Israel Active

Israel’s Ormat Industries has finished building the Don Campbell geothermal power plant in Mineral County, Nevada. The 16-megawatt power station is named after the late Ormat employee who identified the geothermal field.

Technion’s Professor Mark Talesnik empowers his students to change the world. Their first project was to build 62 sustainable biomass reactors for a Nepal village. They generate methane for energy, recycle waste into fertilizer rather pollute the water, and save using wood to produce harmful smoke.

(Thanks to NoCamels.com) Israel’s Moti Cohen builds aquaponic farms that provide people with both fish and plants to eat. The crops feed off the waste created by the fish, while the fish thrive on the oxygen made by the crops. No waste or fertilizer. Moti has been advising the UN on aquaponics.

(Thanks to Uri) Israelis Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir have invented “seam-carving” also known as re-targeting. You can now reduce or enlarge the width of a photo without changing its height or distorting the content. It helps the easy transfer of images to mobile phone screens, for example.

Two scientific experiments designed by grade 8 to 10 Israeli school students were launched to the International Space Station, where astronauts will perform them in zero gravity. Holon students are testing the formation of sugar crystals and Mateh Yehuda students are looking to mix oil and water.

The Israel Technion demonstrates its eco-friendly fuel cell that works immediately you pour water into a container of activated Aluminum powder. See it powering model boats and cars. It is 10-15 times more powerful than the equivalent Lithium-ion battery.

Israel’s Tonara iPad application displays electronic sheet music for each performer. The new version can follow any number of notes played simultaneously on any number of different instruments, track the user's current position in the score and turn the page at the right moment.

PointSwitch, from Israel’s PointGrab is designed to control home appliances via pointing and gestures. The PointSwitch chip can detect gestures up to 15 feet away and under all lighting conditions. PointGrab is working with manufacturers to embed its chips in “smart” appliances.

Tel Aviv is the venue for the PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) Feb 2014 Winter School. The event begins with a workshop on Israeli innovation in High Performance Computing. Delegates include from Turkey, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

Ha’aretz reports that the water flowing through Israel’s nature sites has increased tenfold over the past decade, and it’s expected to continue increasing due to new arrangements for supplying water to agriculture and the growing use of desalinated water.