[Elder of Ziyon] Israeli science innovation linkdump

From NoCamels:

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The Singapore-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation (SIIRD) has approved a grant of NIS 640,000 (about $165,000) for the development of a tablet application which will help autistic children deal with everyday tasks.

The joint project is being developed by the Center for Educational Technology (CET) on the Israeli side, and by Singaporean organization Dynamics Speech, which specializes in therapy for children with communication difficulties and in finding technological solutions for them

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Using the power of the sun and ultrathin films of iron oxide (commonly known as rust), researchers at the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, have found a novel way to split water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen. The breakthrough, published this week in the scientific journal Nature Materials, could lead to less expensive, more efficient ways to store solar energy in the form of hydrogen-based fuels. This could be a major step forward in the development of viable replacements for fossil fuels.

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Six Israeli teenagers won a $5,000 prize at an international competition at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last summer for their FreezeStick invention, designed to keep food and medicine in a cooler at the right temperature for an extended period. The Israelis beat out 250 other teams at the event.

(They are better scientists than they are actors.)

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A seven-year-old girl with aplastic anemia, a 54-year-old woman with lymphoma and a 45-year-old man with acute myeloid leukemia all walked out the doors of Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center in the past several months after receiving an experimental treatment with an Israeli placenta-based cell therapy to beef up their bone marrow.

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Nearly a century ago Jewish chemist Chaim Weizmann invented a method of producing acetone for explosives – helping the British army with its WWI efforts. The British went on to win the great war alongside their allies and Weizmann moved to Israel to become the first president of the independent Jewish state.

Now, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have found a way to utilize the same formula in order to generate a "greener" version of diesel fuel made from plants.

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Damaged spinal discs cause a great deal of trouble for people with chronic back problems, and a burden on the economy due to absenteeism from work and financial costs of treatment.

But some scientists are trying to find ways to alleviate the problem of damaged discs. Dr. Sarit Sivan of the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology's biomedical faculty is one of the three winners of the European Commission's new Marie Curie Prize for outstanding achievement in spinal disc research, announced at a ceremony in Nicosia, Cyprus. She won the prize in the "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" category.

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Recent research by Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel has revealed that extracts from the yellow water-lily's roots and leaves show promising results in improving chemotherapy treatment for cancer. The yellow water-lily (nuphar lutea) is a plant that can be found on the Yarkon stream and other water reservoirs in Israel's Galilee.

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder of Ziyon at 12/02/2012 12:10:00 PM