Research carried out in Mali, West Africa, by the Kuvin Center for the Study of Tropical and Infectious Diseases at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem  showed how fruit or flowers can be baited with a toxic sugar to reduce the populations of the malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. Their work in the use of the Hebrew University-developed Attractive Toxic Sugar Bait Method (ATSB) was applied to control malaria-bearing mosquitoes in the semi-arid Bandiagara District of Mali, West Africa.

Control and treatment sites were selected along a road that connects villages and that had  man-made ponds en route. These were the home to larva of Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles arabiensis mosquitoes. Guava and honey melons, two local fruits that have been found to be attractive to both species of mosquitoes, were used to prepare solutions of Attractive Sugar Bait (ASB) and ATSB, the latter containing  an additive of  boric acid as an oral insecticide. Both included a color dye marker to determine which mosquitoes were feeding on the solutions.

ASB solution in the control site and ATSB solution in the treatment site were sprayed on patches of the vegetation. The result was that  the relative abundance of female and male mosquitoes in the ATSB-treated site declined dramatically by about 90% and remained low during one month of monitoring. The females in the diminished population were mostly too young to transmit malaria. In parallel, dye marking in the solutions sprayed in the control site proved that most of the mosquitoes were feeding on the sprayed solutions.

Their work is detailed in a recent issue of the Malaria Journal.  The scientists involved  in the project are Prof. Yosef Schlein and Dr. Gunter C . Muller of the Kuvin Center and the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), Prof. John C. Beier of the University of Miami, Florida, and Prof. Sekou F. Traore, Prof. Seydou Doumbia, Dr. Mahamadou B. Toure, Dr. Mohamed B. Traore and Dr. Sekou Bah, all of the University of Bamako, Mali.

The researchers concluded that the study in Mali shows that even a single application of ATSB can substantially decrease malaria-bearing mosquito population densities and longevity. It is thus likely that ATSB methods can be used as a new, powerful tool for the control of malaria insect carriers, since this approach is highly effective for mosquito control, technologically simple, inexpensive and environmentally safe.

The work in Mali is very much connected to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding of early studies, and this initial report can set the stage for bigger efforts in African countries. It is one of the first new dimensions to control African malaria vectors, yielding good indications that use of ATSB in outdoor environments will complement the current measures to control mosquitoes inside houses.

Prof. Raphael Meshoulam, discovered trans-delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol from cannabis in 1964.

The compound increase forgetfulness in mice. While memory loss is normally a bad thing, medicine has found a way to apply it in a beneficial way!

Many Canadian war veterans from the Iraq war suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder which is compounded by the fact that they find it hard to sleep at night. The compound helps them forget their experiences and sleep well.

Meshoulam spoke to 500 participants from 37 countries at the  Jerusalem International Conference on Integrative Medicine on Wednesday.

According to an article in the Jerusalem Post by JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH the results were as follows:

Mice bred without natural cannabinoid receptors in the brain, and a group with a cannabinoid system, were both exposed to music and given a mild electric shock. In a Pavlovian experiment, the mice without the cannabinoid receptors soon forgot the link, while those with the system froze in fear because they had been conditioned to associate a shock with the music. Those without the receptors forgot their conditioning.

The Canadian Army Health Services Center used this discovery to develop synthetic cannabinoid to treat the nightmares of soldiers with PTSD. Fully 72 percent were able to sleep for the first time in years.

Mechoulam predicted that cannabis – which has been known for its beneficial properties for over 4,000 years – and its active ingredients may also prove effective at treating a number of other conditions, including insulin-dependent (type 1) diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis – both autoimmune diseases in which the body’s own immune system regards healthy tissue as a “stranger” and attacks it. The compound may also be effective in conditions of inflammation, and reduce osteoporosis by promoting bone development.

And medical marijuana is used widely among licensed patients to reduce pain.

“We have collaborations with research centers from Aberdeen [Scotland] to Siberia [Russia],” noted Mechoulam.

He said he hopes that the Health Ministry, which supervises the supply of medical marijuana, will encourage the growing of varieties with the specific cannabinoids that have these additional medical benefits.

“The city wall that has been uncovered testifies to a ruling presence. Its strength and form of construction indicate a high level of engineering”, Mazar said. The city wall is at the eastern end of the Ophel area in a high, strategic location atop the western slop of the Kidron valley.

“A comparison of this latest finding with city walls and gates from the period of the First Temple, as well as pottery found at the site, enable us to postulate with a great degree of assurance that the wall that has been revealed is that which was built by King Solomon in Jerusalem in the latter part of the tenth century B.C.E.,” said Mazar

“This is the first time that a structure from that time has been found that may correlate with written descriptions of Solomon’s building in Jerusalem,” she added. “The Bible tells us that Solomon built — with the assistance of the Phoenicians, who were outstanding builders — the Temple and his new palace and surrounded them with a city, most probably connected to the more ancient wall of the City of David.” Mazar specifically cites the third chapter of the First Books of Kings where it refers to “until he (Solomon) had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.”

The six-meter-high gatehouse of the uncovered city wall complex is built in a style typical of those from the period of the First Temple like Megiddo, Beersheva and Ashdod. It has symmetrical plan of four identical small rooms, two on each side of the main passageway.  Also there was a large, adjacent tower, covering an area of 24 by 18 meters, which was intended to serve as a watchtower to protect entry to the city. The tower is located today under the nearby road and still needs to be excavated.  Nineteenth century British surveyor Charles Warren, who conducted an underground survey in the area, first described the outline of the large tower in 1867 but without attributing it to the era of Solomon.

“Part of the city wall complex served as commercial space and part as security stations,” explained Mazar. Within the courtyard of the large tower there were widespread public activities, she said. It served as a public meeting ground, as a place for conducting commercial activities and cult activities, and as a location for economic and legal activities.

Pottery shards discovered within the fill of the lowest floor of the royal building near the gatehouse also testify to the dating of the complex to the 10th century B.C.E. Found on the floor were remnants of large storage jars, 1.15 meters in height, that survived destruction by fire and that were found in rooms that apparently served as storage areas on the ground floor of the building. On one of the jars there is a partial inscription in ancient Hebrew indicating it belonged to a high-level government official.

“The jars that were found are the largest ever found in Jerusalem,” said Mazar, adding that “the inscription that was found on one of them shows that it belonged to a government official, apparently the person responsible for overseeing the provision of baked goods to the royal court.”

In addition to the pottery shards, cult figurines were also found in the area, as were seal impressions on jar handles with the word “to the king,” testifying to their usage within the monarchy. Also found were seal impressions (bullae) with Hebrew names, also indicating the royal nature of the structure. Most of the tiny fragments uncovered came from intricate wet sifting done with the help of the salvaging Temple Mount Sifting Project, directed by Dr. Gabriel Barkai and Zachi Zweig, under the auspice of the Nature and Parks Authority and the Ir David Foundation.

Between the large tower at the city gate and the royal building the archaeologists uncovered a section of the corner tower that is eight meters in length and six meters high. The tower was built of carved stones of unusual beauty.

East of the royal building, another section of the city wall that extends for some 35 meters also was revealed. This section is five meters high, and is part of the wall that continues to the northeast and once enclosed the Ophel area.

he excavations in the Ophel area were carried out over a three-month period with funding provided by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman, a New York couple interested in Biblical Archeology.

The excavations were carried out in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Company for the Development of East Jerusalem. Archaeology students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well as volunteer students from the Herbert W. Armstrong College in Edmond, Oklahoma, and hired workers all participated in the excavation work.

We know exactly where an object is when we say it is “within the reach of our hand.”  But if we don’t have a hand, can we still see the object just where it is?

Apparently not, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hadassah Hospital-Mount Scopus. The space within reach of our hands — where actions such as grasping and touching occur — is known as the “action space.” .Research has shown that visual information in this area is organized in hand-centered coordinates — in other words, the representation of objects in the human brain depends on their spatial position with respect to the hand.

The team at HU sought to investigate how hand amputations affect visuospatial perception in near space. Volunteers with either left- or right-hand amputations participated in this experiment. They were instructed to look at a central cross on a screen while two white squares were briefly shown to the left and right side of the cross. The volunteers had to indicate which of the squares was farther away from the cross.

The results reveal that hand amputations affect visuospatial perception. When the right square was slightly farther away from the center, participants with right-hand amputations tended to perceive it as being at the same distance from the center as the left square; this suggests that these volunteers underestimated the distance of the right square relative to the left. Conversely, when the left square was farther away, left-hand amputees perceived both squares as being equally far away from the center — these participants underestimated the left side of near space.

Interestingly, when the volunteers were seated farther away from the screen, they were more accurate in judging the distances, indicating that hand amputations may only affect perception of the space close to the body.

The findings suggest that losing a hand may shrink the action space on the amputated side, leading to permanent distortions in spatial perception. According to the researchers, “This shows that the possibility for action in near space shapes our perception — the space near our hands is really special, and our ability to move in that space affects how we perceive it.”

The researchers note that these results have implications for spatial hemineglect — a condition (often following brain injury) in which the patient cannot perceive objects on one side of space. This condition is very often associated with paralysis of the hand in the neglected side, which, based on the current study, might exasperate the perceptual neglect.

The authors suggest that, based on their findings, “current rehabilitation approaches that emphasize action on the affected side may reverse this process.” For example, encouraging the use of the affected hand or by providing visual feedback (through prism adaptation or mirrors) may help overcome hemineglect by increasing the size of the action space on the affected side.

Published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, amputation of the hand results in distorted visuospatial perception of the action space. The article was written by neuroscientists Dr. Tamar R. Makin, Meytal Wilf and Dr. Ehud Zohary of the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem along with Dr. Isabella Schwartz of Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem