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Cells in the fetal Amnion membrane, which make up part of the amniotic sac, and protects the fetus throughout the pregnancy period, may be a new source for human eggs

Technion researchers from the Bruce and Ruth Rappaport Faculty of Medicine found that cells in the fetal Amnion membrane may be a source of human eggs, according to dissertation of doctoral student Ayelet Evron mentored by the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Eliezer Shalev.

Amnion membranes constitute a part of the inner layer of the amniotic sac, which protects the fetus throughout the pregnancy period. Typically, upon being ruptured during the birth, directly after birth both the expelled placenta and membranes get thrown out.

Amnion membrane cells develop at the very early stages of the life of the fetus (on the eighth day after fertilization) and are known to maintain the plasticity of embryonic cells prior to cellular differentiation. These cells have the potential of joining any one of the cell groups that later develop into different tissues in the body. To date, the capability of Amnion membrane cells to differentiate into germ cells with specific gene markers that develop into human eggs, has never been documented.

The research work was undertaken in collaboration with Dr. Shlomit Goldman at the research laboratory of Women’s Division of Gynecology and Obstetrics in the Emek Medical Center (in Afula). It uncovered for the first time that when growing hamnion membrane cells on growth medium also used in IVF (in vitro fertilization), these cells display specific signs of gene expression like those of germ cells, which develop into human eggs, at both the gene and protein levels, as well as in appearance (resembling large round cells that resemble eggs). Later, the cells express markers that mimic the characteristic of markers in human egg development, which enable division reduction upon entry (division that is essential in human egg development), and remain in this state.

Researchers still face a major challenge – for these cells to be used in substitute of human eggs, they need to properly complete the reduction process upon entry.  Only after finding a solution to this problem it will be possible to check whether or not Amnion membrane cells may be used as a new source for human eggs that would be suitable for women who cannot produce them on their own.

37 young men and women from Russia to study information technology security at Technion

Professor Yehudit Dori, the Dean of the Division of Continuing Education & External Studies of the Technion, said that this group includes undergraduate students from Russia and the former Soviet Union. They earned bachelor’s degrees in computer science, economics, information systems and the like, and have come to Technion to obtain their CISM certification, a new five month course taught in Russian.

According to Professor Dori, “In the first group we expected an enrollment of only 20, but 37 came.” She added that, “Right from our first meeting I was very impressed with the high caliber of people in the program, and have since met with them at least once a month. The interaction with the students has been tremendous, and this led me to propose that they stay on for another five months at the Technion, and some 70 % immediately agreed. I offered them an opportunity to set-up a mentoring program as a follow up to the course, which would consist of weekly one to two-day hands-on industry experience in coordination with industrialist Mr. Yehuda Zisapel, who stood at the head of the Technion Alumni Association for six years. This proposition immediately spiked further interest, with 100% in favor for staying on for this mentoring program. All of the students are eligible to make aliyah under The Law of Return.”

At present, Dr. Niva Vengrovitz, a post-doctoral student in the Department of Education in Technology and Science at Technion, is setting-up connections for students in the industry; all of the students placed in the Israeli industry continuing education program will continue to the second phase of the project.

The director of “Nativ” Ms. Naomi Ben Ami, former Israeli ambassador to the Ukraine, said that the Technion course is run through the framework of the MASA Program, which brings thousands of students and academics from the Former Soviet Union to study in Israel.  “We reveal to them a country with much to offer, in terms of knowledge and professional attainment, blended with a Jewish identity,” she emphasized. “Continued Aliyah to Israel is important for us, as is the human quality of our new immigrants. Participants in the Technion course are of especially high caliber.”

The students receive a monthly scholarship, learn at a Hebrew Ulpan, take English conversation lessons, live in the university’s dorm rooms and given guided tours around the country. They are also involved in volunteering works in the community, at retirement homes, kindergartens and charity organizations.

Mr. Oded Raviv, the Head of the Division of Continuing Education & External Studies at Technion, and Ms. Ella Blinderman, the Division’s Project Manager, said that about 80% of the participants in the course are academics, with 30 men and seven women enrolled in the program. “Many of them already notified us of their plans to stay in Israel at the end of the course and are looking into making Aliyah. We have no doubt that by the end of the second stage of the program, which will expand further on technology aspects and expose students to more Hebrew and English – that most of them will decide to settle in Israel permanently,” added Blinderman.

Ms. Irit Frommer-Kfir, the Head of Content and Activity Development at Nativ, said that the first stage of the course was taught entirely in Russian, and that in light of the success of the program – the planning of a follow-up course in March 2013 is in the making. She expressed hope that in the summer of 2013, a course for high-school graduates from Russia will be offered, in cooperation with the Technion International School, to encourage students to enroll into undergraduate engineering studies at the university.

Above: The photo shows course participants, taken by Technion’s Spokesperson’s Office

Applying a conceptual modeling language developed over a decade ago, they depict complex biological systems both diagrammatically and textually in a formal yet intuitive way and at any desired level of detail

Technion researchers modeled the lifecycle of yeast mRNA, which transports genetic code from the nucleus to the ribosome for building proteins. Their novel method makes use of Object-Process Methodology (OPM), a holistic conceptual modeling paradigm that uses objects and processes as the only two building blocks of the universe. OPM, invented over fifteen years ago by Professor Dov Dori from the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, is in advanced stages of becoming the first conceptual modeling language which is an ISO standard.

Recently, Professor Dori has teamed up with Mordechai Choder, a molecular biologist from the Bruce and Ruth Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. Jointly mentoring Ms. Judith Somekh, a PhD candidate about to complete her dissertation, they built a conceptual model consisting of hundreds of objects and processes at eight levels of detail that describes key aspects of the mRNA lifecycle, which is responsible for gene expression. “It’s like a gigantic puzzle with vast amounts of information that has accumulated over years of meticulous research by thousands of researchers”, explains Professor Dori. “The model we built allows for an overall conceptual view of this subsystem and for testing it via qualitative simulation of the model.”

The model is based on dozens of published studies made on many pieces of this “puzzle” that together form an overall picture of major parts of the mRNA lifecycle subsystem. The research paper was published in the open access journal PloS ONE. In the process of building the model, the team – professors Dori and Choder and Judith Somekh – found and classified knowledge gaps in the system. Identifying such gaps can assist scientists in pinpointing specific aspects such as unknown mechanism or substances whose resolution requires design and execution of “wet lab” experimentation to verify or refute conjectured facts, and update the model accordingly. While systems biology has been a subject of much research in recent year, this approach has opened conceptual model-based systems biology as a new research area within systems biology.

The Technion decides that a lecturer who does not meet the standards of good teaching – can no longer teach required courses

The ten faculty members who received the award this year are: Eli Aljadeff, Yoram Halevi, Yoram Tambour, Oded Rabinovitch, Avigdor Gal, Erez Petrank, Uri Peskin, Gitti Frey, Isaac Keslassy and Yoav Arava.

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said in the festive ceremony that online academic courses have recently become highly popular. “This is indeed a significant revolution in academic education, but these courses cannot replace the strong bond created between a good lecturer and his student”, Prof. Lavie emphasized. “A good teacher gives of himself, reads the body language of his students, supports and guides them. The consistent thread running among the winners of the Yanai Award is love for the student and love for the profession”.

Executive Vice President for Research of the Technion, Prof. Gadi Schuster, disclosed in the ceremony that the Technion has recently resolved that a lecturer who does not meet the standards of good teaching – can no longer teach required courses. Chair of the Technion Student Association, Assaf Zinger, said in response that he is amazed at this decision of the Technion and is thrilled with it, as it is joyous news for all students.

Moshe Yanai, a worldwide data storage pioneer, said that with his donation he wanted to repay the Technion somewhat in tribute and appreciation of the tools for life that the institute has given him during his studies there forty years ago. Having remembered that period as a difficult and even traumatic one at times, he decided, in consultation with Prof. Lavie, to donate 12 million dollars that will be awarded to lecturers who are excellent educators, thus contributing to students at the Technion.  The award, in the amount of NIS 100 thousand per lecturer, will be awarded over twenty years. “This is the second year that the award is being given, and it is highly satisfying to see how the winners, who are excellent educators as is, seem to stir their colleagues to do the same”, said Mosh Yanai in the ceremony.

Above: The winners with Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie (at the center, to the right of the sign), and with Rachel and Moshe Yanai (at the center, to the left of the sign). Photo: Yoav Bachar, Technion Spokesman.

This is a significant scientific breakthrough that represents an effective solution to a major problem in organic synthesis that has, yet, never been resolved, and which could lead to large-scale reductions in pharmaceutical industry processes

Technion researchers found a novel solution to a major problem in organic synthesis that has to date never been resolved, despite worldwide intensive efforts. The Technion team successfully prepared a new molecular framework possessing a challenging asymmetric center in a single chemical step from easily available starting materials. Until now, by lack of available efficient strategies, very few attempts were made and they were all based on long and tedious approaches. This is a significant scientific breakthrough in synthesis, which could lead to a considerable reduction in the production of pharmaceuticals. This groundbreaking discovery is reported by the popular scientific journal “Nature.”

“Synthetic organic synthesis is a science that deals with the building of complex organic molecules from simpler elements,” explains Professor Ilan Marek from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at Technion, whose team of researchers were responsible for this major breakthrough. “One of the greatest applications of this new approach is a quick and efficient synthesis of complex natural materials that may be used in pharmaceutical industry. It must be the goal of the 21st century to accomplish more with less. In today’s society, no one can afford to follow the inefficient route of long and tedious synthesis. We should think organic synthesis differently and I am sure that new transformations that were not possible to perform by conventional methods will soon appear” continues Professor Marek.

Although, there are still molecular frameworks that are extremely challenging to prepare, the real question of the 21st century is no longer “can we synthesize this molecule”, but rather “how can we synthesize it efficiently, using the fewest number of steps, with optimum convergence, with as little as possible functional group transformations, little or no by-products and maximum atom-efficiency and at minimal cost.” Over the years, Professor Marek’s research team developed several innovative new synthetic methods that not only fulfilled these requirements, but also gave solutions to challenging problems in organic synthesis.

One of these critical challenges is the formation of chiral all-carbon quaternary stereogenic centers in acyclic systems. A chiral molecule is a type of molecule that has a non-superposable mirror image. Human hands are perhaps the most universally recognized example of chirality: the left hand is a non-superposable mirror image of the right hand; no matter how the two hands are oriented, it is impossible for all the major features of both hands to coincide. This difference in symmetry becomes obvious if someone attempts to shake the right hand of a person using his left hand, or if a left-handed glove is placed on a right hand. This characteristic is also present in organic molecules and two mirror images of a chiral molecule are called enantiomers.

Many biologically active molecules are chiral, including the naturally occurring amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and sugars. In biological systems, most of these compounds are of the same chirality and understanding the origin of chirality may shed some light on the origin of life. In many cases, both enantiomers of a specific material can affect the human body in completely different ways, and therefore understanding these chiral molecular characteristics is of great importance for the pharmaceutical and food industries. The most infamous case of medical disaster was caused by a misunderstanding of the different pharmacological characteristics of two enantiomers of the same material, known as Thalidomide which caused severe birth defects. Many infants were born without limbs because the drug Thalidomide, which was administered to their mothers, could in-vivo interconvert the two enantiomers.

In the context of building molecules, the aldol reaction is one of the most versatile carbon-carbon bond formation processes available to synthetic chemists but also a critical biological reaction in the context of metabolism. However, coming back to efficiency, the aldol reaction combines only two components with the creation of only one new carbon-carbon bond per chemical step. As discussed previously, better efficiency is now necessary in organic synthesis in which several new carbon-carbon bonds should be formed. Moreover, the construction of chiral all-quaternary carbon centers could not be achieved in the previously aldol-based methodologies. In the most recent report published in Nature by Professor Marek and his colleagues, a very efficient solution to this problem has been reported through a completely different approach. In a single-pot operation, starting from classical hydrocarbons, the formation of aldol products containing the desired all-carbon quaternary stereocenter have been prepared through the concomitant formation of three new bonds. This groundbreaking discovery represents an innovative solution to a challenging synthetic problem.

For the development of original synthetic approaches, Professor Ilan Marek received the prestigious Royal Society Chemistry Organometallic Award (2011) and in 2012 the Janssen Pharmaceutica Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis.

Scientists from Technion and the University of Colorado, Boulder have taken a closer look at how stars systems and their planets grow old together.

The influence of stellar aging on systems composed of three stars in orbit about each other is particularly intriguing. Binary stars systems where one of the stars is orbited by a planet, react similarly to stellar maturation. Stars and planets in these systems can change orbital partners. In some cases, they may even collide or be expelled from the star system all together. This wild and turbulent scenario may have produced of the brightest star system in the sky, Sirius A and B. These findings raise the possibility that collisions between stars are more common (at least 30 times over) than conventional wisdom has shown.

Most stars either live a solitary existence, or pair up with one other star to make a binary system. However 15 percent of all stars orbit at least two other stars, forming a triple star system. Similarly, planets can be “hosted” by a binary system, which then behave much like a triple star system except that one object is vastly smaller than the other two. The evolution of stars in these systems can generate dramatic outcomes. The aging process of stars involves many major changes: a star can expand to a circumference greater than hundreds of times its original size, and then lose most of its mass in intense winds. At the end of this process the stellar core, a white dwarf, is all that is left behind.  While much work has been devoted to understanding the evolution of single and binary star systems, studies on the evolution of triple stars are novel As is evident in the most recent research of Prof. Hagai Perets from the Faculty of Physics at Technion University, and Dr. Kaitlin Kratter from CU-Boulder, triple-star systems and their evolution are deserving of more interest. “Binary stars are systems that are generally stable,” says Perets. “The triple-star systems, on the other hand, are much more fragile,” and thus susceptible to disruption.

When mass is lost from one star during the ageing process, all of the orbits in the system change. These changes can induce dynamical instability, driving the system into a wild dynamic ‘dance,’ whereby the stars exchange partners until one of them gets expelled from the system altogether. Because the mass losing star begins to swell as it ages, it becomes a large target, significantly increasing its chances of crashing into another star in the midst of its wild ‘dance.’

Ordinarily, stars only collide in dense star clusters (systems with millions of stars packed into a volume of only a few cubic light years; for comparison, within the same volume in the neighbourhood of the Solar system there is only one star – the sun). Even in these dense clusters, the probability of a collision is very low.

“We discovered that when it comes to triple star systems, there is a different picture all together. Star collisions outside of dense star clusters can occur at a rate of 30 times higher in comparison to those coincidental collisions that occur within star clusters,” says Perets.

An answer to a Sirius mystery

According to Perets and Kratter, this type of chaotic evolution may be relevant to one of the best known stars, Sirius – the brightest star in the sky.  Sirius is accompanied by a white dwarf in a binary system, but on a very eccentric orbit. This configuration is unusual for a star in a close orbit to a white dwarf; astronomers normally expect such orbits to be nearly circular, due to the exchange of mass between the stars as they age. The most recent findings show that this strange configuration may be explained if the Sirius binary system is the remnant of a triple system that became unstable and lost a star. “This surprising revelation that the triple evolution scenario we studied could solve the decades old mystery related to our brightest night-time star, Sirius, is very exciting; it appears that Sirius had a much wilder history than we could have ever imagined,” adds Perets.

Planetary “star-hoppers”

What would you do if your neighbourhood started to deteriorate? Would you consider moving to a better neighbourhood? It seems as if planets might make the same decision. Kratter and Perets also investigated systems where one of the three elements is not a star but a planet. Much like the case with three stars, mass loss by the planet-host can drive the planet into an unstable, chaotic orbit. The outcome, says Kratter, is surprising. “A planet can actually change which star it orbits, bouncing back and forth between the two.” Sometimes, such a star-hopper will settle down into a new, stable orbit around the companion star.  More often, this story has an unhappy ending. It is more likely that the planet will collide with one of the two stars during its voyages between the two. Such a collision would obliterate the planet.

Will serve researches from all universities, as well as the high-tech industry

The microscope has sophisticated detectors that not only provide extremely high resolution, but also provide direct information about the material composition and local defects. It has a heating system with temperatures of up to 1100 degrees Celsius, which allows researchers to carry out manufacturing processes in-situ in the microscope, and to directly characterize changes to a material during a specific manufacturing process. Thus, for example, one can directly see solidification of a molten alloy inside the microscope, or track the mechanism by which thin films break-up or agglomerate into individual particles during thermal treatments. “With this innovative microscope, we can follow the process and discover how to prevent agglomeration, or utilize it”, emphasizes Prof. Kaplan. “Thus we developed, together with Prof. Gadi Eisenstein of the Department of Electrical Engineering, new flash memories with a stability and working range that are not currently available, and that are based on tiny platinum particles 4-5 nanometers in size. We produced these particles at the desired size and form, by following the agglomeration process of a continuous layer inside the microscope. This provides us with engineering criteria that we have not had to date”.

Dr. Alex Berner and Michael Kalina are responsible for the operation of the advanced microscope, which is part of the Technion’s advanced Electron Microscopy Center, and for related training.

Above: Inaugurating the innovative microscope. From right to left: Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Prof. Dan Shechtman, Technion Executive Vice President for Research Prof. Oded Shmueli,  and Prof. Wayne D. Kaplan. Photo: Yoav Becher, Technion Spokesman

Using the power of the sun and ultrathin films of iron oxide (commonly known as rust), Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers have found a novel way to split water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen.  The breakthrough, published this week in 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.

            “Our approach is the first of its kind,” says lead researcher Associate Prof. Avner Rothschild, of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “We have found a way to trap light in ultrathin films of iron oxide that are 5,000 thinner than an office paper. This enables achieving high solar energy conversion efficiency and low materials and production costs. ”

Iron oxide is a common semiconductor material, inexpensive to produce, stable in water, and – unlike other semiconductors such as silicon – can oxidize water without itself being oxidated, corroded, or decomposed.  But it also presents challenges, the greatest of which was finding a way to overcome its poor electrical transport properties. “For many years researchers have struggled with the tradeoff between light absorption and the separation and collection of the photogenerated charge carriers before they die out by recombination,” says Prof. Rothschild. “Our light-trapping scheme overcomes this tradeoff, enabling efficient absorption in ultrathin films wherein the photogenerated charge carriers are collected efficiently. The light is trapped in quarter-wave or even deeper sub-wavelength films on mirror-like back reflector substrates. Interference between forward- and backward-propagating waves enhances the light absorption close to the surface wherein the photogenerated charge carriers are collected before recombination takes place.”

The breakthrough could make possible the design of inexpensive solar cells that combine ultrathin iron oxide photoelectrodes with conventional photovoltaic cells based on silicon or other materials to produce electricity and hydrogen.  According to Prof. Rothschild, “these cells could store solar energy for on demand use, 24 hours per day.”  This is in strong contrast to conventional photovoltaic cells, which provide power only when the sun is shining (and not at night or when it is cloudy).

The findings could also be used to reduce the amount of rare elements that the solar panel industry uses to create the semiconductor material in their second-generation photovoltaic cells.  The Technion team’s light trapping method could save 90% or more of rare elements like Tellurium and Indium, with no compromise in performance.

Israel is represented by the Technion and by the startup AirBase; the total budget of the project is nearly 12 million euros and around 30 research groups and commercial companies from 20 countries are participating in it

CITI-SENSE, a Europe-wide research project financed by FP7, the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research, is on its way. The project aims to increase public awareness and involvement in environmental decision making processes, especially where air pollution is concerned, both at the personal level and at the public level. In frame of the project, nine cities (Haifa, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Oslo, Barcelona, Ostrava, Edinburgh, Vienna and Bilbao) were selected in which advanced sensor networks will be deployed for monitoring air pollution and assessing the exposure to air pollutants.

These cities will hold activities designed to enlist public involvement in the data collection process, the environmental significance of these data and the health implications of the findings. The project will take around four years, is budgeted at a total of nearly 12 million euros and around 30 research groups and commercial companies from 20 countries are participating in it.

At the heart of the project is an innovative concept called Citizen Observatory, comprising active participation of the public in data collection, ensuring the accessibility of the information collected to the public, and increasing public involvement in decision making processes.

Israel is represented in the project by two industry leaders: the Division of Environmental, Water and Agriculture Engineering in the Technion Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering – Prof. David Broday who is the project leader and Assistant Professor Barak Fishbain, and the startup company AirBase Systems, which will be among the main suppliers of sensor networks to be deployed in the different cities.

Prof. David Broday, Head of the Technion Center of Excellence in Exposure Sciences and Environmental Health, said that “the research opens new horizons to the spatial and temporal measurement of air pollution at an extremely high resolution at the exact locations and times in which we are exposed to pollutants and can be affected by their damaging properties. The innovative concept of ‘citizen observatory’ offers a partnership between academy, industry, the public and decision makers, while building an aware, understanding and connected community that has the ability to make a difference and reduce personal exposure to air pollution”.

Irad Kuhnreich, founder and CEO of AirBase and graduate of the Technion in Mechanical Engineering, added:  “we believe that CITI-SENSE presents a real opportunity to make the technological leap that the air monitoring industry has yearned for. Involvement, participation and transparency are about to become major milestones in the collection and presentation of environmental information in the 21sth century, and CITI-SENSE is the first to implement this in practice.

The Division of Environmental, Water and Agriculture Engineering in the Technion Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering participates in many and varied studies on environmental issues, from reducing pollutant emissions to the environment to treating land, water, air, marine environment and ecological and agricultural systems. In particular, air quality issues researched at the Division include, among others, atmospheric flow systems and pollutant movement in the Mediterranean Basin, remote sensing of pollutants in the air, air quality in urban regions and in the borders between them and agricultural regions, and air quality inside buildings. The materials currently at the focus of research include air pollutants originating in transportation, pesticides, and inhalable particles. These studies are conducted in the Technion Center of Excellence in Exposure Sciences and Environmental Health

AirBase Systems Ltd. is an Israeli startup that has developed a new technology for measuring air pollution levels. At the heart of AirBase’s technology is a tiny monitoring station comprising air pollution sensors that employ state-of-the-art nanotechnology. This station is designed to operate within spatial monitoring networks and is able to connect independently to the internet (Wi-Fi or GSM). In addition to the major technological achievement, AirBase has also succeeded in dramatically reducing the price of the system, compared to standard monitoring stations.

The first scientific research of its kind in the world to examine the connection between smoking a hookah (narghile) and driving is unveiled at the conference held by Technion’s Transportation Research Institute

Drivers who smoked a hookah demonstrate a high level of risk-taking when driving and non-compliance with red traffic lights. The reason: smoking a single hookah increases carbon monoxide in the blood by an amount equivalent to smoking 100 to 200 cigarettes

Drivers who smoke a single hookah are 33% more involved in traffic accidents and traffic light violations than other drivers. This was shown by the first research of its kind in the world to examine the connection between smoking a hookah and driving, conducted recently in the Technion’s Transportation Research Institute in cooperation with the Rebecca Ziv Medical Center in Safed. The research was unveiled by Dr. Wafa Elias in a conference held by the Technion’s Transportation Research Institute on recent safety research and their application in Israel.

The conference organizers, Head of the Transportation Research Institute Prof. Shlomo Bekhor and the Chief Scientist of the National Road Safety Authority Dr. Shay Soffer, emphasized that the passive safety of vehicles was exhausted and most of the attention is now given to active safety. “Even in the more popular cars in the market today it is easy to find 6 airbags, a safety cage and systems such as ABS (anti-lock braking system) and ESP (electronic stability control)”, said soffer. “We are entering an era in which active systems are developed that warn the driver about lane departure and safety distance and provide traction control. For this reason, scientific researchers are an isle of excellence which helps us save lives. Traffic accidents are a global epidemic. Our war against them in Israel has had a significant impact. The number of fatalities from the beginning of the year until today is 100 fatalities lower than this number in the same period last year.

The research, which examined the effect of smoking a hookah on driving, continues other researches that pointed to damage such as the high amount of nicotine that the smoker inhales when smoking a hookah, because of the high amount of smoke inhaled in each suction. “There is a myth according to which hookah smoke, which passes through water, is filtered and is therefore less dangerous. But this is not true. On the contrary – the water cools the smoke and allow it to penetrate deeper into the lungs, thus increasing the damage caused while smoking”, explained Dr. Elias, “One hour of smoking a hookah is equivalent to smoking 100 to 200 ordinary cigarettes”.

The study included 100 men and women aged 18 to 60 years, 70% of whom are hookah smokers while 30% were the control group. All participants had similar characteristics, such as where they live, their driving experience and whether they are cigarette smokers. The trial received the Helsinki Committee’s approval for clinical trials on human subjects. It began with every participant smoking for half an hour one head of apple-flavored hookah tobacco. After smoking, the trial participants drove a simulator that simulated a 10 km drive, during which the driver experienced 10 different driving-related events throughout which his reaction was measured, such as traffic lights, crossing cars, pedestrians crossing the road, dogs crossing the road, a dirt mound in the lane, etc.

The hookah smoking group demonstrated a higher tendency to take risks when driving immediately after smoking a hookah. The involvement of this group in traffic accidents was 40% higher than that of the drivers in the control group. Even half an hour after smoking the hookah, simulator driving results showed two disturbing findings: these drivers had a 31% higher tendency to cross the road centerline (failure to keep from crossing the centerline) than the drivers in the control group. Another characteristic was a 33% increase in the total time during which the driver was not inside the driving lane and crossed the center- and sidelines of the lane. These two measures, crossing the centerline and failure to remain inside the lane, indicate that driving stability is negatively affected after smoking a hookah. As a result, driving becomes less stable and more dangerous.

“Smoking the hookah raised the heart rate of hookah smokers from 80 to 95 beats per minute”, said Dr. Elias. “The increase in their heart rate resulted from a lack of oxygen and an increase in carbon monoxide levels in the blood up to five times more than in a cigarette. This is called hypoxia, which causes slurred speech, slow movements, dizziness, slight tremor, lack of self-control, a feeling of euphoria, decreased sight, decreased ability to identify colors, etc. High levels of carbon monoxide could result in brain damage and loss of consciousness.

“The heartbeat and carbon monoxide levels remained high even half an hour after smoking a hookah. These findings are highly significant, based on studies that show that carbon monoxide remains in the blood for 4 to 6 hours. Drivers who smoke a hookah take more risks when driving. Smoking a hookah reduces caution and stability when driving. The study examined, among others, also the social tendencies of its participants. Most hookah smokers do not smoke cigarettes. Most of them think that this is an unhealthy habit. Most of them do not drink alcohol, either”.

Dr. Elias noted in her lecture that use of the hookah, which began in the Middle East, has increased in the Arab sector such that even women smoking a hookah is widely accepted. Hookah smoking is currently a popular practice in many countries, yet research literature worldwide does not include any research that examines the impact of smoking on driving. “My Jewish students told me that use of the hookah has become common also among their friends, and a proof of this is the hookahs sold in almost every kiosk”, she said.

According to a new mice model research, sleep can reactivate fearful memories and alleviate them. This finding could lead to the development of more effective treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The finding was presented at Neuroscience 2012, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the most extensive source of neuroscience and brain health news.

The research, conducted by Dr. Asya Rolls and Megha Makam of the research groups headed by Profs. Heller and de Lecea of Stanford University, finds that when a frightening memory is connected with smell, this trigger (the smell) can be used to reactivate the memory during sleep without actually interrupting the sleep. The researchers found that if the reactivation is repeated, the frightening memory is strengthened; but if the recreation is accompanied by a treatment that blocks the creation of proteins in the basolateral amygdala, the area of the brain associated with fear, the frightening memory is weakened.

PTSD is characterized by intense, highly emotional memories that are awakened by specific social and environmental triggers. In extinction therapy, the patient repeatedly recreates the memory in non-threatening surroundings, such as a clinic; however, the treatment is sometimes identified with the clinic to the extent that it ceases to be effective, and the patient experiences the traumatic trigger elsewhere, such as while out on the street.

“Sleep is not linked to a specific location, and thus changes that occur in traumatic memories during sleep could weaken the fear response regardless of where the memory awakens,” Prof. Heller explains. “This fact could provide a significant solution to the limitations of existing PTSD treatments”.

In their experiments, researchers created conditioning that paired certain smells and an electrical shock in mice while they were awake. This smell, or control smell, was released in the mice’s cages while they were asleep in the presence of a protein synthesis inhibitor. The activation of the conditioning smell during sleep resulted in a substantial reduction in the fear response in later tests, while the mice were awake. Most important, the decrease in the fear response was general, and was not connected to a specific location.

“This is where the significant potential of the treatment of traumas during sleep actually lies. While we sleep, our brain works differently, some of our protective systems are not activated, which, in principle, allows us to access associations which might not be accessible to treatment while we are awake,” says Dr. Rolls, now a member of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. “Moreover, many treatments terminate prematurely because the patient finds it difficult to deal with the repeated mention of the traumatic memories. Therefore, treatment during sleep could be an easier alternative to dealing with such memories. Of course, there is still quite a distance between these preliminary experiments and actually treating people, but it is a start”.

Donated the money granted with the award, which is considered “the Nobel Prize of computing and technology”, to the Technion; the first Israeli to win the award was Prof. Jacob Ziv of the Technion, who won it for his development of the Lempel-Ziv algorithm; GPS developer Bradford Parkinson won the award alongside Dov Moran

In the festive ceremony, which was held in the beginning of the week at the Deutsche Museum in Munich, Dov Moran said: “I am proud to represent here my friends in the Israeli hi-tech. The disk-on-key (commonly known as the USB flash drive) was born as a result of a problem. My computer stopped working before an important presentation and I promised myself never to be in a situation where I do not have a copy in my pocket. And this is how this invention came to be. But it is important to understand that things do not advance on their own accord. Anyone can invent. All you need is to open your eyes and see what people need. But the road from understanding the need to the creation of a product is long and strewn with difficulties. It requires the necessary knowledge, which I received from the Technion, and the ability to survive this constant battle of the “birth” of a product. Worth it? Definitely!”

Above: Dov Moran at the awarding ceremony. Photo: Technion Spokesman, courtesy of the Rhein Foundation