Showing posts with label Ukraine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ukraine. Show all posts

Israel Can Prevent It


I usually publicize the positive achievements of the Jewish State. This week, however, I want to illustrate that much of Israel’s work also goes into counteracting the negative side of life in the modern world.

Disease prevention is a top priority of Israeli medical research.  Israel’s Avraham Pharmaceuticals has just announced successful interim results in a Phase 2b clinical trial of ladostigil, which prevents patients suffering mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from progressing to the more serious Alzheimer’s disease.  Meanwhile, New Jersey Department of Health has approved the OncoGxSelect diagnostic test for lung cancer developed by Israel’s Rosetta Genomics.  The test can help clinicians prevent the disease spreading by detecting genetic mutations responsible for the tumors.

The recent innovations of two Israeli companies will help prevent heart attacks.  First, Israel’s Eximo has developed a patented hybrid catheter, which is connected to a pulsed laser system, for the treatment of blocked arteries associated with Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD).  Then Israel’s DiACardio has just won the 2015 Shengjing Global Innovation Award in Beijing China, for its revolutionary software to decode echocardiograms. 

The mission of “Eye from Zion” is to prevent permanent blindness.  Volunteer doctors from the Israeli-Jewish organization performed cornea surgery, plastic surgery and removed tumors and cataracts to restore the eyesight of 90 adults and children in the Muslim country of Kyrgyzstan - many patients had been blind for years.  Next, a recent study by the Israeli Health Ministry as to why the incidence of HIV was six times less in Israeli men than those in Netherlands or France, revealed that circumcision prevented the disease from spreading in the heterosexual community.  And if you are concerned about preventing potential development problems in your baby, you may wish to join the on-line community launched by Israel Technion Professor Eli Ben-Sasson and his wife Ayelet. With their CROwd-based INteractive Clustering (CROINC) site, parents can check their child’s progress with other parents and compare against actual scientific and medical facts.


Israelis work globally on the ground, preventing drought, hunger and epidemics.  Israeli water technology is benefiting hundreds of millions in China, Latin America and Africa.  Israel’s TAHAL Group is to construct and operate a water supply system for 131 villages in the Indian state of Karnataka. Israeli experts are speaking at JNF water summits in 10 US cities.  The Philippines is to use Israeli greenhouse technology to increase food production.  And Israel’s Evogene is developing crops with microbial properties to prevent infestation from insects.  Meanwhile, Israel maybe unable currently to prevent natural disasters, but IDF humanitarian missions have prevented the subsequent loss of thousands of lives in Japan, Haiti, Nepal and the Philippines.


Above the ground, there has been phenomenal recent demand for the C-MUSIC system from Israel’s Elbit, as a countermeasure to prevent terrorist missile attacks launched at civilian and military aircraft.  And further up, in outer space, Israel and the US have signed the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) agreement to prevent satellites and other objects colliding in space and ensure safe spaceflight operations.

One disease that Israel cannot prevent is anti-Semitism, but it can prevent Diaspora Jews suffering its effects, by bringing them home to the Jewish State.  With help from our Christian friends, 108 Jews from war-torn Ukraine just arrived to a warm welcome at Ben-Gurion Airport, to make a new start in the land of their spiritual forefathers.  And children of the on-going massive wave of French immigration were treated to free summer camps in order to prevent problems with childcare during the school holidays.
Finally, Israeli lifeguards, naval police and the Shavei Zion diving club all worked together to prevent a tragedy for a dolphin that had stranded itself on the rocks at Acre (Akko) beach.  Swimmers watched in amazement as the exhausted animal was rescued and then taken for medical treatment by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Israel – where prevention is as good as a cure.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com




Just look at us Go


Just before the first Passover, over 3,500 years ago, Moses demanded of the Egyptian Pharaoh to “Let my People Go”. I’m sure that today Moses would be proud of the lengths to which the modern Jewish nation goes, in order to benefit humanity.

Israeli scientists are constantly going where no one has gone before.  Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have gone deep into the behavior of a mutant gene to discover a new molecular mechanism that governs how neuro-degenerative diseases such as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) attacks motor neurons.  They have gone even further and identified that the protein MIF inhibits this mechanism.  Meanwhile, Israel’s BrainTech 2015 Conference has brought top international brain technologists to Tel Aviv to learn about the latest innovative ‘brain initiatives’ going on around the world.  And would you like to know what is going on in someone’s brain?  Well the winning project at this year’s Brainihack in Tel Aviv, Israeli-developed Emochat, used an Israeli Neurosteer Brain Computer Interface device to interpret another person’s emotions based on their brain activity.

In other parts of the body, Israeli scientists have engineered tiny robots to enable cancer-killing drugs to go directly to a tumor.  And two Israeli companies, Vectorious Medical and SHL Telemedicine are going forward with their systems that go over wireless networks to perform remote monitoring of heart patients. 




Israel’s humanitarian workers go to any lengths to save lives.  The surgeons of Israel’s Save A Child’s Heart (SACH) regularly go into action to treat sick children from Syria, Iraq, or Jordan. And every Tuesday Palestinian Arab children from Gaza and Judea & Samaria arrive at Israel’s Wolfson medical center in Holon for treatment and check-ups by SACH doctors.  Then, whenever a natural disaster strikes citizens of a far away country, the Israeli organization IsraAID is always one of the first to go to their aid.  Residents of the tiny islands of Vanuatu called the Israelis “a light unto the nations” as IsraAID distributed over 40 tons of rice, flour and drinking water to residents of the Tongoa and Mataso islands that were devastated by Cyclone Pam.

Israel is going from strength to strength as its next generation follows in the footsteps of its Nobel Prize-winning scientists.  Twelve Israeli teenagers won the top prizes in the Intel-Israel Young Scientists Competition in Jerusalem.  Their projects covered medicine, mathematics, linguistics, music, anthropology and satellite technology.  All twelve will go to the finals in Pittsburgh and Milan and receive academic scholarships.  And Israel’s Center for Educational Technology has been going into the classroom to enroll hundreds of Israeli middle and high schools in the biggest computer-programming contest in Israeli history.  Students can win a share of prizes totaling NIS 100,000 by writing computer code using CodeMonkey - an Israeli interactive computer game.

Israeli entrepreneurs and innovators have gone far and wide recently:

-         To Barcelona, where crowds flocked to the Israel pavilion at the Mobile World Congress to see the innovative Israeli products and apps on show.

-         To New York, where around 250 Israeli startups and leading investors are taking part in the Israel Dealmakers Summit, which this year focuses on digital media, cleantech, Web infrastructure, medical equipment, big data and cloud computing.

-         Into orbit, where Israel’s Intelescope Solutions is transforming the forestry industry, using drone and satellite imagery to produce an accurate inventory of forests in the US, Canada, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, India, and China.

-         Into kids educational games, where the 350 games developed by Israel’s TabTale have been downloaded 600 million times.

-         And into social enterprises, where Impact Investing Israel has organized Israel’s first Impact Investing Conference to motivate investors and startups to go and develop real tangible and measurable benefits to mankind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP4t3j4ZTAQ
 
  
Israelis go out of their way to help others.  On Good Deeds Day, which this year was on 24 March, a record number of Israeli volunteers joined in 10,000 projects, such as going in to neighborhoods to clean up nature parks and beaches, to distribute food to the needy and to go and help the handicapped and disadvantaged.  And as we go into the season of our Freedom, 110 Ukrainian Jews made their Exodus to Israel in a special refugee rescue flight sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

To finish, here is a video of Technion’s go-getting engineering students going speedily through a “moving” account of the Passover story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baQfqoZrEvI
 


Finally, please go and try out IsraelActive.com - my brand new on-line database of positive news stories from Israel.  Now anytime you wish you can go and search easily through 7000 news articles about the beneficial work that Israel is doing on almost every subject and in every part of the world.

Here in Israel, it’s all go!

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

Far Out Miracles From Israel


The festival of Purim celebrates a series of remarkable events over 2500 years ago when the exiled Jewish people were delivered from annihilation.  Having returned home, the Jewish State is now delivering astonishing life-enhancing treatments, products, services and technologies to far-flung regions of the world.

Israel has recently been reaching out far and wide to tackle some of the most devastating diseases affecting mankind.  We could soon see the end of malaria, thanks to researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who have developed a method for disrupting the defense mechanism of the parasite that killed over half a million people in 2013 - 90 percent in Africa.  The treatment of heart disease could be revolutionized in a joint Israeli-UK project to use pulsating light to regulate newly implanted heart tissue generated by stem cells. 

Brain disease treatments will be advanced following the international BrainTech 2015 conference in Tel Aviv.  Also by the 21 countries participating in the Human Brain Project, co-directed by Professor Henry Markram, formerly of Israel’s Weizmann Institute.  And take a look at this long-range system from Israel’s LifeGraph to allow psychiatrists anywhere in the world to monitor the mental illness of their patients by smartphone.


Israel’s far-sighted assistance has been crucial in supporting international efforts to fight Islamist extremists as testified by the Nigerian Government, which thanked Israel for its provision of training and support in tackling Boko Haram.  Israeli aid organization IsraAid has been helping Kurdish, Yazidi and Christian refugees in northern Iraq who have escaped Islamic State rule.  Israeli doctors are also treating desperately sick Iraqi Kurds and Christians who have made the long, dangerous journey to the Jewish State. 

Israel is bringing its technical expertise to far-away countries that are currently undergoing upheaval.  In Ukraine, a new joint program, entitled “Israel-Ukraine Tech Bridge” aims to help the troubled country become a “high-tech miracle” like Israel.  Meanwhile, Kosovo’s former foreign minister Enver Hoxhaj sees the rise of the State of Israel as a model for Kosovo in its struggle for independence and expressed admiration for the achievements of the Jewish state.  And in the Muslim state of Azerbaijan, Israel is helping the government defend itself against a growing number of cyber security attacks.  Finally, the East African nation of Rwanda has selected Israel as its “country of choice” to strengthen business ties, innovation and promote investment.

Moving on, we heard good news recently about to some far-out Israeli innovations.  It can be difficult for the disabled to keep in touch over long distances when they are unable to touch the buttons of their phone.  But they can operate the Israeli-developed Sesame Enable smartphone simply by moving their head.  The Sesame Enable has just won a $1 million Verizone Powerful Answers Award. 


The appropriately named Israeli startup Beyond Verbal has opened new pathways to how humans interact with machines.  Its new Empath app recognizes human moods, attitudes and emotional characteristics from human voice intonations in real-time. 

And just look how far Israel’s IronSource has come in its miraculous five-year journey to become a billion-dollar company.  Every day global multinationals use IronSource’s software to install over 7 million applications onto desktops and mobiles from any location in the world.



Israel has been using its “magic touch” internationally.  Top U.S. Latino Media and Entertainment leaders have come to Israel in order find out how to bring the ‘magic of the movies’ back to the Latino community.  Meanwhile, 248 international chess stars from 33 countries were treated to Israeli mind-reading magic acts at “the best opening ever” of the 2015 European Chess Championship in Jerusalem.  Israel has even worked its magic in persuading Jordan to sign a major water agreement that may bring the Dead Sea back to life. 

Finally, you don’t have to go very far in Israel to travel huge distances in time.  Standing at the top of the new Kishle building exhibition, adjacent to Jerusalem’s Tower of David, you can gaze down through 3000 years of history.  Layer upon layer, back to the foundations of the First Temple, built when Jews first came to the Land of Israel.

We’re back – and the miracles continue. 

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com


Israel is Getting it Together



In this week’s blog, I will illustrate how the Hebrew word “beyachad” (together) typifies the Israeli approach to innovating a better world.

Israel and the US continue to move closer together economically. The Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation recently approved $8.3 million in new funding for 11 projects where US and Israeli companies are working together.  Next, the new Israeli branch of US technology innovator Bell Labs is promoting itself as a new avenue for Israeli PhD graduates to pursue research careers in Israel.  Then, American Internet and media giant AOL announced that it is investing $5million in a joint US-Israeli video research project at the Technion-Cornell Institute.  AOL already has an Israeli R&D center.  And finally, US camera-maker Kodak is looking to acquire Israeli tech startups to help rebuild the company as a leader in digital printing.

Many countries realize that they need to get together with Israel if they are to tackle water scarcity and wastewater problems.  The University of Chicago has sought out Israel's Ben-Gurion University to help develop radical new approaches that may one day rejuvenate the world's water-starved regions.  Scotland’s BDS idiots must be “drowning their sorrows” following the successful UK pilot project of the recycling technology from Israel’s Applied CleanTech for wastewater - at Scottish Water!

Israeli biotechs are developing treatments that work together with the body’s immune system in order to beat cancer.  Israel’s cCAM has just received US FDA approval to commence trials of its CM-24, which targets a protein that blocks the immune system’s ability to destroy cancer cells.  Israel’s Compugen has several candidate drugs that target these proteins and has enlisted John Hopkins University in the US to help assess them.  And Israel’s Vaxil Biotherapeutics has reported that its cancer vaccine, ImMucin (that boosts the immune system to prevent cancer returning) triggers an immune response in about 90 percent of all types of cancer.

Many Israeli innovations are successful due to the way they use a combination of technologies.  Take for example Israeli startup BrightWay Vision, which has developed “BrightEye” – a unique night-vision system that gives drivers a clear, panoramic view of the road, five times beyond the range of headlights.  The system sends out a pulse of light that is reflected back to a synchronized camera that only accepts images that the pulse generated. 



The Israeli startup, SolView, works with solar panel installers to check instantly whether a particular roof could generate sufficient solar energy to justify installation.  SolView takes data from Google Earth to power its automated rooftop scanning technology.  Another Israeli startup HealthWatch Technologies connects your heart instantly to your cardiologist by means of a washable T-shirt with printed electrodes.  It can read a patient’s vital signs, which are then transmitted to the specialist – speed being the key to preventing heart attacks.



Despite what you hear from Israel’s enemies, Israeli society is increasingly “getting it together”.  In a recent survey, 65 percent of Arab citizens said they were either “quite” or “very” proud to be Israeli in 2014, up from 50 percent the previous year.  The majority had faith in the Supreme Court, Israeli police and in the IDF.  And we can all be proud of the IDF’s performance in humanitarian medical rescue missions – just watch this inspirational presentation by Brigadier General Professor Yitshak Kreiss describing the leadership, medicine and the personal dilemmas faced when putting back together the lives of those injured in overseas disasters.



There is no denying the togetherness that Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews share.  Unfortunately, these are troubled times for the Jews of Europe. 226 Ukrainian immigrants landed in Israel including dozens of families of refugees from eastern Ukraine. And as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to the youngsters at Taglit-Birthright Israel’s 15th anniversary event, “In Israel, every Jew can say, ‘I am a Jew, Je suis Juif,’ out loud and proudly, without fear. Come to Israel… This is your land.”  Israelis Michael (92) and Marion (90) Mittwoch know all about troubled times and are now experiencing the good times.  They have just celebrated the birth of a new great-grandchild – their 100th!  After escaping Nazi Germany, the Mittwochs immigrated to Israel where they got together to become the first couple to be married at Kibbutz Lavi.  All children and grandchildren live in Israel. 

I will conclude with two apparently inanimate examples of Israeli togetherness.  In the first, you can watch Tel Aviv and Jerusalem getting closer together (at least in travel time) by selecting full screen view to see an amazing video tour of the new road construction along the highway to Jerusalem, together with the Biblical locations along the way.



And lastly, when filmmaker Micha Shagrir donated a 1667 Hebrew Bible to Haifa University, staff discovered that a Bible written by the same person was already on the library's shelves.  An Egyptian Armenian gave Shagrir his Bible in gratitude for his film about the Armenian genocide and Shagrir’s gift reunited the two holy books after 350 years.

Yes, in Israel, everything’s finally coming together.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing positive news stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com