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Israelis leave no man behind… not even dogs! – Police rescue dogs smuggled to Jericho
Judea and Samaria Police officers backed by IDF, Border Guard forces, raid Palestinian gang’s hideout in search for stolen Israeli dogs
A special police force recently conducted a nightly raid in the West Bank city of Jericho as part of a rescue mission of a special nature.
The victims – two dogs that were stolen from their Israeli owners and smuggled into Palestinian Authority territory.
The operation was headed by a special unit of the Judea and Samaria Police, which handles property crimes.
“We received intelligence indicating that there is a gang in Jericho that specializes in property thefts in the Dead Sea area,” Advanced-Staff-Sergeant-Major Motti Tal of the Adumim Police told Yedioth Ahronoth.
The information led to a location in Jericho, a city under the PA’s full jurisdiction.
Police officers, backed by IDF and Border Guard forces, conducted the raid, which – much like full-blown IDF operations – was met with local resistance in the form of a hail of stones and Molotov cocktails.
Upon searching the premises, the force found the ill-gotten gains of several heists, including cash and jewelry. The thieves, unfortunately, managed to flee.
The dogs were eventually found safe, albeit anxious, chained in the house’s backyard. They were whisked away under armed guard and brought to the Adumim Police, ahead of reuniting with their relieved owners.
“We’re grateful,” one of the owners told Yedioth Ahronoth. “We know that the officers were stoned and that (the Palestinians) threw firebombs at them, all so they can rescue our dog. This goes above and beyond and we are truly grateful,” she said.
Source: Ynetnews.com
One-and-a-half ton female from South Africa will live at the Ramat Gan Safari
Rhino arrives in Israel with a mission
A young South African female rhinoceros weighing one-and-a-half tons arrived in Israel Friday morning. She is being taken to the Ramat Gan Safari, where she will live in isolation for two weeks before being integrated into the existing rhino community.
With the help of a young male rhino who was recently born at the safari — which is also called The Zoological Center Tel Aviv — the South African female is expected to help enlarge the local rhino population.
Source: Times of Israel
VIDEO: Just another reason for your Best Bud to love Israel… DOGTV
Following its initial launch a couple of months ago, American cable’s first television network for dogs, the Israeli produced DogTV, is underway with a possible CatTV on the horizon
Source: AbbaNibi.com
Israeli Health Ministry not so into “HoneySex”
A new type of honey is out on the market in Israel. It’s called ‘HoneySex,’ and the company which markets it promises that it’s made only from natural ingredients and promises to improve your sex life.
However, a special announcement from Israel’s ministry of health this morning says that a review of the product found that it contains chemicals which are similar to those in Viagra, the pills which are used for treating men with erectile dysfunction. This chemical (sildenafil) is forbidden for people who suffer from changes in blood pressure or heart disease, as it expands blood vessels. Side effects include headaches, extended heart rate, and insomnia.
The Israeli ministry of health also announced that they are going to forward their lab results to the American FDA, as this product is an import from the US. “The active material in this product can cause death,” says Miki Arieli from the Israeli Ministry of Health.
Source: AbbaNibi.com
Israeli scientists in longevity gene breakthrough
Bar-Ilan University team discovers gene that can prolong mammals’ life
A team of Israeli scientists has been able to crack the code to mammals’ longevity: The team, led by by Dr. Haim Cohen, of Bar-Ilan University’s Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, has discovered a gene that promotes longer life in mammals.
The team includes researchers from Hadassah Medical Center, the Hebrew University and Carnegie Mellon University, the discovery of the gene – in mice – increases the likelihood that similar activity can be found in a human gene.
According to a Bar Ilan press release, researchers are focusing on a group of genes, known as Sirtuins, which can be found in every species developed over the course of evolution and are, in one way or another, found in single-celled organisms, such as yeast, and in complex organisms, such as humans.
The most highly researched gene in this group is SIR2 (Sirtuin 2) which has been found to prolong life in yeast, worms and flies.
Research of the SIR2 gene in mammals yielded a set of seven genes – Sirtuins 1-7 or SIRT 1-7 – each of which works in key reactions in the process of life.
Dr. Cohen’s team examined gene number 6 from the Sirtuin group (SIRT6) in mice. He used two groups of mice. In one group SIRT6 was removed from the mice and in the second group he created an over-expression of the gene in mice.
“Originally in mice without the gene, researchers saw premature aging,” says Cohen. “They suffered spinal curvature, calcium deficiency and osteoporosis, immune system problems, and diabetes – conditions which are familiar to us in aging humans. We called the second group, which we created in the laboratory, the ‘MOSES’ mice (an acronym for mice over-expressing exogenous SIRT6), and compared their lifespan to that of wild-type mice, which possess a normal amount of SIRT6.”
Cohen and his team fed two groups of wild-type and MOSES mice a high-fat diet containing 60% more fat calories than average. The wild mice developed the diseases associated with aging, while the MOSES mice remained healthy.
MOSES bodies contained 30% less fat, about 40% fewer triglycerides (which increase cholesterol) and 30% less diabetes compared to the MOSES mice. Concerning lifespan, wild strain female mice usually live longer than males. In the tests conducted by Cohen on 250 wild and MOSES mice, they found that with normal diet the MOSES male mice lived 15% longer than the male wild species. However, among the MOSES females, no change was recorded. What, then, gives the females a longer life expectancy?
“We found that the rise in life expectancy among males is based on the calorie restriction known to us as a basic mechanism of life extension. There is overlap between these pathways, and the SIRT6 gene is involved in it. Females from the very beginning have a longer life expectancy than males because the basic mechanism is already active, so the engineered males just catch up to females,” concludes Cohen.
“In the current study, published today, we’ve made a huge evolutionary leap in the transition from yeast cells to mice. We were the first to show that these sirtuin genes regulate life span in mammals.
“The research was conducted in laboratory animals under very sterile conditions. Is this what happens in nature? It’s not clear. The human SIRT6 gene is very similar to that in mice. It could be that drugs designed to activate the gene will have a positive impact on our ability to treat age-related diseases whose frequency increases in the elderly and in the physiological damage caused by obesity.”
Source: Ynetnews.com
Israeli starts a stem-cell zoo
Working with American scientists, Inbal Friedrich Ben-Nun has found a way to generate stem cells from preserved tissue of dead endangered animals.
| As sure as you’re born, you may never see another unicorn –– goes the famous song of the Irish Rovers, but in this lifetime we may see the rise of seriously endangered species, thanks to the work of an Israeli scientist.
Working in a post-doctoral fellowship position at the Scripps Research Institute in California, Inbar Friedrich Ben-Nun put herself on a course to do what no scientist had done before – create stem cells from the skin cells of endangered animals. She did her research under the auspices of Jeanne Loring, a professor of developmental neurobiology at Scripps, with the counsel of Oliver Ryder, head of genetic research at the San Diego Zoo. About five years ago, Ryder contacted Loring to discuss the possibility of creating stem cells from endangered animals. Ryder oversees the Frozen Zoo, a cryogenic bank containing skin cells and other material from more than 800 different kinds of animals. This unusual zoo was established in the 1970s with the vision that the technology would one day be available to make use of the genetic samples of deceased animals. The time has come, and Ben-Nun has taken the first major step in a new kind of laboratory conservation work. “We can use this method to save species from extinction,” she says.
The research was funded by the Esther O’Keefe Foundation, the Millipore Foundation and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. And it’s important to note, says Ben-Nun, that funding in this area is badly needed. With a half million dollars, stem cells could be created from any endangered animal, she believes. The artificial stem cells created from a rhino and a primate in the lab headed by Loring now provide a basis for new genetic material, via preserved samples of dead animals, to enter into the gene pool of endangered animals at severe risk of extinction. This project was a top-100 story for Discover magazine in 2011. Rhino test-tube babies The stem cells developed by Ben-Nun from genetic material preserved at the Frozen Zoo are pluripotent, meaning they are capable of differentiating into one of many cell types. Scientists can create any kind of cell from them, potentially including sperm and eggs that could be “mated” and implanted in a living animal to create new, genetically diverse babies.
The essential aim of the research was to demonstrate scientifically that stem cells can be created from high-level animals — such as the primate drill species, which does not fare well in captivity, and the northern white rhinoceros, of which only seven exist in the world today. Stem cells have already been created in mice and are often used as an animal model for testing treatments for human diseases. Little funding and interest has been given to other animals that don’t have medical use to humans. This could change, thanks to the new research. The next step will be finding donor dollars to develop the stem cells into eggs or sperm. This could take as long as a rhino gestation period –– 15 months –– assuming that rhino in-vitro fertilization actually works, Ben-Nun says. New hope for dinosaurs and the woolly mammoth? While it’s possible that the melting arctic icecaps may give rise to previously extinct animals like the woolly mammoth, she does not believe scientists will be able to restore dinosaurs the way they were created in the Jurassic Park movie. “I won’t say no, but it seems far-fetched. There is a small chance. You need to have preserved cells,” she explains. The key for successful stem cell research, she notes, is access to some basic and well-preserved skin or body cells. Since the dinosaurs are so long gone, it is not likely that good genetic material is out there. But in the case of recent extinctions, “the sky’s the limit,” she says. If Ben-Nun could pick one animal to conserve, it would be the northern white rhino. Of the five species of rhinos, this native of Africa was thriving in the Sixties, but became decimated from over-poaching and is in danger of total extinction if solutions aren’t found to preserve it. The last birth of a northern white rhinoceros was in 2000. Only seven individual specimens of this rhino are alive today, two at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and four others in a monitored reserve, where they were released in a last-ditch attempt to preserve the species. But time is running out. Having met the rhinos at the San Diego Zoo before she started her project, Ben-Nun and her lab staff went back to the zoo to celebrate and see the rhinos after their paper was published in a September issue of Nature Methods, a prestigious science journal. The lab’s accomplishments are outlined in the paper to inspire labs around the world to try doing the same. Since the paper was published, Ben-Nun has been contacted by several labs offering to sequence the genomes of the drill and the rhino, another step to ensuring their survival. “The best way to manage extinctions is to preserve species and their habitats,” says Ryder, “but that’s not working all the time.” Stem cell research can improve reproductive success and increase the gene pool. Ben-Nun, a mother of two, started on the groundbreaking project in 2008. After one year of trial and error, the team found that the genes that create pluripotency in humans worked for the drill and the rhino. Only a few stem cells are produced each time, but this is enough: “We have the start of a new zoo, the stem-cell zoo,” says Ben-Nun. Source: MFA |
