Israel and Singapore to develop new nanomaterials

By Abigail Klein Leichman

Israeli scientists are collaborating with counterparts in Singapore to develop new nanomaterials to enhance the efficiency of existing energy and water management technologies.


The staff involved in the CREATE centers. From left to right: Prof Shlomo Magdassi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Dr Su Guaning, President of Nanyang Technological University; Teo Ming Kian, National Research Foundation (NRF); Dr Tony Tan, Chairman, NRF; Dr Francis Yeoh, CEO NRF; Prof Shankar Sastry, UC Berkeley; Prof Robert Marks, Ben Gurion University.
About 14 hours of fly time separate Singapore and Israel, yet the two countries have much in common. Two prominent Israeli academicians, Hebrew University (HU) of Jerusalem Prof. Shlomo Magdassi and Ben-Gurion University Prof Robert Marks, look forward to spending a year on this island republic off the Malay Peninsula, in the framework of a five-year collaboration.

Magdassi and Marks are partnering with Prof. Ma Jan of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to head up a new research center focusing on energy efficiency, as part of Singapore's National Research Foundation Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) program.

Scientists from the three universities will work together to develop new nanomaterials to enhance the efficiency of existing energy and water management technologies.

"The idea is to advance basic research on applied orientation to create licensing startups," says Marks, a 49-year-old American-born biotechnology expert. "We'll be trying to create and commercialize new tools to help clean and monitor the water better, and to harvest better energy and conserve it."

Joint publications and intellectual property

The nanomaterials they will be synthesizing from inorganic materials such as carbon, gold and silver each possess properties that lend themselves to the realization of these goals. Nanomaterials are known to significantly improve efficiencies in energy harvesting and conservation as well as water recycling and sensing (using biosensors to monitor water for toxicity).

Applied chemistry professor Magdassi (56) says he and other HU researchers stand to gain much from the use of NTU's advanced facilities and the exposure to additional and complementary technologies developed by their Singaporean colleagues. He tells ISRAEL21c that in addition to joint publications, it is hoped that there will be joint intellectual property resulting from the collaboration.

"It's difficult to say when and if IP might come out of this, but since we're 12th in the world in generating patents and making revenue from patents, it's safe to say that it is likely to take place," adds HU vice president for R&D Prof. Shai Arkin, who has been involved in initial planning with the National Research Foundation over the past six months.

From Arkin's point of view, the project is first and foremost a boon for the individual scientists, giving them access to wider resources to pursue their dreams. "Their success is our success and vice versa," he remarks.

No problems, just solutions

This will be the seventh CREATE center since Singapore launched the program in 2008 to bring together a cadre of international authorities on different topics. Dr. Ehud Razin, dean of HU's faculty of medicine, is involved in another CREATE center studying the cellular and molecular mechanism of inflammation. Haifa's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is another research presence involved in the CREATE initiative, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California-Berkeley, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Technical University of Munich.

"Like Israel, Singapore is a small country with a small population and virtually no [natural] resources," Marks points out. Accordingly, Singapore invests major funds in technology, education and research.

"Sustainability research is one of the leading areas of research in which NTU is making a name overseas," says university president Dr. Su Guaning. "The collaboration with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem allows NTU to contribute our expertise in nanomaterials research to find solutions that increase energy efficiency and reduce water wastage for current technologies."

Once the final CREATE center is completed next summer, all seven research centers will be relocated to a dedicated campus currently under construction adjacent to the National University of Singapore (NUS) University Town. Some 1,000 researchers will be working in the complex, including graduate students from the Israeli universities involved. Each of the team leaders will be obligated to be in residence at CREATE for 12 months over a five-year period.

Marks is enthusiastic about the staff involved from Singapore. "Everyone is very positive-minded, efficient and hard-working. Their approach is that there are never problems - only solutions to solve the problems."

Report: Israel seeks sale of fighter jets to Greece

A senior Israeli defense delegation from the Israeli Defense Ministry and local military industries reportedly traveled to Greece this week to discuss a possible deal to sell F-16 fighter jets.

Israel’s Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli officials on Sunday that this deal has been in progress for several months already, since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s historic visit to Greece this August.

Israel and Greece, both Turkey’s rivals, have conducted several joint air drills in the past year following a debacle in diplomatic and military relations between Turkey and the Jewish state particularly following the flotilla incident. Greece has long complained of the flights of Turkish fighter jets over the Aegean, what it calls a “violation of its airspace.”

Greece recently ended negotiations with Russia to import 450 infantry fighting vehicles amid its financial crisis, news reports said on Nov. 22. Greece, one of Europe’s top military spenders, has said earlier that it would postpone any purchases of warships or fighter planes as it struggled to pull itself out of a financial crisis that pushed it close to bankruptcy.

Due to decades-long tension with Turkey, debt-ridden Greece has the EU’s biggest military budget as a percentage of gross domestic product, and the second highest in NATO after the United States. It is in talks with France over the purchase of six FREMM frigates, while Germany, France and others are eager to sell the country 40 fighter jets. However, Greek Alternate Defense Minister Panos Beglitis, who is in charge of military procurement, said in an interview in June that Greece will hold off on any purchase.

Turkey has called on Greece several times to relinquish its vast military spending due to a protracted dispute over Aegean with Turkey, but Greece has since remained contemptuous to these calls. The neighboring countries have disagreed about sea and air borders for almost 15 years.

The report also said Israel would continue to cooperate with Greece and was also likely to hold maneuvers in Bulgaria in the beginning of 2011, Israeli officials noted.

Turkey has also excluded Greece from the list of countries that are a threat to national security in its recently approved security document, but instead included Israel as a threat to its national security.


http://www.todayszaman.com/news-229703-report-israel-seeks-sale-of-fighter-jets-to-greece.html

שירי מימון - אהבה קטנה

Israeli author's book among Amazon's 'Best of 2010'

David Grossman's 'To the End of the Land,' ranked eight in website's list of top 100 editors' picks; placed between books by Stieg Larsson, Patti Smith

Israeli author David Grossman's book "To the End of the Land," translated into English by Jessica Cohen, was ranked number eight on the 'Best Books of 2010' list published by the Amazon website.

Grossman's book, which was published last September, is in good company between Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," ranked in seventh place, and "Just Kids" by Patti Smith, which tells the story of her complex relationship with legendary photographer Robert Mapplethorpe – ranked ninth on the list.
The book that topped Amazon's list was Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," which describes the life of a poor woman who unknowingly contributed to the research of cancer due of her unique medical condition.


In Amazon's editorial review of Grossman's book, Tom Nissley writes: "To the End of the Land is a book of mourning for those not dead, a mother's lament for life during a wartime that has no end in sight. At the same time, it's joyously and almost painfully alive, full to the point of rupture with the emotions and the endless quotidian details of a few deeply imagined lives.

"Grossman builds an overwhelming portrait of, as one character says, the 'thousands of moments and hours and days' that make 'one person in the world,' and of the power of war to destroy such a person, even – or especially – when they survive its cruel demands."


The website's readers also gave the book positive feedback, rating it with an average of four stars.

JNF: 1.5 million trees burnt down in Carmel fire disaster

The Jewish National Fund estimates that 20,000 dunams of forests were destroyed so far in the Carmel fire disaster. KKL-JNF Northern Region Director Omri Bone estimates that 1.5 million trees burnt in the fire.

Israel Nature and Parks Authority announced that it would not be evacuating the animals from the nature reserves even if the fire reaches those areas. (Billy Frenkel)

Four Canadair CL 415 firefighting aircraft departing from time to time from the airport of Elefsina for Israel to help fight the great fire in Haifa.

The response was Hellenic fire service direct to the request of the Israeli authorities for the provision

of assistance to address uncontrolled and deadly fire.
As the head of the Fire Corps Lieutenant General Stelios Stephanides, immediately after the request
of the Israeli Prime Minister, on instruction and consultation with the leaderships of the ministries of Foreign
Affairs and to protect the citizen comes immediately pezoporo part of a TEAM of 35 people for Elefsina airport
 to go to Israel with military aircraft on C130 planes antapodidontas help Israelis who were sent 50 dasokomantos
for large fires in Greece in 2007.

However, the Israeli authorities said they did not need parts for this pezopora prepared four firefighting aircraft will depart shortly and with a stopover in Rhodes for refuelling will be at six in the morning in Haifa to participate in the project of gas.

more informations to the link http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001592931969#!/notes/greece-israel-cyprus/four-canadair-cl-415-firefighting-aircraft-departing-from-time-to-time-/179887742027155

Israel Shares Desalinization Expertise with Jordan and PA

by Elad Benari

Thirty participants from Jordan and the Palestinian Authority completed a week-long seminar on the topic of desalination earlier this month, according to a report posted on the International Desalination & Water Reuse Quarterly industry website on Saturday. The seminar was conducted by IDE Technologies, an Israeli company which is internationally recognized as a pioneer and leader in the delivery of sophisticated water solutions.

Desalination is a process by which undrinkable salt water is filtered to catch the salts and other particles suspended in the fluid, making the water drinkable.

Israel is considered a world leader in water recycling and has advanced in desalination and recycling water in recent years. According to statistics released earlier this year, Israel recycles 70 per cent of its waste water and sewage.

IDE’s desalination seminar was organized in cooperation with the Israeli Water Authority, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Middle East Desalination Research Centre and the Centre for International Agricultural Development Cooperation in Israel. It was held in Kibbutz Shefayim in central Israel, and was designed to introduce the participants to modern desalination technologies and to train them in the correct design, operation and maintenance of water desalination plants.

The seminar covered topics in both thermal and seawater reverse-osmosis membrane desalination and offered participants practical instruction regarding the operation and maintenance of large and complex desalination plants. Participants also visited the desalination plant in Ashkelon which IDE designed and built.

A desalination plant was dedicated last May in Hadera. The largest of its kind in the world and the third largest in Israel, the plant uses reverse osmosis technology, which means the sea water does not have to be heated, as is done in larger plants in the world that are less environmentally friendly. The entire process of desalinating the water takes 35 minutes from the time it enters pipelines in the sea.

The mammoth plant covers more than 18 acres and actually is two facilities that can operate independently from each other. Together, they can provide 127 cubic million liters, or 33 million gallons a year.

Another desalination plant was approved by the Israeli government in June and will be constructed south of Tel Aviv by Sorek Desalination Ltd. It is expected to produce 150 million cubic meters of water each year, and the capacity will eventually be upped to 300 million cubic meters a year, making the plant one of the world's largest. The government plans to desalinate 750 million cubic meters per year by 2020.


(IsraelNationalNews.com)

Deputy Tourism Minister invites Israelis to visit Greece

Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister George Nikitiadis invited Israelis to visit tourist destinations in Greece in a meeting he had on Monday with a delegation of journalists from Israeli newspapers and TV channels.
During the meeting, Nikitiadis briefed them on the new tourism policy and the comparative advantages offered by Greece and the potential for holidays throughout the year.
Responding to an Israeli reporter's question on why Israeli tourists should come to Greece, George Nikitiadis noted that Greece's tourist product is unique and cannot be compared with others, while having the best price to quality ratio in terms of its tourist product, a fact that may enhance the tourist stream in the following years.