand and focus on emotional decision-making."
He made the switch from the rational to the emotional when he realized that this is where the most powerful decision-making takes place.
"We make our first instinctive decisions in the first fifth of a second. It's a lot longer before the cognitive decision takes place."
Marketing research has shown, he says that an 'emotional relationship' is created between a person and something they experience - a sound, a word, a picture, a person they meet, within these first milliseconds, while the cognitive wheels only begin turning after half a second. The focus of his work has been trying to identify and harness this quick and powerful emotional decision-making system, to figure out how best to influence people.
Lassos, Levanon's partner in this endeavor, bounds energetically into his office when he calls her in to help explain the system they have devised to do this. They are an unlikely pair - the grandfatherly Levanon, and Lossos, who is young, dynamic, with short-cropped hair and multiple earrings piercing her earlobe. But they are very much a team - finishing one another's sentences.
Her psychology and scientific expertise complements his experience in business and marketing research. Lossos was born in Lithuania and moved to Israel when she was six years old. Despite her youthful appearance, she holds a PhD. in neuropsychology from Hebrew University, and has worked as a copy writer in an ad agency. Now she is combining her work with Levanon with post-doctoral study at Harvard University.
Levanon and Losso began sorting people into emotional decision-making 'types' which affects the way in which they sort information. Levanon became 'anti-Darwinist' in deciding that not everybody is motivated strictly by survival concerns. He identified three basic motivating factors and says that they have different levels in different people.
"Why do babies cry? Because they are in trouble, in danger and need help surviving. Or because they are uncomfortable and want a state of familiarity and comfort. Or because they are bored and want attention and entertainment."
These are also what drives adults he believes - and studies have shown through brain scan that the brain emits different hormones for different states - adrenaline when we are afraid and threatened, Acetylcholine when we are in a routine comfort state, and dopamine when we are interested and intrigued by something.
Our differing limbic systems, he theorizes, divide us in to three basic types - survivalists, homeostatists, and growth-oriented - what they call S, H, and G values. We are all combinations of the three, but he believes that in everybody, one type dominates.
Knowing the levels of 'S,H, and G' in each person, Levanon says, is the key to knowing what kind of advertising or marketing approach will have an effect on them.
Levanon came to these conclusions using thousands of questionnaires. But he was looking for a short-cut, theorizing that if these personality types are based on biochemical reactions, there should be a way to measure them physically.
He first ruled out looking at body language, because recording it was complicated, and people are more conscious of how they look and often manipulate their movements. But the voice - not what you say, but how you say it - turns out, he believes, to be a good way to measure a person's basic emotional personality.
Levanon and Lossos thus developed a way in which to map 30 seconds of speech on an electronic graph, and quickly identify which of his basic personality categories they fall into. The potential for the sales field and telemarketers is unlimited, as Tomer Chen discovered.
Tomer Chen, former Microsoft marketing manager for small and medium-sized business customers conducted an experiment for Levanon, and found that using his approach, he could double sales, compared with control group that did not use the 'eemotional marketing' technique.
He told the financial daily Globes "we knew how to approach customers, we kept them from procrastinating. We gave them confidence in buying by appealing to needs to which they were naturally inclined. The ratio was almost six to one."
Lossos and Levanon are most excited about an aspect of their research that they stumbled upon by accident. It happened when they were exploring the use of their voice analysis for potential application in a dating service.
"We found a disruption in the profiles that were falling into the same pattern," said Lossos. "It turned out that all of the disruptions were people who were dyslexic. You could tell by their voices. Dyslexics can't hear some frequencies well, and that affects the way that they speak."

Levanon calls this a "fascinating breakthrough" with tremendous potential: finding concrete clues to disabilities, developmental disorders and medical conditions through the voice.
"We are already working with several medical and research centers to explore this further," he says. "We are working with the Weizmann Institute on autism, with the cardiology department in Meir Hospital regarding detection of heart disease, and with Hadassah Hospital on using our technique for early diagnosis of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, and with Sheba hospital on schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder."
One of the start-up companies he is creating will be devoted to harnessing his technique for medical applications. The second will be oriented towards human resources - helping companies sort workers into the jobs best suited to their personality types, and a third will focus on the telemarketing applications.
You don't need a graph to sense how charged and excited Levanon and Lossos are about the potential of their work to contribute to numerous fields. Without measuring it, you can hear it in their voices.

An Israeli version of a gourmet treat
By David Brinn July 17, 2005
The Israeli researchers were able to speed up the fertility stage in which the female sturgeon produced the eggs from which the caviar is made.
Forget the gefilte fish - bring on the caviar with the Made in Israel tag. For the first time, the culinary delicacy is being produced from sturgeon roe grown in an Israeli fish farm.
And thanks to Israeli scientific savvy, the process by which fish reach maturity and can lay their eggs, has been cut nearly by half: to seven or eight years instead of 12 to 14. The accomplishment was the result of more than a decade of research undertaken by Galilee Caviar, a subsidiary of Dan Fish Farms in the north of the country, in cooperation with Israel's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
"The research began about 12 years ago," said Prof. Dan Levanon, the ministry's chief scientist. "Our idea was to try to grow sturgeon artificially in fish ponds."
Levanon explained that historically, almost all caviar originates from sturgeon caught in the Caspian Sea close to the former USSR and Iran. Since the break up of the USSR, the hazards of over fishing, and habitat loss and pollution, there has been dramatic decline in sturgeon populations in the Caspian, and diminishing harvests of caviar.
By 1998, the decline was so pronounced that an international committee known as CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna) indicated that without international actions, there was an imminent threat of extinction of sturgeon from the Caspian Sea. This action has led to tight regulation and control of the international trade of all caviar from all species worldwide.
Dan Fish Farms, owned by and located on Kibbutz Dan, close to the Lebanese border in the north of Israel, has specialized for years in developing new species for agriculture, fish vaccines and vaccination systems, fish feeds and feeding experiments and assimilation of biotechnology products in fish.
According to Avshalom Hurvitz, a biologist with the company, the changing nature of the caviar industry due to the shortage of sturgeon, prompted the launch of the program in 1994.
"We aimed at monitoring and controlling the maturation of the female sturgeon," he told ISRAEL21c.
Since sturgeon do not exist naturally in Israel, Galilee Caviar - a subsidiary of Dan Fish Farms - was founded to oversee the project. They initially imported a small amount sturgeons from Russia, which were raised in fish farms at the kibbutz.
According to Levanon, the focus of the project was to learn how to grow the fish artificially.

"That's taken the bulk of the time - growing fish artificially instead of in a river. We have fish ponds in the north with water taken from the Dan River - the optimal temperature is not higher than 23 degrees Celsius. After many years, we've succeeded in this stage," he said.
The next step in the process was to speed up the fertility stage in which the female sturgeon produced the eggs from which the caviar is made.
"In order to produce caviar from the eggs of the female, they need to get to the fertility stage, which in nature takes anywhere between 10-14 years. So for the last two years, we've worked on decreasing the time it takes to reach the fertility stage. And we've succeeded in producing amounts of caviar from the female after only seven to eight years," said Levanon.
Initially, Caviar Hagalil has produced its first 20 kg of caviar. In Western markets, caviar can be sold for up to $2,000 per kilo.
"We've given samples to several chefs, and we've gotten a very high ranking," said Hurvitz, who's studing for his Phd at Hebrew University's school of agriculture. "Our goal is to produce 4,000 kg. of caviar per year, and we hope to achieve this by the end of 2007."
"We're now working hard to develop a protocol of production which will enable this to occur regularly - it's mainly to due the controlled conditions - optimal food and optimal temperature, and they'll grow faster and reach a fertile age earlier," added Levanon.
For Hurvitz, the experiment in raising sturgeon is a natural extension of his work at the Dan Fish Farms.
"We raise all different kinds of freshwater fish - mainly rainbow trout - about 350 tons a year and about 200 tons of carp," he said.
Being around the scaly creatures so much hasn't dulled his taste for fresh fish, with rainbow trout being his professed favorite. Hurvitz admitted, that before he began working on the caviar project, he had never tasted the delicacy before.
"Before we started the caviar project, I didn't anything about it, and had never tasted it. Now I've tasted it, and like it very much," he said. "And I'll tell you, I've been to Russia as part of our research and tasted the original from the Caspian, and I've tried ours. And in my unprofessional view, our product is very, very good."

Israel's 'Accordion Pill' unfolds according to plan
By Karin Kloosterman July 10, 2005
The Accordion Pill technology will enable Intec to be a conduit for major slow release drugs that can be administered once daily cutting out the need for someone to take as many as five pills a day.
Most people have heard of and been amazed by Given Imaging's camera-in-a-capsule - the groundbreaking Israeli technology that has redefined gastrointestinal diagnosis and benefited tens of thousands of patients worldwide.
Well, it must be an Israeli thing, because now Jerusalem-based startup Intec Pharma has come up with its own equally innovative 'in-the-capsule' technology which could likely create the next big splash in the Pharma industry - the Accordion Pill.
An oral drug delivery system, the Accordion Pill may look like an ordinary-sized capsule, but once inside the stomach it unfolds like an accordion and positions itself as a controlled-release platform. This unique technology will enable Intec to be a conduit for major slow release drugs that can be administered once daily cutting out the need for someone to take as many as five pills a day.
Our bodies naturally have a hard time absorbing certain medication into the bloodstream. In some instances a drug dosing may be too sudden - and too much active ingredient enters the narrow absorption window; in other cases, an insufficient amount of drug is absorbed and the active ingredients get quickly flushed outside the body.

The Accordion Pill ultimately solves this problem by retaining the pharmaceutical ingredients in the stomach for as long as 24 hours, compared to a maximum stomach residency of three hours in a regular formulation. It can also be designed to release the ingredients at desired intervals according to a drug developer?s demands. Within a day the small accordion structure biodegrades and passes through the system.
The Accordion Pill targets drugs that need to be absorbed by the bloodstream in a limited area of the upper small intestine known as the 'narrow absorption window', a physical area of the lower stomach and the upper part of the small intestine. Drugs that could benefit from Intec's technology are used for treating a wide variety of conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, hypertension, AIDS, obesity and for pain relief.
The potential market for the Accordion Pill is so large that Intec succeeded in wooing CEO Efi Cohen-Arazi - a vice president of Amgen, the largest biotech company in the world - to its small offices in the hills of Jerusalem.
After just a few months on board, he was able to be part of Intec's latest milestone - last month's successful completion of Phase I clinical trials for a drug platform. The Accordion Pill will pass through further clinical trials depending on what company co-develops active compounds with them.
The study, conducted at the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, demonstrated that the Accordion Pill could double the amount of Riboflavin retained in the body.
The study was based on cross-over data from thirteen healthy volunteers who received alternate 75 mg. doses of Accordion Pill Riboflavin and regular immediate release Riboflavin following a low calorie meal (280 calories).
The study results showed that the Riboflavin Accordion Pill was retained in the stomach and continued to release Riboflavin to its absorption sites for significantly longer periods of time than regular Riboflavin. The stomach retention time for Accordion Pill Riboflavin was more than 6 hours compared to less than 2 hours with regular Riboflavin; the absorption time for Accordion Pill Riboflavin was 8 hours compared to 3 hours for regular Riboflavin. As a result, the total amount of Riboflavin absorbed by the body was 100 percent greater when the Accordion Pill was used than when it was not.
The study results were presented last month by Prof. Amnon Hoffman of the Hebrew University at the 32nd annual meeting of the Controlled Release Society in Miami, Florida. Hoffman together with Prof. Michael Friedman is co-developer of the Accordion Pill and a member of the Intec Pharma Scientific Advisory Board.
Besides working with drug developers on making new drugs more potent, or effective, Intec hopes to enter into what is known as the super-generic drug market. The goal here is to give one generic drug manufacturer a strong competitive edge over all others by substantially improving the drug's absorption capability.
Intec is currently negotiating with several large US pharmaceutical companies and plans to soon begin working on several compounds.
No doubt having a former Amgen VP at the company's helm will certainly help Intec company commercialize its technology as Cohen-Arazi is well-versed in international pharmaceutical culture and is already on a first name basis with heads from companies like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.
Over the last ten years, Cohen-Arazi made a meteoric rise in the drug industry. He started out working with InterPharm in Israel where he played a key role in developing beta-interferon (today the main drug used for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis) from where he advanced to an executive position at the headquarters of Interpharm's owner, Switzerland's Serono.
He then obtained a leading position at Immunex and when the company merged with Amgen, he found himself as a VP at the world's largest biotech company. There, he managed a $400 million budget and helped orchestrate a company of 15 000 employees.

One of Cohen-Arazi's most fulfilling achievements at Amgen was developing what he calls the miracle drug, Enbrel, which gives a new lease on life to rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.
"I managed Enbrel's development for the last five years and was enriched and rewarded by patients and families who told us on how drugs like Enbrel changed their lives," Cohen-Arazi told ISRAEL21c. "I am always thrilled that I can do something good for humanity and get paid for it at the same time."
Over the last three years, Cohen-Arazi has been following the fruits of Israeli biotech investments made in the late nineties. By last year already he was eager to help jumpstart a biotech company back in Israel.
"The year 2004 marked a completely new trajectory for Israel's biopharma industry," says Cohen-Arazi, "I was looking for opportunities in Israel because I wanted the challenge to learn and grow with a company from scratch."
Although it is may be easier to grow in a big company like Amgen that has experts on hand in every field, Cohen-Arazi was looking for a new kind of challenge - one where his efforts wouldn't feel diluted. Cohen-Arazi wanted the feeling of creating something completely unique, and Israel is where he knew he could do that.
Today Intec predicts its business will develop in two ways. First, the company will sign licensing agreements with large pharmaceutical companies and accept upfront payments as well as royalties from co-developments. Second, the company has identified and is developing certain target molecules which will be commercialized through a strategic partner.
Cohen-Arazi is downright excited to see what the future will bring at his new position at Intec. During those moments when he gets feedback from drug developers and potential investors from Israel and the US, he begins to understand that the Accordion Pill may be the biggest development he's ever been involved in.

Karin Kloosterman is a freelance reporter living in Israel.

Israeli expertise solves a hairy problem
By Allison Kaplan Sommer July 17, 2005
The Syneron hair removal devices are based on Elos - a combined energy technology that uses Bi-Polar Radio Frequency and optical energy (either laser or IPL.)
Maybe it's because Israelis are always interested in fields in which scientific and technological expertise can be harnessed commercially, or maybe it's because they are a Middle Eastern and rather hairy people, it's a problem that speaks to them personally.
But whatever the reason, Israel has been at the forefront of developing better ways to keep our bodies smooth and free of unwanted fuzz.
The most legendary invention is the best-selling Epilady, an electric hair removal system, developed by Yair Dar and Shimon Yahav in 1986 and manufactured at Kibbutz Goshrim. The device took the US by storm in the late 1980s, after it was introduced there by the three South African sisters, who acquired the US distribution rights. Within six months of introducing Epilady into such high-end department stores as Bloomingdale's and Marshall Field, it was one of hottest products to hit the US personal-care market in years, with millions of devices sold in its first few years on the market.
Though the Epilady still sells, the name of the hair removal game in the 21st century is laser technology. And Israeli companies are active players in the game, with hair removal representing just one part of a growing market segment - non-invasive aesthetic procedures that are FDA-regulated and usually performed by medical personnel. In addition to hair removal, these procedures include reducing unsightly varicose veins, lesions, treating acne and other skin problems, and wrinkle reduction.

Laser technology has been around since the 1970s. It was first used for hair removal in the mid-90's safety and effectiveness concerns severely limited its availability and affordability until recent years.
"There were limitations for its use with various kinds of skin and hair," explains David Shlachet, Chief Financial Officer of Syneron, an Israeli company that has quickly become a leading force in selling devices that remove unwanted hair and perform other cosmetic procedures to US doctors since its establishment five years ago.
"Laser technology is essentially based on absorbing optical energy by specific colors - which works best when you have contrast -- dark hair against light skin - but it is much more difficlut when the skin is very dark or the hair is very light and there is not enough contrast. Very dark skinned people are a particularly difficult group to work with effectively," he told ISRAEL21c.
After many years went by without any significant breakthroughs in cosmetic laser technology, an Israeli scientist named Dr. Shimon Eckhouse developed a technique called IPL or Intensive Pulse Light - which allowed more flexibility in laser use and widened the number of procedures it could be used for. Machines using this technique were sold by Eckhouse's first company, which was later sold and evolved into the company called Lumenis - which is still a force in the laser hair removal market in the US (Those who are in the business are careful to refer to 'permanent hair reduction' and not 'removal' as per the direction of the FDA.)

Eckhouse subsequently left the company and became one of the founders of Syneron, established in 2000. Teaming up with new collaborators, Eckhouse then developed what the company calls 'the third generation' of aesthetic laser and light technology.

Their patented technology is called Elos - a combined energy technology that uses Bi-Polar Radio Frequency and optical energy (either laser or IPL.)

"Using Elos is safer than using pure optical energy, and offers better efficacy; this expanded the range of applications," said Shlachet.

The company says that its technique offers safer, more effective, permanent hair reduction from all parts of the body. It can better treat those with light-colored hair or dark-colored skin.

The combined effect of the Bi-Polar Radio Frequency and Diode Laser energies allows the use of less overall optical energy (when compared to light or laser-only devices), increasing the safety of the device and causing less patient discomfort.

"It can be effectively used on dark-skinned people and very blond people with light hair and light skin -- and it is safer and more effective for them than laser or IPL alone," claims Shlachet.
The company's devices, manufactured in the north of Israel, started to sell quickly after they hit the market in late 2001. The Syneron companies in North America are wholly owned; there are subsidiaries in Germany and Austria, which operate through distributors in 41 countries.
In the US, the company has a sales staff of more then 40. Shlachet says that the company is "one of the leaders" in market share for laser hair removal - it is hard to measure, he says, since the laser platforms have multiple uses and not all of the companies share their sales information.
It is a busy and highly competitive market, but it is also growing. "The market is growing; there are more doctors and clinics and the number of procedures are increasing by 20-25 percent per year. People care more and more about the way they look, and getting hair removed by laser is becoming more socially acceptable," says Shlachet.
He notes that between 30-40 of hair removal clients and other aesthetic treatment in the U.S. are men. Another reason for its growth: "With the advance of non-invasive technology, it's become a lunch-break procedure. You can go to a doctor's office or clinic, get it done, and then go back to work."
Another factor that is driving sales is the growing number of doctors interested in performing such procedures. In the United States, only doctors are authorized to purchase the laser equipment and perform the procedures. Until now, the doctors doing this were nearly exclusively dermatologists and plastic surgeons. But as it becomes more popular and lucrative, companies like Syneron report that more general practitioners and other specialists like OB/GYNs are entering the market.
There are six publicly traded companies in the United States selling hair removal devices and more than 10 private companies. Of the six public companies, two are Israeli: Lumenis and Syneron, traded on NASDAQ.
Most of the companies, like Syneron, sell different devices for various aesthetic procedures. Syneron sells six platforms, and each platform is capable of being used for a number of applications, including acne and other skin treatment, wrinkle reduction, and cellulite treatment.
Syneron's primary Israeli competitor in the US marketplace is its predecessor Lumenis, which markets devices using lasers and IPL light sources to reduce unwanted hair. In addition, it manufactures different types of medical equipment for various types of laser surgery, both for regular medical needs, and in veterinarian's offices on pets.
Another Israeli force in the hair removal arena is a privately-held company called Radiancy, which focuses on making laser and light technology hair removal more affordable and easily available by developing smaller and less expensive devices.
Until now, according to the company's website, existing laser technology for hair removal has forced current systems to be cumbersome and expensive and the capital investment has kept the price high for the consumer.
Radiancy claims that its SpaTouch product is the only system of its kind to be cleared by the FDA for self-use by the patient. Radiancy's corporate headquarters is located in Orangeburg, New York, with research and development facilities in Israel.
Syneron, which also has its headquarters in Israel - something which gives it an edge in the field, says Shlachet.
"Growth is our sector is 15 to 20 percent per annum," he noted. "But because it's a mature industry, not a new industry, you have to be innovative to move ahead. The reason we had such early success was that after 12 years with no innovations we came in with a new technology."
What continues to give the Israelis their edge, he is convinced, is the availability and price of local brainpower. "We have a great advantage over our competitors by being based in Israel. Every dollar spent on research and development in Israel gives us about 60 percent more output in Israel than it would if it were spent in Boston or Silicon Valley."

Pas moins de huit nouveaux sites israéliens ont été ajoutés dimanche à la Liste patrimoine mondiale de l’Unesco. Ces derniers ont été choisis pour leur importance archéologique. Israël est décidément à l’honneur pour l’organisation des Nations Unies, qui avait déjà classé ces dernières années Massada, Akko et Tel Aviv « sites patrimoine mondiale de l’Unesco ».
Cette distinction n’est pas seulement honorifique, mais aura des projections sur le plan touristique. Elle engage aussi le pays élu à protéger son patrimoine culturel, archéologique pour les générations à venir. Une commission israélienne de l’Unesco composée notamment de responsables des ministères du Tourisme, des Affaires étrangères, des autorités administrant les sites archéologiques, est habilitée à soumettre chaque année à l’organisation une sélection de nouveaux sites.
L’Unesco a donc choisi cette année les tells bibliques de Meggido, Hazor et Beershéva.
«Sur plus de 200 tells en Israël, Megiddo, Hazor et Beer-Sheba sont représentatifs de ceux qui abritent d’importants vestiges de cités aux liens bibliques. Ces trois tells présentent également quelques-uns des plus beaux exemples de systèmes d’adduction d’eaux souterraines dans le Levant, datant de l’âge du fer, très élaborés et créés pour desservir de denses communautés urbaines », explique l’organisation.

La route de l’encens et les anciennes villes du Néguev sont également apparues comme des sites archéologiques de premier plan à protéger : « Dans le désert du Néguev, les quatre anciennes villes nabatéennes d’Avdat, Haluza, Mamshit et Shivta, ainsi qu’une série de forteresses et de paysages agricoles, jalonnaient la route par laquelle transitaient l’encens et les épices. Tous ces sites constituent un témoignage du commerce extrêmement rentable de l’encens et de la myrrhe, entre le sud de la Péninsule Arabique et la Méditerranée, qui prospéra du IIIe siècle avant J.-C. au IIe siècle après J.- C. Leurs vestiges de systèmes d’irrigation extrêmement perfectionnés, de constructions urbaines, de fortins et de caravansérails témoignent de la façon dont ce désert inhospitalier fut colonisé pour le commerce et l’agriculture ».
La ministre de l’Education Limor Livnat, qui est aussi la présidente de l’Unesco Israël, s’est félicitée de ce choix de l’organisation, soulignant qu’il s’agit pour Israël d’une distinction sans précédent. Pour célébrer cette performance israélienne, les autorités des Parcs et réserves naturelles organisent des visites gratuites le 23 juillet des tells de Meggido, Hazor, Beershéva et de Avdat à 11h, 13h et 15h. HA

The Health Ministry will issue a director-general's advisory recommending that consumption of soya products be limited in young children and adults and avoided if possible by infants.
After a year's work, a committee of experts said that people who eat soya products should do so in moderation, pending additional studies in the coming years that reach firm conclusions on whether it promotes cancers, harms male fertility or has other harmful or beneficial influences.
The 13-member committee, headed by Prof. Zvi Weizman, included ministry Food and Nutrition Service head Dr. Dorit Nitzan-Kalusky, oncologist Prof. Tamar Peretz, Metabolism expert Prof. Elliot Berry, gynecology Prof. Amnon Brzezinski, pediatrics Prof. David Branski and other specialists, who looked into soya products and health.
Soya contains an estrogen-like hormone (phytoestrogen) that can have some of the effects of human estrogens if consumed in large quantities. The local food industry is a major developer and producer of soya-based food.
Nitzan-Kalusky said that soya is widely used by all ages because it is a cheap protein substitute for meat. The ministry, as it said during the Remedia baby formula scandal a few years ago (in which babies died or suffered permanent neurological damage due to the lack of a B vitamin in soya-based Remedia formula) reiterated that infants should ideally be breastfed, and if not, given baby formula based on cow's milk. Only in special circumstances (such as allergies to cow's milk) should they get mother's milk from a breast-milk bank or be given soya-based formula, which is popular among haredi families who do not want to mix milk-based baby formula with meat meals for supposed kashrut reasons.
The ministry decided not to adopt a regulation allowing babies to get soya formula only upon recommendation of a physician (in effect in some countries such as New Zealand). However, because of potential dangers of significant amounts of soya in the diet, the ministry will disseminate information to the public and health system workers about possible harm from its frequent consumption.
Nitzan-Kaluski said that day care centers, which frequently serve soya products several times daily, should limit it to only one serving a day and no more than three times a week. In addition, babies and toddlers suffering from hypothyroidism and drink soya-based formula or soya foods should have their blood thryroxine levels monitored.
Middle-aged women who suffer from menopausal symptoms and do not get hormone replacement therapy can have a diet with phytoestrogens from soya and flaxseed, even though studies have not consistently shown that they are of benefit.
The ministry said it could not reach practical conclusions regarding soya and cancer, as study results were conflicting. Excessive estrogen is known to be involved in breast cancer, but since the evidence is not clear, women at high risk for breast cancer or who have the disease itself should consult their physican before starting a high-phytoestrogen diet.
Since estrogen is a female hormone, there is evidence that it may reduce male fertility, thus men who eat soya should do so in moderation, the ministry said. Soya and flax seed have been shown to reduce blood cholesterol, which is beneficial, but there is no clear proof that isoflavones in these products reduce the risk of heart disease, the ministry said.
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What is being described as the world's first science hotel has opened on the Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus. With 72 beds, the Beit Bretter hotel – located next to the Belmonte Labs for teaching science to high-school pupils – will accommodate 5,000 teenagers from around the country each year.
The hotel was initiated by Prof. Yitzhak Parnas, former head of the National Council for Research and Development, who believes that the academic world should take an active part in promoting science among young people. It is hoped that the informal setting will kindle an interest in pursuing a scientific career.
The teenagers stay for a week – at no cost to them or their parents – and study life sciences, physics, chemistry, biotechology, electro-optics and environmental quality. The first guests were 40 teenagers from development towns, residents of the Beduin city of Rahat and Druse from Usfiya and Daliat el-Carmel. The Belmonte Labs have until now been utilized almost exclusively by some 15,000 science pupils from Jerusalem, but the new hotel makes it possible for out-of-town youngsters to use them as well. The young guests were also taken on tours of Jerusalem, with visits to the Old City, hi-tech companies, the Biblical Zoo and the Supreme Court building.
The hotel was made possible thanks to donations via the Jerusalem Foundation and the Landa Foundation. Parnas's project has already served as a model for a number of foreign cities, including Heidelberg, Mexico City and Marseille. So far, 80 science and education ministers from around the world have visited the complex.

THINKING SMALL

Semiconductor nanocrystals are only a few nanometers (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) in size. They exhibit unique optical and electrical properties controlled by modifying their size, composition and shape, creating promising building blocks for future devices,
Prof. Uri Banin and students Taleb Mokari and Eli Rothenberg have developed nanocrystals that emit light in the near-infrared, a range important for optical telecommunications. Another invention is nanocrystals in the form of tiny, gold-tipped dumbbells. The nanodumbells help in the building of new nanocrystal transistors – the basic component of computer chips. Their invention was described last year in Science.
For their work, two of the researchers recently received Kaye Innovation Awards, and Rothenberg received the Barenholz Prize in Applied Science, established by Prof. Yechezkel Barenholz, a medical technology innovator at the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Medicine. All three recipients have been involved with groundbreaking research on colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, specifically the development of new, varied shapes.
The nanodumbbells provide strong chemical bonds between the gold and the semiconductor, leading to good electrical connectivity. The gold tips are also anchor points that could be used for integrating the nanodumbbells into electrical circuits. This might help solve the problem of wiring nanocrystals into real-world, nanoelectronic applications such as mini-computers, nanosensors for chemical and biological molecules, novel solar-cell devices, or various biomedical applications.
Some $6 million has been invested in HU's new nanoscopic characterization unit, and about $4 million is to be invested in a nanofabrication center, making the university one of the country's leading centers for nanotechnology.

Yesh Li Sod Ve'od – Ani Koreh! (Part 1 (for ages four to six); Yesh Li Sod Ve'od – Ani Koreh! Part II (for ages four to six); Yesh Li Sod Ve'od – Ani Koreh! Part III (for ages five to eight), three CD-ROMs in Hebrew sold separately (NIS 112) or in a set (NIS 300), by the Center for Educational Technology in Ramat Aviv (www.cet.ac.il), requires Windows 95 and up and a 116 Mhz Pentium PC or better.
Rating of each : HHHHH
At least six months are invested in teaching first graders how to read Hebrew – and there are many children who still can't read well when they reach third grade. As a mother who has used computer programs to teach her kids Hebrew reading and writing before they started kindergarten, I can't understand why so much frontal class teaching has to be wasted on the mechanical process of learning how to read words of an absolutely phonetic language.
The Center for Educational Technology (CET), a non-profit organization that produces software for schools and home use, released the first edition of this trio of programs on floppy diskettes a decade ago and the second in 2000 on CD-ROMs. These were very good and cost about NIS 200 then; now the third edition costs about half and is even better. It is the most serious and comprehensive set of programs among the many on the local market that claim to teach kids to read.
Although some schools – and kindergartens – use the third edition for class teaching, many parents buy them to give a boost to their kids via their home PC. The parents' guide included in every box advises them to support and encourage kids to use the program, but absolutely not to force them. "So that their motivation is not harmed and they will enjoy it, the learning process must be without coercion or pressure," the guide says. Instead, children should proceed with the lessons and games at their own pace and repeat them as many times as they like.
The hero of Yesh Li Sod Ve'od! (I Have a Secret And More!) is a red, pear-shaped character named Alfi (as in alef bet); he shares the screen with a pony-tailed girl named Tzippi and a Dalmatian named Shva-Na (a misunderstood Hebrew vowel). Their home base is an Israeli street scene with a pillbox serving as a directory for lessons. There is a signpost to access a wide variety of games, film clips, stories, an illuminated guide to Hebrew letters and a digital writing pad that can be decorated with colorful objects. The third edition is a step up graphically.
The content of short films from TV shows or commercial videotapes ranges from visits to the zoo and unwrapping presents to an explanation of how bats hang upside down. Only a minority of the "extracurricular" activities featured in Part I are repeated in Part II and Part III, and all the stories and film clips are different. Only Part III offers a welcome feature of icons of letters and vowels that can be clicked sequentially to produce the human sound of their combination. The programs also have their own Web site, and anyone with an Internet connection can click on an icon for extra educational material and games.
As children today have much-reduced attention spans, the Hebrew reading lessons are shorter than in the previous versions and introduced with 3-D animations of Alfi or Tzippy with Shva-Na. Each disk has five learning units, each of which is comprised of six lessons. These come in the form of text-word; sound; practice of phonetic characters by identifying what you hear and see; building words out of syllables; and review. Then come the games – presented as boxes in the window of a toy shop – at various levels of difficulty that bolster the process. All the material can be printed out, and if you have a microphone attached to your PC, the child can pronounce the words and read out the text as practice. Each level is sold with a printed, 32-page workbook with space for writing words, answering questions and filling in crossword puzzles.
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Devorah's Song & the Battle of Kishon, a CD-ROM in English by the Davka Corporation of Chicago, distributed in Israel by Dekel Software (02-991-2718 and alanr@netvision.net.il)., requires Windows 98 and up and a 166 Mhz Pentium PC or better, for ages 12 and up, NIS 99 ($19.95 abroad). - Rating: ****
Few stories in the Bible carry as feminist a message as the fourth chapter of the Book of Judges.
Subjugated by Canaanite king Yavin in Hatzor as punishment for their sins, the Israelites came to Deborah the Prophetess, who sat under the palm tree at Mount Ephraim, for judgment. She called on Barak to take 10,000 men from the tribes of Naftali and Zevulun to Mount Tabor, promising that God would help him defeat Sisera, the captain of Yavin's army, with its 900 iron chariots. Barak replied that he would face the battle only if Deborah was willing to accompany him.
After Sisera's army was routed, he fled on foot to the tent of Yael, the wife of Heber the Kenite (descendants of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses). Yael gave him a flask of milk to quench his thirst and make him drowsy, covered him with a mantle and, when he slept, hammered a tent peg into his temple, killing him. With his general's army defeated, Yavin surrendered to the Israelites, who had since repented and prospered.
These 24 verses serve as the basis of this adventure, which stars Deborah, who appears only with her back to the player, apparently so as not to upset English-speaking haredi parents in the Diaspora and Israel with a female face. Joel, the "wise old scroll," offers hints, and a map of ancient Israel is provided to help you navigate using clickable arrows. Pick up objects such as a sheep, bone, torch, harp, tent peg, hammer and saw for future use. A hieroglyphics chart helps you decipher hidden messages.
The disc doesn't lack for humor: If you click something while Deborah is speaking, a sign appears saying "A little respect!," and if you click on a hummingbird too often in an attempt to gain points, you are told: "Stop bothering me!" This game presents the background and encourages investigation of the Biblical text - presented on the disk in Hebrew and English - by visiting the locations on the map. Kudos for Davka's second disk aimed at making a Bible story come alive for children.
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, a CD-ROM in English by Disney Interactive, distributed with a 16-page Hebrew-language user's manual, requires Windows 95 and up and a 90 Mhz Pentium PC or better, for ages four and above, NIS 59. - Rating: ** 1/2
Poor programmers at Disney Interactive, who have the tough task of turning Disney's animated films into exciting software games. Too often they end up unimaginative and repetitive, like this disk for preschoolers. It features Melody, the daughter of Ariel who starred in the first Little Mermaid movie. The software actually has no plot and no scenes from the movie, only five activities - none of which plows new ground in the underground world called Atlantica. Melody insists on deep sea diving to find find precious stones to make jewelry. You use your arrow keys to maneuver her towards the gems while bumping into bubbles in the water to supply her with oxygen so she doesn't pass out (I thought mermaids don't have to breathe underwater).
A very ordinary maze, which awards you with a gold trident if you get through it, makes up the conventional second activity. The third teaches you how to choreograph underwater dances starring mermaids and fish. The fourth is a karaoke sing-along with a few ditties from the movie if you have a microphone. "Melody's memories" offers a reasonable variety of backgrounds, characters, objects, patterns and sound effects to choose from drawers to decorate them, none very exciting. While four-year-old kids who have seen the movie or read the storybook may want to take a first dip, they are not very likely to want to make many more dives.
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new initiative at Yeshiva University here aims to tackle an issue that organizers say has received insufficient attention in the Orthodox Jewish community: Judaism and sexuality.
Tzelem, which is Hebrew for "image," is a nascent organization founded by two Y.U. alumni, Koby Frances and Jennie Rosenfeld, who say they hope to encourage a greater willingness to discuss questions surrounding intimacy, relationships, dating and sexual identity among the Orthodox.
To accomplish that goal, they are planning a series of educational programs and seminars concentrated on Orthodox high schools, the Y.U. campuses and singles.
"People just don't know what Judaism says about sex because they haven't been taught," says Rosenfeld, a doctoral candidate in English literature at the City University of New York. "The idea is that education is really key."
Frances, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at CUNY, agrees. People "are willing to discuss these issues, but just don't know how," he says.
Some 2,800 undergraduates attend Y.U.'s three Manhattan single-sex liberal arts and business schools – Yeshiva College, Sy Syms School of Business and Stern College for Women. The institution, which also has graduate programs in Jewish studies, law, medicine, social work and psychology, derives most of its undergraduate population from modern Orthodox day schools, where active contacts between men and women, let alone sexual relationships, are generally not encouraged.
The program, which will launch this fall, will operate under the auspices of Y.U.'s new Center for the Jewish Future, which is being headed by Rabbi Kenneth Brander, a former leader of the Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida. The center constitutes a think tank that seeks to develop educational and leadership initiatives within the Y.U. and Orthodox communities on a broad range of issues.
"I think that kids and adults in the Y.U. and Orthodox communities are raised with a large degree of discomfort and awkwardness with the opposite sex," says Alan Goldsmith, a Yeshiva College senior.
Because sex is supposed to only take place within the context of marriage, he says, people often view any day-to-day interaction with the opposite sex as inappropriate.
"Rabbis and parents must encourage a healthy outlook on sexuality within the framework of halacha," or Jewish law, he says. "We have to avoid demonizing sexuality."
ALTHOUGH HARD data on the subject is difficult to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that students at Y.U. are far less likely to engage in premarital sex than their Jewish counterparts at other universities in North America.
At the same time, many Y.U. students do come from coed day schools, so they have had interaction with members of the opposite sex.
Teens will receive particular attention from Tzelem, which aims to work with Orthodox high schools to develop curricula and seminars that address sexuality.
According to Brander, Tzelem's message will essentially be threefold: First, healthy self-esteem lies at the root of numerous problems related to interactions with the opposite sex.
"Teenagers are looking for acceptance and approval," he says, noting that schools need to be teaching teenagers to appreciate their lives and identities and that a lack of self-esteem can sometimes lead teens to rebel by engaging in promiscuous sex and drugs.
Second, Brander says, schools are not effectively communicating to students the holiness of sexuality.
"The rabbis recognized its power and greatness," Brander says. "The problem is we focus on only one dimension: that teenagers should not be involved in sexuality before marriage."
Of course, the underlying assumption among both Tzelem educators and students will be that premarital sex is not condoned.
Third, says Brander, schools must address the forces of peer pressure, providing opportunities for teenagers to socialize in a wholesome framework.
"There have to be places to hang out, to interact in a healthy fashion," he says, pointing out that peer pressure can often lead otherwise good students to participate in unsupervised parties or social gatherings where promiscuity and drugs are rampant.
Shayndi Raice, a student at Y.U.'s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and a 2004 graduate of Stern College, says the Orthodox community needs to focus more on psychological issues surrounding sex and dating.
"I think there's definitely a lot of guilt associated with sexuality for men," she says. "And it affects their relationships."
According to Dr. Michelle Friedman, a psychiatrist who chairs the department of pastoral counseling at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a modern Orthodox rabbinical school in Manhattan, the primary challenge facing the Orthodox community on sexual issues lies in the discrepancy between the explicit sexuality of modern secular culture and the ideals of modesty and restraint in the Jewish religious tradition. Ignorance of Jewish views on sexuality often lead to misperceptions that cause undue hardships, Friedman notes.
"When you educate, you normalize," she says. "People tend to be more restrictive when they don't know. They assume a negative stance – and that's not often what Judaism is about."
Friedman is currently working on a survey that asks Orthodox married women about their sex lives and views on sexuality.
Tzelem has different aims for college-aged and young adult Jews. One initiative is to develop updated curricula for teachers who train kallot, or women engaged to be married. Brander says such classes must expand beyond the traditional instruction in the laws of nidda, or family purity, to include such topics as abuse, infertility and gynecological procedures.
Likewise, Tzelem hopes to organize optional seminars on dating and relationships for Y.U. students, which will be led by rabbis, therapists, sexual health educators and communication specialists.
"Students are never educated about how one communicates in a relationship," says Rosenfeld.
This is a problem she hopes the seminars will address.
According to Ari Fridman, an undergraduate senior who serves as editor in chief of The Commentator, the student newspaper of Yeshiva College and Sy Syms, the issue of premarital sex is particularly troubling for modern Orthodox couples.
"While large portions of the Orthodox world now accept dating as a precursor to marriage, new issues related to that process continue to emerge, not least of which is the premarital sexual relationship, commonplace in general society, but unacceptable according to Jewish law," he says. "For American Orthodox Jews, foregoing a premarital physical relationship proves quite difficult, particularly because the partners have imbibed from the youngest age a cultural view that permits, even encourages, such relationships."
"The issue plagues many dating couples in the modern Orthodox world," Fridman adds. "Whether there is a halachic solution to this dilemma, I am not sure." (JTA)
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Israeli company develops bone injection gun
Jul. 20 - Israeli company WaisMed Ltd. has developed a bone injection gun (BIG) which has taken manual procedure that was traumatic for the paramedics and doctors who had to carry it out, and turned it into routine act, Globes reported. WaisMed's device works by inserting a needle directly into bone in order to deliver drugs or liquids into the blood via the bone, a method called 'intraosseous'. This method was discovered in 1922, and was in wide use through the 1940s, but was pushed aside in favor of polymer intravenous catheters and needles. WaisMed was founded at Technion Entrepreneurial Incubator Co. Ltd. (TEIC) in 1995. "The American Heart Association first recommended BIG's use for adults in 2003. We hope that in 2006 it will be declared the primary alternative when intravenous treatment is unsuccessful, which means that everyone learning advanced CPR will also learn how to use our device," said CEO Mickey Flint.

Israeli lice treatment demonstrates 96% efficacy
Jul. 20 - Israeli medical start-up Foamix Ltd. has announced the results of its Phase II/III study of one of its lead products, PerFoam, for the treatment of lice, Globes reported. Trial data shows evidence of safety and a 96% efficacy rate. Foamix anticipates launching PerFoam in the Israeli market in 2006, and in the global market in 2006/7. PerFoam, comprised of 1% permethrin and two proprietary enhancers, is an alcohol-free, non-irritating, drip-free foam for the treatment of head lice. The study, titled, "An open study to assess the efficacy, safety and usability of a 1% Permethrin Foam, in the treatment of head lice (pediculosis capitis) in pediatric patients," was conducted at the Laniado Medical Center, Netanya. Dr. Avner Shemer, senior dermatologist was the principal investigator of the study. Fifty-six children, ages 3-16, infested with head lice, were treated with PerFoam. PerFoam was applied to the hair for 10 minutes and then washed. Treatment was repeated 10 days later. According to the study, "PerFoam proved effective in killing the lice on the first application in 54 of the 56 children (96.4%). Furthermore, in 60% of the children, lice eggs were completely eradicated after the first application. The product was easily applied and caused no discomfort to the treated children. There was no evidence of eye or skin irritation. "The efficacy of PerFoam is remarkably high, despite the commonly known resistance of lice to current treatments in this region," said Professor Arie Hadani, the entomologist of the study. It has been estimated that 10-12 million Americans are infested yearly with lice. Elementary school-age children account for a quarter of this number. The current US market for head-lice treatment products is estimated at $120 million.
July 10, 2005 - July 16, 2005

Israeli company supplies Nigerian tribal chief with impotence drug
Jul. 12 - A Nigerian tribal chief seeking to please his harem has ordered tens of thousands of dollars' worth of a prescription drug for impotence from an Israeli company, The Jerusalem Post reported. The company, Trima, located in Kibbutz Maabarot in the Sharon region, recently received a large order for the drug, which costs only $8 per bottle of pills - about 1/40th the price of more famous and expensive drugs for erectile dysfunction (ED) such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Trima is reportedly the only company in the world that makes the non-patented drug, called Tesopalmed Forte Cum Yohimbine. It has been produced in Israel with imported bark of the African yohimbine tree since the 1930s. Company export manager Azgad Dor said on Monday that a company agent in Lagos, who is also a tribal chief, used the drug himself and was very pleased with his own performance in his relations with his many wives. He told his compatriots, which led to the large order.

Israeli researchers discover how HIV protein disables cell's call for help
Jul. 11 - The HIV virus hides out in the very immune system cells that are meant to protect the body from viral infection. But how does it prevent these cells from mounting a full-scale attack against the invader? In research published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science has shown how a part of a protein on the virus' outer surface interferes with the cells' normal immune response. But their work may have wider implications: this molecular fragment, which has such a devastating effect in one disease, might turn out to be an effective treatment for other disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis. The research was conducted by Institute scientists Prof. Yechiel Shai of the Biological Chemistry Department, Prof. Irun Cohen of the Immunology Department and graduate students Francisco Quintana and Doron Gerber.

Israeli team reveals anti-inflammatory function of Alzheimer's Disease drug
Jul. 11 - The mechanism in anti-Alzheimer's disease drugs that inhibits the production of a destructive, inflammation-causing protein in the brain has been revealed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Their work, described in a recent issue of the American journal, Annals of Neurology is likely to lead to the development of more efficient drugs than are currently in use for treating Alzheimer's Disease as well as other neurological conditions resulting from infections, autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, or brain inflammation resulting from trauma or stroke. The research team working on this project was headed by Prof. Raz Yirmiya of the Psychology Department at the Hebrew University, Dr. Yehuda Pollak, a post-doctoral fellow in Prof. Yirmiya's laboratory; and in cooperation with Hermona Soreq, the Charlotte Slesinger Professor of Cancer Studies at the Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University, and Prof. Tamir Ben-Hur of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine.

Israeli radiography systems shipped to front-line US medical care units in Iraq and Afghanistan
Jul. 11 - 34 OREX Computer Radiography (CR) systems - developed in Israel - have been sent by the US Air Force to Kelly Air Force Base to be deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan. This makes more than 300 Orex systems which have been sold to the US military. OREX, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eastman Kodak Company's (NYSE:EK) Health Group, is a leading provider of compact, high-performance mobile CR systems designed to deliver digital patient x-ray images from virtually anywhere via secured satellite. "The U.S. Armed Services are now benefiting from wide deployment of OREX's battlefield-proven CR solution which we have backed with extensive training, service and technical support tailored specifically for Level I, II and III medical treatment centers located around the world," said Jerry C. Cirino, president and CEO, SourceOne Healthcare Technologies, Inc, the American distributors for the device. Weighing only 88 pounds, OREX's PcCR 1417 small format CR solution is one of the most versatile and flexible compact systems on the market. With an industry leading speed of up to 150 plates per hour, OREX's CR solution is a complete plug-and-play imaging system that combines filmless laser scanners, erasable phosphor plates, advanced image management software and a PC-based review station. With wide deployment of the PcCR1417, the U.S. Armed Forces has been able to streamline its medical imaging procedures resulting in a higher standard of care in military settings. In some field locations, digital patient x-ray images are saved to a CD and sent with the patient to military medical centers for treatment. In other situations, CDs are sent in ahead of the patient so that preparations for treatment may be made in advance. Complex studies can also be read by radiologists located around the world via teleradiology made possible with secure satellite transmission of images. To date, 4,000 OREX D-CR medical and dental systems have been installed around the world. OREX is headquartered in Yokneam, Israel.

FDA approves Israeli electronic eyeglasses for treating lazy eye syndrome in children
Jul. 11 - OphthoCare, an Israeli company which develops electronic eyeglasses for treating lazy eye syndrome (amblyopia) in children, has obtained FDA approval to market its products in the US, Globes reported. CEO Rafi Herzog and medical advisor David Ben Ezra founded OpthoCare, which has raised $500,000 from the Maayan Technology Ventures (formerly the Initiative Center of the Negev) incubator. The company recently graduated from Maayan Technology, and is now looking for a $600,00 investment to market its products: initially in the US, then around the world.

Santé - Médecine - Pharmacie
Une équipe israélo-suédoise identifie un gène établissant le lien entre diabète et obésité
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28143.htm
Le diabète de type 2 est dit non insulino-dépendant. Il résulte de l'association de deux anomalies interdépendantes : premièrement une insulino-résistance, c'est-à-dire une sensibilité moindre à l'insuline, l'hormone qui permet aux sucres d'entrer dans les autres cellules. Deuxièmement, une maladie intensifiant la production d'insuline par les cellules bêta du pancréas. Avec le temps, les cellules bêta s'épuisent et le taux de sucre augmente dans le sang.
Une équipe de l'Institut Weizmann et une équipe suédoise de l'Université de Umea ont étudié le mécanisme par lequel les acides gras contribuent au déclenchement du diabète de type 2. Ils ont pour cela analysé le rôle de GPR40, un récepteur situé à la surface des cellules bêta. Les modèles utilisés sont deux types de souris pour lesquelles l'activité de GPR40 a été modifiée.
Dans un premier groupe, les scientifiques ont produit des souris "knock-out" pour le gène GPR40 pour empêcher la production du récepteur. Même avec une alimentation très riche en acides gras, les souris n'ont montré aucun signe dû à la suppression du récepteur.
Les souris du deuxième groupe possédaient les gènes GPR40 hyperactifs, et donc un excès de récepteur GPR40 à la surface des cellules bêta. Les résultats sont surprenants puisque la progression de la maladie est rapide incluant une insuffisance des cellules bêta à produire des taux normaux d'insuline. Or, des souris soumises à un régime alimentaire très riche en graisse et pour lesquelles l'activité du gène GPR40 n'a pas été modifiée montrent des symptômes caractéristiques du premier stade du diabète de type 2.
Selon le Pr Michael WALKER de l'Institut Weizmann, ces études montrent qu'une activité excessive de GPR40 peut entraîner chacun des deux stades de la maladie.
De plus, ces résultats établissent GPR40 comme un lien important entre l'obésité et le diabète. L'utilisation de médicaments bloquant l'action de ce récepteur pourrait alors être envisagée.

Cinq minutes pour un nouveau test VIH
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28146.htm
Le groupe de travail israélien AIDS (The Israel AIDS Task Force) vient d'introduire sur le marché national un nouveau test VIH appelé "Double-Check Gold" qui permet d'obtenir les résultats en cinq minutes. Le test traditionnel utilisé jusque là en Israël nécessite entre deux jours et deux semaines.
Le nouveau test serait moins cher et ne nécessiterait que quelques gouttes de sang pris au bout du doigt. En revanche, le principal point négatif du "Double-Check Gold" est le nombre important de faux positifs qui implique la répétition du test.

Une technologie israélienne pour identifier les personnes malveillantes dans un aéroport
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28149.htm
L'entreprise israélienne Suspect Detection System (SDS) a mis au point un outil filtrant automatisé pour identifier les personnes malveillantes entrant dans un aéroport.
Le dispositif, nommé SDS-VR-1000, est basé sur le principe que la peur se mesure en paramètres psychophysiologiques. Le passager place son passeport sur un scanner et sa main libre sur un capteur. Il doit alors répondre à une série de questions pendant qu'un détecteur mesure les réponses physiologiques.
Les données du passeport sont collectées, analysées puis comparées aux données subjectives collectées pendant que le passager est soumis aux différentes questions (reflet de la pensée, des sentiments, de la perception).
Ce test a l'avantage de ne durer que trois minutes, contre vingt actuellement, voire 90 sur les compagnies américaines.

Découverte du gène responsable de la qualité du lait chez les bovins
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28154.htm
L'équipe du Pr Micha RON, de l'Institut Volcani, a découvert le gène qui affecte la qualité et la quantité du lait de vache. Ce gène agirait plus précisément sur la quantité de protéines et de graisses dans le lait.
Selon Meir BRAWN, de l'association des producteurs bovins en Israël, cette découverte pourrait accroître la production et la qualité du lait en Israël. Il ajoute que c'est grâce aux investissements continus en recherche et en développement que l'industrie fermière en Israël concurrence les autres pays

Canal mer Rouge - mer Morte : le retour
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28155.htm
Israël, la Jordanie et l'autorité palestinienne sont en train de réaliser une étude sur la faisabilité d'un canal qui relierait la mer Rouge à la mer Morte. Surnommé le " canal de la paix ", ce canal aurait pour principal objectif de remonter le niveau de la mer Morte qui baisse dangereusement en raison des pompages excessifs de l'eau du Jourdain (la rivière qui alimente la mer Morte).
Les autres objectifs sont l'exploitation de l'énergie hydraulique (il y a un dénivelé de 400 mètres entre les deux mers), et l'apport d'eau dans cette région désertique (l'eau de la mer Morte étant inexploitable car trop salée).
Cette étude, d'un coût de 20 millions de dollars (16 millions d'euros) et d'une durée de quatre ans, va examiner cinq sujets : l'impact du pompage sur le Golfe d'Eilat, l'impact environnemental du canal sur le Wadi Arava, la région désertique entre les deux mers, la possibilité de désalinisation de l'eau acheminée dans cette région (notamment pour subvenir aux besoins en eau des Palestiniens et des Jordaniens), et l'impact sur la qualité de l'eau de la mer Morte. L'étude évaluera aussi la possibilité de construire un parc aquatique.
Le coût total du projet de construction est estimé à trois milliards de shekels (550 millions d'euros). Ce canal serait construit du côté jordanien et financé par la banque mondiale et quelques pays donateurs.
Les organisations de défense de l'environnement s'opposent au projet, prétendant notamment que la composition de l'eau de la mer Rouge est incompatible avec celle de l'eau de la mer Morte.

Pour en savoir plus :
BE Israël n°6 : " Israël et la Jordanie discutent d'un pipeline d'Aqaba vers la mer morte "
BE Israël n°8 : " L'idée d'un canal mer Rouge - mer Morte rejaillit "
Rapport d'ambassade : " Quel avenir pour la Mer Morte ? "
BE Israël n°18 : " Le niveau de la Mer morte continuera de baisser dans les prochaines années : les hôtels s'éloigneront du bord de mer "
BE Israël n°25 : " Quel avenir pour la mer Morte ? "
De l'huile de Mélaleuca à feuilles alternes pour une agriculture saine
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28157.htm
L'huile extraite du Mélaleuca à feuilles alternes est connue pour être un antiseptique, un fongicide et un bactéricide naturel et efficace. Cette huile est l'ingrédient clé de deux nouveaux produits, Timor et Timorex, élaborés par la compagnie israélienne Biomor. Les premiers succès de ces produits ont permis à la compagnie de remporter récemment le prix du meilleur projet sélectionné parmi les nouvelles entreprises israéliennes qui font actuellement partie du Programme des Incubateurs Technologiques du gouvernement.
Contrairement aux traitements à base de fer et de souffre, les produits dérivés de l'huile de Mélaleuca n'affectent pas les insectes bénéfiques des plantes et ils ont la propriété de s'évaporer complètement et de ne laisser aucun résidus sur les fruits, les légumes ou les herbes aromatiques. Ils sont aussi efficaces contre un grand nombre de maladies des plantes, des légumes, des herbes, des vignes et des arbres fruitiers, tenant également à l'écart le mildiou et les champignons.
Aux États-Unis, les deux produits ont été reconnus aux par l'Agence de Protection de l'Environnement comme biofongicide.

Naissance d'un bébé vautour fauve au parc national de Kochav Hayarden
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/28158.htm
The Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority (INNPPA) vient d'annoncer la naissance d'un bébé vautour fauve, une espèce qui a diminué ces dernières années en Israël.
Cette naissance, dans un site d'élevage, est en fait un événement exceptionnel puisque l'oisillon est né de l'accouplement de deux vautours fauves devenus handicapés à cause d'une maladie appelée ostéomalacie (déminéralisation du squelette) qui touche les ailes et les corps de l'animal. Le couple vautour a couvé l'oeuf pendant 57 jours.
Il y a deux ans, une femelle vautour fauve avait pondu mais les professionnels du parc avaient choisi de placer l'oeuf dans un incubateur, et un leurre dans le nid. Lorsque le poussin est né, il a été replacé avec ses parents mais n'avait pas survécu.

Blue Security spams spammers
For every piece of spam sent to users registered with the company, its Blue Frog product sends a complain to the spammer, thereby affecting the spammer’s business.
Batya Feldman 20 Jul 05 12:15
Start-up Blue Security Inc., a developer of anti-spam and anti-spyware products, yesterday launched a beta version of a new system designed to fight spammers. The system organizes users to make a combined attack on spammers to point where the spammers’ websites are paralyzed. The goal is to force the spammers to stop sending spam to members of the user community.
Blue Security invites users to download its Blue Frog software, which uses the passive community to take active measures against spammers. Blue Security CEO Eran Reshef and EVP solutions Amir Hirsch founded the company a year ago. It raised $3 million from Benchmark Capital a few months ago.
Reshef says, “Until a few years ago, e-mail was a friendly and peaceful experience. A few hundred spammers are destroying this experience for all Internet users. I believe that it’s possible to win the battle against spammers, and force them to stop sending spam to those who don’t want it.”
Blue Security’s solution is different from other solutions on the market, which mainly filter, not always successfully, spam from users’ e-mail boxes. Blue Security takes an active approach that affects spammers’ ability to run their businesses, forcing them to stop sending spam to registered members in the community.
“Globes”: How does it work?
Reshef: “Blue Security’s command center uses sensors we developed to locate spam among registered users. The system initially sends a warning to those responsible for sending the spam. If they ignore the warning, the software begins sending complaints to the websites the spammers are advertising. A complaint is sent for every piece of spam sent to a member of the community. This significantly disrupts the functioning of the website, and its ability to provide service to genuine customers. In order to stop the flow of complaints, spammers will have to use tools supplied by Blue Security to erase e-mail addresses of members of the community from the spammers’ lists and stop sending spam.”
Reshef says initial tests prove that spammers respond to complaints. “After getting complaints from the community, several spammers tried to become more sophisticated and change their websites, in an effort to evade more complaints from members of the community. Other spammers influenced by the pressure from the user community obeyed the instructions in the complaints and downloaded the software tool that removes the e-mail address of members of the community from the spammers’ distribution lists. Initial responses from spammers demonstrate that Blue Security’s deterrence is effective.”
How will Blue Security make money? After all, you’re offering your service for free.
“For now. If the community gets stronger, we’ll offer the service for pay to large companies, whose business is disrupted by spam.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 20, 2005

Learning from Alzheimer’s
An Israeli discovery about how Alzheimer’s disease works may lead to a totally new type of anti-inflammatory drug.
Gali Weinreb 11 Jul 05
Like most brain pathologies, more is unknown about Alzheimer's disease than is known. The scant knowledge about this disease amount to a few pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle, and even those do not fit together. Nonetheless, two researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recently managed to fit together two of the pieces, thereby discovering a mechanism that might be useful for treating this and many other disorders.
It has been known for years that Alzheimer’s kills brain cells, beginning with those that produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is essential for the functioning of other brain cells, so when Alzheimer’s begins to spread, patients are given drugs to suppress the disintegration of acetylcholine, leading to improvement in patients’ health.
Completely unrelated studies recently discovered that Alzheimer’s also involved inflammation of the brain: Interleukin-1, a primary regulator of inflammatory and immune responses, collects in the brain and does not break down. The inflammation blocks the supply of blood to cells, killing them, with acetylcholine-producing cells being the first to die.
The Hebrew University researchers discovered that acetylcholine is an anti-inflammatory substance. In other words, when given to patients in a drug, not only does it improve the actions of existing cells, it also prevents inflammation around new cells. It turns out that Alzheimer’s acts as a vicious circle. A still unknown substance kills acetylcholine-producing cells, and the loss of acetylcholine blocks the disintegration of Interleukin-1. The inflammation kills more acetylcholine-producing cells, further intensifying the inflammation, and so on.
A lack of acetylcholine also causes a deterioration in the functioning of other cells, even as the inflammation kills acetylcholine-producing cells.
”We don’t exactly which comes first, only that a negative feedback mechanism is created, which causes the disease to spread,” says Prof. Raz Yirmiya of the Department of Psychology at Hebrew University. Yermiya is working with Dr. Yehuda Pollack, who is doing his post-doctoral work at Yermiya’s lab; Prof. Tamir Ben-Hor of the Faculty of Medicine, and researchers Ofra Ben-Menahem and Adi Gilboa. Their findings were published in “Annals of Neurology”.
The researchers found that acetylcholine is an anti-inflammatory agent, a property it was not previously known to have. It will now be possible to try to use it not only to treat Alzheimer’s, but also for a variety of other inflammatory illnesses. In fact, this is already happening, although the researchers are unaware of it.
A company called Ester Neurosciences Ltd. was founded a few years ago to apply the findings of Prof. Hermona Sorek of the Department of Biological Chemistry at Hebrew University. Ester Neurosciences is beginning clinical trials of a new substance designed to prevent the disintegration of acetylcholine in the body.
”Existing treatments for Alzheimer’s, produced by almost every leading pharmaceutical company in the world, act by blocking enzymes that destroy acetylcholine. Prof. Sorek’s drug intervenes in the process at an earlier stage, by destroying the RNA that causes cells to make the enzyme that destroys acetylcholine. Two studies had similar results there is more acetylcholine. But Prod. Sorek’s drug is supposed to be effective, long-term and more specific,” says Yermiya.
Clinical trials of Sorek’s drug, 01EN1 are not designed as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, but for an autoimmune disease, Myasthenia Gravis (MG), a disorder of neuromuscular transmission. It is known that acetylcholine helps MG patients, but until now it was generally thought that it contributed toward the activity of muscles affected by MG. The possibility now arises that acetylcholine helps fight MG itself, directly.
“It’s possible that our discovery offers a new treatment for inflammatory diseases,” says Yermiya.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 11, 2005
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A secretive encounter with a Beduin robber in a Judean Desert valley has led to what one archeologist hailed as one of the most important biblical finds from the region in half a century.
Prof. Chanan Eshel, an archeologist from Bar-Ilan University, said Friday that the discovery of two fragments of nearly 2,000 year-old parchment scroll from the Dead Sea area gave hope to biblical and archeological scholars, frustrated by a dearth of material unearthed in the region in recent years, that the Judean Desert could yet yield further treasure.
"No more scrolls have been found in the Judean Desert since 1965. This encourages scholars to believe that if they bother to excavate, survey and climb they will still find things in the Judean desert. The common knowledge has been that there is nothing left to find there," Eshel said.
The two small pieces of brown animal skin, inscribed in Hebrew with verses from the Book of Leviticus, Eshel said mostly likely are from "refugee" caves in Nachal Arugot, where Jews hid from the Romans in the second century. The scrolls are currently being tested by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Amir Ganor, head of the Authority's archeological theft unit, declined comment.
Recently, several relics bearing inscriptions, including a burial box purported to belong to Jesus' brother James, were revealed as modern forgeries.
Archeologist and Bible scholar Steven Pfann said he had not seen the fragments. If authenticated, they would "in general not be doing more than confirming the character of the material that we have from the southern part of the Judean wilderness up until today."
But, he added, "what's interesting and exciting is that this is a new discovery... this is the first time we've seen anything from the south since the 1960s."
Eshel said he was first shown the fragments last year during a meeting in an abandoned police station near the Dead Sea. A Beduin who had been offered $20,000 for the fragments on the black market wanted an evaluation, an encounter that both excited and dismayed the archeologist who has worked in the Judean Desert since 1986.
"I was jealous he had found it, not me. I was also very excited. I didn't believe I would see them again," said Eshel, who took photographs of the pieces he believed would shortly be smuggled out of the country.
But in March 2005, he discovered the Beduin still had the pieces of the scroll. Eshel said he bought them with $3,000 provided by Bar-Ilan University and subsequently handed them over to the Antiquities Authority.
"Scholars do not buy antiquities. I did it because I could not see it fall apart," Eshel said that the fragments constitute the 15th scroll found in the area from the same period of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans, and the first to be discovered with verses from Leviticus. (AP)
More than 1,000 ancient texts – known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls – were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves overlooking the western shores of the Dead Sea. Scroll find propels Dead Sea saga

La joueuse de tennis israélienne Anna Smashnova a remporté hier (dimanche) le tournoi de tennis de Modène (Italie), ce qui lui permet de passer de la 61e à la 53e place au classement mondial WTA
Les sociétés de téléphonie mobile Pelephone et Cellcom vont bientôt commercialiser un service permettant aux parents de localiser leurs enfants grâce à leur portable. (Guysen.Israël.News)
Grâce à l'utilisation de technologies GPS, les parents recevront sur leur téléphone l'adresse et le plan d'accès de l'endroit où se trouvent leurs enfants

Faites connaissance avec un casque de «Réalité Virtuelle» israélien qui permet d’accroître le Quotient Intellectuel
On ne peut accuser le Dr David Passig de vivre dans le passé. Par contre si on l’accusait de vivre dans le futur, il plaiderait certainement coupable.
Le Dr Passig est un «futuriste» dont l’enseignement et la recherche impliquent des concepts –telle la réalité virtuelle – dont on ne parle que dans les romans de science fiction. Mais tandis que ses méthodes peuvent paraître exotiques, son but est bien réel: trouver de meilleurs moyens pour aider les gens – les enfants en particulier – à étudier.
Dirigeant un Programme de Technologie Educationnelle de Troisième Cycle à l’Ecole Normale de l’Université de Bar-Ilan, le Dr Passig concentre ses efforts sur l’utilisation de la réalité virtuelle à côté d’autres multimédia dans sa croisade pour l’éducation. Il se pourrait qu’il ait trouvé un moyen de nous rendre plus intelligents.
Le Dr Passig a levé le voile la semaine dernière sur un procédé en réalité virtuelle qui permettra, selon lui, d’accroître notre Q.I.
«Il s’agit d’une percée dotée d’un potentiel énorme» dit le Dr Passig, personnage maigre et tout en nerfs, mais illuminé d’un large sourire, coiffé d’une kippa crochetée, et ne faisant pas son âge. «Elle se fait à travers des techniques cognitives qui ne peuvent être abordées différemment», affirme t’il.
Son excitation ne connaît plus de limites quand il parle des possibilités d’aider les gens par l’utilisation de la «réalité virtuelle».
«C’est comme l’invention de la roue. C’est un bouleversement paradigmatique – une manière de penser entièrement nouvelle. Pas seulement une manière différente de penser mais une approche nouvelle tout court. L’utiliser c’est transformer notre façon de concevoir et de percevoir le monde», dit-il.
Durant ces dernières années, en travaillant avec une équipe d’étudiants diplômés, Passig se livra à des expériences à l’aide de techniques d’apprentissage en réalité virtuelle. Il utilisa son invention sur des enfants ayant des problèmes auditifs, et dont les résultats aux tests d’intelligence (Q.I.) sont habituellement médiocres. Après avoir été équipés du casque de réalité virtuelle qui leur couvrait complètement les yeux, ils étaient transportés hors de leur environnement physique et placés dans une «chambre virtuelle». Là on leur demandait d’accomplir pendant 10 à 20 minutes divers exercices tels que le pilotage d’un engin spatial en rotation ou un jeu ressemblant au Tétris, par exemple.

La répétition quotidienne de ces exercices, pendant plusieurs mois, fit augmenter le Q.I. des enfants de 20% - pourcentage significativement meilleur que celui obtenu par des groupes contrôle ayant effectués les mêmes exercices dans des formats bidimensionnels.
Dans une des études, 16 enfants ne souffrant pas de problèmes d’ouïe, prirent part à l’étude comme deuxième groupe contrôle, afin d’établir si la surdité est un désavantage en termes de pensée flexible. A la suite des exercices de réalité virtuelle, l’écart entre le groupe expérimental et le groupe contrôle des enfants a diminué – mais l’amélioration chez les enfants dont l’ouïe était normale était suffisante pour indiquer que les exercices de réalité virtuelle accroissent le Q.I. chez ceux-là également.
Ce résultat a été renforcé par une nouvelle recherche dirigée par un des autres étudiants du Dr Passig qui doit être publiée sous peu et dans laquelle des enfants dotés d’une bonne ouïe étaient également capables d’accroître leur intelligence. Une nouvelle série de recherches, dit-il, démarre à présent avec des enfants mongoliens.
Le Dr Passig est le seul en Israël à être titulaire d’un Doctorat d’Etat en futurologie – diplôme qu’il a complété à l’Université de Minnesota, après y avoir obtenu sa Licence et sa Maîtrise en pédagogie. Après ses études aux U.S.A., il revint en Israël en 1994 où il fonda le laboratoire de Réalité Virtuelle et Multimédia à l’Université de Bar-Ilan, le premier en Israël à poursuivre la recherche sur la réalité virtuelle et l’éducation.
Bien qu’il y ait d’autres laboratoires de réalité virtuelle dans le domaine de l’éducation – par exemple à l’Université de Caroline du Nord et dans celle de Washington, Passig proclame que ce qu’il fait est unique en son genre.
«La plupart des autres centres utilisent la réalité virtuelle comme adjuvant à l’enseignement», dit-il. «Moi je veux la transporter à un autre niveau. Il y a quelque chose dans cette technologie que nous ne comprenons pas encore, il y a là un potentiel que nous avons à peine effleurés. Nous sommes le seul laboratoire de cette sorte dans le monde à développer une technologie visant à améliorer les aptitudes cognitives».
Il est assez difficile de contacter le Dr Passig. Quand il n’est pas en train d’enseigner dans des cours d’un niveau élevé l’éducation future, les technologies futures, les théories des systèmes, les méthodologies futures, la Réalité Virtuelle et les multimédia ou de superviser un important groupe d’étudiants en Maîtrise ou Doctorat dans l’espoir de les voir promouvoir, en utilisant leur imagination, le développement des technologies futuristes, il passe à la télévision, à la radio et à d’autres médias.
Le Dr Passig participait récemment à une conférence-débat tenue lors de la «Microsoft Israël Digital City», dans le cadre d’une exposition très importance sur les derniers gadgets et technologies; le Dr Passig s’y trouvait dans son élément – on y discutait de la technologie du futur.
Avec deux de ses quatre fils qui se trouvaient dans l’auditoire, il engagea un dialogue animé à propos de ce que nous réservent les prochaines années – depuis les voitures volantes jusqu’aux systèmes de divertissements domestiques sur ordinateur et au prochain progrès dans le domaine du transport, après le Segway.
En ce qui concerne le Dr Passig et ses recherches, demain commence aujourd’hui.
Allison Kaplan Sommer

Unesco: 8 sites israéliens ajoutés au patrimoine mondial
18 Juillet 2005
L'organisation des Nations Unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture (Unesco) a décidé de déclarer huit sites israéliens comme faisant partie du "Patrimoine historique mondial". Il s'agit de sites à Beer Shéva, Hatzor, Meggido, Haloutza, Ovdat , Mamashit et de "la route des Parfums". Le comité de l'Unesco pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine mondial a pris cette décision, lors de sa 29ème réunion annuelle. DG

A model of the light rail-train planned for Jerusalem
18/07/2005
Jerusalem light-rail system, expected to open in 2008, gets funding deal
A long-delayed light-rail system in Jerusalem is set to move forward after Israel, banks and the group building the NIS 3.3 billion (e727 million) project reached a financing deal on Sunday.
In the initial phase of the project announced in 2000, to construct Israel's first intra-city rail system, the first of eight planned lines will be built and is expected to be operational by the end of 2008.
The line will run 13.8 km. It will stretch from East Jerusalem to the edge of the Old City through the city center- part of which will be turned into a pedestrian mall- and head west past the entrance of the city. There it will connect with a high-speed train to Tel Aviv that is expected to be completed in 2009.
A fast bus line will also be built to link to the light-rail system.
"In 2008, Jerusalem will be turned into a metropolis with one of the most advanced transportation systems in the world," Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski told a news conference.
By 2020, the city plans eight above-ground lines, stretching 50 km and with 75 stations.
The Israeli government is contributing NIS 1.3 billion to the initial stage of the project with the remaining NIS 2 billion coming from the winning consortium.
The consortium includes France's Alstom, Veolia Environnement's Connex unit, Israel's Polar Investments, Harel Insurance and local building firm Ashtrom.
The group's share of the project will partly be funded through loans from Israel's two top banks, Hapoalim and Leumi.
"The project is now in the hands of the private sector," said Alex Langer, deputy director-general of the Transport Ministry and head of the Jerusalem Public Transportation Authority.
The group, called CityPass, will operate the train system for 28 years before it gets transferred back to the government.
"This is a very important project for us because it includes civil work, rolling stock, track work, signalling and maintenance and operations for 28 years," Charles Carlier, deputy to the president of Alstom, told Reuters after the news conference. "It's a long-term project."
He said the company will be building and providing 46 train cars, with each train 32 metres long.
"It's our first big project in Israel," Carlier said, noting that Alstom has worked on smaller deals with Israel Railways.
He said Alstom plans to bid on the larger intra-city underground project proposed for Tel Aviv as well as a number of modernization deals with Israel Railways.
Some 1,000 Israeli jobs will be created during the project, while Alstom will transfer 50 people from France to Israel, Carlier said.
The Jerusalem municipality is now making infrastructure improvements so that construction can begin in early 2006.

Pourquoi les films israéliens ont le vent en poupe
www.jeuneafrique.com - 13 Juillet 2005 -
Pourquoi les films israéliens ont le vent en poupe
ISRAËL - 3 juillet 2005- par RENAUD DE ROCHEBRUNE
Omniprésentes depuis deux ou trois ans sur les écrans de beaucoup de pays, les réalisations en provenance d'Israël brillent aussi dans les festivals. Des oeuvres souvent fort peu « politiquement correctes », mais, en fin compte, très bénéfiques pour l'image de l'État hébreu.
« Un cinéma [...] engagé mais pamphlétaire. Politique mais pas primaire. Émotionnel mais jamais pleurnichard. Caustique mais toujours émouvant. Ce nouveau cinéma [...] a vraiment les capacités de ses moyens, de son courage, de sa lucidité et de ses grandes qualités tant techniques qu'esthétiques. Quand aura-t-on le courage, en Algérie, de projeter ces films très souvent superbes ? » Ce cinéma en plein renouvellement auquel l'écrivain Rachid Boudjedra, dont la plume est rarement tendre, rendait récemment un hommage appuyé dans le quotidien El Watan, c'est... le cinéma israélien contemporain.
Rien d'étonnant, en fait, à cela. Car c'est à une véritable explosion de la cinématographie israélienne qu'on assiste au niveau international depuis peu. Lors du dernier Festival de Cannes, sur les quelque trente-cinq longs-métrages retenus dans la « sélection officielle », en compétition et hors compétition, il y avait deux films israéliens - plus que toute l'Afrique ou l'Iran, autant que la Chine, presque autant que la France. L'un, Free zone, d'Amos Gitaï, récompensé finalement par le Prix d'interprétation féminine (voir p. 96), faisait partie des vingt privilégiés admis à concourir pour la Palme d'or. L'autre, le documentaire Pour un seul de mes deux yeux d'Avi Mograbi, une réflexion à deux voix (l'une palestinienne, l'autre israélienne) sur la tendance à l'autodestruction des peuples à la lumière de deux mythes antiques, a eu droit à une projection « de gala » dans la prestigieuse salle Lumière, celle que l'on atteint après avoir gravi les fameuses marches sur le tapis rouge.
Cette présence remarquée sur la Croisette en 2005 ne venait que couronner une montée en puissance perceptible dans tous les festivals et sur les écrans de beaucoup de pays depuis au moins deux ans. En 2004, deux films produits en Israël avaient déjà été primés à Cannes, le superbe Mon trésor de Keren Yedaya (Caméra d'or, autrement dit palme du premier film, toutes sélections confondues) et Soif, de l'Arabe israélien Tawfik Abu Wael. Peu après, La Fiancée syrienne, d'Eran Riklis, le récit à la fois drôle et édifiant d'un mariage contrarié par l'absurdité des réglementations et l'entêtement des autorités des deux côtés de la frontière sur le Golan, avait été plébiscitée à la fois par la critique et le public aux festivals de Locarno et de Montréal.
Entretemps, Prendre femme, de Ronit et Shlomi Elkabetz, l'histoire du combat pour l'émancipation d'une femme opprimée dans une famille séfarade, avait été récompensé à la Mostra de Venise. Enfin, bien qu'il ait été controversé, ou à cause peut-être de cela, le film-événement du dernier festival Cinéma du réel du Centre Pompidou, à Paris, en mars 2005, n'était autre que Route 181, fragments d'un voyage en Palestine-Israël, une sorte de reportage émaillé de nombreuses rencontres le long de la ligne de partage entre Israël et la Palestine instituée par l'ONU en 1947, tourné par un Israélien antisioniste vivant en France et un Palestinien installé en Belgique, Eyal Sivan et Michel Khleifi, tous deux favorables à un État binational. Et l'on pourrait citer bien d'autres exemples.
Dans les salles, toutefois, aussi bien en Israël que dans beaucoup de pays occidentaux, ce ne sont pas toujours les films cités qui ont triomphé récemment, car les préférés des festivals, les meilleurs films d'auteur, ne sont pas forcément ceux du grand public. Mais le succès du cinéma israélien est là encore patent. Dans l'État hébreu, un pays d'à peine six millions d'habitants, on a enregistré au total 10 millions d'entrées en 2004 (environ dix fois plus « par habitant » qu'au Maroc et cinq fois plus qu'en Turquie, pour évoquer deux terres d'accueil du cinéma au sud de la planète). Et les films nationaux qui atteignent 200 000 entrées annuelles malgré un parc de salles relativement modeste (370 écrans) ne sont pas rares.
Le plus gros succès de l'année 2004, Au bout du monde à gauche d'Avi Nesher (une comédie efficace mais peu subtile sur les difficultés d'intégration des immigrés marocains et indiens en Israël), a même attiré, comme seuls les blockbusters américains pouvaient jusque-là y parvenir, près de 500 000 spectateurs. Un peu plus que le champion du box-office de 2002, Mariage tardif de Dover Kosahvili, 400 000 entrées, et celui de 2003, Les Ailes brisées de Nir Berman, 220 000 entrées. Des scores que l'on retrouve parfois à l'étranger puisque, cette année, le mélodrame Va, vis et deviens de Radu Mihaileanu (le sort des Juifs éthiopiens qui ont émigré dans l'État hébreu), coproduit par Israël, a déjà dépassé nettement la barre des 400 000 spectateurs en France.
Ce succès local tout comme le rayonnement international du cinéma israélien ne sont évidemment pas le fait du hasard. Ils marquent l'aboutissement d'une évolution par étapes de cette cinématographie qui lui a permis d'atteindre l'âge adulte, et ils résultent d'une politique nationale d'aide au septième art qui s'est révélée efficace.

D'abord, et depuis le début des années 1920, rappelle Ariel Schweitzer, professeur de cinéma à l'université de Tel-Aviv et collaborateur des Cahiers du cinéma, le septième art a joué un rôle important dans la diffusion de l'idéologie sioniste, notamment « sous forme d'actualités et de films didactiques : c'était l'époque du "réalisme sioniste" par allusion au réalisme socialiste soviétique. »
À partir des années 1950 est apparu « le premier véritable genre du cinéma israélien dans des films de fiction, le genre "national héroïque" ». Les films tendaient alors essentiellement à construire « le portrait idéal du pionnier israélien », qui était toujours « un sabra, descendant des pionniers ashkénazes, un homme pragmatique et viril dévoué à sa mission de soldat et de travailleur de la terre, le contre-modèle absolu du Juif religieux de la diaspora supposé vivre replié sur lui-même dans un milieu hostile ». La promotion de cette mythologie sioniste à travers le cinéma impliquait d'ignorer totalement dans les films tous les « autres », non seulement le Juif de la diaspora mais aussi le Palestinien, le Juif séfarade et même, dans une certaine mesure, la femme », tous des personnages qui apparaissaient au mieux « dans le décor ».
Ce n'est que dans les années 1990 que ce qu'Ariel Schweitzer appelle « le récit-maître sioniste », déjà un peu ébranlé par le succès de films de divertissement populaires de type « oriental » dans les années 1960 et 1970 (ces films qu'on appelait des « bourekas »), a commencé à être sérieusement remis en question derrière la caméra. Influencés sans doute par le nouveau climat politique consécutif aux accords d'Oslo et par les thèses des « nouveaux historiens » israéliens, critiques vis-à-vis de l'histoire officielle, des cinéastes ont décidé d'aborder leurs sujets différemment.
Le pionnier de cette nouvelle approche a été Amos Gitaï, déjà actif dès les années 1980 à travers ses documentaires sur la société israélienne qui font apparaître des personnages - palestiniens et israéliens - jusque-là marginalisés. Il continuera dans les années 1990 et après l'an 2000 avec des fictions telles que Kadosh (des femmes opprimées par les Juifs religieux), Kedma (la guerre de 1948, l'expulsion des Palestiniens) ou, très récemment, Terre promise (le trafic des femmes et la prostitution en Israël et dans les territoires occupés). Les cinéastes qui font aujourd'hui triompher le cinéma israélien ont choisi cette même voie, quitte à l'orienter à chaque fois dans une direction particulière selon leurs centres d'intérêt.
L'essor de la cinématographie israélienne doit beaucoup à ces jeunes réalisateurs, qui ont pu bénéficier souvent d'une excellente formation puisque le pays compte une vingtaine d'écoles de cinéma, parfois financées par des Juifs de la diaspora comme la plus prestigieuse d'entre elles, l'École Sam-Spiegel de Jérusalem. Mais il a été surtout fortement encouragé par l'État. Une loi votée en l'an 2000 a donné un coup de fouet au septième art en lui accordant un financement accru et surtout régulier - un minimum de 12 millions d'euros d'aide à la production chaque année. Ce qui est incitatif pour « monter » avec d'autres sources de financement des projets de plus en plus nombreux. D'autant qu'un accord de coproduction signé entre Israël et la France en 2002 est venu apporter de nouveaux moyens aux cinéastes : les deux tiers environ des nouveaux films de fiction israéliens bénéficient de cet appui. Il apparaît ainsi bon an mal an environ une quinzaine de nouveaux longs-métrages de fiction (23 même en 2004, année exceptionnelle) et une centaine de documentaires - grâce au large soutien des chaînes de télévision dans ce dernier cas - produits ou coproduits en Israël.
Cette politique d'aide au cinéma profite aussi, même s'ils sont évidemment très minoritaires, aux cinéastes arabes israéliens, comme Tawfik Abu Wael. Car même quand elle permet - comme c'est le plus souvent le cas - le développement d'un cinéma très incisif, fort peu « politiquement correct », elle est assumée sans remord aucun par les autorités, qui la considèrent comme bénéfique en dernier ressort pour le pays. Ce cinéma, en effet, dont le succès est dû précisément à la « crédibilité » que lui assurent son indépendance et sa créativité sans limites, est devenu l'un des meilleurs ambassadeurs d'Israël. Car il paraît démontrer que cet État produit une culture riche, possède une société complexe, fait face à des problèmes qui ne se réduisent pas au conflit avec les Palestiniens et, surtout, d'évidence, protège les valeurs démocratiques puisqu'il supporte et même encourage la critique. Même le gouvernement très autoritaire de Sharon l'a compris. On peut en conclure que le printemps du cinéma israélien est parti pour durer.
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Israeli device hides cellulite, re-contours skin's surface
By David Brinn July 03, 2005
The VelaSmooth is the only device that combines four different methodologies - two heating components, infrared and conducted RF current, a vacuum charger and mechanical manipulation of the skin.
Texas resident Shanan Brown spent her first 30 years in a normal weight range and kept her body trim. Then she had two children, and cellulite moved in.
"All of a sudden, it was 'Oh my gosh, this is a big difference,' " Brown, a saleswoman, told the Dallas Morning Herald. "How the heck am I going to get rid of this?"
Working out and dieting didn't do the trick for Brown, 34. It wasn't until her doctor offered to put her into a clinical test of an Israeli-developed device called the VelaSmooth that she saw immediate results.
"It was amazing," she said. "It significantly reduced my cellulite. And I dropped two pants sizes."
Soon, cellulite sufferers throughout the US will be able to take advantage of the VelaSmooth's ability to reduce the appearance of cellulite and safely and effectively re-contour the skin's surface and body shape. Its makers - Syneron - announced last month that the VelaSmooth had received FDA marketing clearance for the temporary reduction in the appearance of cellulite, and for the relief of minor muscle aches, pain and spasm and the temporary improvement of local blood circulation.
Cellulite refers to fat that bulges under the skin. When skin and the fibers connecting the skin to layers of fat underneath weaken, fat cells can rise to the surface. That creates a lumpy look often indelicately compared to cottage cheese.
According to Syneron's Dr. Amir Waldman, the clearance of the VelaSmooth offers a new non-surgical, no downtime alternative for patients wishing to treat the appearance of cellulite, and its launch marks a new era in the medical treatment of cellulite.
The device features Syneron's patented 'elos' technology - 'electrical optical synergy' - which combines two sources of energy - infrared light and radio frequency - with rollers that manipulate the tissue. This combination sends heat into the tissue more deeply than existing treatments to help break down fat within cells and shrink the cells.
"The VelaSmooth is the only device that combines four different methodologies - two heating components, infrared and conducted RF current, a vacuum charger and mechanical manipulation of the skin. All are applied simultaneously in order to get the optimal effect," he told ISRAEL21c.
"There are some massage units for cellulite on the market, and there are also some that use heat lamps and infrared light for a variety of indications. But there's virtually no device that combines all four. This technical superiority is what makes it so effective," explained Waldman, the company's Vice President for Business and Applications, and the overseer of VelaSmooth's clinical testing.
"Trials were conducted at over 100 sites - primarily in the US and Canada, but also in Israel, Europe and Japan. In all, over 500 people were tested with the VelaSmooth - 100% of the patients achieved positive results, some more than others. The two major indicators were cellulite improvement and the reduction of the waist circumference and diameter of the thighs," said Waldman.
Dr. Mary Lee Amerian , a dermatologist in Los Angeles who has participated in the clinical trials of VelaSmooth, told The Los Angeles Times that her patients all showed positive results.

One controlled clinical trial of 20 patients showed that all had some improvement in the appearance of cellulite, and 75 percent had a reduction in the circumference of the treated thigh, with an average reduction of one inch.
Patients typically undergo 45-minute treatments twice a week for about six weeks. Any improvement from the initial series of treatments tends to last about six months, Amerian said. Monthly treatments are needed to maintain the benefits. Most people do not find the treatments painful, she says.
"You also have the mechanical action of the rollers that kneads the skin. It kind of massages it and facilitates penetration of the heat," she said.
VelaSmooth, which costs about $200 a treatment, is an improvement over massage-only techniques, says Dr. Tina S. Alster, the founding director of the Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery in Washington, who also conducted clinical trials on the device.
"There has never been a viable treatment for cellulite which is disappointing given the fact that 80 percent of women are affected by it, and the other 20% think they have it. I am now convinced that we have a viable treatment for this condition," she said.
"In our clinical study of 20 women of various ages and skin types with moderate thigh and buttock cellulite, significant clinical improvement was observed in skin contour irregularities, and thigh circumferences were also reduced. Patients didn't lose weight, but they looked as if they had. Our research has shown that it is no longer necessary to endure painful and lengthy recovery times or be exposed to general anesthesia that is typical of other procedures like liposuction in order to achieve improvement of cellulite."
According to Waldman, the FDA created a new product code for the VelaSmooth, confirming its unique position in the aesthetic device market.
"The FDA's designation of a new product category specifically for the VelaSmooth reaffirms how technically innovative this device is for the treatment of cellulite," he said.

Waldman stressed that the VelaSmooth is not meant for home use and because of the energy level of the device, the treatments must be performed or supervised by a doctor.
"It's cleared as a medical device - and will be purchased by physicians for use in clinics; it's not a home use device," he said.
The Velasmooth is just the latest in a line of six platforms Syneron has developed using their elos technology which provide solutions for a broad range of medical-aesthetic applications including hair removal, wrinkle reduction, rejuvenating the skin's appearance through the treatment of superficial benign vascular and pigmented lesions, and the treatment of acne, and leg veins.
Founded in 2000, Syneron is headquartered in the Northern Israeli town of Yokneam, and has offices and distributors throughout the world including North American headquarters in Canada and European headquarters in Germany.
But all Shanan Brown in Texas cares about is that her unsightly cellulite can be controlled. And for that, she has Synernon and VelaSmooth to thank.

Contracts on the way to the canopy
By Tzally Grinberg
"A 34-year-old fellow came in to see me - he works in high-tech, and doesn't come from a wealthy family, but already has bought a penthouse in Tel Aviv's Tel Baruch neighborhood, as well as a duplex in North Tel Aviv. The overall worth of the two apartments is estimated at $1.5 million. He asked me to draft an agreement that would break down the number of years of marriage and his spouse's rights based on the length of the marriage," says attorney Einat Tierer, of the A. Tierer law firm, which specializes in personal status matters.
"If they stay together as a married couple for only five years, she won't have any rights whatsoever; if they stay together for 10 years, then she'll get about $150,000, and if they make it to 20 years and also have children, then she'll get half of all of the assets in his possession. He told me that for him, she was a dream come true, but he was afraid that she was eyeing his assets, and that she could divorce him after a year and sue him for half his assets," Tierer says.
The objective of a prenuptial agreement is to regulate the economic relationship between husband and wife before they get married, and arrange for the division of assets should they get divorced, attorneys who specialize in this area of law explain. If the couple did not draft such an agreement before the wedding, according to the law, if they get divorced, the property will be divided equally, even if one of the two purchased the apartment in full, since the court views the couple as a single economic unit.
Many young Israeli couples report that they do not write up prenuptial agreements, since "it adversely affects the romance, and instills fears that could harm the marital relationship from the outset." Conversely, couples entering second marriages usually do have prenups to ensure that the assets in their possession prior to remarrying will remain with them in the event of a divorce. Prenups are more widespread among wealthier and highly educated couples.
Tierer explains that the current popularity of prenuptial agreements is primarily due to the increase in the average age of marriage. "Bachelors are now getting married at an older age after having managed to accumulate assets which they are not interested in assimilating into the spousal relationship." The previously mentioned example about the high-tech professional who owns two apartments and wanted to arrange a prenup with his future wife reflects this trend.
There are instances when parents buy an apartment for a young couple and in the event of a divorce, one of the sides could end up paying for it dearly. Tierer says she has seen cases in which families forced their daughter- or son-in-law to sign a prenup. "When the families buy the couple an apartment, they make sure, through the couple, that the apartment will be registered in the name of the family that bought it, and sometimes they even make spouses pay them rent."
"I handled one case in which the bride's family, which bought the apartment, asked me to draft an agreement requiring the couple to pay rent as long as they lived in the apartment. That way, in the event of divorce, the family could sue the groom for unpaid rent, since they are not collecting any rent at present. The family did so just in case the groom `falters' in his marital life. Essentially, they constructed a lawsuit against him that is ready and waiting. The only thing left to do is pay the court fee and officially file the suit," Tierer says.
Lawyers explain that if a rift develops between spouses, it is possible to draw up a financial agreement in the framework of "domestic harmony" as part of the divorce settlement. Tierer argues that in a divorce, reaching a financial settlement is in effect an "all-out war" in which each side tries to gain as much ground as it can to financially rebuild and recover as best as possible. In the case of domestic harmony, when the spouses know they are going to continue to live together, they divide their assets by stating in the agreement the percentage of the assets each side will receive.
Prenuptial agreements may have been created as a means of protection, but they often serve other, less legitimate objectives. Tierer is aware of one instance in which she received a letter from a woman who said that she and her husband paid mortgage payments from their joint account for their apartment in central Israel. The husband had met his wife when he already had owned the apartment, which was mortgaged at 50 percent. But the prenup specified that the apartment would remain in his name, and that any additional apartment that might be purchased would also be fully owned by him. "Essentially, the husband had his wife pay for part of the mortgage, with him left as sole owner," Tierer says. "Now, when the bond between them had grown shaky, she didn't know what to do about it."

Tool for evading debts

Some people use prenups to avoid foreclosure of their assets. Attorney Dror Goldstein of the Ben Ari and Fish law firm explains. "Sometimes a situation is created in which the debts of one spouse accumulate, and he then transfers his assets to the other party. For example, I handled a case in which assets were registered under the name of the husband, who also was the party who had accumulated debts, and the wife was not signed as a personal guarantor. So they decided to make a financial agreement according to which their apartment would be fully transferred to her, which is how they evaded debt repayment. Of course, the court has to validate the agreement, but usually this does not present any problem, since the creditors are unaware of the agreement because it is a private matter between the husband and wife."
Goldstein explains another case in which he represented the wife, who carried out a financial agreement with her husband after the couple's divorce, but her husband's creditors began staking claims against her assets. The husband's debts stemmed from his dealings in the gray market, Goldstein says, and his creditors charged that the debts applied to both spouses and that the divorce was solely intended to protect their assets. "In this case, due to the incidence of various circumstances, we were able to prove in court that it was a real financial agreement that was made in good faith," he says. "However, in many cases, the creditors can prove that the wife knew about the debts, and that the agreement was made only for the purpose of evading them."
Goldstein says prenuptial agreements are intended mainly to protect family assets that predate the marriage or unequal monetary investment by the sides in an apartment or business. As a result, if one of the sides paid for most of an apartment out of his pocket, he will want to maintain his share even when it is sold and the couple buys another apartment to replace it. These agreements are recommended primarily when the two sides' financial starting point is unequal, or when the family of one of the sides provides the bulk of financial assistance in buying an apartment.

Two takes on the brain and art
By David Rapp

The crisis erupted right during the first lecture at the Art of the Brain Conference. Professor Idan Segev, the head of the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, one of the initiators of the conference that was held at Kibbutz Kabri about a year ago, presented the participants with a current survey of brain research.
Segev, a brilliant researcher and a popular lecturer who gives dozens of lectures on scientific subjects, encountered hostile reactions from the audience.
The aim of the conference was to create an unusual encounter between scientists and artists, but not all the participants - 10 scientists and 10 artists - felt comfortable with the initiative.
Some of the artists, relates Segev, complained to him that they had been disappointed by his lecture, which they said did not deal with the "really important" questions. If the research forefront of neurobiological research is dealing with drawing up networks of nerve cells - they told the surprised Segev - and is unable to define the real essence of creativity or individualism, then this is a great disappointment.
That same evening Segev also had to deal with other participants who threatened to walk out.
Some of his scientist colleagues were shocked by the video works that were presented by Hilla Lulu Lin, especially the one that shows an egg yolk dripping over the artist's body.
Perhaps they had been sequestered in their laboratories in recent years and were very disappointed to discover where art has got to.
In the end, all of the participants remained at Kabri for the three days of the conference. The result of the encounter, which was initiated by Segev and Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, formerly the president of the Hebrew University, is an art book that has been published recently. The book contains 20 prints (two from each of the artists) chosen from etchings that were done during this past year at the print workshop at Kibbutz Kabri. The works were chosen by Meira Perry-Lehman, the curator of the drawings and prints department at the Israel Museum , and Ofra Raif, the director of the workshop.
The artists who participated in the conference and whose works are shown in the book are Larry Abramson, Belu-Simion Fainaru, Nurit David, Yaakov Dorchin, Gal Weinstein, Hilla Lulu Lin, Ofer Lalush, Sharon Poliakine, Alex Kremer and Jan Rauchwerger. Some of them are experienced in printmaking and some mostly work in other techniques. The scientists who participated in the workshop are Haim Sompolinsky, Meirav Ahiyashar, Merav Ahissar, Hagai Bergman, Hanoch Gutfreund, Shaul Hochstein, Peter Hillman, Eilon Vaadia, Udi Zohari, Yossi Yarom and Eli Nelken.
The center for Neural Computation was established 12 years ago, in an attempt to combine a number of fields of research for a deeper understanding of the brain. About 24 researchers work at the center, and with them another 60 doctoral students, who come there from various disciplines like physics, neurobiology, computer science and psychology.
Segev believes that his people can derive great benefit from an encounter with creative artists, whose ways of looking at the world are unique. The importance he attributes to the meeting between scientists and artists goes beyond the anecdotal. The art book, which Segev calls "Brain-Inspired Works of Art," has been printed in 100 numbered copies, with each priced at $10,000, a sum aimed at funding one scholarship for a doctoral student at the Center for Neural Computation in Jerusalem (and in this context it is regrettable that art students will not be able to enjoy similar scholarships). Twenty-five copies have already been sold.
Segev aspires to publish another, popularly priced edition of the book, which will also contain key lectures on the subject of art and the brain. After that, he is interested in opening an art studio as well as an art gallery at the Life Sciences Faculty on Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus.
"Our goal is to create a new breed of students and researchers," he says, "in a crucible that will enable them to investigate the activities of the brain in a broad context. The discussion of what creativity is, for example, can provide brain researchers important insights and original directions for studies.

"The encounter with the artists forced us to go back and examine basic principles, of which we are not necessarily aware in everyday life. Nurit David told us that she plans her work in great detail in advance, and the creative process is the transfer of a picture in her mind to the canvas according to the prior plan; Jan Rauchwerger, however, spoke about a kind of improvisation. These are two opposite aspects of the same phenomenon; when certain artists speak about the paintbrush, they say that it is a direct, almost physical continuation of their arm. This is a phenomenon that prompts scientific inquiry as to whether in the artist's brains, there is also a neural representation of the paintbrush, as an expansion of the hand.
"Equally interesting is the ability of some of the artists to feel the density of the paint as they lay it on the canvas. We can also learn from artists about the ways the world in their brains is translated into terms of shading, three-dimensionality and size relations."
According to Segev, in recent years research has begun to seek those areas of the brain that deal, for example, with interpreting colors. The question of how the aesthetic experience is translated into neural activity in a certain area of the brain is also being investigated. In other words, brain researchers have long since crossed the lines into areas that in the past were in the realm of aesthetics, in asking themselves what the neurobiological significance of the concept "beauty" is.

C.P. Snow's concern

British scientist and writer Charles Percy Snow had already warned at the end of the 1950s about the gap that was spreading between culture (in the broad sense) and science - two entities that are moving away from each other. Snow was alarmed by the ignorance in both of the camps - the scientists' ignorance about the foundations of culture, and the ignorance of people in the field of culture, who are not familiar with the basic principles of science.
A few years ago a special issue of The Journal of Consciousness Studies was devoted to the widening gap between "the two cultures." The key article in the issue was written by an important contemporary brain researcher, V.S. Ramachandran, from the University of California at San Diego. Ramachandran argued that one of the "strangest" human activities an alien from outer space would find on its first visit to the planet earth is art. He proposed eight basic rules in his article that in his opinion artists use consciously or unconsciously in order to stimulate certain areas of the viewer's brain. In this way, he believes, the artistic effect is created. Other articles in the issue attack this reductionist approach, the somewhat bleak implication of which is that even what is perceived as "spiritual" and "sublime" can be boiled down to basic biological rules.
"Scientists seek general rules whereas artists focus on the differences in the experiences the world provides," says Segev. "And this, too, was a major point of conflict at the conference at Kabri."
The expansion of human knowledge, which has led to so many sub-specialties in the sciences, has led to the extinction of a rare breed of artist-scientists - multitalented individuals, Renaissance men, like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The move that Segev has initiated is "innovative" only relative to the modern period. In fact, it is a kind of return to the model of the multidisciplinary researcher who has the broadest possible cultural and scientific contexts. He himself is an unusual example of a researcher who can shoulder an initiative like this.
Segev, who is 55 and the father of twin daughters, now 15, is indeed quite a rare type of scientist, a researcher who has broad horizons and curiosity that is not limited to his own field of research. But at the conference there were clear differences in the approaches of the two groups. "Alex Kremer was shocked to the depths of his soul when he heard about a motor experiment conducted on monkeys," says Segev. "And this was a refreshing reaction, important to the scientists among us, who have perhaps lost some of their sensitivity over the years. I've never seen a human response like that at a scientific conference, for example. Kremer told me afterward that the magnitude of the overall experience at the conference paralyzed his ability to create for quite some time; one of the most brilliant scientists who participated in the conference told me that since then a barrier inside him to facing a non-scientific audience has broken. The fact that a researcher of his stature has been lecturing during the past year to people who are not academics is real news to the community. These, too, are some of the effects of the meeting between the scientists and the artists, and they are just as important as scientific breakthroughs."
When Segev sought a professional to prepare the cover for the book of prints, he looked for a craftsman of the old school and found him in Bnei Brak. "We went to an ultra-Orthodox professional called Pinhas, who imprints images using silver and gold in an ancient technique," he says. "On the cover he created a precise image of a nerve cell and talked with me about the structure of the brain and networks of neurons. Before we said our good-byes, he added that he can't understand how a person like me, who sees the miracles that occur in the human brain, does not believe in God."

Le cannabis, des qualités anti-cancérigènes
Israel21C, 12 juin

Les bénéfices médicaux de la marijuana l’emportent-ils sur ses inconvénients ? Ce débat anime le monde médical depuis longtemps. Une récente découverte israélienne vient donner un nouveau tour à ce débat : une jeune doctorante de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem, Natalya Kogan, 25 ans, a développé un dérivé du cannabis qui a montré en laboratoire son efficacité pour stopper la croissance, des cellules cancéreuses, voire même diminuer la taille d’une tumeur.

Natalya Kogan travaille sous la supervision du Prof. Raphaël Mechoulam, un des premiers chercheurs à avoir découvert les propriétés bénéfiques du cannabis. Elle a reçu début Juin un prix pour son travail (le Kaye Innovation Award est attribué chaque année depuis 1994 pour récompenser des découvertes innovantes).

Les nouveaux composés développés, des quinoïdes cannabinoïdes dérivés du cannabis, ont les mêmes qualités que la daunomycine, un médicament connu contre le cancer. Mais les dérivés du cannabis ont l’avantage d’être beaucoup moins toxique pour le cœur, contrairement à la daunomycine ou aux autres médicaments de ce groupe.
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Dans la foulée d’Ariel Zeevi, médaillé olympique à Athènes, la relève israélienne se porte bien. Lors des championnats d’Europe cadet qui viennent d’avoir lieu sur le tatami autrichien de Salzbourg, la délégation israélienne est montée à trois reprises sur le podium. Sharar Levy, chez les filles, et David Mamisteblov, chez les garçons, ont remporté la médaille d’or. Aviv Ratzier a décroché, lui, le bronze.
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Israeli AIDS vaccine offers hope in trials
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 20, 2005
An experimental vaccine for AIDS patients developed at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, has shown promise in protecting their weakened immune system from infections.
Now in clinical trials, the vaccine was developed by Dr. Rivka Aboulafia-Lapid and colleagues at Hadassah, along with scientists at Kaplan Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. The vaccine, given to 13 patients in 33 injections, has so far shown itself to be non-toxic to patients and has doubled their level of white-blood T-cells called CD4, which are destroyed by the virus.
The research has already been published in the Journal of Clinical Virology and Vaccine, although the vaccine remains experimental and must be given to larger numbers of patients.
Aboulafia-Lapid said that the team's aim is to provide treatment supplementary to the AIDS "cocktail" taken on a daily basis to halt the destructive autoimmune process. The researchers are continuing to work on the vaccine thanks to grants from Hadassah's research and development arm, Hadassit, and other sources. More patients are due to be vaccinated in Beersheba, Tel Aviv and France. The idea of boosting the immune system with a vaccine was raised a decade ago by Prof. Henri Atlan of Hadassah's biophysics nuclear medicine department. The HIV virus causes harm not only by penetrating CD4 cells, but also by causing the body's own protective immune system to destroy these beneficial cells in an autoimmune process.
Because many AIDS patients have a weakened immune system even after the AIDS virus has been decimated by the "cocktail," Atlan and colleagues suggested that it was the autoimmune destruction of CD4 cells that was weakening the body.
Since 1998 the vaccine has been tested on 13 patients, including eight patients with the B strain of HIV (caucasians) and five with the C strain (blacks). Nine of those receiving the injections showed an increase in CD4 levels from 300 to 600. The other five have not completed the whole course of injections.

Et la Bible dit : en Israël du pétrole tu chercheras

John Brown est persuadé qu’il va trouver du pétrole en Israël. Il n’a pourtant ni piste scientifique ni expérience particulière en matière de forage. C’est un novice de l’industrie énergétique. Mais il l’a lu dans la Bible : il y a du pétrole dans la plaine de Maanit, au nord-est de Tel-Aviv, là même où il vient d’entreprendre ses forages. “Dieu m’a fixé un objectif : aider Israël à obtenir du pétrole”, déclare ce born-again Christian en feuilletant les Saintes Ecritures. Brown explique qu’une inspiration divine l’a incité à fonder sa propre compagnie, Zion Oil, afin d’aider Israël à accéder à l’indépendance énergétique. “Je suis convaincu que Dieu m’a parlé”, dit-il.
Le géologue de Zion, Stephen Pierce, et son responsable des forages, Stacy Cude, ont à leur actif plusieurs dizaines d’années d’expérience dans l’industrie pétrolière. Ils ont découvert de nombreux gisements pour le compte de compagnies comme Shell ou Superior, aujourd’hui propriété d’ExxonMobil. Comme leur patron, ce sont des born-again Christians, mais ils jurent que des éléments scientifiques étayent leur foi dans le projet. Toute découverte de pétrole serait un puissant coup de pouce politique et économique pour Israël, qui se trouve à un jet de pierre de quelques-uns des plus gros producteurs mondiaux (Irak, Arabie Saoudite et Koweït), mais n’a de bonnes relations avec aucun d’entre eux.
De nombreux chrétiens évangéliques américains sont de fervents partisans d’Israël sur le plan politique. Ils s’efforcent de convertir le plus de juifs possible au christianisme afin de préparer le retour du Christ et, croient-ils, la fin du monde.
En 2004, Pierce décrivait le potentiel du site de Maanit dans un article de l’Oil & Gas Journal en concluant : “Il existe une forte probabilité pour que Zion découvre un gisement significatif équivalant à quelque 484 millions de barils.” Une telle découverte ne serait qu’une goutte d’eau par rapport aux réserves pétrolières globales. La Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, l’Ouzbékistan et la Tunisie, par exemple, possèdent des réserves d’une taille comparable à celle du gisement décrit dans son article.
Il n’en reste pas moins que la découverte d’un tel gisement, quelle que soit son importance, pourrait avoir des conséquences significatives pour Israël. L’Etat hébreu importe tout son pétrole : les trois quarts proviennent de Russie et d’autres pays de l’ex-Union soviétique, le reste est acheté en Afrique occidentale, en Egypte et au Mexique.
La US Energy Information Administration a estimé la consommation israélienne de pétrole à 279 000 barils par jour en 2003, la dernière année dont les chiffres sont disponibles. La découverte d’un gisement de 484 millions de barils satisferait toute la consommation de pétrole du pays pendant près de cinq ans.
La quête de Brown a commencé en 1981, deux mois après sa conversion du catholicisme au christianisme born-again. Il entendit Jim Spillman, un évangéliste américain, évoquer la présence d’“une carte au trésor dans la Bible”. Brown admet qu’il eut tout d’abord quelques réserves, jusqu’à ce que Spillman, aujourd’hui décédé, “place une carte sur le rétroprojecteur et dessine la zone concernée”.
D’après Brown, les premiers indices pétroliers de la Bible se trouvent dans la Genèse (49 : 25). Ce verset énonce : “Que [Dieu] te bénisse !/bénédictions du ciel en haut,/bénédictions de l’abîme en bas […] !” Pour Brown, ces “bénédictions de l’abîme” sont une référence au pétrole.
D’autres chrétiens évangéliques ralliés à la cause d’Israël voient dans cette prophétie pétrolière une arme potentielle mise à la disposition de l’Etat hébreu dans sa lutte contre des voisins hostiles. Jan Willem Van der Hoeven, directeur de l’International Christian Zionist Center, à Jérusalem, affirme quant à lui que ce verset de la Genèse est une menace adressée aux producteurs de pétrole arabes. “Le verset de l’abîme en bas est un signe d’espoir que Dieu renverra au visage de ceux qui utilisent le pétrole comme une arme”, martèle-t-il. Mais il n’y a pas que la Genèse qui ait guidé Brown jusqu’à Maanit. Le Deutéronome (33 : 24) montre également le chemin avec les mots : “Béni soit Asher entre tous les fils ! Qu’il […] baigne ses pied dans l’huile.”
La carte plastifiée de Brown recensant les anciens territoires tribaux montre qu’Asher, un fils de Jacob, occupait une étroite bande le long de la côte septentrionale d’Israël, entre les villes actuelles d’Acco et d’Hadera. “Vous voyez ça ?” s’enquiert-il en désignant sur la carte une petite avancée de terre en forme de pied. “Notre permis de forer commence juste au-dessous. Vous voyez bien, il trempe son pied dans l’huile.” [Rappelons qu’en anglais pétrole se dit oil.]
Au cours du premier voyage qu’il fit en Israël après avoir vu la carte de Spillman, Brown raconte que Dieu le guida jusqu’aux versets de la “carte au trésor”. Il quitta aussitôt le poste de cadre à 200 000 dollars par an qu’il occupait dans une entreprise d’outillage industriel du Michigan, s’envola pour Jérusalem et se rendit au mur des Lamentations afin d’y prier pour qu’il y ait du pétrole en Terre sainte. Ce fut le premier d’une cinquantaine de déplacements en Israël.
Depuis lors, estime Brown, Zion a dépensé plus de 350 000 dollars dans le projet, dont une grosse partie consacrée à l’achat des licences d’exploitation auprès du gouvernement israélien. Avec un prix du pétrole aux alentours de 50 dollars le baril, le gisement de Maanit pourrait, s’il tient ses promesses, générer plus de 24 milliards de dollars.
Brown dit qu’il a l’intention de distribuer les bénéfices à des œuvres caritatives américaines et israéliennes. “Je suis convaincu que c’est pour ça que Dieu nous donne la fortune, dit-il. C’est pour aider autrui.”

Leah Krauss
USA Today, New York
Hashish not only gets people high; it can bring cancer low. Derivatives of the cannabis plant from which hashish is produced have been shown by a Hebrew University doctoral student to be effective in halting the growth of tumors in laboratory and animal tests. For her work, Natalya Kogan was one of the winners of a Kaye Innovation Award, presented during the recent 68th meeting of the HU board of governors.
Working under the supervision of Prof. Raphael Mechoulam at the Hebrew University School of Pharmacy (in collaboration with Prof. Michael Schlesinger at The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School and Prof. Ester Priel at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Kogan has developed new compounds – known as quinonoid cannabinoids – that parallel in their activity a group of anti-cancer drugs, the best known of which is daunomycin. But while daunomycin is toxic to the heart, Kogan, with Dr. Ronen Beeri and Dr. Gergana Marincheva of Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem, found that the quinonoid cannabinoids are much less cardiotoxic. The development of quinonoid compounds that display anticancer activity but are less toxic is a major therapeutic goal. Kogan is now continuing to investigate the mechanism of action of these promising compounds.
All the compounds synthesized by Kogan inhibited cancer cell growth in cell culture, and one of them was found to markedly reduce the volume of tumors in animal studies The cannabinoid quinones were found to act through a rather unique pathway of cancer cell destruction – by specific inhibition of topoisomerase II, an enzyme that participates in cell replication. Most of the known anti-cancer drugs are less selective.
The most active compound in the series developed by Kogan, as well as some other cannabinoids, were found by Kogan and HU Prof. Ruth Galilli to suppress the formation of the new blood vessels crucial for tumor growth, and much effort has been invested by researchers in the development of compounds with anti-angiogenic activity.
The annual Kaye Innovation Awards were established in 1994 by Isaac Kaye, a prominent British industrialist in the pharmaceutical industry, to encourage HU faculty, staff and students to develop innovative methods and inventions with commercial potential.
BIGGER AND BETTER
A greatly expanded Ma'agan Community Cancer Care Center was dedicated in Beersheba as part of Ben-Gurion University's recent 35th annual board of governors meeting. The center, established by BGU with help from the Israel Cancer Association through the generosity of the Benjamin and Seema Pulier Foundation of New York and its benefactors, Edith and Solomon Freedman, provides emotional and social support to cancer patients and their families. The new building, located at Rehov Har-Beka 13, replaces outgrown rented facilities.
Edy Freedman, a former social worker and herself a long-time survivor of cancer, said that with the help of Ma'agan, people can discover the "knowledge of their own strength to overcome cancer." Every year, 1,100 Negev residents are diagnosed with cancer, almost 40% of them from the FSU. Counseling and classes are offered in Hebrew, Russian and Arabic.
DON'T BLAME TEENS
Parents of teenagers frustrated by their children's inability to focus on more than one thing at a time can take hope: It's probably not their fault. A new study from University of Minnesota researchers finds evidence that the part of the brain responsible for multitasking continues to develop until late adolescence. The research, published in the May/June issue of Child Development, explored the development of the frontal cortex that lies from behind the eyes to just in front of the ears. This part of the brain controls the ability to think flexibly, control behavior when confronted with challenging situations, and juggle multiple pieces of information at the same time.
The researchers had children and young adults aged nine to 20 complete several behavioral tests to measure the functioning of their frontal cortex.
One task involved recognizing previously presented faces, while a second involved looking at the location of a dot on a computer screen, then, after a delay, indicating where the dot had been; both assessed the ability to use recognition or recall to guide future actions. A third task required that the youth remember multiple pieces of information in the correct sequence and sometimes re-order the information in their memory before responding to a question. Finally, the researchers required participants to search for hidden items in a way that demanded a high level of multitasking and strategic thinking.
They found that the ability to use recall-guided action to remember single pieces of spatial information developed until age 12, while the ability to remember multiple units of information developed until 15. However, strategic self-organized thinking, the type that demands a high level of multi-tasking skill, continues to develop until age 17.
"Our findings... indicate that the frontal lobe is continuing to develop until late adolescence in a manner that depends on the complexity of the task being demanded," said lead researcher Dr. Monica Luciana. "When we use tasks that would be challenging even for a healthy adult, it becomes apparent that teenagers are still developing the cognitive skills necessary to efficiently manage multiple pieces of information simultaneously."
Those skills improve over time, she says, as the connections between brain cells become more refined.
"These findings have important implications for parents and teachers who might expect too much in the way of strategic or self-organized thinking," she said.
A schizophrenia drug has been found to slow replication of the SARS virus in laboratory tests, but researchers won't know whether it can used to treat human cases until the next outbreak, a Chinese scientist said Monday.
Jiang Hualiang, vice director of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, is part of a team of Chinese and European researchers who found in laboratory tests that the drug cinanserin could combat the coronavirus, which causes SARS.
Cinanserin "strongly reduces" the virus's ability to replicate in virus cell cultures, the paper said.
Cinanserin was tested as a treatment for schizophrenia and mania in the early 1970s, but trials were halted after the drug was found to cause cancer in rats after about 18 months of use, Jiang said.
"For SARS it's a different case because we would not use it for a long time - just one or two months or several weeks," he said.
However, scientists won't know for certain whether the drug can control human SARS cases until there is another outbreak, he said. They are currently testing it on mice.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome killed 349 people in mainland China and sickened thousands worldwide before subsiding in July 2003. Another person died in April in China during a brief outbreak traced to a Beijing laboratory that handled the virus.

An experimental vaccine for AIDS patients developed at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, has shown promise in protecting their weakened immune system from infections.
Now in clinical trials, the vaccine was developed by Dr. Rivka Aboulafia-Lapid and colleagues at Hadassah, along with scientists at Kaplan Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. The vaccine, given to 13 patients in 33 injections, has so far shown itself to be non-toxic to patients and has doubled their level of white-blood T-cells called CD4, which are destroyed by the virus.
The research has already been published in the Journal of Clinical Virology and Vaccine, although the vaccine remains experimental and must be given to larger numbers of patients.
Aboulafia-Lapid said that the team's aim is to provide treatment supplementary to the AIDS "cocktail" taken on a daily basis to halt the destructive autoimmune process. The researchers are continuing to work on the vaccine thanks to grants from Hadassah's research and development arm, Hadassit, and other sources.
More patients are due to be vaccinated in Beersheba, Tel Aviv and France.
The idea of boosting the immune system with a vaccine was raised a decade ago by Prof. Henri Atlan of Hadassah's biophysics nuclear medicine department. The HIV virus causes harm not only by penetrating CD4 cells, but also by causing the body's own protective immune system to destroy these beneficial cells in an autoimmune process.
Because many AIDS patients have a weakened immune system even after the AIDS virus has been decimated by the "cocktail," Atlan and colleagues suggested that it was the autoimmune destruction of CD4 cells that was weakening the body.
Since 1998 the vaccine has been tested on 13 patients, including eight patients with the B strain of HIV (caucasians) and five with the C strain (blacks). Nine of those receiving the injections showed an increase in CD4 levels from 300 to 600. The other five have not completed the whole course of injections.

Le cancer de la peau fait des ravages…
19 Juin 2005
Alors que la saison estivale a commencé et que les plages du pays sont prises d’assaut le week-end, le ministère de la Santé a décidé de lancer une grande campagne d’information pour mettre en garde la population contre les méfaits du soleil.

Elle débutera la semaine prochaine. 400 antennes d’informations seront installées dans l’ensemble du pays. Une opération conjointe des caisses d’assurance maladie, de la ligue de lutte contre le cancer de la peau et de la ligue de chirurgie plastique.

On compte 20 000 nouveaux malades chaque année, mais 940 cas s’avèrent être des mélanomes malins. Environ 10% des malades décèdent des suites du mélanome, souvent parce qu'il n’a pas été diagnostiqué à temps. Un taux élevé, qui figure même parmi les plus forts au monde, juste après l’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande.

Les campagnes de prévention ont cependant fait leur effet car la maladie est malgré tout en baisse, du moins pour les cas de mélanome malin.
Cette baisse est plus sensible chez les femmes que les hommes d’au moins 20%. Et les cas de rémission sont désormais plus nombreux grâce à l’action du ministère de la Santé.

Le cancer de la peau frappe essentiellement la population juive du pays. Selon des statistiques, 4 à 8 cas par an sont décelés au sein de la communauté arabe israélienne. HA
Most physicians have their hands full taking care of patients in clinics and hospital wards, but Dr. Bernard Kouchner has a much heavier patient load – the people of the world, especially the poor and underprivileged.
It was to help empower them that he founded, in 1971, a non-profit organization called Doctors Without Borders (M dicins Sans Fronti res, or MSF), which in 1999 received the Nobel Peace Prize. But even though the French gastroenterologist left the organization (over its refusal to send a hospital ship to Vietnam) eight years after he established it, Kouchner has not abandoned his Sisyphean goal of ensuring health insurance for the whole world and providing lifesaving medication to people with HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases.
A lifelong socialist working within government frameworks for some 20 years, he served as France's minister of health, and before that as minister of state for humanitarian action and social integration. In 1999, he was hand-picked by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as his special representative in war-torn Kosovo, which he governed for two years.
Three years ago, Kouchner established and became chairman of the board of a Paris-based organization named ESTHER, which is the acronym for Ensemble Solidarit Therapeutique Hospitali re En R seau. The organization aims at improving the capacity of developing countries to provide medical treatment on a long-term basis through hospitals and social networks, often drafting wealthy countries to adopt projects in poor ones.
It also supplies support through non-profit organizations to develop a decentralized approach to the community-based and emotional and social aspects of care. ESTHER promotes measures to improve hospital hygiene, and works to prevent accidents involving exposure to blood. ESTHER volunteers evaluate the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. It has raised and spent millions of euros for work in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, C te d'Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Morocco, Senegal and Vietnam. He gave credit to Israeli doctors (from Hadassah University Medical Center) currently in Ethiopia treating poor patients (these are not Falash Mura waiting to move to Israel).
Kouchner was in Israel recently to receive an honorary doctorate from The Hebrew University. In an interview at Jerusalem's King David Hotel, the lithe, fit physician said how pleased he was to get the honor – one he had previously received from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Well familiar with this region because of many visits, including to the PA, he said he is especially close to Vice Prime Minister and Labor chairman MK Shimon Peres, whom he admires for his views on the establishment of a Palestinian state and making peace between Israel and the Arab countries.
The son of a Protestant mother and a Jewish father, and the grandson of a Jew who was murdered in Auschwitz, Kouchner said it could take decades, but he is staunchly optimistic that peace will reign here and that democracy will supplant dictatorships.
"The Hundred Years War lasted a century, but today the French and English are allies," he noted. "Wars are fought against one's enemies, but they end."
All this activism, he admits, leaves him little time to be at home with his famous French journalist-wife Christine Ockrent and his four grown children. But his ideals push him to defend the helpless instead of sitting at home treating private patients.
"In our day," he said, "no one deserves to die of a curable disease because he is poor. We know almost everything except how to convince people in the wealthiest countries to give all the inhabitants on Earth an equal chance."
HIS ACTIVISM began more than 30 years ago, when he was a young physician working with the Red Cross in Biafra with a colleague, Dr. Max R camier. A civil war – "the first war broadcast on TV" – broke out in eastern Nigeria, a region dominated by the Ibo tribe. In 1966, Nigeria was thrown into chaos by a series of violent coups. The central government was overthrown by the Ibos, followed by a military counter-coup. Thousands of Ibo civilians were killed, and survivors sought refuge in their homelands in the east. In 1967, when the eastern region threatened to secede from the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the government split the region into three states, leaving the Ibo without access to the sea and cut off from the oil-rich areas. The eastern region seceded and established the Republic of Biafra, leading to the eruption of a civil war that lasted 30 months.
Food shortages, he recalled sadly, led to the death by starvation of up to a million non-combatants. "We treated starving children whose stomachs were swollen from kwashiorkor. We took care of them in camp clinics, and they came back to life like dry plants that had finally been watered. But then we sent them home, only to see them return famished and dying because of the Nigerian army's food blockade. They would all perish – so light, so frail, in our hands."
Working for two years in Biafra and frustrated by the unwillingness of many organizations to provide medical care to those in need, Kouchner and other French physicians established MSF. Using the media and their own charisma to attract attention, they promoted it as the world's first non-governmental organization specializing in emergency medical assistance. In the years since, he has led medical teams to Rwanda, Cambodia, Thailand and El Salvador, and even worked secretly in Afghanistan.
He is outraged when told that doctors giving assistance to the poor and helpless in war-torn regions must be neutral. Thus MSF reserves the right to intervene to help people in need irrespective of prior political approval.
Volunteers not only demand freedom to carry out their medical mandate and decide for themselves who to help, but also insist on making human rights violations known and drawing attention to the causes of humanitarian catastrophes.
"To give medical care and keep quiet, to give medical care and let children die – for me that was clearly complicity. Borders," Kouchner noted, "are not respected by bacteria or viruses. They're not respected by bombs or bombardiers. There's no reason why they should be respected by the forces of good."
THE FIRST Nobel Peace Prize went to Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, who shared it with peace activist Fr d ric Passy. But the Red Cross is committed to neutrality, so after Biafra, Kouchner felt he had to form a new organization that could become involved without being neutral. The World Health Organization, he explained, sets guidelines for member countries and provides assistance, but is not in the field like MSF, which has sections in 18 countries. Each year, more than 2,500 volunteer doctors, nurses other medical professionals, logistics experts, water/sanitation engineers and administrators join 15,000 locally hired staff to provide medical aid in more than 80 countries.
His current fight – to pressure the world's governments to extend basic health insurance to all its residents – will be very difficult, and he is well aware of it. People have argued that the task is impossible, that it is too expensive, and that the needy don't have roads, hospitals or the infrastructure to take advantage of insurance even if they had it.

"How can we treat all of them?" Kouchner concludes. " 'It's too costly,' they say, but "the long history of medicine shows us we must start one by one, then thousands by thousands. No one deserves to die of a curable disease because he is poor. To send doctors all over the world is magnificent. We must carry on. But this is not enough.... It will take five, 10 or 30 years, but we must imagine a world health insurance – Patients Without Borders."

DÉFENSE CIVILE ET SÉCURITÉ DES POPULATIONS FACE AU TERRORISME

Quelles technologies face aux risques terroristes ?
Les populations civiles sont exposées aux risques terroristes. De nouvelles technologies contribuent à mieux identifier les menaces et à les prévenir. Des intervenants de premier plan ont accepté de vous faire partager les diagnostics qu'ils dressent sur les menaces actuelles, leur prise en compte au plan politique et les moyens mis en oeuvre pour promouvoir les nouvelles technologies de sécurité civile.

COMPTE RENDU DE LA CONFERENCE

Face au terrorisme, quelles technologies ?

A l’initiative conjointe de l'Association Technion France et du Haut Comité pour la Défense Civile s’est tenue une conférence sur les technologies qui permettent d’affronter la menace terroriste. Le sénateur Paul Girod, président du HCDC a souhaité la bienvenue aux nombreux participants en rappelant l’intérêt d’une rencontre qui pourrait déboucher sur une plus grande coopération bilatérale entre la France et Israël dans les domaines de la lutte antiterroriste.
Selon les évaluations avancées par le Président Jean-Louis Bruguière et le Député Alain Marsaud – lui-même ancien magistrat anti-terroriste - les populations civiles des démocraties sont de plus en exposées à la menace terroriste. Il a notamment été souligné que la question de la probabilité d’une action chimique, biologique ou à caractère nucléaire, n’était pas une question de probabilité, mais de savoir quand une telle action se produirait. Des moyens de renseignement importants permettent de conserver « un coup d’avance », mais les dangers persistent. Les deux intervenants ont insisté sur l’effet psychologique indéniable qui est recherché par ce type d’attentat pour déstabiliser l’économie en sapant le moral des citoyens. Le courage de la population civile israélienne et son attitude résiliente lors des vagues d’attentats ont été plusieurs fois évoqués comme un exemple de préparation qui n’existe pas encore dans les pays européens.
Cette présentation d’ensemble a été suivie d’interventions plus spécifiques sur les menaces biologiques avec Michel Curé, Médecin général des Armées et Président du groupe BIOTER. Le Délégué Général du Haut Comité de la Défense Civile, Christian Sommade, a présenté l’organisation française permettant de conjuguer tous les moyens d’information et d’action afin d’anticiper la menace et de secourir les populations touchées, par exemple dans le cas d’un attentat chimique dans le métro parisien.

La première table ronde qui a suivie à permis aux intervenants israéliens du Technion, les professeurs Moshé Eizenberg, VP pour la Recherche, Avi Marmur, chef du centre des Technologies de la Sécurité et l'ingénieur Yaron Honen, du laboratoire d'imagerie en 3D de la faculté des Sciences Informatiques, de présenter – sur un plan général, puis plus particulier – les technologies développées pour l’identification des terroristes, la surveillance ou des modes d’attaques.

Les industriels – partenaires de la rencontre – ont pu à leur tour présenter les technologies qu’ils développent. La société SAFRAN ( Bernard Didier) par ses systèmes de sécurité, la société Israël Aircraft Industry (Dr. David Harari) et le groupe CS (Jacques Coves). Le chef du Département commercial de l’Ambassade israélienne (Inon Elroï) a complété ce tableau par un panorama des capacités technologies de l’industrie israélienne.

Le mot de conclusion est revenu à Christian Sommade qui a appelé de ses vœux une plus grande coopération bilatérale entre la France et Israël en se félicitant que cette première conférence ait pu favoriser un échange de vues prometteur et d’une très grande qualité.

Les présentations pwpt des intervenants sont disponibles sur le site internet de l'Association Technion France www.technionfrance.org

PARTENAIRES DE LA CONFERENCE: HAUT COMITE POUR LA DEFENSE CIVILE, IAI, CS, ALPLOG, CCFI

Vous voulez faire une visite virtuelle de la réserve naturelle biblique, faîtes www.neot-kedumim.org.il ; vous voulez faire de l'écotourisme, www.kibbutzlotan.com ; vous voulez entrer à l'Institut de l'environnement de l'Arava, www.arava.org - Vous voulez tout savoir sur le grand moufti al- Husseini, faîtes  http://aval31.free.fr & http://grandmufti.free.fr - Vous voulez connaître logos et symboles des organisations terroristes, faîtes www.adl.org/terrorism/symbols - Vous voulez visiter le judaïsme à Venise, faîtes www.jewishvenice.com - www.doge.it/ghetto/indexi.htm . Vous voulez en savoir plus sur le basket soft, appelé "netball", faîtes www.geocities.com/netball.il

source: Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem Report & Haaretz                contribution: Albert SOUED

la série de Tsedekinfo est en ligne grâce à www.sefarad.org , par revues hébergées en français