Israel Active

Scientists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute brought their unique “Science on tap” lectures in bars (see previously) to the bars and taverns of Belgrade Serbia. They partnered Serbian scientists on Serbian National Science Day, to make science accessible over a glass of beer and Balkan raki.

Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) has several projects in New York City (see previously). Now it has inaugurated a first-of-its-kind global center for startups focusing on climate tech, but including clean energy, transportation, water treatment, food tech, waste reduction, and the supply chain.

The U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), has helped fund breakthroughs in robotics, cancer diagnostics and therapies, brain defect reversal, space exploration, and chemical warfare protection. Scientists in BSF programs have won Nobels and Turing Awards.

The Israel Science Foundation (see previously) has awarded Breakthrough Research Grants to eleven outstanding scholars. They include for therapeutics for deafness, link between sleep disorders and brain diseases, the energetic state of proteins, big data, bacteria to fight viruses, and blood aging.

Israel’s More Foods (see previously) takes crushed pumpkin and sunflower seeds from oil makers and turns them into clean-label vegan ‘meat’ for restaurants and caterers. The alternative meats, are certified kosher, contain 27% protein, 7% fiber, iron, calcium, potassium and just 1% saturated fat.

Technology developed by Microsoft’s Israeli R&D team enables video streaming to millions of on-line participants without overloading a company’s network. The secure, easy to install technology was developed by Israel’s Peer5 (see previously), which Microsoft acquired last year.

Israel’s HomeBiogas (see previously) is offering household versions of its anaerobic digester, which turns organic waste into gas. Your food waste could produce enough biogas for two hours’ cooking a day, and a rich fertilizer for your garden. Plus, you help the environment. Over 15,000 sold already.

The acai is a palm tree that grows in Brazil’s tropical region of the Amazon basin. Its fruit is of great importance in the Brazilian economy. Israeli agriculture tech, including precise irrigation and sensors, will now allow these trees to be cultivated in drier areas in the heart of Brazil.

Israel’s Bestree, a spinoff from Israel’s MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, has developed avocados from cultivated tissue rather than from seeds. Using sterilized tissue prevents transmission of diseases, improves the quality of the fruit, and speeds up the growth process.

Israel’s Future Meat Technologies (now Believer) see previously) has produced its first cultivated lamb, which it says looks, cooks and tastes like conventional ground lamb meat, without harming a single animal. The company isolated fibroblast cells from Awassi sheep in 2019.