Israel Active

Israel’s Lavie Bio (reported previously) has reported successful vineyard trials of its two leading bio-fungicides LAV311 and LAV312 for bunch rot diseases.

Students at Israel’s Technion Institute won the MicroBiome-Push project of “Food Solutions” - an educational program of the European food consortium, EIT Food. They used a naturally occurring bacteriophage (safe to humans) to destroy the bacteria that spoils natural fruit juice.

Israel’s Technion Institute hosted the 34th annual conference of the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST) - the first to be held on-line. This year’s theme was “Bridging High-tech, Food-tech and Health: Consumer-oriented Innovations” and focused on the future of world food.

Israel’s Xtend (reported previously) previously made drones only for military purposes, for example, to intercept some 2500 arson kites and balloons from Gaza. Its latest use, though, was civilian – delivering coronavirus test kits to a ship at sea so it could safely dock at Haifa.

Israel’s Atlas LTA is developing a new innovative generation of airships. Their uses include transporting heavy cargo (especially offshore), fighting fires, construction cranes, humanitarian aid delivery and tourism. They are eco-friendly, low cost, require no runways and can fly up to 120km / hour.

Israeli-based NILIT manufactures fabric made with its Sensil BodyFresh additive. Microbe Investigations AG (MIS), a microbiological testing services lab showed that the fabric demonstrated a 99.85% reduction in viral activity.

100 students from the Jerusalem College of Technology attended virtually the 5th LevTech Great Minds Hackathon. It was won by a team of four ex-US immigrants who created software for Hebrew predicative text. The software autocorrects and adds vowels to Hebrew words.  (I need this!) (Hebrew site)

Cutting edge Israeli solutions were showcased at Oregon’s annual TechFestNW, held on-line this year. , and promoted their Covid-19 related technologies. In addition, for the first time, 10 Israeli companies participated in the event’s PitchfestNW pitch competition.

Professor Jacob Ziv of Israel’s Technion Institute is the first Israeli to be awarded the Medal of Honor by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Among his achievements, he co-invented the Wyner-Ziv algorithm and the Lempel-Ziv algorithm used to compress data (ZIP, GIF etc.).

Rice sustains half of humanity, but its cultivation uses 30% - 40% of global freshwater and causes 10% of world methane emissions. Israel’s Netafim has just tested drip-irrigation of 2,470 acres of rice fields in Europe and Asia. For the same yield it used 70% less water and caused zero emissions.