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700 international high-school students livin’ it @Technion

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About 700 students this summer participated in the Technion’s science workshops and “SciTech” youth summer camp

Approximately 700 students, from all over the north of the country, from 5th grade through to 12th grade, participated in two summer sessions given by the Science Programs for Youth division of the Technion. In addition, 44 young people participated in the international science camp, “SciTech 2011”.
This year the Science Programs for Youth division offered a range of programs in the areas of medicine, genetic engineering, developing mathematical thinking, aviation sciences, architecture, robotics, nano worlds and more. About 40 different classes were run and the most popular classes, by far, were the ones in robotics and architecture.
Classes were given in three different areas: natural sciences and engineering, basic skills and engineering and technology.
The classes are given by Technion students studying in different faculties who believe that in science and teaching, they are also conveying an important message to the young participants. In addition to the classes, the participants in the Science Programs for Youth also received a discount on entry fees to the Technion swimming pool and thus were able to enjoy the summer to the fullest.
The “SciTech” summer camp is an international science camp that takes place every summer at the Technion. This year’s camp marks its 18th year. About 44 young men and women from Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Israel came to the Technion camp, which is aimed at youth aged 16-18 with a proven aptitude in science and technology who strive for academic excellence at the highest level. The camp is about four weeks long and combines scientific research with cultural and social activities. Afternoons and evenings are devoted to social activities and on certain days, the participants are taken on outings to see the country. This year’s tours were to Jerusalem, Caesarea, Kfar Blum, the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa and many other places.
The main objective of the camp is to expose young talented people to scientific and technological activity and research, as well as allow them an opportunity to work under the supervision of professional staff from the Technion, to build a bridge between science and the different cultures, to create relationships among students from all over world and to expose them to different aspects of Israeli society and history.
During the camp, the students work in pairs on projects at the cutting edge of Technion research, using the Technion’s equipment and labs. Toward the end of the camp, participants present their research projects by submitting a comprehensive report, a scientific poster presentation and a visual presentation.
The audience at these presentations is made up of the camp participants, the mentors, the academic staff and guests. The audience participates in choosing the best presentation in every scientific field.
The posters are displayed at a special exhibition during the camp’s closing ceremony. They are judged by a committee comprising senior scientists from the Technion as well as experts. The committee members select the best poster in each scientific field, with each winner getting a prize. The reports and posters appear in the annual “SciTech” review.

CIDI | Israeli invention can sniff cancer#.TkiRInSXnzt.email#.TkiRInSXnzt.email

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Prof. Hossam Haick

Israeli invention can sniff cancer
Wed 04-05-2011
An Arab-Israeli researcher at the Technion has figured out a way to identify cancer in a person’s breath
The patient walks into the oncology department’s checkup room. The doctors suspect cancer. But instead of running intrusive biopsies or complicated scans, they only ask that he blow for about 15 seconds into a strange-looking device that looks like a faucet. Within minutes, a computer delivers a full diagnosis.
It sounds like a scene from a science fiction film, but the device described above already exists. It can be found at the Technion in Haifa, the Israeli university for exact sciences. Currently, the device is still in the experimental phase. But in view of the crucial importance of early detection in the fight against cancer, the Technion’s “electric nose” may revolutionize the world of oncology.
The implications of this have not eluded the scientific community. This is the reason that the young Arab-Israeli inventor of this device was named by MIT’s Technology Review – a prestigious magazine – among the world’s 35 most promising inventors.
“Current cancer diagnosis techniques are ineffective and impractical,” says Dr. Hussam Haick, 34, who was born in Nazareth. “Mostly the patient arrives for diagnosis when the symptoms of the sickness have already begun to appear. Months pass before a real analysis in completed. And the process requires complicated and expensive equipment such as CT and mammography imaging devices. Each machine costs millions of dollars, and end up delivering rough, inaccurate results.”
Haick’s device will, one fully developed, be small and mobile, costing less than 1,000 dollars per unit. It is meant for use not only in oncology departments, but as a standard item at the family doctor’s office, and used in routine inspections for patients, just like tests for blood pressure.
Dr. Haick hails from a Christian-Arab family. His father is a lecturer on machine engineering in a technical school in Karmiel. He insisted that Hussam and his four siblings learn exact sciences. “He gave us free choice, on the condition that we also learn engineering on top of whethever we wanted to study,” Dr. Haick says. His oldest brother is an engineer at Intel’s Haifa plant. Their two sisters are both math teachers, and the youngest sister is close to finishing her medical studies, also at the Technion. 
Haik, who is married and hasone child, wrote his master’s degree at the Technion, continuing to take up a position at the Weizmann Institute in Rechovot, where he studies molecular biology. He acquired the basis for his knowledge of olfactory technology at Caltech in California, where he wrote is post doctorate. His research was made possible through the use of sensors belonging to NASA.
The American space agency ended up offering Haik a position, but in 2006 he decided he would return to Israel instead. He returned to the Technion, where he set up a team of scientists to work on the electric, cancer-detection device. Currently, the team consists of 26 people from Israel, Singapore, China, Germany, India en Russia.
Their eventual breakthrough is based on a chemical discovery made possible through the use of spectroscopic analyses of molecular presence, which showed that cancer patients emit certain, characteristic elements in their breath. Haik says that he is not at liberty to elaborate on the issue due to copyright limitations.
Research indicated that Dogs are also capable of sniffing out cancer. “But the use of dogs for diagnosis remain impractical,” Haick adds. Nonetheless, these indications inspired him to come up with a device which simulates the canine olfactory ability to sense cancer. At the lab, Haick and the members of his team began collecting and mapping out the relevant chemical compounds and identifying them with nanometric sensors.
Clinical tests began 18 months ago at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, with 400 cancer patients and 400 people without cancer. The results were very encouraging, according to Haick. “I believe that within a few years this device will be is wide use,” he says. “We have overcome the main technological hurdles, and proved that diagnosing cancer is possible through analysis of a person’s breath. And we’ve classified a few different types of cancer which can be detected in this way, though not enough of them. We are working on broadening that list now.”
Besides cancer, the electric nose is capable of sensing nephrology dysfunctions. This aspect is also beig researched at Rambam Hospital.
“Israeli universities all suffer from shortage in funds,” Haick says. “But the Technion spends its budget in a very effective manner. While some universities splurge on beautifl buildings and facilities, Technion invests in a young, dynamic and prestigious staff. This is an investment which will surely pay off.”
But the Technion’s tempting offer is not the only reason that Haick came back to Israel. “If I stayed in the US, I would be successful there. But also isolated,” Haick concludes. “A good scientist needs to have more than a good feeling for discoveries. They must first of all be good people, and that happens when one is connected to one’s community. For me, that can only happen in Israel.”

CIDI | Israeli invention can sniff cancer#.TkiRInSXnzt.email#.TkiRInSXnzt.email

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Prof. Hossam Haick

Israeli invention can sniff cancer
Wed 04-05-2011
An Arab-Israeli researcher at the Technion has figured out a way to identify cancer in a person’s breath
The patient walks into the oncology department’s checkup room. The doctors suspect cancer. But instead of running intrusive biopsies or complicated scans, they only ask that he blow for about 15 seconds into a strange-looking device that looks like a faucet. Within minutes, a computer delivers a full diagnosis.
It sounds like a scene from a science fiction film, but the device described above already exists. It can be found at the Technion in Haifa, the Israeli university for exact sciences. Currently, the device is still in the experimental phase. But in view of the crucial importance of early detection in the fight against cancer, the Technion’s “electric nose” may revolutionize the world of oncology.
The implications of this have not eluded the scientific community. This is the reason that the young Arab-Israeli inventor of this device was named by MIT’s Technology Review – a prestigious magazine – among the world’s 35 most promising inventors.
“Current cancer diagnosis techniques are ineffective and impractical,” says Dr. Hussam Haick, 34, who was born in Nazareth. “Mostly the patient arrives for diagnosis when the symptoms of the sickness have already begun to appear. Months pass before a real analysis in completed. And the process requires complicated and expensive equipment such as CT and mammography imaging devices. Each machine costs millions of dollars, and end up delivering rough, inaccurate results.”
Haick’s device will, one fully developed, be small and mobile, costing less than 1,000 dollars per unit. It is meant for use not only in oncology departments, but as a standard item at the family doctor’s office, and used in routine inspections for patients, just like tests for blood pressure.
Dr. Haick hails from a Christian-Arab family. His father is a lecturer on machine engineering in a technical school in Karmiel. He insisted that Hussam and his four siblings learn exact sciences. “He gave us free choice, on the condition that we also learn engineering on top of whethever we wanted to study,” Dr. Haick says. His oldest brother is an engineer at Intel’s Haifa plant. Their two sisters are both math teachers, and the youngest sister is close to finishing her medical studies, also at the Technion. 
Haik, who is married and hasone child, wrote his master’s degree at the Technion, continuing to take up a position at the Weizmann Institute in Rechovot, where he studies molecular biology. He acquired the basis for his knowledge of olfactory technology at Caltech in California, where he wrote is post doctorate. His research was made possible through the use of sensors belonging to NASA.
The American space agency ended up offering Haik a position, but in 2006 he decided he would return to Israel instead. He returned to the Technion, where he set up a team of scientists to work on the electric, cancer-detection device. Currently, the team consists of 26 people from Israel, Singapore, China, Germany, India en Russia.
Their eventual breakthrough is based on a chemical discovery made possible through the use of spectroscopic analyses of molecular presence, which showed that cancer patients emit certain, characteristic elements in their breath. Haik says that he is not at liberty to elaborate on the issue due to copyright limitations.
Research indicated that Dogs are also capable of sniffing out cancer. “But the use of dogs for diagnosis remain impractical,” Haick adds. Nonetheless, these indications inspired him to come up with a device which simulates the canine olfactory ability to sense cancer. At the lab, Haick and the members of his team began collecting and mapping out the relevant chemical compounds and identifying them with nanometric sensors.
Clinical tests began 18 months ago at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, with 400 cancer patients and 400 people without cancer. The results were very encouraging, according to Haick. “I believe that within a few years this device will be is wide use,” he says. “We have overcome the main technological hurdles, and proved that diagnosing cancer is possible through analysis of a person’s breath. And we’ve classified a few different types of cancer which can be detected in this way, though not enough of them. We are working on broadening that list now.”
Besides cancer, the electric nose is capable of sensing nephrology dysfunctions. This aspect is also beig researched at Rambam Hospital.
“Israeli universities all suffer from shortage in funds,” Haick says. “But the Technion spends its budget in a very effective manner. While some universities splurge on beautifl buildings and facilities, Technion invests in a young, dynamic and prestigious staff. This is an investment which will surely pay off.”
But the Technion’s tempting offer is not the only reason that Haick came back to Israel. “If I stayed in the US, I would be successful there. But also isolated,” Haick concludes. “A good scientist needs to have more than a good feeling for discoveries. They must first of all be good people, and that happens when one is connected to one’s community. For me, that can only happen in Israel.”

TECHNION FOCUS MAGAZINE – Outstanding Achievement Award to Prof. Lior Gepstein

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TECHNION FOCUS MAGAZINE – Outstanding Achievement Award to Prof. Lior Gepstein

Prof. Lior Gepstein: Technion Faculty of Medicine.
Date: 15/08/2011
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) honours Prof. Lior Gepstein of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine with an Outstanding Achievement Award. With this award the ESC Council for Basic Cardiovascular Science annually honours two basic researchers with outstanding accomplishments in the early stage of their career. At the ESC Congress in Paris, Gepstein, together with fellow awardee Thomas Thum of Germany, will each receive an honorary plaque and 3,000 Euros.  

The European Society of Cardiology represents over 62,000 cardiology professionals across Europe and the Mediterranean. Its mission is to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe.

Stem Cells with a Heart
A Technion study published in Nature in January 2011 shows the ability of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs ) to recreate – in a Petri dish – a cardiac disorder known as long QT syndrome, enabling researchers to model the abnormal cardiac function and to identify potential new therapeutic agents.
Led by Prof. Lior Gepstein of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, the research team obtained skin cells from a patient known to have long QT syndrome – a disease which affects the heart’s ability to recharge itself after each heartbeat, causing fainting, seizures and even leading to sudden death. The Technion scientists turned the skin cells into iPSCs and then coaxed these all-purpose stem cells to become cardiac cells.
These newly created beating heart cells showed abnormal electrical activity, mimicking that of the patient’s actual heart, and enabling the scientists to test the efficacy of different drugs on the cells.
While some patients acquire the syndrome after taking certain medications, Gepstein’s patient was a 28-year-old woman with an inherited form of the disorder – type-2 LQTS – caused by a single genetic mutation. In this case, the individual cardiac cells derived from iPSCs demonstrated the same long recharging period and arrhythmia common in the hearts of long QT syndrome patients.
  
The study represents a new paradigm to help scientists learn more about how a disease like long QT syndrome works at the cellular level. Gepstein said that the disease “could be demonstrated and studied at the single-cell or multicellular level, but it doesn’t require an entire organ, which of course we cannot create.”
But it also offers a glimpse at the future of personalized medicine, where a patient’s own cells can be used to determine which treatments might work best – or should be avoided – for a particular condition. Furthermore, since heart biopsies, for example, are hard to obtain, this methodology using iPSCs also offers a novel way to study diseased cells that cannot easily be removed from the body. Researchers around the world are also using iPSCs to study other heart diseases and nervous system disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Gepstein said.
The research team at the Sohnis and Forman Families Center of Excellence for Stem Cell and Tissue Regeneration Research included Ilanit Itzhaki, Leonid Meizels, Irit Huber, and colleagues.

Heart cells derived from the human induced
pluripotent stem cells.

TECHNION FOCUS MAGAZINE – Outstanding Achievement Award to Prof. Lior Gepstein

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TECHNION FOCUS MAGAZINE – Outstanding Achievement Award to Prof. Lior Gepstein

Prof. Lior Gepstein: Technion Faculty of Medicine.
Date: 15/08/2011
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) honours Prof. Lior Gepstein of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine with an Outstanding Achievement Award. With this award the ESC Council for Basic Cardiovascular Science annually honours two basic researchers with outstanding accomplishments in the early stage of their career. At the ESC Congress in Paris, Gepstein, together with fellow awardee Thomas Thum of Germany, will each receive an honorary plaque and 3,000 Euros.  

The European Society of Cardiology represents over 62,000 cardiology professionals across Europe and the Mediterranean. Its mission is to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe.

Stem Cells with a Heart
A Technion study published in Nature in January 2011 shows the ability of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs ) to recreate – in a Petri dish – a cardiac disorder known as long QT syndrome, enabling researchers to model the abnormal cardiac function and to identify potential new therapeutic agents.
Led by Prof. Lior Gepstein of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, the research team obtained skin cells from a patient known to have long QT syndrome – a disease which affects the heart’s ability to recharge itself after each heartbeat, causing fainting, seizures and even leading to sudden death. The Technion scientists turned the skin cells into iPSCs and then coaxed these all-purpose stem cells to become cardiac cells.
These newly created beating heart cells showed abnormal electrical activity, mimicking that of the patient’s actual heart, and enabling the scientists to test the efficacy of different drugs on the cells.
While some patients acquire the syndrome after taking certain medications, Gepstein’s patient was a 28-year-old woman with an inherited form of the disorder – type-2 LQTS – caused by a single genetic mutation. In this case, the individual cardiac cells derived from iPSCs demonstrated the same long recharging period and arrhythmia common in the hearts of long QT syndrome patients.
  
The study represents a new paradigm to help scientists learn more about how a disease like long QT syndrome works at the cellular level. Gepstein said that the disease “could be demonstrated and studied at the single-cell or multicellular level, but it doesn’t require an entire organ, which of course we cannot create.”
But it also offers a glimpse at the future of personalized medicine, where a patient’s own cells can be used to determine which treatments might work best – or should be avoided – for a particular condition. Furthermore, since heart biopsies, for example, are hard to obtain, this methodology using iPSCs also offers a novel way to study diseased cells that cannot easily be removed from the body. Researchers around the world are also using iPSCs to study other heart diseases and nervous system disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Gepstein said.
The research team at the Sohnis and Forman Families Center of Excellence for Stem Cell and Tissue Regeneration Research included Ilanit Itzhaki, Leonid Meizels, Irit Huber, and colleagues.

Heart cells derived from the human induced
pluripotent stem cells.

Technion researchers successfully build “a biological Rosetta Stone” inside a bacterium

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Technion researchers successfully build “a biological Rosetta Stone” inside a bacterium

“Now we can understand, at least partially, many natural programs that have not yet been decoded by simply reading the DNA sequence.”
Technion researchers successfully build “a biological Rosetta Stone” inside a bacterium. They hope that in the future this will enable the translation of the genome’s “operating system”; they are working in the new field of synthetic biology and believe that this will be “the high tech of bio tech”.
The prestigious science journal, Cell, reports that Technion researchers in collaboration with Caltech researchers have successfully built a “biological Rosetta Stone” within a bacterium, by developing a new understanding of the group of bacterial regulators called Enhancers. These objects encompass non-gene coding sequences on DNA, to which proteins attach. These objects function by integrating several proteins, and upon reaching the correct combination, the target gene is expressed. By learning how to “program” these enhancer, the researchers hope to gain a more precise control of gene expression.

“One of the central discoveries in biology in the post-genome era is the understanding that the main factors contributing to the differences between organisms (for instance, between mice and men) is not the result of genes,” explains Dr. Roee Amit of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion, who began his research as part of a post-doctoral fellowship at Caltech. “The origin of this difference is in the algorithm or program that determines when, where and how any gene will be expressed. In the past few years a new picture of the genome is becoming clearer, and as a result, also a model in which the genome is perceived as a complex tool for storage and dissemination of information.”

The objective of the Technion researchers is to decode the “software” that controls the process and use this knowledge to develop medical applications. “In order to do this, we intend to create a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for the gene regulatory code (the original Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele that had the same ancient text inscribed on it in three different languages, as a result of which archaeologists were able to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics),” says Dr. Amit.

“This tool will be used to ‘hack’ the control program of real organisms and consequently allow us to ‘write’ new programs – which do not exist in nature – for medical purposes, environmental applications, etc. Synthetic biology is a new branch of life science, which takes a constructive/building approach. It attempts to use biological components to construct new biological systems that do not exist in nature. It forces us to really examine our understanding by requiring us to use what we think we understand in order to create biological functions. It allows us to ask why evolution “locked onto” specific patterns, to imagine and create new biological functions and forces us to work in a multidisciplinary fashion.”

The approach of researchers in synthetic biology is based on using characteristic genomic components and arranging them together (or “wiring” them to each other) in new architectures. In the next stage they develop patterns based on thermodynamic models, and in the end, they analyze the output using their model. By doing this, they can draw basic programming principles that permit them to translate the architecture and the sequence into computer algorithms. “If we succeed in writing a sequence that predicts our output based on computerized rules that we found in the ‘Rosetta Stone’ – we can then use this ‘key’ to decipher certain sequences that appear in the genome,” says Dr. Amit.
In the paper appearing in Cell, the Technion researchers show that they can use this approach to develop a new understanding of enhancers among bacteria. These sequences are common to all living creatures and may be thought of as modular objects that can combine “input” or signals. Because bacterial enhancers have a simpler architecture and at times it is easier to characterize them, the Technion researchers chose to focus on them first. The researches demonstrated the possibility of building new bacterial enhancer programs that will lead to a physical model of the control program, or to the “machine code”. The researchers note that the type of computerization that takes place in this context is reminiscent of analogue computing processes more than digital ones.
“This Rosetta Stone, in the bacterial context, has enabled us to formulate a new understanding, or qualitative model, for many examples of bacterial enhancers in nature, most of which have never been analyzed,” stresses Dr. Amit. “Now we can understand, at least partially, many natural programs that have not yet been decoded by simply reading the DNA sequence.”

Technion researchers successfully build “a biological Rosetta Stone” inside a bacterium

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Technion researchers successfully build “a biological Rosetta Stone” inside a bacterium

“Now we can understand, at least partially, many natural programs that have not yet been decoded by simply reading the DNA sequence.”
Technion researchers successfully build “a biological Rosetta Stone” inside a bacterium. They hope that in the future this will enable the translation of the genome’s “operating system”; they are working in the new field of synthetic biology and believe that this will be “the high tech of bio tech”.
The prestigious science journal, Cell, reports that Technion researchers in collaboration with Caltech researchers have successfully built a “biological Rosetta Stone” within a bacterium, by developing a new understanding of the group of bacterial regulators called Enhancers. These objects encompass non-gene coding sequences on DNA, to which proteins attach. These objects function by integrating several proteins, and upon reaching the correct combination, the target gene is expressed. By learning how to “program” these enhancer, the researchers hope to gain a more precise control of gene expression.

“One of the central discoveries in biology in the post-genome era is the understanding that the main factors contributing to the differences between organisms (for instance, between mice and men) is not the result of genes,” explains Dr. Roee Amit of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion, who began his research as part of a post-doctoral fellowship at Caltech. “The origin of this difference is in the algorithm or program that determines when, where and how any gene will be expressed. In the past few years a new picture of the genome is becoming clearer, and as a result, also a model in which the genome is perceived as a complex tool for storage and dissemination of information.”

The objective of the Technion researchers is to decode the “software” that controls the process and use this knowledge to develop medical applications. “In order to do this, we intend to create a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for the gene regulatory code (the original Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele that had the same ancient text inscribed on it in three different languages, as a result of which archaeologists were able to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics),” says Dr. Amit.

“This tool will be used to ‘hack’ the control program of real organisms and consequently allow us to ‘write’ new programs – which do not exist in nature – for medical purposes, environmental applications, etc. Synthetic biology is a new branch of life science, which takes a constructive/building approach. It attempts to use biological components to construct new biological systems that do not exist in nature. It forces us to really examine our understanding by requiring us to use what we think we understand in order to create biological functions. It allows us to ask why evolution “locked onto” specific patterns, to imagine and create new biological functions and forces us to work in a multidisciplinary fashion.”

The approach of researchers in synthetic biology is based on using characteristic genomic components and arranging them together (or “wiring” them to each other) in new architectures. In the next stage they develop patterns based on thermodynamic models, and in the end, they analyze the output using their model. By doing this, they can draw basic programming principles that permit them to translate the architecture and the sequence into computer algorithms. “If we succeed in writing a sequence that predicts our output based on computerized rules that we found in the ‘Rosetta Stone’ – we can then use this ‘key’ to decipher certain sequences that appear in the genome,” says Dr. Amit.
In the paper appearing in Cell, the Technion researchers show that they can use this approach to develop a new understanding of enhancers among bacteria. These sequences are common to all living creatures and may be thought of as modular objects that can combine “input” or signals. Because bacterial enhancers have a simpler architecture and at times it is easier to characterize them, the Technion researchers chose to focus on them first. The researches demonstrated the possibility of building new bacterial enhancer programs that will lead to a physical model of the control program, or to the “machine code”. The researchers note that the type of computerization that takes place in this context is reminiscent of analogue computing processes more than digital ones.
“This Rosetta Stone, in the bacterial context, has enabled us to formulate a new understanding, or qualitative model, for many examples of bacterial enhancers in nature, most of which have never been analyzed,” stresses Dr. Amit. “Now we can understand, at least partially, many natural programs that have not yet been decoded by simply reading the DNA sequence.”

Technion opens an undergraduate degree program in Bnei Brak in mapping and geo-information

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“As an institution that has been contributing to the state in every field of life since its establishment almost one hundred years ago, the Technion is proud to contribute its part to this national mission – providing a wage-earning profession to the Haredi public,”
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.

Technion opens an undergraduate degree program in Bnei Brak in mapping and geo-information

A Technion program that will use the existing infrastructure of the Haredi College of Bnei Brak (Mivchar) received authorization from the Council for Higher Education

The Technion is opening an undergraduate degree program in Bnei Brak in mapping and geo-information. The studies are intended for young men from the Haredi sector and will be given in the Haredi College of Bnei Brak (Mivchar). The program has been approved by the Council for Higher Education.

“There is a severe lack of trained professionals in every field of civil and environmental engineering,” said the dean of the faculty at the Technion, Prof. Arnon Bentur. “We will help Haredi students in Bnei Brak acquire a profession that guarantees them a respectable career that combines income with a broad vista for advancing in the public and private sectors. The Technion in general, and the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering in particular are exerting great effort to expand our target audiences. These efforts have so far led to the opening of a special Technion study track in the Jerusalem College of Engineering, whose students study for two years in the college’s Jerusalem campus and then complete their studies at the Technion in Haifa. In addition, as a result of these endeavors we now award 100 scholarships annually as part of the “Atidim for Infrastructures” program, with 60% of recipients being young people from the country’s periphery. And in the same way, today, we are reaching out to the Haredi sector. This step represents a unique model that simultaneously responds to two national needs – the first, in the field of engineering and the second, the integration of the Haredi sector into the workforce of the state of Israel. The Center for Mapping of Israel will act to find jobs for graduates of the new program.”

We are talking about a three-year program that will not only award a BA but will also constitute a strong basis for getting a “certified surveyor” license – a much sought after employee. Registration has already begun and the 15-month preparatory program will begin in September. After completing this program, students will study for three years for a BA. Classes will be held at the college in Bnei Brak and will be given by members of the Technion’s Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Students in the program will be official Technion students even though the classes are being given in Bnei Brak.

The Council for Higher Education’s decision to authorize the Technion to establish the program in Bnei Brak says, in part, that “the recommendation of the Committee for Monitoring Education in the Haredi Sector was given in the framework of the green light given by the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budget Committee – to include new programs for Haredi organizational frameworks in the new five year plan, in terms of planning and budgeting.”

The web page of the Haredi College of Bnei Brak says that “Dr. Harav Avrahum Foss, of blessed memory, founder of the Haredi College of Bnei Brak, who gallantly led the vocational revolution of the Haredi sector, initiated the establishment of the college in order to meet the need for appropriate, completely segregated higher education studies for the Haredi public. The great vision of a great founder was to enable thousands of new students to proudly earn a living.”

“As an institution that has been contributing to the state in every field of life since its establishment almost one hundred years ago, the Technion is proud and happy to contribute its part to this national mission – providing a wage-earning profession to the Haredi public,” stressed Technion president, Prof. Peretz Lavie.

Technion researchers discover how click-beetles jump without using their legs

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Technion researchers discover how click-beetles jump without using their legs

Monitoring the click-beetle. A series of photographs demonstrating a single jump, in intervals of 100th/second between pictures. Technion spokesman.
The name given to the family of beetles known as click-beetles aptly reflects their unique ability to jump: a unique mechanism enables them to jump in the air without using their legs. This mechanism allows them to evade potential predators – or simply to turn over in the case when they get “stuck” on their back.
This mechanism has been studied in the past and its basic mechanics were known: when a beetle lies on its back, a locking mechanism is activated that preserves the beetle’s elastic potential energy and release of this mechanism bounces the beetle into the air, to a height of about 30 cm.
Nevertheless, up until the present research conducted by Dr. Gal Ribak and Distinguished Professor Daniel Weihs of the Technion, scientists did not understand how much control the click-beetle had over the jump.
Dr. Ribak and Prof. Weihs, who also investigated the bio-mechanical constraints on the jump, discovered that even though the click-beetle controlled some elements of the jump, its “launch angle” barely changes. A launch with such an angle – approximately 80 degrees – exerts the majority of the jump energy (98% of the energy) on the vertical axis, that is, to overcoming gravitational pull.
Based on a combination of theory (a mathematical-physical model of the jump) and experiment (tracking the jumps of real click-beetles), the researchers concluded that the click-beetle controls the launch speed but not the launch angle.
“The issue of the energetics of the jump especially drew me,” explains Dr. Ribak. “We are dealing with insects that propel their body upward with enormous acceleration – more than 300 times the gravitational acceleration (the acceleration of a free-falling object) – and it was unclear why so much energy is required to execute such a simple action as turning over. Taking a second look, I noticed that the click-beetle does its somersaults in the air and I wanted to understand how much control the beetle itself has over its aerial acrobatics.”
The subject of controlled movement is an important issue in autonomous systems (autonomous robots); for example, an unmanned vehicle that capsizes while carrying out a task. It is very important that this type of vehicle be able to right itself even in difficult terrain so as to continue its mission. Design of such a complex task requires a sense of the environment and spatial orientation.
“As we are learning from the click-beetle, evolution has supplied us with its own solution to this problem,” says Dr. Ribak. “The jump will successfully turn the beetle over only 50% of the time. In other words, the chances of a successful jump are the same as a failed jump. Therefore, it is possible that the beetle may have to make several jumps in order to, at the end, land on its feet. It is true that an engineer who designs such a mechanism would not get a lot of compliments but as an evolutionary solution, it has proven itself, and the simplicity of the mechanism is an enormous advantage.”
It is likely that following the research of Dr. Ribak and Prof. Weihs, it will be possible to design tiny vehicles that will be able to jump over obstacles.
Another possible application is a mechanism to turn over sensors. “Suppose that we are interested in dispersing a lot of sensors over a certain area,” explains Dr. Ribak. “The most logical way is to toss them from the air. However, it is clear that some sensors will fall on the ground wrong side up. Using a joint based on a similar mechanism to that of the click-beetle, we can get the sensor to jump up into the air and keep jumping until it lands right side up.”
Dr. Gal is a research biologist studying the eco-physiology of swimming and natural flight, with the focus on natural, evolutionary solutions to engineering problems. “Nature provides us with relatively simple solutions for many engineering problems, which to us seem very complex,” he explains.
The present research is part of Dr. Ribak’s post-doctoral work being carried out in the framework of a Technion program for autonomous systems and under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Daniel Weihs of the Faculty of Aeronautical Engineering.
In his doctoral research (at the Technion, under the supervision of Prof. Zeev Arad of the Faculty of Biology and Prof. Danny Weihs), he studied the diving mechanism of birds such as cormorants, using a theoretical model and computer analysis of underwater video. Dr. Ribak showed that diving birds exploit “negative lift”, which works against the force of buoyancy and enables them to stay under water, just as “regular” (positive) lift opposes gravitational pull and allows airplanes to fly.

Technion researchers discover how click-beetles jump without using their legs

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Technion researchers discover how click-beetles jump without using their legs

Monitoring the click-beetle. A series of photographs demonstrating a single jump, in intervals of 100th/second between pictures. Technion spokesman.
The name given to the family of beetles known as click-beetles aptly reflects their unique ability to jump: a unique mechanism enables them to jump in the air without using their legs. This mechanism allows them to evade potential predators – or simply to turn over in the case when they get “stuck” on their back.
This mechanism has been studied in the past and its basic mechanics were known: when a beetle lies on its back, a locking mechanism is activated that preserves the beetle’s elastic potential energy and release of this mechanism bounces the beetle into the air, to a height of about 30 cm.
Nevertheless, up until the present research conducted by Dr. Gal Ribak and Distinguished Professor Daniel Weihs of the Technion, scientists did not understand how much control the click-beetle had over the jump.
Dr. Ribak and Prof. Weihs, who also investigated the bio-mechanical constraints on the jump, discovered that even though the click-beetle controlled some elements of the jump, its “launch angle” barely changes. A launch with such an angle – approximately 80 degrees – exerts the majority of the jump energy (98% of the energy) on the vertical axis, that is, to overcoming gravitational pull.
Based on a combination of theory (a mathematical-physical model of the jump) and experiment (tracking the jumps of real click-beetles), the researchers concluded that the click-beetle controls the launch speed but not the launch angle.
“The issue of the energetics of the jump especially drew me,” explains Dr. Ribak. “We are dealing with insects that propel their body upward with enormous acceleration – more than 300 times the gravitational acceleration (the acceleration of a free-falling object) – and it was unclear why so much energy is required to execute such a simple action as turning over. Taking a second look, I noticed that the click-beetle does its somersaults in the air and I wanted to understand how much control the beetle itself has over its aerial acrobatics.”
The subject of controlled movement is an important issue in autonomous systems (autonomous robots); for example, an unmanned vehicle that capsizes while carrying out a task. It is very important that this type of vehicle be able to right itself even in difficult terrain so as to continue its mission. Design of such a complex task requires a sense of the environment and spatial orientation.
“As we are learning from the click-beetle, evolution has supplied us with its own solution to this problem,” says Dr. Ribak. “The jump will successfully turn the beetle over only 50% of the time. In other words, the chances of a successful jump are the same as a failed jump. Therefore, it is possible that the beetle may have to make several jumps in order to, at the end, land on its feet. It is true that an engineer who designs such a mechanism would not get a lot of compliments but as an evolutionary solution, it has proven itself, and the simplicity of the mechanism is an enormous advantage.”
It is likely that following the research of Dr. Ribak and Prof. Weihs, it will be possible to design tiny vehicles that will be able to jump over obstacles.
Another possible application is a mechanism to turn over sensors. “Suppose that we are interested in dispersing a lot of sensors over a certain area,” explains Dr. Ribak. “The most logical way is to toss them from the air. However, it is clear that some sensors will fall on the ground wrong side up. Using a joint based on a similar mechanism to that of the click-beetle, we can get the sensor to jump up into the air and keep jumping until it lands right side up.”
Dr. Gal is a research biologist studying the eco-physiology of swimming and natural flight, with the focus on natural, evolutionary solutions to engineering problems. “Nature provides us with relatively simple solutions for many engineering problems, which to us seem very complex,” he explains.
The present research is part of Dr. Ribak’s post-doctoral work being carried out in the framework of a Technion program for autonomous systems and under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Daniel Weihs of the Faculty of Aeronautical Engineering.
In his doctoral research (at the Technion, under the supervision of Prof. Zeev Arad of the Faculty of Biology and Prof. Danny Weihs), he studied the diving mechanism of birds such as cormorants, using a theoretical model and computer analysis of underwater video. Dr. Ribak showed that diving birds exploit “negative lift”, which works against the force of buoyancy and enables them to stay under water, just as “regular” (positive) lift opposes gravitational pull and allows airplanes to fly.