WhatFinger


ISRAEL21c

ISRAEL21c was founded in 2001, in the wake of the Second Intifada, to broaden public understanding of Israel beyond typical portrayals in the mainstream media. The organization’s founders – Israeli-American technology executives – understood the great power of the Internet and developed a first-of-its kind online product with global appeal and reach.

Most Recent Articles by ISRAEL21c:

Breakthrough in advancement of reconstructive surgery

While modern medicine has made leaps and bounds in the field of tissue and organ reconstruction over the years, it is still limited by one major drawback: Human beings don’t have spare parts. If a car-accident survivor needs a reconstructed jaw, for instance, surgeons must build it from a piece of the patient’s fibula bone and the surrounding soft tissue and blood vessels, in a procedure known as autografting.
- Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Scientists discover high background radiation cuts cancer risk

Scientists discover high background radiation cuts cancer riskHigher background radiation levels lead to lower levels of lung, pancreatic and colon cancers in both American men and women as well as lower rates of brain and bladder cancers in men, according to a new study in Biogerontology by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Nuclear Research Center Negev scientists. In fact, they found, life expectancy increased with exposure to higher natural radiation levels.
- Thursday, May 6, 2021

Bacteria in cancer cells can be harnessed to fight tumors

A 3D immunofluorescent image of melanoma cells (magenta) infected with bacteria (turquoise); cell nuclei are blue. Image courtesy of Weizmann Institute of ScienceThe immune system can find bacteria residing within cancer cells and harness them to provoke an immune reaction against the tumor, according to a study published in Nature. An international research team, led by researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, says this discovery may explain why the gut microbiome is known to affect the success of immunotherapy treatments for cancer.
- Thursday, May 6, 2021

A botanical cure for construction’s heavy carbon emissions

The kenaf plant has many uses in producing sustainable materials. Photo courtesy of Kenaf VenturesYou can’t talk about architectural discourse in the 21st century without discussing sustainable design. Known for its high rate of carbon dioxide emissions and contributions to air pollution relative to other cornerstone sectors, the buildings and construction industry is gradually implementing greener standards to reduce its heavy ecological footprint.
- Thursday, May 6, 2021

Here’s a cool green way to upcycle millions of old tires

Here’s a cool green way to upcycle millions of old tiresIf you’ve ever seen a tire graveyard piled high with trashed rubber, you can easily understand that Israeli company EcoTech Recycling has a green gem of an idea. EcoTech’s nontoxic process produces a unique material, Active Rubber (AR), from end-of-life tires. With1.6 billion tires manufactured annually, and 290 million tires discarded each year in the United States alone, tires are the world’s largest source of waste rubber.
- Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Skin cancer diagnosis is about to undergo a revolution

Skin cancer diagnosis is about to undergo a revolutionWhen Ofir Aharon was finishing his PhD in electro-optics engineering, his mother was diagnosed with melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer. He decided to channel his knowledge into inventing a potentially lifesaving device that could detect unique patterns of light movements in the skin before visible signs such as changes in pigmentation show up on the surface.
- Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Pioneering study aims to enable humans to talk to whales

Pioneering study aims to enable humans to talk to whalesWe all know whales communicate with one another, but what if we could understand what they say, and communicate our own thoughts back to them? That’s what marine scientists from the University of Haifa, and top universities across the world hope to do with a new five-year research study to decipher how Sperm whales communicate and whether their speech patterns can be replicated so humans can communicate with them.
- Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Flexible robotic ‘mini surgeon’ set to ease hysterectomies

Flexible robotic ‘mini surgeon’ set to ease hysterectomiesAn estimated 600,000 American women have hysterectomies every year to treat a variety of non-cancerous conditions. And although the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends transvaginal – rather than abdominal — hysterectomy as the safest, least invasive and most cost-effective approach with the fastest recovery time, only 15 to 20 percent of uterus removals are done this way.
- Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Study shows junk food harms children’s bone quality

Study shows junk food harms children’s bone qualityParents may want to consider limiting their children’s consumption of ultra-processed packaged foods not only because these foods can lead to obesity and diabetes. They may also stunt bone growth. A definitive link between ultra-processed foods and reduced bone quality in the development stage was revealed by a team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
- Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Israeli scientists discover ‘hunger switch’ in the human brain

Israeli scientists discover ‘hunger switch’ in the human brainWhen Hebrew University of Jerusalem medical student Hadar Israeli studied a family with multiple members suffering from severe obesity and plagued with constant hunger, she found that they all shared a common mutation affecting a specific receptor in the brain: Melanocortin Receptor 4, or MC4. Though scientists have long known that the MC4 receptor was in some way connected to hunger and appetite, Israeli helped uncover just how instrumental it was in regulating our sensations of hunger and fullness.
- Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Yogurt as a cure for Covid-19 and Crohn’s disease?

Yogurt as a cure for Covid-19 and Crohn’s disease?Can yogurt cure Covid-19 and Crohn’s disease? Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have identified molecules in kefir, a type of yogurt, that have the potential to combat pathogenic bacteria by blocking communication between cells. This approach also holds promise for fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Cure for deadly brain cancer may be on its way

PhD student Eilam Yeini and Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro at Tel Aviv University. Photo courtesy of TAUGlioblastoma is a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, accounting for half of all primary brain cancers. It has a 40 percent survival rate after a year and just 5% after five years, even after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered a potential treatment, tested on mice and 3D lab models so far.
- Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Algae cleared from Caribbean beaches can power hotels

Algae cleared from Caribbean beaches can power hotelsIsraeli businessman and entrepreneur Ygdal Ach was vacationing with his family in the town of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic when he came across a disturbing sight – huge amounts of smelly brown seaweed scattered all over the shoreline, marring what otherwise would be a perfect beach experience. “When we got there, we were all waiting to see the amazing beaches and the clear waters. When we woke up the following morning, we suddenly saw that the beach is full of brown seaweed that smells bad, and my youngest daughter wasn’t willing to get in the water,” he recounts. “We were all very disappointed with the situation and I tried to understand what was going on there.”
- Sunday, March 28, 2021

The glaucoma treatment that only takes seconds

The glaucoma treatment that only takes secondsOne hundred and forty million people suffer from glaucoma, a degenerative eye disease that can lead to blindness. It is most prevalent among people aged 60 and up. Glaucoma is generally preventable, either by eye drops or laser surgery. Patients have poor compliance with drops, and laser surgery is cumbersome, uncomfortable and usually performed only by a specialist.
- Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Aspirin users may have protection against Covid-19

Aspirin users may have protection against Covid-19Healthy people taking aspirin regularly to prevent cardiovascular disease had a 29 percent lower likelihood of Covid-19 infection compared to aspirin non-users, according to an observational epidemiological study from Israel published in The FEBS Journal. Researchers from Leumit Health Services, Bar-Ilan University and Barzilai Medical Center analyzed data of 10,477 members of the Leumit HMO who had been tested for Covid-19 from February 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020.
- Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Has Israel just found the cure for Covid?

Dr. Nadir Arber in his lab where EXO-CD24 was developed. Photo courtesy of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical CenterEven with Israel’s world-leading rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations, drugs to treat Covid patients are in desperate need across the world. Two such drugs developed in Israel show great promise in clinical trials: EXO-CD24 and Allocetra.
- Thursday, February 11, 2021

What the world can learn about immunity from Israel’s vaccine rollout

What the world can learn about immunity from Israel’s vaccine rolloutMore than 1.3 million Israelis have already received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech. The extraordinarily fast and organized vaccination campaign in Israel is unmatched per capita anywhere in the world. By design, this fast rollout is providing Pfizer – and the rest of us – with the first critical real-world data on brand-new mRNA vaccines.
- Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Recycling single-use plastic with bacteria

Recycling single-use plastic with bacteriaEvery year, more than 300 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide, and around half of the produced materials are designed for single-use purposes. In fact, more plastic has been produced over the last decade than throughout the whole last century. Its inexpensive cost, its rigid and flexible properties, and its wide versatility have facilitated and normalized a culture conditioned to waste, thereby degrading and polluting the environment.
- Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Scientists develop new gene therapy for deafness

Delivering healthy genetic material into the inner ear cells of mice with a genetic defect that causes deafness enables the cells to function normally, according to a new study from Tel Aviv University (TAU). The novel treatment prevented the gradual deterioration of hearing in these mice. It could lead to a breakthrough in treating children born with various mutations that eventually cause deafness. The study, led by Prof. Karen Avraham of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, was published in EMBO Molecular Medicine on December 22.
- Saturday, January 9, 2021

From aging to chronic wounds, is hyperbaric oxygen a cure-all?

From aging to chronic wounds, is hyperbaric oxygen a cure-all?It’s easy to see why Prof. Shai Efrati has been flooded with inquiries since the publication of his study showing that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can reverse aging at the cellular level. Is this really the fountain of youth? ISRAEL21c had a Zoom chat with the Israeli physician to find out more about HBOT’s wide-ranging benefits. Efrati explains that in HBOT, patients breathe in high-pressure oxygen at various concentrations through a mask or a hood, while seated inside a pressure chamber, to stimulate
- Saturday, January 9, 2021

Sponsored