Archive | 2012 | July | 20

Israel’s best hopes for Olympic glory lay in the diversity and versatility of its athletes competing in London 2012, as presented to you in a fascinating series of seven new clips.

Vered Buskila is competing as a sailor in her third Olympics and dreams of winning a medal this time. Buskila talks of her love for the sport, her desire to compete at the highest level and the balance she must find between sailing and her other career as a lawyer.

Israeli actress Gal Gadot is in final preparations to leave Israel for a few months’ trip to London and Los Angeles, where the 6th installment of ‘Fast and Furious’ is being shot.

Gadot will step yet again into the role of Gisele Harabo, the role that made her famous all over the world, but she begins her journey in London next week, for training for some of the stunts and action sequences. This time around, Gadot revealed that her request to  do more stunts than ever before was answered, even though she’s going to get  a stunt double for the real tough ones. Gal is currently working on learning the script, so she’ll be able to perform it perfectly when the time comes.

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An atmospheric and vague, painterly animated short that envisions a view upon an old house cat who bids farewell to his home in his final moments.

Done as his graduation film from Bezalel Art Academy.

For The Remainder from Omer Ben David on Vimeo.

Idan Matalon’s Production ft. Taglit LGBTQ Israel Experts

If you haven’t seen the first one click here

Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2011. Photo: R. Prasad

Israel may be a small country, but it has produced ten Nobel Laureates, of which four are for Chemistry. Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize last year for chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, where Dr. Shechtman works is the first and smallest university in the country.

It has [produced] three Nobel Laureates in Chemistry,” he said to The Hinduduring an interaction with journalists at the recently concluded 62nd Nobel Laureates Meeting dedicated to physics from July 1 to July 7 at Lindau, Germany.

Prof. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009, two years before Dr. Shechtman.

Despite being a small country, how has it managed to produce so many Laureates? “I don’t know the answer,” he said frankly. “I think we do good work. I think we encourage young talented people to go to science.”

Though he was at a loss to pinpoint the reasons, he did shed some light to what may be the factors facilitating his country’s success. “We have very good scientists in Israel. We publish many papers in many reputed journals,” he noted.

But one of the distinguishing factors that emerged is the way the scientists interact with their counterparts based in other countries. “We are encouraged to travel to other laboratories in the world,” he said. To facilitate this interaction, very vital for science, the scientists are allowed to avail a sabbatical for period extending up to 6 to 7 years. “Every summer, if you want to go and work somewhere, they allow you [to go]. So we have many contacts in the world,” he revealed.

In fact, it was while Dr. Shechtman was on a sabbatical at Johns Hopkins University and working with the National Bureau of Standards in 1982 that he discovered the existence of quasicrystals.

Availability of liberal funding is another critical factor. Scientists have several sources of funding to turn to — industrial, defence, government and binational funding. The binational funding comes from binational agreements — Israel-Germany, Israel-United States, Israel-England and others.

Another peculiar aspect is that the government does not fund universities directly. Instead, it provides fund to intermediate bodies, which in turn fund the universities. “So the government is not directly involved. We [are in touch with] the intermediate bodies and it is excellent,” he underlined.

“A good scientist who writes a good project proposal has a good chance of securing funding,” he said. “In my department, there are 16 faculty members and everyone has a nice chunk of research funds.”

According to him everybody communicates with everybody else in Israel. “Communication is good for science. People need to talk,” he said. “All these don’t answer your question [of how a small country is able to produce so many Nobel Laureates]. I understand that. I don’t know what the reason is.”

But there are challenges. “There are many scientists who cannot find jobs in Israel,” he said. “Israel is a start-up country. Everybody thinks of starting a start-up. The number of start-ups in the country is enormous. The spirit of entrepreneurship is fantastic.”

Eighteen students from India participated in the 62nd Nobel Laureates Meeting at Lindau. The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) sponsored their visit.

(This Correspondent was one of the two journalists from India who participated in the 62nd Nobel Laureates Meeting at Lindau, Germany, at the invitation of the German Research Foundation (DFG) Bonn.)

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