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Smartphone users more oblivious to others: study
Users of smartphones, such as iPhones and BlackBerrys, have a different sense of privacy and of the appropriateness of public cellphone usage compared to users of more traditional mobile devices, a study shows.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University drew these conclusion after studying the attitudes of about 150 people in Israel.
Eran Toch, from the school’s department of industrial engineering, said in statement that smartphone users tend to have an illusion of being in a “privacy bubble” when using their devices in public.
The research found that people with smartphones were 70 per cent more likely than those with less advanced cellphones to think their devices gave them a fair degree of privacy when using them in public.
Smartphone users were also 20 per cent less likely to think talking on their devices in public bothered other people, and 50 per cent less inclined to be annoyed by other people using their phones, the study found.
Toronto tech-trend analyst Alan K’necht, a partner at Digital Always Media, said such cultural tendencies found in the Israeli study also hold true in Canada.
“I see it all the time,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard conversations, thinking, ‘You shouldn’t be having that conversation at the grocery store or on the street corner.’ ”
K’necht said it’s probably not so much that certain types of cellphones transform people’s personalities, but those predisposed to react to phone calls, emails and texts right away are more attracted to smartphones. He added that a higher proportion of young people have smartphones than older people, and that could be a factor in the study’s findings.
“There’s a generation that has grown up very tech savvy and has this sense of immediacy and response, and the only way to do that is to respond immediately — take the call in meetings, respond to texts and tweets and emails on the fly.”
Another of the study’s authors, Tali Hatuka from Tel Aviv University’s geography department, suggested that public spaces be re-designed in such a way that there are designated areas for phone usage, and other areas where it’s not allowed.
K’necht said it might be worthwhile to have more phone booths in public spaces, such as restaurants, where people bring their own phones.
“If the venue wants to provide the old-fashioned phone booth where you can go and sit down in a little cubbyhole and chat, there might be a marketing opportunity,” he said.
First plant-made drug on the market
For the first time, the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) today has approved a drug produced in a genetically engineered plant cell. Among those cheering the news are scientists who have advocated ‘bio-pharming’.
The drug, Elelyso (taliglucerase alfa), soothes the symptoms in most patients of the rare lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease, which causes problems ranging from bone infections to anaemia. Scientists at the Israeli biotechnology companyProtalix Biotherapeutics developed a method to create the human enzyme that these patients lack in carrot cells, by inserting a gene that encodes the protein into the cells. Patients treated with the resulting enzyme (taliglucerase alfa) in clinical trials fared at least as well as those given another enzyme-replacement therapy on the market, Cerezyme.
“It’s wonderful to have another option available,” says Rhonda Buyers, executive director of the National Gaucher Foundation in Tucker, Georgia. She hopes that Elelyso will help to prevent drug shortages like those in 2009 and 2011, when patients relied on Cerezyme alone. “People whose symptoms had been controlled for years were having bone issues and terrible fatigue, some went the hospital,” she recollects.
Manufacturers of the two other Gaucher drugs — Genzyme in the US and Shire in Ireland — produce their therapeutic enzymes in mammalian cells. Structurally, Elelyso resembles Genzyme’s Cerezyme, but it’s cheaper to produce because of the high maintenance that animal-cell cultures require. Further, viruses and other pathogens that contaminate mammalian stocks don’t threaten plan-cell cultures.
For more than a decade, researchers have been able to genetically manipulate plants so that they produce human enzymes. In 2006, the US Department of Agriculture approved of a chicken vaccine produced in plant cells. But assuaging concerns about plant-derived biologics for human use has proved much more difficult. Therefore, scientists and drug manufacturers developing other therapeutic enzymes, antibodies and vaccines in plants say that Elelyso’s approval may make the regulatory process more straightforward for them, and alert big pharmaceutical companies and investors to the potential profitability of plant platforms.
Before the FDA’s announcement today, Ritu Baral, a research analyst with Canaccord Genuity in New York, said, “If this drug gets approval it would be a huge proof of concept for the entire platform.” Although the company is poised to treat 2,000 patients in the United States, Baral says it’s uncertain what the US market will be because of brand loyalty to Genzyme and Shire. However, the fact that Elelyso will cost about 25% less than Cerezyme might sway buyers.
Sixty per cent of the profits from US sales will go to the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which made a deal with Protalix in 2009. However, as long as the Israeli government approves the drug, all profits in that country will go to Protalix. Israel represents a relatively large slice of the pie, as Ashkenazi Jews are disproportionately affected by the disease.
David Aviezer, president and chief executive of Protalix in Carmiel, is quite optimistic about the other carrot-made drugs in the company’s pipeline. Earlier this year, Protalix began to plan for phase I clinical trials on their protein to treat another enzyme-related disorder, Fabry disease. “This approval demonstrates a proof of concept for the power of this technology to make a large number of proteins,” Aviezer says. “We are ready to make many more.”
Source: Nature.com
New Revelation: Dead Sea almost dried up entirely 120,000 years ago
Washington: During the last interglacial period, approximately 120,000 years ago, Dead Sea came close to drying up entirely, researchers under a drilling project have found.
The drilling project led by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University has also revealed that water levels of the sea have risen and fallen by hundreds of meters over the last 200,000 years.
Directed by Prof. Zvi Ben-Avraham of TAU’s Minerva Dead Sea Research Center and Prof. Mordechai Stein of the Geological Survey of Israel, researchers drilled 460 meters beneath the sea floor and extracted sediments spanning 200,000 years.
The material recovered revealed the region’s past climatic conditions and may allow researchers to forecast future changes.
Layers of salt indicated several periods of dryness and very little rainfall, causing water to recede and salt to gather at the center of the lake.
The researchers found that approximately 120,000 years ago, the sea came close to drying up entirely, with another period of extreme dryness taking place about 13,000 years ago.
Today, the Dead Sea lies 426 meters below sea level and is receding rapidly.
Despite this historical precedent, there is still cause for concern, said Prof. Ben-Avraham.
In the past the change was climate-driven, the result of natural conditions; today, the lake is threatened by human activity.
“What we see happening in the Middle East is something that mimics a severe dry period, but this is not climate-enforced, this is a man-made phenomenon,” he warned, caused by increasing amounts of water being taken from rivers for irrigation before it reaches the Dead Sea.
Ultimately, this prevents the refilling of the sea by the waters of the Jordan River.
Source: Zeenews.com
Israel’s Heart attack mortality rates drop 50%, down to 2,2%, U.S. rates stand at 16.2%
The annual report by the Israel Heart Society shows that, over 2000-2010, heart attack mortality rates dropped by 50 percent, revealed an Israel Hayom article on Wednesday. Only 2.2% of Israelis who had a heart attack in 2010 died as a result, as opposed to a rate of 5.4% in 2000.
In comparison, a USA TODAY report from 2010 stated that heart attack mortality rates for 2010 in the US averaged 16.2%.
The study, the full results of which are to be released at a conference next week in Tel Aviv, says that over 75% of heart attack victims are men and the average age of a victim is 63.5. In 2000, 26% of men who had a cardiac arrest suffered a repeat, related occurrence within the next month, while in 2010 only 10% had a repeat heart attack or stroke.
The decline in mortality is credited to expanded treatment facilities and an aggressive program of catheter angiography, a treatment that can be used to quickly determine if an artery is blocked, enabling “immediate opening of the artery while enabling optimal medical therapy on [hospital] admission,” said Dr. Amit Segev, Israel Heart Society head.
The data indicated that Israelis take an average of nearly two hours (111 minutes) to arrive at the hospital after the onset of heart attack symptoms, a long time in a situation where every minute counts. For women, that figure is even higher — more than 130 minutes on average.
“We have failed in educating the public that chest pains indicate a heart attack,” said Segev. “We are going to initiate a public campaign on the subject.”
Source: Times of Israel
Israeli study: Pretty women should omit photos from job applications, Attractive men shouldn’t
Why are attractive women less likely to be invited for job interviews? Plain old jealousy, The Economist reports.
Attractive women are better off excluding their photos from job applications, an Israeli study has shown, for they are less likely to be offered an interview if recruiters perceive them as beautiful. The reason? Plain old jealousy.
According to a report by The Economist, a study was conducted by Bradley Ruffle at Ben-Gurion University and Ze’ev Shtudiner at Ariel University Centre that looked at what happens when job hunters include photos with their curricula vitae, as is the norm in much of Europe and Asia.
“The pair sent fictional applications to over 2,500 real-life vacancies. For each job, they sent two very similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. Subjects had previously been graded for their attractiveness,” explained The Economist.
Attractive men – as was expected – were more likely to be invited for an interview if they included a photo, and ugly men were better off not including one. But for women, the results were reversed. Good-looking women were less likely to be offered an interview when they included a photo in their application than plainer women. In fact, an attractive woman would need to send out 11 CVs on average before getting an interview, while an equally qualified plain one just seven, said the report.
“At first, Mr Ruffle considered what he calls the “dumb-blonde hypothesis”—that people assume beautiful women to be stupid. However, the photos had also been rated on how intelligent people thought each subject looked; there was no correlation between perceived intellect and pulchritude,” said the report, “So the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere.”
In the Israeli study, 93% of those tasked with inviting applicants for an interview were female. “The researchers’ unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates,” said The Economist.
The remaining question is whether good-looking women are better off attaching unattractive photos to job applications, or whether they should omit their headshot altogether. Ruffle recommends the latter.
Source: Haaretz.com
Israeli children celebrate Autism Day
Israeli children marked the fifth annual World Autism Awareness Day today (April 2) with a colorful message.
Under the banner, ‘Every Child Can’, children from the scout movement together with autistic elementary school kids held an event to celebrate the differences and uniqueness of each autistic child.
Alut — The Israeli Society for Autistic Children hosted the event.
Israel is a leader in research in the field. The new global headquarters of ICare4autism, the world’s first global center for autism research and education, is scheduled to open in 2014 on the Mt. Scopus campus in Jerusalem.
“Millions of people are still suffering from autism,” Dr. Joshua Weinstein, Founder and President of ICare4Autism told ISRAEL21c. “And there are more people aware of autism today than 10 years ago, thanks to different education programs. We plan on integrating all the systems that work.”
Researchers from around the world are expected to come to Jerusalem this summer for the ICare4Autism International Autism Conference in August.
Source: Israel21c.org