We recently received a letter from Shira to tell us what an amazing experience HU was. She loved it so much she is returning to live here.

“My name is Shira and I recently finished my freshman year at Rothberg International School (International part of Hebrew University). I am from Toronto Canada, and this was my first year out of high school, and my second time in Israel. I did not know any Hebrew, knew no one attending the school, had no family in Israel, and did not understand the culture at all. Arriving in a foreign country to begin university was very difficult, however there were many helpful staff at the school to assist us, such as the four madrichim (guides) that were put in charge of the international students. They were amazing throughout the entire year. Within the university program my year consisted of many great classes, incredible planned trips, several cultural dinners and lectures, and much much more. Two of these trips really stand out in my mind as a great memory. The first was the weekend getaway to Mitzpe Ramon, a trip in the middle of the desert where we did everything from intense hiking in the Negev to watching the early morning sunrise with a beautiful view on Shabbat. The second trip was Sea to Sea, in which we hiked from the Mediterranean sea all the way to the Sea of Galilee. Besides being able to further understand the land of Israel, discussing previous wars and conflict with personal stories from the madrichim who had all been in the army, I made some of my best friends on these excursions. My friends and I would also plan our own trips all around the country exploring everywhere we could, and every weekend was a new adventure, including the celebration of all the different holidays, cheap concerts, and Israeli lifestyle. Overall, I returned home with a high level of understanding of the history of Israel and the Jewish people, could speak Hebrew at a good level, made some amazing friends, and had a plan for the next year. I really fell in love with Israel, and am returning to serve in the Israeli army and live my life there. I am so happy that I did my year at Rothberg.”

A tiny clay fragment – dating from the 14th century B.C.E. – that was found in excavations outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls contains the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The find, believed to be part of a tablet from a royal archives, further testifies to the importance of Jerusalem as a major city in the Late Bronze Age, long before its conquest by King David, they say.

The clay fragment was uncovered recently during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th century B.C.E. tower dating from the period of King Solomon in the Ophel area, located between the southern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem and the City of David to its south. Details of the discovery appear in the current issue of the Israel Exploration Journal.

Excavations in the Ophel have been conducted by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Funding for the project has been provided by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York, who also have provided funds for completion of the excavations and opening of the site to the public by the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Company for the Development of East Jerusalem. The sifting work was led by Dr.Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Zweig at the Emek Zurim wet-sieving facility site.

The fragment that has been found is 2×2.8 centimeters in size and one centimeter thick. Dated to the 14th century B.C.E., it appears to have been part of a tablet and contains cuneiform symbols in ancient Akkadian (the lingua franca of that era).

The words the symbols form are not significant in themselves, but what is significant is that the script is of a very high level, testifying to the fact that it was written by a highly skilled scribe that in all likelihood prepared tablets for the royal household of the time, said Prof. Wayne Horowitz , a scholar of Assyriology at  the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Horowitz deciphered the script along with his former graduate student Dr. Takayoshi Oshima, now of the University of Leipzig, Germany.

Tablets with diplomatic messages were routinely exchanged between kings in the ancient Near East, Horowitz said, and there is a great likelihood, because of its fine script and the fact it was discovered adjacent to in the acropolis area of the ancient city, that the fragment was part of such a “royal missive.” Horowitz has interpreted the symbols on the fragment to include the words “you,” “you were,” “later,” “to do” and “them.”

The most ancient known written record previously found in Jerusalem was the tablet found in the Shiloah water tunnel in the City of David area during the 8th century B.C.E. reign of King Hezekiah. That tablet, celebrating the completion of the tunnel, is in a museum in Istanbul. This latest find predates the Hezekiah tablet by about 600 years.

The fragment found at the Ophel is believed to be contemporary with the some 380 tablets discovered in the 19th century at Amarna in Egypt in the archives of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who lived in the 14th century B.C.E. The archives include tablets sent to Akhenaten by the kings who were subservient to him in Canaan and Syria and include details about the complex relationships between them, covering many facets of governance and society. Among these tablets are six that are addressed from Abdi-Heba, the Canaanite ruler of Jerusalem. The tablet fragment in Jerusalem is most likely part of a message that would have been sent from the king of Jerusalem, possibly Abdi-Heba, back to Egypt, said Mazar.

Examination of the material of the fragment by Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University, shows that it is from the soil of the Jerusalem area and not similar to materials from other areas, further testifying to the likelihood that it was part of a tablet from a royal archive in Jerusalem containing copies of tablets sent by the king of Jerusalem to Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt.

Mazar says this new discovery, providing solid evidence of the importance of Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age (the second half of the second century B.C.E.), acts as a counterpoint to some who have used the lack of substantial archeological findings from that period until now to argue that Jerusalem was not a major center during that period. It also lends weight to the importance that accrued to the city in later times, leading up to its conquest by King David in the 10th century B.C.E., she said.

Batteries are dangerous.  If left unused in a product for an long time, they can can leak and ruin the product. Damage to alkaline batteries can cause the potassium hydroxide to leak , which could cause severe chemical burns. And if exposed to extreme heat – batteries can  burst like a bomb, spewing hot, caustic chemicals in all directions.

Not only that but they are not environmentally friendly or cost effective. A set of 4 alkaline batteries costing $2.74 has a capacity of about 0.0171 kilowatt-hours. This corresponds to a cost of $160.23 per kilowatt-hour! In contrast, residential electricity costs about $0.06 per kilowatt-hour.  Batteries are about 267,000% more expensive per kilowatt-hour than household electricity.

In the U.S. alone, 2.9 billion batteries are thrown away each year. Attempts have been made to improve the ability to recycle batteries. However, environmentally beneficial and cost-effective recycling technologies are not universally available.

Then there’s the potoato!

Potatoes have always provided healthy carbohydrate fuel to people.  Now Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has developed a “solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes” that is five to fifty times cheaper than commercial 1.5 volt D cells and Energizer e91 cell batteries. What’s more – the light generated from the potato battery is also at least 6 times more economical than kerosene lamps!

All that’s required to create a working potato battery is zinc, copper electrodes, and a slice of potato.  The researchers discovered that they could generate 10 times the power of a raw potato, by boiling the potato first – creating a battery that work for weeks at a time.  Imagine – your kids toys would run for weeks on end (rather than the frustrating few hours with batteries). And they won’t leak, blow up or burn anyone.

This isn’t the first time potatoes have been used outside food.  They are widely used by the pharmaceutical, textile, wood and paper industries as an adhesive, binder, texture agent and filler – and by oil drilling firms to wash boreholes. Potato starch is a 100% biodegradable substitute for polystyrene and other plastics and used, for example, in disposable plates, dishes and knives.

Potato peel and other “zero value” wastes from potato processing are liquefied and fermented to produce fuel-grade ethanol.

(A study in Canada’s potato-growing province of New Brunswick estimated that 44,000 tonnes of processing waste could produce 4 to 5 million litres of ethanol).

Don’t forget that potatoes are also used in Vodka.

This is the first time ever though – that potatoes are being considered to replace batteries.

Don’t hold your breath though – the potato battery will take a long time before it can appear in your store, but there are some possibilities on the horizon that potato-based medical implants could be used in  hospitals soon.

Personally, I look forward to the day when I replace my batteries with a potato.

If you smoke tobacco it will make you look old. But there is finally a good use for tobacco that won’t harm your health. In fact it can make you look young again. A scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment has succeeded in producing a replica of human collagen from tobacco plants! (Read more to find out where collegen  comes from currently and  you’ll be even happier about this discovery). This is an achievement with massive implications for use in a variety of human medical procedures.

Natural human type I collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and is the main protein found in all connective tissue. Commercially produced collagen (pro-collagen) is used in surgical implants, cosmetic surgery and many wound healing devices in regenerative medicine. In fact – the current market for collagen-based medical devices in orthopedics and wound healing exceeds US $30 billion annually worldwide.

But did you know where  commercial collagen comes from? It comes from farm animals such as cows and pigs as well as from human cadavers. This means that doctors are currently using material with potential human pathogens such as viruses or prions (mad-cow disease) – in your body. Not only that -  human cadaver is scarce, and for certain indications possesses serious ethical issues.

Producing human recombinant type I pro-collagen requires the coordinated expression of five different genes. Thankfully – a Hebrew University professor  – Prof. Oded Shoseyov of the Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture has established the only laboratory in the world that has reported successful co-expression of all of these five essential genes in transgenic tobacco plants for the production of processed pro-collagen. For this work, Shoseyov was one of the recipients of a Kaye Innovation Award during the Hebrew University Board of Governors meeting in June.

What this means for the medical industry is safer collagen related procedures for regenerative and wound-healing purposes. If you’re simply implanting collagen for cosmetic reasons, this means the risk is greatly reduced. Whats more – maybe tobacco companies can stop pushing unhealthy cigarettes into the world and start making their profits off something that actually does some good.

Shoseyov’s invention on has been patented, and the scientific findings behind it were published recently in the journal Biomacromolecules. A company, CollPlant Ltd., has been established based on patents and technology that were developed in Shoseyov’s laboratory. It has raised US$15 million to establish the first commercial molecular farming company in Israel and is already manufacturing collagen-based products that have attracted collaborative commercial interest from companies in the US, Japan Europe and Israel!

See how Hebrew U law students are helping others – this is a very meaningful and uplifting video that will give you some great insights into the University.

This year Israel’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest Harel Skaat is daring to dream about winning the competition. The young singer could be set to walk in the footsteps of Dana International with his song ‘Words’. Skaat is confident that he can pass the semi final stages and is praying to even win the competition.

In this amazing video, see how and HU doctor is helping to push the boundaries of technology to help people see….

Japan is being introduced to Israeli high school students in a unique program run by Japanese Studies students at the Department of East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The program, which aims to introduce Japanese society and culture to new layers of Israeli society, was developed with the support of the Embassy of Japan in Israel and is being coordinated by third year student Hadas Kushelevich.

”We hope to invigorate the interest of high school students to learn more about Japan through interactive presentations given by outstanding university students from the Department of East Asian Studies,” says Dr. Nissim Otzmazgin, director of the program.

”We in Israel tend to look only to the West as a source of learning. But there are some good things to learn from East Asia,” says Dr. Otzmazgin, on the importance of teaching about Japan in Israel. ”Japan and China are, after all, the world’s biggest economies following the U.S., and I think that in an age of globalization we will see more and more from them and increasingly feel their presence – not only their economic impact but also their cultural and political impacts.”

The program, which has been implemented in seven high schools in Jerusalem for more than 450 students, includes information about Japan’s history, geography, traditional and popular culture, and Japanese language, and is taught using visual presentations and videos.

One of the student teachers in the program, Daniel Prag, believes it is important to teach high school students about Japan because it allows them a peek into a culture, about which their knowledge is usually superficial and stereotypical, and introduces the students to the academic world.

”I believe Israelis are very exposed to Asian culture. But most of their knowledge about Japan concerns sushi, martial arts, and auto-manufacturing companies. I couldn’t help but notice that in many schools, students used the names ‘China’ and ‘Japan’ interchangeably,” he says. ”This program is very important in promoting slightly deeper cultural understanding and exchange, deepening awareness of Asia among Israelis, and ultimately contributing to the betterment of Israeli-Asian relations.”

”The response I got from the students was very positive,” says another of the student teachers,” Alexandra Rabinovich. ”I hope with the younger generation’s increasing knowledge of Japan and other countries in Asia, that a better and more fruitful relationship might be formed, since today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders.”

The coordinators hope to expand this program in the future to include more high schools and junior high schools in Jerusalem, as well as youth movements, youth organizations and community centers.

Is it really a wise and ethically acceptable strategy to burn food rather than eat it?  This is one of the key questions to be addressed by Prof. Hans Werner Sinn, President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, who will speak at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem next week on ‘Table or Tank: The Rivalry between Biofuels, Fossil Fuels and Nutrition’.

Oil pressed from rapeseed can be used as diesel fuel, and maize or sugar beets can yield ethanol to replace gasoline. The UN and many countries officially share the view that bio-fuel is one option in fighting climate change. The Kyoto Protocol allows countries to meet their target reductions of CO2 emissions by substituting bio-fuels for fossil fuels.

However, Prof. Sinn says, “If we allow food to be used to produce bio-fuels, food prices will be linked to the oil price. Indeed, food prices are currently increasing in Europe, because more and more farmland is being used for bio-fuels instead of for food production. This is not sustainable”

“The problem is that advocates of reducing the greenhouse effect by promoting bio-fuels production have not made clear where the land will come from.”

This, explains, Prof. Sinn, means that taking land for the production of bio-fuels from forests means speeding up global warming, because bio-fuel crops store much less carbon than trees. Prof. Sinn, who is also the Director of the Center for Economic Studies at the University of Munich, has published numerous studies on the theory of economic cycles, environmental economics, foreign trade issues, and on the micro foundations of a model of temporary general equilibrium.

The D. B. Doran Lecture on Population, Resources and Development, which is being coordinated by the Faculty of Social Sciences, will take place at 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 4, Room 503, Maiersdorf Faculty Club, Mount Scopus campus.

The annual D. B. Doran Lecture was established three years ago. The lecture series is aimed at a better understanding of the complex relationships between demographic processes, limited natural resources and economic development, and at stimulating research in this area.

Regarded as the State of Israel’s highest honor, the prize is traditionally awarded every year on Independence Day in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson and the Supreme Court president.

This year, the three Hebrew University recipients are:

Prof. Avishai Margalit
Prof. Margalit is the 2010 recipient of the Israel Prize in philosophy. The Israel Prize committee described him as ”one of the most important philosophers in the State of Israel and one of the most valued in the world today.”

Prof. Margalit majored in economics and philosophy at the Hebrew University. He earned his B.A. in 1963 and his M.A in philosophy in 1965. He received a Ph.D. summa cum laude in 1970 from the Hebrew University. He then returned to the Hebrew University as a lecturer in the department of philosophy, and in 1998, was appointed as the Shulman Professor of Philosophy. He retired from the Hebrew University as a professor emeritus in 2006.

Prof. Yehoshua Kolodny
Prof. Yehoshua Kolodny of the Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences is the 2010 recipient of the Israel Prize in earth sciences.

The Israel Prize committee selected him for his work in the area of geochemistry and for his outstanding international achievements in his field. He was also cited for his educational activities and for developing a generation of researchers who today can be found in leading academic institutions and research institutes in Israel.

Prof. Kolodny received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology at the Hebrew University and earned a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1969. Following his return to Israel he served in a number of roles at the Hebrew University.

Prof. Aryeh Levin
Prof. Aryeh Levin from the department for Arabic language and literature is the 2010 recipient of the Israel Prize in linguistics.

Prof. Levin was recognized by the Israel Prize committee for his research into medieval Arabic, especially the writings of Sibawayhi, as well as into Arabic dialects and the heritage of literary and spoken Arabic in different official national frameworks.

Prof. Levin received his Ph.D. from Hebrew University in Arabic language and literature and then held several teaching positions. Over the years, Prof. Levin has held a number of senior positions at the university, including head of the department for Arabic language and literature, head of the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Chair of the Advanced Studies Committee of the Faculty of Humanities, and the Henya Sharef Professor Emeritus in Humanities. He was also a member of the Arabic dialects of the Land of Israel research group.

Five graduates of the Hebrew University will also be receiving the Israel Prize this year. They are: Hanoch Bertov for his contribution to literature; Prof. Avraham Tal for his contribution to the Hebrew language; Aharon Yadlin for his contribution to society and the State of Israel; Prof. Avraham Nitzan for his contribution to chemistry; and Arie Sivan for his contribution to poetry.