Israel Active

Israel Technion’s contributions to the world’s scientific progress is amazing. Graduates have invented memory sticks, instant messaging, PDF compression, Better Place electric cars, quasi-crystals, “NaNose” cancer detector, ultrasound cardiac imaging, and ultrasound tumour destruction.

Israel’s Bar-Ilan University hosted the second annual Winter School on Cryptography. Attending were 130 of the top international brains in the subject that encodes information and secures the Internet from hackers and data leakage.

(Thanks to Yoeli) The National Academy of Sciences' Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium program has entered into a new partnership with the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. NAS symposia advance the career of scientists – ten of whom have received the Nobel Prize.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin took Israel’s President Shimon Peres on a special tour of the company's headquarters. At the start of the tour, Brin arranged a surprise for the president - a virtual journey back to his childhood in Poland. “Israel is a pioneer in research and development in Google," Brin told Peres, "and we have a great appreciation for Israeli developers.”

The Argentina Israel Program for Industrial Research and Development is offering grants totalling $160,000 for research and development projects that demonstrate innovation and potential application in the market.

Three Israeli universities (Hebrew U, Bar-Ilan and Haifa) are to establish a centre for researching the sea anemone Nematostella, which has the ability to restore damaged body parts. (If they can stop the jellyfish from stinging me during June then I’ll be happy.)

“Burka” spectacles conceal undesired female images; the “Hechsher Sniffer” checks your food is kosher before you consume it; and a “Shidduch” (matchmaker) app for the iPhone.

(Thanks to NoCamels) Israel’s Water-Gen specializes in water generation and water treatment. Their technology extracts water from the ambient air humidity, and turns it into drinking water. The system is operated by solar or electric energy.

(Thanks to Yishai Fleisher and www.JewishPress.com) I reported the story previously, but this new 9-minute video shows the first and largest solar power farm in the Middle East – at Kibbutz Ketura. It will generate 40 megawatts of power – over one third of Eilat’s electrical requirements.

Israeli start-up Onavo’s Extend application compresses downloaded data and saves the iPhone user 80% of roaming charges. Onavo is just one of the 150 Israeli companies exhibiting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.