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The Superpowers of the Female Locust

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

She can stretch up to 2-3 times her original length when laying eggs in the ground, without causing irreparable damage.

Every mother will do anything to know that her offspring are in a safe place. The female locust, however, takes it to a whole new level: A new Tel Aviv University study has discovered that these females have superpowers. The female locust’s central nervous system has elastic properties, allowing her to stretch up to two or three times her original length when laying her eggs in the ground, without causing any irreparable damage.

“We are not aware of a similar ability in almost any living creature,” say the researchers. “Nerves in the human nervous system, for example, can stretch only up to 30% without tearing or being permanently damaged. In the future, these findings may contribute to new developments in the field of regenerative medicine, as a basis for nerve restoration and the development of synthetic tissues.”

 

“The superpower of the locust is almost something out of science fiction. There are only two other known examples in nature of a similar phenomenon: the tongue of the sperm whale, and a certain type of sea snail whose nervous systems are able to extend significantly due to an accordion-like mechanism they have.” Prof. Amir Ayali

 

WATCH: TAU Researchers Describe their Surprising Discovery – The Female Locust has Superhero-like Abilities

 

Showing Flexibility

The study was conducted by a team of Tel Aviv University researchers led by Dr. Bat-El Pinchasik of the School of Mechanical Engineering in The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and Prof. Amir Ayali of the School of Zoology in the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences. Also participating in the study were Dr. Rakesh Das from the School of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Moshe Guershon from the School of Zoology, and Prof. Eran Perlson and Amjd Ibraheem from the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology in the Sackler Faculty of Medicine. The research was published in iScience.

“When the female locust is ready to lay her eggs, she digs a hole in the ground that will offer them protection and optimal conditions for hatching,” explains Dr. Pinchasik. “For this purpose, she is equipped with a unique digging apparatus, consisting of two pairs of digging valves located at the tip of the abdomen, on either side of the ovipositor (a tube-like organ used for laying eggs).”

“As she digs, she extends her body, until sensors located along its length signal that she has reached a suitable point for depositing her eggs. Thus, an adult female, whose body length is about four to five centimeters, may, for the purpose of laying her eggs, stretch her body to a length of 10-15 centimeters, then quickly return to her normal length, and then extend again for the next egg-laying.”

“The superpower of the locust is almost something out of science fiction,” muses Prof. Ayali. “There are only two other known examples in nature of a similar phenomenon: the tongue of the sperm whale, and a certain type of sea snail whose nervous systems are able to extend significantly due to an accordion-like mechanism they have. We sought to identify the biomechanical mechanism that gives the female locust its wonderful ability.”

 

From left to right: Prof. Amir Ayali, Dr. Rakesh Das and Dr. Bat-El Pinchasik

 

“Contrary to previous hypotheses and examples we are familiar with, we did not find any accordion-like mechanism. We discovered that the nervous system of the female locust has elastic properties, which enable it to elongate and then return by itself to its original state, ready for reuse, without any damage caused to the tissue. This finding is almost incomprehensible from a biomechanical and morphological point of view.” Dr. Bat-El Pinchasik

 

Key to Rehabilitation Treatments and Regenerative Medicine?

In the study, the researchers removed the central nervous systems from female locusts and placed them in a liquid simulating their natural environment, under physiological conditions similar to those inside the body. Using highly sensitive measuring instruments, they measured the forces needed to extend the nervous system.

Dr. Pinchasik: “Contrary to previous hypotheses and examples we are familiar with, we did not find any accordion-like mechanism. We discovered that the nervous system of the female locust has elastic properties, which enable it to elongate and then return by itself to its original state, ready for reuse, without any damage caused to the tissue. This finding is almost incomprehensible from a biomechanical and morphological point of view.”

Prof. Ayali adds that, “in further studies, we will investigate the matter in depth, with the aim of identifying the specific mechanism that enables this unique feature. We hope that in the future our findings will help to develop synthetic tissues with a high level of flexibility, and to restore nerves in regenerative medicine therapies.”

TAU Students Continue to Work on Solving the Water Crisis in Northern Tanzania

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

The delegation “Africa Group, Engineers Without Borders Israel – Tel Aviv” went to Tanzania during the country’s worst droughts in history

Tel Aviv University students from The Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering and the Raymond & Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences recently returned from the Babati district in northern Tanzania,  where they worked to supply safe drinking water to the local rural population. The students are part of a team of 20 volunteers from various fields and degree levels, called “Africa Group, Engineers Without Borders Israel – Tel Aviv”.

The solution TAU students bring to Tanzania’s water shortage problem is simple and sustainable: through hefty use of the roofs of the regional schools, water can be stored in low-cost rainwater harvesting containers to meet the needs of the children throughout the dry season. The team uses several simple filters and chlorine tablets for storage.

Throughout the year, when TAU volunteers are in Israel and busy with their studies, they still find time to manage all the different aspects of the project, including its fundraising and marketing needs as well as the systems’ construction and implementation. This time around, the students were in Tanzania while the country experienced a severe drought, which resulted in a water crisis and severe hunger.

“During the expedition, we preserved and upgraded our water systems, which at this point provide water to 5,000 children in six schools. We also conducted several pilots for water purification systems; cultivated relationships with organizations that operate in the Babati district; and delivered an extensive educational program on water and sanitation issues together with our local partners. We also visited the area’s new water laboratory (together with the local water authorities). The new lab will be carrying out water tests for us, including in new areas where we are looking to operate in,” say delegation members Aviv Avinoam, Yaeli Benovich, Dan Komiserchick, Sharon Berkovich and Offir Inbar.

 

Children who get to drink clean water and participate in an extensive educational program on water and sanitation issues

 

A New Meteorological Station and Empowering School Management

According to Dan Komiserchick, more accurate meteorological data is needed in the Babati district. The team, therefore, together with the local community, installed the first automatic meteorological station in the region, which will be helpful for the planning of future water systems. The station measures parameters such as rain, wind, humidity, and temperature, and the information gathered is transmitted to the water authorities and local farmers and organizations.

One of the highlights of the delegation was organizing a first-of-its-kind executive seminar for all school principals in Babati. “Investing time and resources in training and empowering school principals is critical for the success of the project, as the school principals are very involved in all aspects of the operation of the water purification systems,” explains Aviv Avinoam. “The main topics discussed were maintenance of the systems; insights and suggestions for improvements; educating the students about water safety and training the teachers. The discussions were very enlightening and productive, and it was decided (in agreement with the regional director of education) that the seminar will be held on an annual basis going forward.”

“We also expanded the existing educational program by collaborating with local organizations and creating instructive content on topics like ‘How is rain created?’, ‘Seasons of the year’, ‘How to build water systems’, ‘What pollutants are present in water?’ and more.”

 

Principals’ Seminar, October 2022

No Room for White Elephants

The team is also conducting a comprehensive academic study to examine the impact of the water systems on the local communities throughout the years, in terms of health, nutrition, entrepreneurship, and more.

The research is led by Yaeli Benovich, who is writing a thesis on the subject with the guidance of Prof. Dror Avisar, Head of the Water Research Center at Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Shira Bookchin from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who researches interdisciplinary aspects of sustainability in the developing world.

As part of the research, hundreds of students and educators answered questionnaires aiming to ensure that the activities of Engineers Without Borders are not causing any harm, and making sure that the water project does, in fact, benefit the community. The research adds a professional and academic dimension to the ongoing project and examines the impact of the systems in a broad perspective.

“Visiting the schools and building the water purification systems is only half of the job,” emphasizes Yaeli Benovich. “A lot of projects initiated in Africa quickly turn into so-called ‘white elephants.’ Typically, some foreign organization arrives, pours some money out and leaves the country. Shortly thereafter, the project is abandoned and terminated. We seek to avoid such a situation, by involving the local authorities and the communities as part of the planning and construction of the systems already from an early stage. We are very clear from the start that the local community is responsible for the project.”

Over the years, the Engineers Without Borders delegations have conducted dozens of meetings with the local authorities, including village leaders, heads of the districts and members of parliament. Additionally, they’ve cultivated a close relationship with the local water authorities.

“We signed a contract this year, a memorandum of understanding (MOU), which clearly outlines the role each party has for the success of the project. This contract guides our cooperation with the local representatives,” explains Yael. “The document lists all the responsibilities of our team, as well as those of the local authorities and community – before, during and following the construction of any water purification system. Introducing these written agreements has had a very positive impacted on the contributions by the local authorities and community. There’s no doubt that this is the right way to work. It is a necessary step that will help the community to maintain the project over the years.”

Members of the delegation during a tour of the new water laboratory of Babati district

Offir Inbar shares that in this type of projects, the team’s presence on the ground is critical: “It is only when you physically present and meet with people face to face that you fully understand the situation, the people involved, the challenges at play and in what direction one should be heading.”

“It is hard to bridge various gaps over Zoom conversations or messages. Close relationships are formed by sitting down and talking together at eye level. When you sit down and talk everything seems much simpler – opportunities emerge, you meet with organizations and key people who may lead you to form new connections. It is the only way to fully grasp the challenges facing the local community. Sometimes the challenges on ground are different from what we imagine from afar.”

 

Close relationships are formed by sitting down and talking together at eye level. An educational activity with school children on the importance of hygiene

Help Ensure the Supply of Water to an Additional 1,000 Children

The drought that hit Africa during the past nine months has emphasized the importance of creating a variety of water solutions. “On our next expedition to Tanzania, planned for April 2023, we will install two new water purification systems to provide clean water to a thousand more children,” says Sharon Berkovich.

“One of the systems will be based on rainwater and the other on the use of filters. The filter system will provide a solution for areas where groundwater or surface water sources exist, but where these are contaminated by bacteria that harm the health of the local community.”

The project is funded mainly by donations from Tel Aviv University, private companies and individual businessmen, philanthropic foundations, and the Embassy of Israel in Kenya. A significant fundraising operation is currently taking place for the upcoming expeditions.

Featured image: Local women collecting water from a polluted water source, drying up in Tanzania

Surprising the Pope with The Artwork ‘Jesus from the Soil of the Holy Land’

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Prof. Dina Porat: “The Pope was moved by the gesture. He thanked me wholeheartedly and said that it was a very special gift.”

Prof. Dina Porat from Tel Aviv University recently surprised Pope Francis when she handed him the artwork ‘Jesus from the Soil of the Holy Land’ while in Rome. The Pope thanked Prof. Porat wholeheartedly for the “very special gift”.

 

“Nilly sent me a photo of the unusual composition and asked, half-jokingly, if perhaps I could meet the Pope and bring him a very special gift from the soil of the Holy Land.” Prof. Dina Porat.

 

From the fields of Israel to the Vatican

‘Jesus from the Soil of the Holy Land’ was conceived, almost accidentally, by artist Nilly Shachor from Sde Warburg, a moshav in central Israel.

One day, as she was walking in the fields near her home, Shachor tripped and fell. When she got up, she saw that she had tripped on some branches that lay on the ground in an unusual formation, reminding her of Jesus Christ: two branches spreading sideways like human arms, a disheveled head, and long thin legs. Even a wreath was in place on Jesus’ head.

Shachor took the branches home, cleaned them, and embellished the wreath with some more twigs and thorns.  

 

The artwork ‘Jesus from the Soil of the Holy Land’

Shachor called her friend, Prof. Dina Porat from Tel Aviv University’s Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology at The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities, who was planning to attend an international conference on antisemitism in Rome a few days later.

“Nilly sent me a photo of the unusual composition and asked, half-jokingly, if perhaps I could meet the Pope and bring him a very special gift from the soil of the Holy Land,” recalls Prof. Porat.

 

“It was a very meaningful experience for me, and I hope that ‘Jesus from the soil of the Holy Land’ is now displayed on a wall somewhere in the Vatican.” Prof. Dina Porat

 

Challenge Accepted

Accepting the challenge, Prof. Porat framed the photo in gold and called an old friend, Father Norbert Hofmann, Secretary of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, who immediately agreed to help.

“When I arrived in Rome, my friend Norbert said that the next day, like every Wednesday, the Pope would hold the General Audience in which he greets visitors, and that it had been arranged for us to sit in the VIP section, right next to the stage,” recounts Prof. Porat.

“It was a very exciting event. Thousands of people gathered in Saint Peter’s Square, the Vatican’s large plaza, sang songs and merrily waved their flags. The Pope approached and shook people’s hands. When he approached me, I offered him the gift. He was moved and asked his attendants to safeguard the artwork. It was a very meaningful experience for me, and I hope that ‘Jesus from the soil of the Holy Land’ is now displayed on a wall somewhere in the Vatican.”

Researchers Characterize Earliest Galaxies in the Universe

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First-of-its-kind study sheds light on epoch of the first stars, 200M years after the Big Bang.

An international team of astrophysicists, including Prof. Rennan Barkana from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy at Raymond & Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, has managed for the first time to statistically characterize the first galaxies in the Universe, which formed only 200 million years after the Big Bang.

According to the groundbreaking results, the earliest galaxies were relatively small and dim. They were fainter than present-day galaxies, and likely processed only 5% or less of their gas into stars. Moreover, the intensity of the radio waves emitted by the earliest galaxies wasn’t much higher than that of modern galaxies.

 

“We are trying to understand the epoch of the first stars in the Universe, known as the ‘cosmic dawn’, about 200 million years after the Big Bang.” Prof. Rennan Barkana

 

Researching the “Cosmic Dawn”

This new study, carried out together with the SARAS observation team, was led by the research group of Dr. Anastasia Fialkov from the University of Cambridge, England, a former PhD student of TAU’s Prof. Barkana. The results of this innovative study were published in the prestigious journal Nature Astronomy.

“This is a very new field and a first-of-its-kind study”, explains Prof. Barkana. “We are trying to understand the epoch of the first stars in the Universe, known as the ‘cosmic dawn’, about 200 million years after the Big Bang.”

“The James Webb Space Telescope, for example, can’t really see these stars. It might only detect a few particularly bright galaxies from a somewhat later period. Our goal is to probe the entire population of the first stars.” 

 

“Since stellar radiation affects the light emitted by hydrogen atoms, we use hydrogen as a detector in our search for the first stars: if we can detect the effect of stars on hydrogen, we will know when they were born, and in what types of galaxies.” Prof. Rennan Barkana

 

Prof. Rennan Barkana from TAU’s Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy

Searching for the First Stars

According to the standard picture, before stars began to fuse heavier elements inside their cores, our Universe was nothing but a cloud of hydrogen atoms from the Big Bang (other than some helium and a lot of dark matter).

Today, the Universe is also filled with hydrogen, but in the modern Universe it is mostly ionized due to radiation from stars.

“Hydrogen atoms naturally emit light at a wavelength of 21cm, which falls within the spectrum of radio waves”, explains Prof. Barkana. “Since stellar radiation affects the light emitted by hydrogen atoms, we use hydrogen as a detector in our search for the first stars: if we can detect the effect of stars on hydrogen, we will know when they were born, and in what types of galaxies. I was among the first theorists to develop this concept 20 years ago, and now observers are able to implement it in actual experiments. Teams of experimentalists all over the world are currently attempting to discover the 21cm signal from hydrogen in the early Universe.”

One of these teams is EDGES, which uses a small radio antenna that measures the average intensity on the entire sky of radio waves arriving from different periods of the cosmic dawn. In 2018, the EDGES team announced that it had found the 21cm signal from ancient hydrogen.

“There was a problem with their findings, however,” says Prof. Barkana. “We could not be sure that the measured signal did indeed come from hydrogen in the early Universe. It could have been a fake signal produced by the electrical conductivity of the ground below the antenna. Therefore, we all waited for an independent measurement that would either confirm or refute these results.”

 

“Every year the experiments become more reliable and precise, and consequently we expect to find stronger upper limits, giving us even better constraints on the cosmic dawn.” Prof. Rennan Barkana

 

Setting Limits

“Last year, astronomers in India carried out an experiment called SARAS, in which the antenna was made to float on a lake, a uniform surface of water that could not mimic the desired signal. According to the results of the new experiment, there was a 95% probability that EDGES did not, in fact, detect a real signal from the early Universe.”

“SARAS found an upper limit for the genuine signal, implying that the signal from early hydrogen is likely significantly weaker than the one measured by EDGES. We modeled the SARAS result and worked out the implications for the first galaxies, i.e., what their properties were, given the upper limit determined by SARAS.  Now we can say for the first time that galaxies of certain types could not have existed at that early time.”

Prof. Barkana concludes: “Modern galaxies, such as our own Milky Way, emit large amounts of radio waves. In our study we placed an upper limit on the star formation rate in ancient galaxies and on their overall radio emission. And this is only the beginning. Every year the experiments become more reliable and precise, and consequently we expect to find stronger upper limits, giving us even better constraints on the cosmic dawn. We hope that in the near future we will have not only limits, but a precise, reliable measurement of the signal itself.”

Featured image: Earliest galaxies in the Universe (photo: NASA – James Webb Space Telescope)

Are Today’s Gynecologists Ignoring Women’s Health Issues?

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Women’s health and wellbeing receive little attention compared to childbirth and reproduction, both in research and in clinic.

A new preliminary study from Tel Aviv University reveals that due to masculine dominance of the gynecological science field, most gynecological research focuses on childbirth and reproduction rather than women’s health and wellbeing. Mapping scientific journals in the category of gynecology and obstetrics, the study found that the majority deal with fertility, pregnancy, fetuses, and childbirth, while many topics that are much more critical to women’s quality of life receive little attention, both in scientific research and in the clinic.

The study was conducted by Dr. Netta Avnoon of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. The preliminary results were published in the prestigious journal Nature Reviews Urology

 

“Men have dominated gynecology for almost a thousand years, and their gender identity impacts everything that happens in this specialty, including research design and medical practices.” Dr Netta Avnoon

 

Male Dominated Discipline

According to the preliminary study important issues that have been marginalized for centuries include diseases and damage to the muscles and nerves of the female pelvis and sexual organs, female sexual pleasure, rights and autonomy in childbirth, the connection between the menstrual cycle and the immune system, menopause, and the later years of life, and more.

“Men have dominated gynecology for almost a thousand years, and their gender identity impacts everything that happens in this specialty, including research design and medical practices,” says Dr. Avnoon. “Even if they are unaware of their own bias and have the best intentions, men traditionally regard the female body as an object for producing babies or satisfying men’s sexual desires. The time has come for women to dominate the discipline that is meant to care for their health.”

Dr. Avnoon explains that no social activity is neutral, objective or contextless, and science and medicine are no exception. Inevitably, social positions and dispositions impact the attitudes of those who create science.

Extensive historical and feminist scholarship has shown that gynecology as a medical specialty was masculinized 800 years ago, and still adheres to patriarchal values. In ancient times women were usually treated by women-experts, who even wrote books on the subject, but during the Middle Ages, these women and their knowledge were gradually ousted and replaced by men.

Since the 16th century the specialty has been wholly dominated by males, and consequently they were the ones to determine which topics are ‘interesting’ and worth studying; they were the ones who set practices and protocols and introduced treatments, technologies, and techniques, all too often subjecting patients to medical practices that are not necessarily benevolent.

 

Dr. Netta Avnoon

Exposing Current Focus

To expose the actual focus of gynecological research today, in line with previous feminist studies, Dr. Avnoon chose a tell-tale indicator: the titles of international scientific journals in the ‘gynecology and obstetrics’ category.

She analyzed the list appearing in the Journal Citation Reports, a database that provides general and statistical information about scientific journals worldwide, and the results were clear-cut: of the 83 journals listed by title in the category, 49% are dedicated solely to reproductive functions, pregnancy, fetuses, and childbirth; 24% focus on both gynecology and obstetrics; only 12% deal with health issues in the female sexual organs that are unrelated to reproductive functions; 6% deal with breasts; 5% deal with gynecological cancers; and a mere 4% (3 journals) address the health of women before and after childbearing age, including menopause.

Dr. Avnoon notes a recent instance of gynecology’s gender bias: the transvaginal mesh scandal. In 2019 the FDA banned the use of the transvaginal mesh – a common gynecological procedure used since the 1950s to repair pelvis organ prolapse in the anterior vaginal compartment, which had caused extensive morbidity and even 77 documented deaths in the USA.

Patients’ activism moved the regulator to intervene, exposing the decades-long failure of gynecological science to clinically assess the outcomes of this surgical procedure, and revealing the bias in how researchers presented these results in scientific publications.

 

“Care for the fetus, essential in its own right, must not come at the expense of the mother’s health.” Dr. Netta Avnoon

 

It’s Time: Women-Centered Gynecology

What solution does Dr. Avnoon have in mind? She proposes the following: “Obstetrics, focusing on fertility, reproduction, pregnancy, the fetus and childbirth, should be separated from gynecology, a specialty dedicated to women’s health.”

“Care for the fetus, essential in its own right, must not come at the expense of the mother’s health.”

“Also, gynecology training must include a major chapter of gender and feminist studies, and existing medical protocols should be amended to focus on the needs of the women – rather than those of their babies, their spouses, or their doctors. Moreover, legislation and legal procedures are in order, especially in courts of human rights, to protect women’s right to health and optimal medical care.”

“The time has come for women-centered gynecology,” says Dr. Avnoon. “Women’s voices must be heard.”

“To date, medical schools offer their students very scant and unsatisfactory knowledge about female anatomy and physiology, specifically in terms of women’s sexuality. Even though the overall numbers of female gynecologists are on the rise (in the US there are by now more women than men in this profession), their education is still based on age-old masculine and chauvinistic traditions.”

“In order to generate real change, doctors must be trained to regard women’s rights, health, and sexuality as the focus of women’s medicine, and to treat their patients with respect. Greater emphasis should be given to patient experience and autonomy in medical settings, and to much-needed innovation in research, instruments, technologies, protocols, surgical procedures, and medications.”

Will COP27 Change the World Order?

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Our researchers went to Egypt for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference and returned with new insights.

The annual international climate conference held on November 6-20 was attended by world leaders, climate researchers and key officials from all over the world. On the agenda for this year’s summit was the implementation of decisions made at last year’s event, including the design of a global emissions trading program and provision of “loss and damage” funding to vulnerable countries hit hard by the climate crisis. Tel Aviv University researchers participated in several events held at the Israel Pavilion. They presented their groundbreaking research in various fields, aiming to provide practical solutions to the crisis facing our world.

We asked them to share their contributions and takeaways from the event. 

 

“The enthusiasm for outer space is so great that we forget that by launching many satellites, up to hundreds every year, we pollute space and the effect can be fatal in the future.” Prof. Eyal Ben-Dor

 

Monitoring Climate Change from Space

Prof. Eyal Ben-Dor from the Department of Geography at the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences is a world leading expert in hyperspectral (remote) sensing, a method of imaging the earth’s surface. He participated in a session on how space technologies can contribute to climate action. In the session, organized by the Israel Space Agency and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ben-Dor demonstrated innovative applications such as a quantitative monitoring of methane emissions; quantitative assessment of soil erosions following extreme rainfall; and the assessment of vegetation and risk of forest fires given extreme temperature increase.

Ben-Dor gives more details: “Dust constitutes a major problem in several respects: air pollution and breathing problems; migration of dust and with it, bacteria; its lowering of the intensity of radiation; its effect on plants (reducing their photosynthesis), and more. In addition, weather changes impact the risk of forest fires, so it is necessary to monitor this potential to prepare for fires long before they occur. We participate in projects run by foreign space agencies such as NASA [America’s civil space program] and ESA [European Space Agency], in order to monitor atmospheric dust from soil undergoing climatic decay, as well as changes in the organic carbon content in the world’s soils, which is an important component of the global balance of atmospheric carbon.”

His conclusions from the summit? That space can be used to monitor climate change and the phenomena that occur as a result, but with limited liability.

“The enthusiasm for outer space is so great that we forget that by launching many satellites, up to hundreds every year, we pollute space and the effect can be fatal in the future,” he warns. “Space gets filled up with human waste, and humanity must take into account not only the pollution of the earth’s surface, but also of space. Therefore, there should be regulation for planned launches, a sort of ‘launch treaty’ agreed upon by all countries, and priority should be given to launching satellites with a large capacity instead of a large number of satellites with little (but complementary) capacity.”

Ben-Dor returned from the conference with mixed feelings. “The event,” he says, “was good for ‘letting off steam’ between scientists and getting an idea of what is being done in tangential or other environmental fields. New collaborations were created, but it happened at the individual level and not in an organized way. The event was, in my opinion, one big political show of heads of state.”

 

Monitoring the Earth’s climate from space. Prof. Eyal Ben-Dor

 

“I was very hopeful that together we will be able to reach a solution and stop global warming. Some will say that this is a naive position, but if we don’t believe there’s a chance to succeed, then what’s the point of participating?” Meital Peleg Mizrahi

 

“Shocking and Unsettling”

Meital Peleg Mizrahi, is a PhD candidate from TAU’s Department of Public Policy at the Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences and a researcher of consumerism, sustainable fashion and environmental justice. She also presented at the conference, discussing a path to promote green employment and a just transition to a low-carbon economy. 

“To be honest, participating at the climate conference was shocking and unsettling,” shares Peleg Mizrahi. “I arrived skeptical, but at the same time I was very hopeful that together we will be able to reach a solution and stop global warming. Some will say that this is a naive position, but if we don’t believe there’s a chance to succeed, then what’s the point of participating?”

According to her, the conference played out more like a business-academic conference than humanity’s greatest effort to fight the climate crisis. As a result, hardly any concrete achievements were made. “This is a very depressing situation, which puts a lot of personal responsibility on us, as researchers and as members of the public.”

“My main conclusion from Sharm El-Sheikh is that the solution won’t come from the governments of the world. The responsibility lies with us.”  

 

Taking responsibility and promoting sustainable consumerism. Meital Peleg Mizrahi

 

“If we all act responsibly, we can change this world for the better.” Prof. Hadas Mamane

 

“We Can Change This World for the Better”

Prof. Hadas Mamane, Head of the Environmental Engineering Program at the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, presented on the SoLED project, which aims to make safe drinking water available all over the world. The project offers a groundbreaking off-grid water disinfection device, designed for infrastructure-limited areas such as developing countries and deserts. It is designed to provide maximum disinfection at a low cost, and minimal human intervention is required for installment and operations purposes. 

“At the conference, I had the opportunity to meet very interesting people, and listen to discussions that are not standard in terms of professional conferences,” says Mamane. “These included discussions on the climate crisis and women; how students can share their research through media; and  the effects of the climate on environmental conflicts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and between Israel and Jordan.”

“Although I have criticisms – a lot has already been said about ‘greenwashing’ [a critical term that describes the creation of an environmentally conscious public image to supposedly conceal harmful actions] in the context of Coca Cola as supporting sponsor to COP27 – I remain optimistic and think that if we all act responsibly, we can change this world for the better.”

Featured image: Israel’s pavilion at the COP27 conference. From left: Prof. Marcelo Sternberg; Prof. Hadas Mamane; Israel’s Minister of Environmental Protection Tamar Zandberg and Prof. Colin Price

Mobilizing for Efficient Climate Action

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Tel Aviv University leads Israeli collaboration with international research organization, IIASA.

For efficient climate action – aiming to reduce human footprints, enhancing the resilience of natural and socioeconomic systems and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals – individual, organizations and countries must be mobilized for concerted efforts.  

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA, is an international research institute that advances systems analysis and applies its research methods to identify policy solutions for exactly these types of issues.

Five years ago, Israel joined the organization as a member, and recently the government approved the renewal of membership for another five years.

TAU Hosts IIASA’s 50th Anniversary

The organization is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and on November 28-9, Tel Aviv University has the great honor of hosting the organization’s entire management in a big event in which all the heads of the universities in Israel will participate – and the public is invited to join. 

“The conference is celebrating IIASA‘s 50th anniversary and Israel’s decision to extend its membership for five more years,” says Prof. Itai Sened, Dean of TAU’s Faculty of Social Sciences.

“Tel Aviv University is leading Israel’s collaboration with IIASA and will host this conference, showcasing IIASA’s resources and opportunities to Israeli academic staff and students at all universities, as well as ministerial chief scientists’ offices. The event will highlight relevant and potential research projects involving system analysis in various fields of research jointly for Israeli teams and IIASA.”

Prof. Wolfgang Lutz is the Interim Deputy Director General for Science in IIASA and considered the world’s leading demographer. Lutz will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming conference and shares a quick insight on its subject matter: “When it comes to survival, minds matter more than money.”

 

We invite you all to register for the event on November 29, 2022 >>

View full program >>

Featured image: Meeting in Vienna. From left to right: Prof. Wolfgang Lutz, Interim Deputy Director General for Science IIASA; Prof. Itai Sened, IIASA Council member for Israel and Dean of TAU’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Prof. Michael Clegg, IIASA Council Chair (Photo Credit: TAU)

Removal of Cancerous Tumors Without Surgery

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New technology from Tel Aviv University, combining ultrasound and nanobubbles, destroys tumors, eliminating need for invasive treatments.

A new technology developed at Tel Aviv University makes it possible to destroy cancerous tumors in a targeted manner, via a combination of ultrasound and the injection of nanobubbles into the bloodstream. Unlike invasive treatment methods or the injection of microbubbles into the tumor itself, this latest technology enables the destruction of the tumor in a non-invasive manner.

The study was conducted under the leadership of doctoral student Mike Bismuth from the lab of Dr. Tali Ilovitsh at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. Dov Hershkovitz of the Department of Pathology. Prof. Agata Exner from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland also participated in the study. The study was published in the journal Nanoscale.

 

 

“Our new technology makes it possible, in a relatively simple way, to inject nanobubbles into the bloodstream, which then congregate around ​​the cancerous tumor. After that, using a low-frequency ultrasound, we explode the nanobubbles, and thereby the tumor.”  Dr. Tali Ilovitsh

 

 

Bursting Bubbles – and Tumors

Dr. Tali Ilovitsh: “Our new technology makes it possible, in a relatively simple way, to inject nanobubbles into the bloodstream, which then congregate around ​​the cancerous tumor. After that, using a low-frequency ultrasound, we explode the nanobubbles, and thereby the tumor.”

The researchers explain that today, the prevalent method of cancer treatment is surgical removal of the tumor, in combination with complementary treatments such as chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

 

The research team

Therapeutic ultrasound to destroy the cancerous tumor is a non-invasive alternative to surgery. This method has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it allows for localized and focused treatment; the use of high-intensity ultrasound can produce thermal or mechanical effects by delivering powerful acoustic energy to a focal point with high spatial-temporal precision. This method has been used to effectively treat solid tumors deep within in the body. Moreover, it makes it possible to treat patients who are unfit for tumor resection surgery. The disadvantage, however, is that the heat and high intensity of the ultrasound waves may damage the tissues near the tumor.

 

 

“The combination of nanobubbles and low frequency ultrasound waves provides a more specific targeting of the area of the tumor and reduces off-target toxicity.” Dr. Tali Ilovitsh

 

 

Reducing Off-target Damage

In the current study, Dr. Ilovitsh and her team sought to overcome this problem. In the experiment, which used an animal model, the researchers were able to destroy the tumor by injecting nanobubbles into the bloodstream (as opposed to what has been until now, which is the local injection of microbubbles into the tumor itself), in combination with low-frequency ultrasound waves, with minimal off-target effects.

“The combination of nanobubbles and low frequency ultrasound waves provides a more specific targeting of the area of the tumor, and reduces off-target toxicity,” explains Dr. Ilovitsh.

“Applying the low frequency to the nanobubbles causes their extreme swelling and explosion, even at low pressures. This makes it possible to perform the mechanical destruction of the tumors at low-pressure thresholds.”

“Our method has the advantages of ultrasound, in that it is safe, cost-effective, and clinically available, and in addition, the use of nanobubbles facilitates the targeting of tumors because they can be observed with the help of ultrasound imaging.”

Dr. Ilovitsh adds that the use of low-frequency ultrasound also increases the depth of penetration, minimizes distortion and attenuation, and enlarges the focal point. “This can help in the treatment of tumors that are located deep with the body, and in addition facilitate the treatment of larger tumor volumes. The experiment was conducted in a breast cancer tumor lab model, but it is likely that the treatment will also be effective with other types of tumors, and in the future, also in humans.”

The World’s Oldest Grilled Fish Recipe

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

International team, including leading Israeli universities, finds oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire to cook food.

The question of how early humans began using fire to cook food has been the subject of much scientific discussion for over a century. Cooking is defined as the ability to process food by controlling the temperature at which it is heated and includes a wide range of methods. Until now, the earliest evidence of cooking dates to approximately 170,000 years ago.

Recent findings shed new light on the matter: A remarkable scientific discovery has been made by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), Tel Aviv University (TAU), and Bar-Ilan University (BIU), in collaboration with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Oranim Academic College, the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research (IOLR) institution, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, namely: the remains of a carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) archaeological site in Israel, which were analyzed closely and were found to have been cooked roughly 780,000 years ago.

 

“These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans’ ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it.” Dr. Irit Zohar and Dr. Marion Prevost 

 

Plenty of Fish and a Culinary Revolution

The study was led by a team of researchers:  Dr. Irit Zohar, a researcher at TAU’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and curator of the Beit Margolin Biological Collections at Oranim Academic College, and Hebrew University Professor Naama Goren-Inbar, director of the excavation site. The research team also included Dr. Marion Prevost at HU’s Institute of Archaeology; Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil at BIU’s Department for Israel Studies and Archaeology; Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London; Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute; Prof. Thomas Tütken of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and Prof. Israel Hershkovitz at TAU’s Faculty of Medicine.

The findings were published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

In the study, the researchers focused on pharyngeal teeth (used to grind up hard food such as shells) belonging to fish from the carp family. These teeth were found in large quantities at different archaeological strata at the site. By studying the structure of the crystals that form the teeth enamel (whose size increases through exposure to heat), the researchers were able to prove that the fish caught at the ancient Hula Lake, adjacent to the site, were exposed to temperatures suitable for cooking, and were not simply burned by a spontaneous fire.

Until now, evidence of the use of fire for cooking had been limited to sites that came into use much later than the GBY site–by some 600,000 years, and ones most are associated with the emergence of our own species, homo sapiens.

 

An example of a skull of modern carp from the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History

“This study demonstrates the huge importance of fish in the life of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability,” explains Dr. Irit Zohar and Dr. Marion Prevost. “Furthermore, by studying the fish remains found at Gesher Benot Ya’aqob in Israel we were able to reconstruct, for the first time, the fish population of the ancient Hula Lake and to show that the lake held fish species that became extinct over time. These species included giant barbs (carp like fish) that reached up to 2 meters in length. The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques. These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans’ ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it.”

“The fact that the cooking of fish is evident over such a long and unbroken period of settlement at the site indicates a continuous tradition of cooking food,” adds Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar. “This is another in a series of discoveries relating to the high cognitive capabilities of the Acheulian hunter-gatherers who were active in Israel’s ancient Hula Valley region. These groups were deeply familiar with their environment and the various resources it offered them.”

“Further, it shows they had extensive knowledge of the life cycles of different plant and animal species,” adds Prof. Goren-Inbar. “Gaining the skill required to cook food marks a significant evolutionary advance, as it provided an additional means for making optimal use of available food resources. It is even possible that cooking was not limited to fish, but also included various types of animals and plants.”

Evolutionary Leap

Prof. Hershkovitz and Dr. Zohar note that the transition from eating raw food to eating cooked food had dramatic implications for human development and behavior.

Eating cooked food reduces the bodily energy required to break down and digest food, allowing other physical systems to develop.  It also leads to changes in the structure of the human jaw and skull. This change freed humans from the daily, intensive work of searching for and digesting raw food, providing them free time in which to develop new social and behavioral systems. Some scientists view eating fish as a milestone in the quantum leap in human cognitive evolution, providing a central catalyst for the development of the human brain. They claim that eating fish is what made us human.

Even today, it is widely known that the contents of fish flesh, such as omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iodine and more, contribute greatly to brain development.

 

“These groups made use of the rich array of resources provided by the ancient Hula Valley and left behind a long settlement continuum with over 20 settlement strata.” Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar

 

Settled Down Where There Was Food

The research team believe that the location of freshwater areas, some of them in areas that have long since dried up and become arid deserts, determined the route of the migration of early man from Africa to the Levant and beyond. Not only did these habitats provide drinking water and attracted animals to the area but catching fish in shallow water is a relatively simple and safe task with a very high nutritional reward.

The team posits that exploiting fish in freshwater habitats was the first step on prehistoric humans’ route out of Africa. Early man began to eat fish around 2 million years ago but cooking fish—as found in this study—represented a real revolution in the Acheulian diet and is an important foundation for understanding the relationship between man, the environment, climate, and migration when attempting to reconstruct the history of early humans.

HU’s Goren-Inbar added that the archaeological site of GBY documents a continuum of repeated settlement by groups of hunter-gatherers on the shores of the ancient Hula Lake which lasting tens of thousands of years. “These groups made use of the rich array of resources provided by the ancient Hula Valley and left behind a long settlement continuum with over 20 settlement strata,” Goren-Inbar explained. The excavations at the site have uncovered the material culture of these ancient hominins, including flint, basalt, and limestone tools, as well as their food sources, which were characterized by a rich diversity of plant species from the lake and its shores (including fruit, nuts, and seeds) and by many species of land mammals, both medium-sized and large.

 

Location of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) archeological site on Home erectus route out of Africa

 

“This study of isotopes is a real breakthrough, as it allowed us to reconstruct the hydrological conditions in this ancient lake throughout the seasons, and thus to determine that the fish were not a seasonal economic resource but were caught and eaten all year round. Thus, fish provided a constant source of nutrition that reduced the need for seasonal migration.” Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura

 

Playing With Fire

It should be noted that evidence of the use of fire at the site—the oldest such evidence in Eurasia—was identified first by BIU’s Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil. “The use of fire is a behavior that characterizes the entire continuum of settlement at the site,” she explained. “This affected the spatial organization of the site and the activity conducted there, which revolved around fireplaces.” Alperson-Afil’s research of fire at the site was revolutionary for its time and showed that the use of fire began hundreds of thousands of years before previously thought.

“In this study, we used geochemical methods to identify changes in the size of the tooth enamel crystals, as a result of exposure to different cooking temperatures,” explained Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London. “When they are burnt by fire, it is easy to identify the dramatic change in the size of the enamel crystals, but it is more difficult to identify the changes caused by cooking at temperatures between 200 and 500 degrees Celsius. The experiments I conducted with Dr. Zohar allowed us to identify the changes caused by cooking at low temperatures. We do not know exactly how the fish were cooked but given the lack of evidence of exposure to high temperatures, they were not cooked directly in fire and were not thrown into a fire as waste or as material for burning.”

Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute and Prof. Thomas Tütken of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz were also part of the research group, providing analysis of the isotope composition of oxygen and carbon in the enamel of the fishes’ teeth: “This study of isotopes is a real breakthrough, as it allowed us to reconstruct the hydrological conditions in this ancient lake throughout the seasons, and thus to determine that the fish were not a seasonal economic resource but were caught and eaten all year round. Thus, fish provided a constant source of nutrition that reduced the need for seasonal migration.”

 

The Israeli research team (from left to right): Dr. Irit Zohar, Dr. Marion Prévost, Prof. Naama Goren, Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura, Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil, Prof. Israel Hershkovitz

The Thinnest Possible Ladder

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Tel Aviv researchers reveal two-dimensional crystals exhibiting unique control of distinct electric potential steps.

Tel Aviv University research reveals two-dimensional crystals exhibiting a unique control of distinct electric potential steps by sliding atomically thin layers against each other. The consecutive, ultimately thin, electrical switches reported are a highly desired resource for information technology and novel electro- and optomechanical applications.

The research, now published in Nature journal, was conducted by Dr. Swarup Deb, M.Sc. student Noam Raab, Prof. Moshe Goldstein, and Dr. Moshe Ben Shalom, all from the Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Wei Cao, Prof. Michael Urbakh and Prof. Oded Hod from the Chemistry School at TAU, and Prof. Leeor Kronik from the Weizmann Institute.

 

“We are fascinated by how the atoms in a condensed matter order, how electrons mix with the atoms, and whether external stimulus can manipulate the atomic order and the electric charge distribution.” Dr. Moshe Ben Shalom

 

Turning to Crystals

“We are fascinated by how the atoms in a condensed matter order, how electrons mix with the atoms, and whether external stimulus can manipulate the atomic order and the electric charge distribution,” says Dr. Moshe Ben Shalom, head of the Quantum Layered Matter Group.

“Answering these questions is challenging due to the enormous number of atoms and electrons, even in the tiniest devices of our most advanced technologies. One of the tricks is to study crystals, which contain much smaller units, each including only a few atoms and electrons.”

“While crystals are made of many identical units, repeated periodically in space, their properties are entirely deduced from the one unit-cell symmetry and the details of the few atoms it captures. And still, it is challenging to understand and predict these details since the electrons spread over all the atoms simultaneously as determined by their joint quantum mechanical interactions.”

One way to probe the atomic order and the electronic charge distribution is to break the symmetry of the cells to induce internal electric fields. Crystals with permanent internal electric fields are called “polar crystals”. In 2020 the same lab at TAU reported a novel polar crystal by stacking together two layers of a van der Waals crystal, with each layer only one atom thick.

“The natural order in which these crystals grow is symmetric, with each successive layer rotated by 180 degrees compared to the previous one. Here, one type of atoms is positioned precisely above the other type. Conversely, the artificial crystals assembled in the lab are not rotated, resulting in a slight shift between the layers, thus straying away from the fully symmetric configurations. This non-symmetric crystal structure forces electrons to jump from one layer to another, forming a permanent electric field between them,” recaps Dr. Ben Shalom.

 

Ladder ferroelectrics

 

“We are now developing such tunneling devices in a stealth phase company called Slide-Tro LTD, established with the University and an external investor. We believe that a wide slew of devices from low power electronics to robust non-volatile memories are feasible with this technology.” Dr. Moshe Ben Shalom

 

“The Thinnest Possible”

“Crucially, the group found that applying external electric fields makes the layers slide back and forth to match the direction of the electron’s jump with the external field orientation. They named the phenomena ‘interfacial ferroelectricity’ and pointed out the unique domain-wall motion that governs the ‘Slide-Tronics’ response,” explains Ben Shalom.

“The ferroelectric response we discovered is in a two-atoms thick system, the thinnest possible. It is therefore highly appealing for information technologies which are based on electronic quantum tunneling,” says Ben Shalom.  

“We are now developing such tunneling devices in a stealth phase company called Slide-Tro LTD, established with the University and an external investor. We believe that a wide slew of devices from low power electronics to robust non-volatile memories are feasible with this technology.”

Climbing the Crystalline Ladder

“From a fundamental science perspective, the discovery pointed us to new questions: How does the electric charge order? And how does the electric potential grow if we stack additional layers to further break or restore the symmetry of the crystals? In other words, instead of thinning down crystals as was vastly explored to date, we could now assemble new polar crystals, layer by layer, and probe the electric potential at any step of the crystalline ladder.”

In the experiment, the researchers compared adjacent few layers thick domains with different back / forward shifts between the various layers, resulting in different polarization orientations. For example, in four layers (with three polar interfaces), there are four allowed configurations: all pointing up ↑↑↑, one down and two up ↑↑↓, two down and one up ↑↓↓, and all down ↓↓↓.

“We were excited to find a ladder of distinct electric potentials which are separated by nearly even steps, such that each step can be used as an independent information unit,” says Noam Rab, a student conducting the measurements.

“This is very different from any polar thin film known to date, where the polarization magnitude is very sensitive to many surface effects and where the polar orientation switches at once between two potentials only”.

 

“Sliding and Climbing a Ladder-Ferroelectric”: The periodic crystal is made of two different atoms, repeating with constant separations in each horizontal layer. Sliding the layers to the right or left positions, to position the red atom above the blue (or vice versa), makes electrons jump up (or down) between the layers. Unlike common polar crystals, the interfacial ferroelectric system exhibits distinct, evenly spaced electric potential steps which can serve as individual information units.

 

“The most likely directions of future research that we envision is manipulating more electronic orders like magnetism and superconductivity by sliding different crystal symmetries to form novel Ladder-Multiferroics.” Dr. Wei Cao

 

According to Dr. Swarup Deb, a leading author of the paper, the researchers found that, “the internal electric fields remain substantial even if we add external electrons to the system to make it both conductive and polar. Typically, the external charge screens off the internal polarization, but in the present interfacial ferroelectrics, the extra electrons could only flow along the layers without jumping between them too much, to mute down the out-of-plane electric field”.

Dr. Wei Cao, one of the other leading authors adds: “With the help of theoretical calculations based on quantum mechanical principles, we identified the precise distribution of the polar charge and the conducting charge. The former is highly confined to the interfaces between the layers and hence protected from external perturbations.”

“The calculations allowed us to predict which crystals are most resilient to the extra charge and how to design even better Ladder-Ferroelectrics. The most likely directions of future research that we envision is manipulating more electronic orders like magnetism and superconductivity by sliding different crystal symmetries to form novel Ladder-Multiferroics.”

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