Category: Science
Fear not, virtual reality is here to help
Posted on September 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Whether you’re afraid of the dark or spiders or gremlins under your bed, no fear is untreatable, according to a new treatment center in Herzliya Pituah. This new center uses virtual reality technology to help cure phobias, fears that start to take over your life, causing you to avoid every-day situations.
Using a process involving virtual reality, the clinic offers patients 3-D goggles that gradually expose them to their fear. The goggles come complete with sound for real effect and make the patient feel as though they were facing the object of their phobia. It really works, according to deputy chief of psychiatry Dr. Yehuda Sasson from Sheba Medical Center, who claims his “Fearless” clinic is the only place in the country offering virtual reality treatment for phobias.
And, you gotta love their website, www.fearless.org.il
Smelly goodness at the Weizmann Institute
Posted on September 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Imagine being a part of a study where you have to rate smells on a scale of sweet to putrid. I can only imagine that the participants would never want to step foot into another perfume store ever again. Putting poor noses aside, the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel and the University of California at Berkley have put an end to the mystery of how we perceive pleasant odors versus the not so pleasant variety, by conducting a study that even appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience. Here’s a glance at their findings - notice the surprising insight into the similarity in smell perception between Americans and Israelis: Read more»
Discovering comments more educational than discovering planets?
Posted on September 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
On Fark.com, a social networking news site, the comments are usually more informative and interesting than the article itself. Today, the Israeli discovery of the world’s oldest planet prompted an intimate discussion (over 125 comments) that included wishes for a happy new year, a deeper look at Jewish philosophy, and a debate of just how old this new/old planet could be.
Click here for more about the Israeli astrophysicist’s discovery on the oldest known planet outside the solar system. Click here for the Fark thread about the discovery.
Weizmann Institute researchers find clue to brain damage from cellphones
Posted on August 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Joseph Friedman and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute in Rechovot, Israel, have found that exposing rat and human cell cultures to low-level electromagnetic radiation at frequencies similar to cellphones caused, even after as little as 10 minutes, activation of an enzyme that regulates cell differentiation and division.
Since we started using cellphones, I’ve wondered if they are in fact harmless or maybe less than harmless to our health. There have been other theories around their possible negative effect on our brain cells, including that mobile phones cause the brain to overheat. But Read more»
Israeli Chemists invent diagnostic tool to rival biotechnology
Posted on August 28, 2007 | 2 Comments
Infigo Diagnostics, an incubator company with funding from Targetech Innovation Center, is revolutionizing rapid diagnostics. They have created what they claim to be an easier to use, more economic solution for counting specific chemicals in a body than the often currently used genetically engineered antibodies. Read more»
Cool Facts about Israel 2.0
Posted on August 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Second version of the Cool Facts about Israel series. Good work on the research, not so into the music. Maybe something in Hebrew would be appropriate? What do I know? Click here to see the first version.
Israel’s “Save a Child’s Heart” brings Rwandan children for heart treatment
Posted on August 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), in Israeli organization, has brought five Rwandan children with heart disease to Tel Aviv last week for operations. The children range in age from a few months old to 15 years old. They will be operated on in the Wolfson Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
SACH has brought 1700 children from 27 countries in the past 12 years for heart surgery so far. Rwanda is the 28th country. Read more»
Israeli Nobel laureate Ciechanover appointed to another advisory board
Posted on August 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Today I have learned two things. Being in an advisory board is not a full-time job and Nobel laureates are very popular.
On August 6th I wrote about the Israeli Chemistry Nobel laureate and cancer research specialist Prof. Aaron Ciechanover being invited to join the advisory board of Protalix BioTherapeutics. Now Aurora Imaging Technology, Inc., manufacturer of the Aurora® 1.5Tesla Dedicated Breast MRI System is happy to have Prof. Ciechanover join its technology advisory board. Aurora is a company based in North Andover, Massachusetts. Read more»
New study: Internet Addiction Disorder… awkward!
Posted on August 12, 2007 | 2 Comments
The ironies abound in talking about Internet Addiction Disorder… on the Internet. Apparently, a new Israeli study says that 10% of internet users are being diagnosed with Internet Addiction Disorder. Among the symptoms is increasing social awkwardness since the lines become blurred between online personalities and reality. Thank goodness I could write to you about this rather than talking to you about it in person. Read more»
US health care system has much to learn from Israel, says US health care leader
Posted on August 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A group of American health care leaders traveled to Israel to learn about the health care system there.
Ruth Brinkley was among the group of 12 from the Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation.
“Israel guarantees healthcare coverage for all. Its success in implementing universal coverage demonstrates that it can be done,” writes Brinkley in an article which outlines the main ideas which impressed her about the Israeli system. Read more»
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