Israel Active

During the feast of Succot (Tabernacles), the city of Kfar Saba is hosting a unique type of municipal Succa – a “Solar Succa,” to operate on solar energy only. The solar panels, on the environmentally friendly booth, absorb the sun’s energy during the day and operate LED lights during darkness hours.

Watch the new video from the Jewish Virtual Library.

(Thanks to NoCamels) Israeli startup Hoozin has launched a social group-messaging app for mobile smart-phone users that aims to simulate the way interactions between groups of people happen in real life. Hoozin displays users as if sitting around a table, where messages are ‘stacked’ much like playing cards.

The 290-meter high production platform for Israel’s Tamar natural gas field is taller than Israel's tallest skyscraper. The platform has left Texas, after 18 months of construction, and will arrive in Israel on board the largest barge of its kind. Production at the Tamar field is scheduled to begin in March 2013, and will (hopefully) supply natural gas to the Israeli economy for decades.

Israeli Technion graduate Maria Chudnovsky has just been awarded a $500,000 “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. As professor at Columbia University she has succeeded in proving “graph classification theory” and now works on real-world applications of the theory.

Rehovot-based Silentium has implemented silencing technology that reduces the noise of data centre computers, air-conditioning systems and even cooker hoods by up to 90%. Silentium’s “anti-noise” signal destroys the original sound wave and cancels out the noise. It reduces stress and heat and saves money.

Israel’s Embassy representative Yahel Vilan gave a message to Sri Lankan farmers at AgriTech 2012 in Colombo. Sri Lankan agriculture is not far behind that of Israel. It just needs a little Israeli help to bridge the last mile.

Israelis Arik Bar-Erez and Kobi Rein have invented Q-Fog – the world’s first spray device for cyclists. The lightweight Q-Fog provides 400 sprays of cooling water that evaporates of your body. The Israelis are now seeking funding via crowdsourced fundraising site Indiegogo.

UltraClean is an automatic non-touch cotton towel dispenser, with a self-laundering system inside, meaning the towel never needs to be replaced. Compared to hot-air dryers and paper towels, UltraClean avoids recycling germs, reduces CO2 emissions and eliminates paper-waste.

Israeli high school students beat 80 other countries to win first prize at the 20th annual First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics competition, held in Warsaw. 14 Israelis won prizes including overall first for Yuval Katznelson, for his research of energy in unique gases found in charcoal fibres.