A new research study, conducted by doctoral student Amal Khayat and led by Dr. Yael Bar-Zeev and researchers at the Hebrew University’s Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, shows that one of the world’s largest tobacco companies exploited loopholes in the law against advertising smoking products in Israel, and specifically targeted the Haredi population in Israel. The study findings, which were recently published in the academic journal Tobacco Control, reveal a series of advertising strategies that focused on the population group with the lowest rates of smoking in Israel.

Analyzing the marketing data of Philip Morris International, the researchers examined the differences in advertising expenditure over a four-year period between advertising focused on different major population groups in Israel—the general population, the Haredi public, Arab speakers, and Russian speakers. “We conducted a comparison among the advertising expenditures for all Philip Morris cigarette brands and the IQOS brand (a heated tobacco stick that entered the local market in December 2016), in light of regulatory changes that restricted the advertising of tobacco products,” explains Khayat.

While the restriction on advertising tobacco products led to a significant reduction in the company’s marketing expenditures, the study shows that the company exploited legal loopholes in order to subvert the law’s goals and increase its own profits as much as possible. “Even after the law came into effect, the company continued to spend almost NIS 3 million on advertising, with a focus on the printed press,” explains Dr. Bar-Zeev. “While the law restricted print advertising to one advert in each newspaper, 40% of the IQOS adverts placed were giant, two-page adverts, which effectively doubled the product’s advertising space, while still being considered a single advert as allowed by the letter of the law.”

Another strategy used by Philip Morris was adding a QR code to the advert, which readers could scan and then view additional content, beyond that contained in the advert permitted in the newspaper. Furthermore, the adverts featured people smoking IQOS devices in closed public spaces, despite the fact that the law forbids

 

the use of any tobacco products in such areas. According to the researchers, adverts like this give the impression that such behavior is legally permitted, and exploits the innocence of the majority of consumers, who are not aware of these distinctions.

The study further finds that before the law came into effect, Philip Morris significantly increased its advertising to all the population groups examined, with a particular focus on the Haredi population, which had the lowest rates of smoking in Israel. “Our data shows that since the introduction of the IQOS e-cigarettes, 216 targeted adverts were published, of which 55% were for the Haredi public, 6% for the Arab public, and the rest for the Russian-speaking public,” says Dr. Bar-Zeev. Similarly, for regular cigarette brands, 87% of advertisements were targeted at the Haredi population—a surprising finding given the company’s repeated claims that it is only interested in marketing its products to existing smokers. Dr. Bar-Zeev adds: “We expected that the company would focus on populations with the highest rates of smoking in Israel—men in the Arab sector—and not on the population which has hardly any smokers.”

In the wake of the study findings, the previous Knesset assembly decided to cancel the exception for advertising in the printed press, but deferred implementation of this step for seven years. In discussions, a series of additional restrictions were decided upon for this interim period, including prohibitions on the use of coupons, on the use of QR codes, and on featuring cigarette packs which do not carry the mandatory plain packaging in adverts in the printed press. However, Dr. Bar-Zeev concludes that this is merely “a drop in the ocean,” as the study has proved that the tobacco companies bypass such restrictions, and find creative ways to continue marketing their products and getting a new generation of smokers addicted to them. The researchers argue that only a full and immediate ban on all forms of advertising, combined with strict enforcement of the law, can stop this happening.

 

The academic articles presenting the study findings are available here:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tc-2022-057585

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/tc-2022-057671

 

 

A remarkable scientific discovery has been made by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), Tel Aviv University (TAU), and Bar-Ilan University (BIU), in collaboration with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Oranim Academic College, the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research (IOLR) institution, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. A close analysis of the remains of a carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) archaeological site in Israel shows that the fish were cooked roughly 780,000 years ago.  Cooking is defined as the ability to process food by controlling the temperature at which it is heated and includes a wide range of methods. Until now, the earliest evidence of cooking dates to approximately 170,000 years ago. The question of when early man began using fire to cook food has been the subject of much scientific discussion for over a century. These findings shed new light on the matter and was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The study was led by a team of researchers:  Dr. Irit Zohar, a researcher at TAU’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and curator of the Beit Margolin Biological Collections at Oranim Academic College, and HU Professor Naama Goren-Inbar, director of the excavation site.  The research team also included Dr. Marion Prevost at HU’s Institute of Archaeology; Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil at BIU’s Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology; Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London; Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute; Prof. Thomas Tütken of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and Prof. Israel Hershkovitz at TAU’s Faculty of Medicine.

Dr. Zohar and Dr. Prevost: “This study demonstrates the huge importance of fish in the life of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability. Further, by studying the fish remains found at Gesher Benot Ya’aqob we were able to reconstruct, for the first time, the fish population of the ancient Hula Lake and to show that the lake held fish species that became extinct over time. These species included giant barbs (carp like fish) that reached up to 2 meters in length. The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques. These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans’ ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it.”

In the study, the researchers focused on pharyngeal teeth (used to grind up hard food such as shells) belonging to fish from the carp family. These teeth were found in large quantities at different archaeological strata at the site. By studying the structure of the crystals that form the teeth enamel (whose size increases through exposure to heat), the researchers were able to prove that the fish caught at the ancient Hula Lake, adjacent to the site, were exposed to temperatures suitable for cooking, and were not simply burned by a spontaneous fire.

Until now, evidence of the use of fire for cooking had been limited to sites that came into use much later than the GBY site--by some 600,000 years, and ones most are associated with the emergence of our own species, homo sapiens.

Prof. Goren-Inbar added: “The fact that the cooking of fish is evident over such a long and unbroken period of settlement at the site indicates a continuous tradition of cooking food. This is another in a series of discoveries relating to the high cognitive capabilities of the Acheulian hunter-gatherers who were active in the ancient Hula Valley region. These groups were deeply familiar with their environment and the various resources it offered them.  Further, it shows they had extensive knowledge of the life cycles of different plant and animal species. Gaining the skill required to cook food marks a significant evolutionary advance, as it provided an additional means for making optimal use of available food resources. It is even possible that cooking was not limited to fish, but also included various types of animals and plants.”

Prof. Hershkovitz and Dr. Zohar note that the transition from eating raw food to eating cooked food had dramatic implications for human development and behavior.  Eating cooked food reduces the bodily energy required to break down and digest food, allowing other physical systems to develop.  It also leads to changes in the structure of the human jaw and skull. This change freed humans from the daily, intensive work of searching for and digesting raw food, providing them free time in which to develop new social and behavioral systems. Some scientists view eating fish as a milestone in the quantum leap in human cognitive evolution, providing a central catalyst for the development of the human brain.  They claim that eating fish is what made us human. Even today, it is widely known that the contents of fish flesh, such as omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iodine and more, contribute greatly to brain development.

The research team believe that the location of freshwater areas, some of them in areas that have long since dried up and become arid deserts, determined the route of the migration of early man from Africa to the Levant and beyond. Not only did these habitats provide drinking water and attracted animals to the area but catching fish in shallow water is a relatively simple and safe task with a very high nutritional reward.

The team posits that exploiting fish in freshwater habitats was the first step on prehistoric humans’ route out of Africa. Early man began to eat fish around 2 million years ago but cooking fish—as found in this study—represented a real revolution in the Acheulian diet, and is an important foundation for understanding the relationship between man, the environment, climate, and migration when attempting to reconstruct the history of early humans.

It should be noted that evidence of the use of fire at the site—the oldest such evidence in Eurasia—was identified first by BIU’s Prof. Nira Alperson-Afil. “The use of fire is a behavior that characterizes the entire continuum of settlement at the site,” she explained. “This affected the spatial organization of the site and the activity conducted there, which revolved around fireplaces.” Alperson-Afil’s research of fire at the site was revolutionary for its time and showed that the use of fire began hundreds of thousands of years before previously thought.

HU’s Goren-Inbar added that the archaeological site of GBY documents a continuum of repeated settlement by groups of hunter-gatherers on the shores of the ancient Hula Lake which lasting tens of thousands of years. “These groups made use of the rich array of resources provided by the ancient Hula Valley, and left behind a long settlement continuum with over 20 settlement strata,” Goren-Inbar explained. The excavations at the site have uncovered the material culture of these ancient hominins, including flint, basalt, and limestone tools, as well as their food sources, which were characterized by a rich diversity of plant species from the lake and its shores (including fruit, nuts, and seeds) and by many species of land mammals, both medium-sized and large.

Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London explained: “In this study, we used geochemical methods to identify changes in the size of the tooth enamel crystals, as a result of exposure to different cooking temperatures. When they are burnt by fire, it is easy to identify the dramatic change in the size of the enamel crystals, but it is more difficult to identify the changes caused by cooking at temperatures between 200 and 500 degrees Celsius. The experiments I conducted with Dr. Zohar allowed us to identify the changes caused by cooking at low temperatures. We do not know exactly how the fish were cooked but given the lack of evidence of exposure to high temperatures, it is clear that they were not cooked directly in fire, and were not thrown into a fire as waste or as material for burning.”

Dr. Guy Sisma-Ventura of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute and Prof. Thomas Tütken of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz were also part of the research group, providing analysis of the isotope composition of oxygen and carbon in the enamel of the fishes’ teeth. “This study of isotopes is a real breakthrough, as it allowed us to reconstruct the hydrological conditions in this ancient lake throughout the seasons, and thus to determine that the fish were not a seasonal economic resource but were caught and eaten all year round. Thus, fish provided a constant source of nutrition that reduced the need for seasonal migration.”

 

Dr. Amir Capua, Faculty Member, HU’s Department of Applied Physics, shared, “the chip industry in Israel is flourishing, as hi-tech giants open new development centers. At the same time, there is a severe lack of engineers at all levels.  In our role to prepare the next generation of engineers, Hebrew University’s curriculum for electrical engineering and applied physics is attentive to market needs.  We provide our students with the most up-to-date studies, including the skills and knowledge they will need when they complete their studies. It’s is a complex field, with technology changing at a dizzying speed.” Capua continued, “in our proposal to the Intel’s SyllaBoost Program, we went deep to equip our graduates with the final and critical stage of chip design: the backend stage, just before a chip is rolled out on the most advanced production lines.”

Thanks to support for the new syllabus by HU’s management, headed by VP and CEO Mr. Yishai Fraenkel, an industrial working environment based on cloud infrastructure was created for students. This allows for continuous updating of course content, distance learning for students, and tech support from an external company.  HU plans to expand this infrastructure to other VLSI courses offered in microelectronics specialization, enabling more students to gain gain hands-on experience of the most up-to-date technologies and methodologies used in the chip-making industry.

Mariana Waksman, Head of Academic and Education Relations at Intel Israel, shared, “our collaboration with Hebrew University is important to us and will continue on in the future. HU’s new course will benefit not only students in its Department of Applied Physics but also the chip design industry at large—a growing industry in Israel and particularly in Jerusalem.  We are committed to advancing academic teaching in all areas of chip design and development, and will continue to strengthen Israel’s academia by supporting and conducting strategic partnerships with various universities.”

 

New research study led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) and the Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization (Volcani Institute) details the success of a biological sensor for early detection of hidden disease in potato tubers, one of Israel’s chief export industries at 700,000 tons a year. 

Israeli farmers import European potatoes for planting in Israel.  However, a certain percentage of them carry disease within—either visibly or invisibly—that cause rot and significantly reduce the potato’s quality.  The Hebrew University-Volcani alliance is about to change that. They’ve developed a sensor that detects disease and can be used to inhibit the rot from growing and spreading. Their study, published in the upcoming edition of Talanta, was conducted by Dr. Dorin Harpaz and her PhD student Boris Veltman at HU’s Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, under the supervision of Dr. Evgeni Eltzov of the Volcani Institute.  The team collaborated with the Volcani Institute’s Dr. Sarit Melamed and Dr. Zipora Tietel, as well as Dr. Leah Tsror from the Gilat Research Center.

The sensor relies on smart bioengineering and optics.  When the sensor is exposed to an infected potato, a bacterial compound within lights up—with the strength of the luminescence indicating the concentration and composition of the rot.  “The intensity of the light given off by the bacteria panel makes it possible to quickly and quantifiably analyze the characteristics of the disease, which the sensor can ‘smell,’ before the appearance of visible symptoms,” explained Eltzov. “The biosensor we developed will help identify diseased potatoes that do not yet have any external indications, and keep them away from healthy tubers, thus preventing the rot from developing or spreading to other healthy plants,” Harpaz added.

To form the bacteria panel, the team created a compound of four genetically-engineered bacteria that measure biological toxicity.  In this study, the biological sensor detected disease before there was any visible trace, and caused the optical sensor to shine twice as brightly as did the sensors in non-infected potatoes. Their capabilities were also demonstrated in a previous study that used the sensors to detect toxicity among artificial sweeteners in sport supplements. 

According to the researchers, early discovery of disease--before the potatoes are exported to foreign markets or replanted, offers a significant advantage to food growers. “The biological sensor can be used to quickly and economically identify hidden rot in potatoes, facilitate better post-harvest management, and reduce food wastage—particularly important given the current global food crisis,” concluded Harpaz.

 

 

The trend throughout the world is for couples to delay starting a family until they have achieved greater financial stability. This takes women beyond their years of peak fertility – causing many to rely on processes such as IVF to have a baby.  In IVF, an egg is removed from the woman, fertilized in a dish and then, a few days later, the embryo is implanted in her womb.  While in the dish, the embryo is kept in a liquid, or culture medium, that supports its development.  The Hebrew U. review established that the addition of hyaluronic acid (HA) to this medium enhances the ultimate success of IVF. 

This significant finding was the result of a detailed systematic review and meta-analysis of the outcome of all high-quality clinical trials where HA was either added or not added to the culture medium. "We found that exposing an embryo to HA for more than 10 minutes prior to its transfer to the womb, increased the likelihood of a birth from 32% to 39%," shared Heymann.  The most marked success was in cases for women who had a poor prognosis of success.

Furthermore, the increase in birth rate was only seen in cases where a woman was implanted with her own fertilized egg and not in cases where donor eggs were used. "This could be because donor eggs tend to be of higher quality," explained Heymann. The main benefit being seen in poorer quality eggs.

This study, by Heymann and her colleagues, including IVF experts Prof. Zeev Shoham and Dr. Yuval Or, and builds on their work for Cochrane which published a review in 2020 showing an overall increase in success rate in ARTs when embryos are exposed to HA prior to implantation.

Although HA naturally occurs in the female reproductive tract, its role in improving IVF outcomes is unclear and "more research is needed," suggests Heymann. Meanwhile her prime concern is that IVF clinics act on the findings of this review. "However," she noted, "hyaluronic acid is expensive, and this might mean it is not as widely used as it should be."

 

 

They mate only once in their lifetime and spend the rest of their yearlong life with their chosen mate and their family (of 60-70 offspring) in a single permanent burrow.  The isopod females initially dig the burrow and the males fight to win a particular female and a particular habitat.  Both parents take care of the brood, and all family members—young and old—continue to excavate and clean the burrow together.  Choosing where to establish a home is the responsibility of the female woodlouse (“desert isopod “) and under normal conditions, the largest males usually win the largest females.  However, what happens when there is a predator, such as an Israeli gold scorpion, living nearby? 

A study of this scenario was carried out in the Negev Desert, in southern Israel, by a Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) research team led by Professor Dror Hawlena and Dr. Viraj Torsekar.  They observed the mating behavior of male desert isopods in two locations – one close to the burrow of an Israeli gold scorpion (a risky area), and one further away (a safe area).  Their findings, recently published in Ecology, demonstrated the preference of large males for larger females in safe areas but less so for large females in risky areas.  “Using this manipulative field experiment, we found that desert isopods under risk of scorpion predation maintained ‘size assortative mating’, but that males that chose and fought over females were on average smaller for a given female size,” Torsekar explained.  Additionally, while bigger males stayed longer near safe burrows and won more male-male contests, fewer pairs were formed in risky sites.

The researchers also showed that the smaller males had often accepted second best and moved in with smaller females close to the lurking scorpion. Medium sized males chose between smaller females in safe places and larger female in risky places - demonstrating an equal fitness choice.

"This supported our novel hypothesis that the males anticipated the future risk of predation," noted Torsekar. The males seemed to incorporate information on the proximity of a predator when choosing a mate. They no longer made their selection based solely on the size of the female, although larger females do have larger broods.

It is hard work for the females to dig into the dry compacted soil of the desert, so they are always on the lookout for holes that can make life a little easier. The HU researchers dug holes in two groups, one near the burrow of an Israeli gold scorpion and one further away.  Female isopods readily adopted the holes and excavated full-size burrows. However, the study showed that fewer isopod pairs took up residence in burrows near predators, despite it being virtually free real estate.

It should be noted that the predatory behavior of scorpions is localized to the immediate vicinity around their burrows.  They don't go wandering off to look for prey but emerge only to attack prey that is detected by the vibrations isopods cause as they walk across the burrow roof.  However, it is known that the odor of the scorpion does alert isopods when they are near to its lair.

In courtship, once the females adopt a burrow, they are ready to admit a male. Peeping out from the top of the burrow, male and female encounter each other face-to-face - probably using the separation between the eyes of their prospective mate to assess size. Males compete furiously over the larger females, in hopes of producing a large brood.

"This information is crucial in predicting how the fear of a predator may affect prey population dynamics and evolutionary processes in the creation of new species," concluded Torsekar.

 

The team studied roughly 560,000 reviews of 31,000 food products sold on the leading online marketplaces Amazon and iHerb and found that 10% of the reviews refer to the products’ sweetness. The researchers then used machine learning and natural language processing to categorize the responses by level of sweetness. “7–16% of the reviews we examined indicated oversweetness. This is important because customers who complained about products being oversweet gave them significantly lower scores (one star less) than did customers who did not complain about oversweetness. In addition, the reviews mentioning oversweetness came from different customers and only for some of the products those customers tried, rather than from ‘serial complainers,’” shared Niv.

One of the ingredients that most frequently led to reviews citing oversweetness was the artificial sweetener Sucralose. “Food companies that make candies, snacks, and soft drinks must also pay attention to the demand for products that are less sweet,” added Asseo. “This is important not just for public health reasons (supplying members of the public who prefer it with food that is less sweet and is healthier), but also for the food companies themselves, so that they can boast a healthier product line and sell these healthier products to customers who actually find them tastier.”

Niv concluded that “despite popular opinion, it is not the case for everyone that sweeter means tastier. There is an opportunity here to diversify the levels of sweetness in products and to create healthier versions that are more closely tailored to the preferences of certain customer groups.”

 

Classifying climate conditions and measuring climate sensitivity are central elements when assessing the viability of exoplanets as potential candidates for human habitation. In the current study, the research team examined TRAPPIST-1e, a planet located some 40 light years from the Earth and scheduled to be documented by the James Webb Space Telescope in the coming year. The researchers looked at the sensitivity of the planet’s climate to increases in greenhouse gases and compared it with conditions on Earth. Using a computerized simulation of the climate on TRAPPIST-1e, they could assess the impact of changes in greenhouse gas concentration.

The study focused on the effect of an increase in carbon dioxide on extreme weather conditions, and on the rate of changes in weather on the planet. “These two variables are crucial for the existence of life on other planets, and they are now being studied in depth for the first time in history,” explained Hochman.

According to the research team, studying the climate variability of earth-like exo-planets provides a better understanding of the climate changes we are currently experiencing on Earth. Additionally, this kind of research offers a new understanding of how planet Earth’s atmosphere might change in the future.

Hochman and his research partners found that planet TRAPPIST-1e has a significantly more sensitive atmosphere than planet Earth. They estimate that an increase in greenhouse gases there could lead to more extreme climate changes than we would experience here on Earth because one side of TRAPPIST-1e constantly faces its own sun, in the same way, that our moon always has one side facing the Earth.

As Hochman concluded, “the research framework we developed, along with observational data from the Webb Space Telescope, will enable scientists to efficiently assess the atmospheres of many other planets without having to send a space crew to visit them physically. This will help us make informed decisions in the future about which planets are good candidates for human settlement and perhaps even to find life on those planets.”

 

 

This project, led by the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, includes the construction of a unique building on the university’s Safra Campus at Givat Ram that will house the full Einstein archives. The archives will be accessible to the general public in digital format and the museum will also serve as an innovative space for scientific and technological education.

The Albert Einstein Museum will showcase the research, activities, and legacy of Albert Einstein, a Nobel prizewinner and one of the world’s most renown scientists. With cutting-edge exhibition techniques, scientific demonstrations, and original documents, the Museum will present Einstein’s contributions to science, the impact of his discoveries on our lives today, his public activity and involvement in key historical moments during his lifetime.  Further, the Museum will highlight Einstein’s deep connection with the destiny of the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, of which he was a founder.

Visitors will be able to tour a reconstruction of Einstein’s library and office, and to view several original papers of his.  The project directors expect the Albert Einstein Museum to become a major tourist attraction in Israel.

This initiative was made possible through funding by Israel’s Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage, headed by MK Ze’ev Elkin, as well as the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, the Ministry of Finance, and the Prime Minister’s Office. The government will provide NIS 22.5 million and the University NIS 41.5 million.

MK Ze’ev Elkin, Minister of Construction and Housing, and of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage: “Today, as the new academic year opens, we are passing an important resolution for strengthening academia in Israel, the capital of Israel, and the Hebrew University. The establishment of the Albert Einstein Museum and the provision of a permanent home for the full Einstein archives will bolster the standing of Israeli academia in general, and of the Hebrew University in particular, in the international arena; will reinforce the international status of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; and will bring tens of thousands of tourists to this unique site. I would like to thank our partners in this unique project in the government and at the university, and as a Hebrew University graduate and former lecturer, I would like to wish every success to the hundreds of thousands of students who are beginning their academic studies today.”

Professor Asher Cohen, president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “Albert Einstein was one of the most prominent supporters of the State of Israel and one of the founding fathers of Hebrew University. His legacy of excellence in academic research forms the very foundation of our university, whereas his scientific achievements, which changed the world of physics, continue to impact all of our lives, from lasers and nuclear energy to GPS and space travel. These developments, and many more, can be traced to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. On behalf of the entire Hebrew University community, I would like to thank Minister Ze’ev Elkin and the government of Israel for helping to establish of this museum, which will preserve and cherish the legacy of the greatest scientist of our time.”

 

Gone are the days when people relied on recommendations from friends and family before making consumer purchases, choosing a vacation destination or perhaps even when casting a vote.  Today, there is a whole online community influencing us.  Understanding how opinions are formed and decisions are made in our online world is the focus of the research by Dr. Yaniv Dover of the Jerusalem Business School and the Federmann Center for the study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (HU). His latest publication, in one of the top leading journals in management, the Journal of Consumer Research, shows that even the weather of the day can color our perception of past experiences.

 

Dover's research, done in collaboration with Prof. Leif Brandes at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, used 12 years of data and 3 million hotel bookings to examine how 340 000 anonymous online reviews of hotels were influenced by the weather on the day they were written.  This was a far from simple evaluation that included matching between the booking made by the consumer and the written review, identifying the weather at the location of the reviewer, the star rating given, classification of vocabulary used to describe the stay, and the weather experienced during the stay at the hotel.  The researchers also used a special statistical model that takes into account both the decision to provide a review and the content of the review.

 

The results showed conclusively that, on average, bad weather (rain or snow) reduced the reviewers’ evaluation of their past hotel experience sufficiently to nearly demote the hotel from a 5- to a 4-star rating. Bad weather also made reviewers write longer and more critical and detailed reviews. They also showed that on rainy days there was a higher chance of choosing to write a review and that the effect of weather on the review was independent of the weather they experienced during the hotel stay. The authors suggest that this effect may be because bad weather days trigger more negative memories, or induce a negative mood which colors the review.

 

This research is interesting in itself but has much wider implications because it shows, for the first time, how our external physical environment—in this case the weather—can be a factor in our online judgments. Dover explains that this type of research "exposes an aspect of the dynamics of our new digital world… and can help policy makers frame policies to better engineer a more productive and healthy effect of online activities on our daily lives."

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CITATION: Offline Context Affects Online Reviews: The Effect of Post-Consumption Weather. Leif Brandes, Yaniv Dover Journal of Consumer Research, Jan 28 2022, DOI: 10.1093/jcr/ucac003

 

FUNDING: Israel Science Foundation

 

LINK TO ARTICLE:  

https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucac003/6516531

 

While breakthroughs in the world of medicine and technology account for the global increase in life expectancy, improvements in quality of life for the elderly population lag far behind.  Longevity without a decline in health is one of the major challenges that faces the world of medicine. A new study led by Professors Einav Gross and Shmuel Ben-Sasson of the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) has identified a group of molecules that enable cells to repair damaged components, making it possible for those tissues to retain proper function. The efficacy of the molecules was demonstrated on a model-organism.  The research team examined the effect of various therapies on longevity and quality of life, and successfully proved they can protect the organism’s and human cells from damage. Their findings were published in Autophagy.

 

Currently, a major factor in aging tissues is the reduced effectiveness of the cell’s quality-control mechanism, which leads to the accumulation of defective mitochondria. As Gross explained, “mitochondria, the cell’s ‘power plants,’ are responsible for energy production. They can be compared to tiny electric batteries that help cells function properly.  Although these ‘batteries’ wear out constantly, our cells have a sophisticated mechanism that removes defective mitochondria and replaces them with new ones.” However, this mechanism declines with age, leading to cell dysfunction and deterioration in tissue activity.

 

This degenerative process lies at the heart of many age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure and sarcopenia, which are on the rise.  Gross and Ben-Sasson’s study may have far-reaching practical applications since their new technology, developed at Hebrew U., helped create innovative compounds to treat diseases that are currently incurable.  The study also showed that these molecules can be used preventively. “In the future, we hope we will be able to significantly delay the development of many age-related diseases and improve people’ quality of life,” shared Ben-Sasson.  Further, these compounds are user-friendly and can be taken orally. 

 

To advance their important research and translate it into medical treatment for a variety of patients, the research team, together with Yissum, Hebrew University’s tech transfer company, established Vitalunga, a startup that is currently developing this drug.  “Ben-Sasson’s and Gross’s findings have significant value for the global aging population,” noted Itzik Goldwaser, CEO of Yissum. “As Vitalunga advances towards pre-clinical studies, they’re closer than ever to minimizing the unbearable burden that aging-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, has on individuals, their families and the our health care systems.“

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CITATION: Vijigisha Srivastava, Veronica Zelmanovich, Virendra Shukla, Rachel Abergel, Irit Cohen, Shmuel A. Ben-Sasson & Einav Gross (2022) Distinct designer diamines promote mitophagy, and thereby enhance healthspan in C. elegans and protect human cells against oxidative damage, Autophagy, DOI: 10.1080/15548627.2022.2078069  

 

LINK TO ARTICLE: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15548627.2022.2078069

 

 

A salvage excavation near the Temple Mount by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology has unearthed a unique ritual bath (“mikveh”) dating back to the Late Second Temple period (1^st Century CE).   These excavations, begun in February 2021 to provide handicap access between Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall, were overseen by HU’s Michal Haber and Dr. Oren Gutfeld, funded in part by Israel’s Ministry for Jerusalem Affairs and the William Davidson Foundation, and spearheaded by the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

 

The ritual bath was found within a private villa, hewn into the bedrock and featuring a vaulted ceiling with fine masonry typical of the Herodian period.  It is located on top of a cliff in the “Upper City”—a phrase coined by historian Josephus Flavius to describe the area of Herod’s City which housed Jerusalem’s elites.  A plastered water cistern was uncovered near the same villa.  It had been in use until the destruction of the Second Temple by Rome in 70 CE, and held the remains of nearly 40 cooking pots, some still intact.

 

In addition to the ritual bath, the excavations unearthed additional artifacts that span the Second Temple, Roman-Byzantine and Ottoman periods, including a network of plastered pools and channels.  Among the finds were a section of the Ottoman-period phase of the “Lower Aqueduct” which transported water from Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem all the way to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period; and an industrial pool built by soldiers of Rome’s Tenth Legion who were stationed in Jerusalem after the establishment of the Roman colony of “Aelia Capitolina” in 130 CE. The pool lies on top of the remains of an earlier Roman oven, also installed by soldiers of the Legion.  The bottom contains a layer of tile bricks, one of which was stamped with the letters “LXF,” alluding to “Legio X Fretensis,” the full name of the Tenth Legion. 

 

Also discovered over the course of excavation was a fragment of Late Byzantine-period ceramic oil lamp, inscribed with the Greek formula "The Light of Christ shines for all." This phrase may have its source in the ceremony of the Holy Fire, part of the Orthodox Easter celebrations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Such oil lamps, dated primarily to the 6th and 7th centuries CE, may have been purchased by Christian pilgrims thronging to the Byzantine city -- by now known as “Hierosolyma”. 

 

Zeev Elkin, Israel’s Minister of Construction and Housing and of Jerusalem Affairs, inaugurated the Western Wall Elevator Project, noting “these rare finds, made during the Western Wall Elevator Project excavations, are truly exciting.  They provide proof of a continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem for millennia.  Under my leadership, Israel’s Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage will continue to preserve and develop Jerusalem’s rich Jewish past and to transform the capital into a modern, innovative city.”

 

Surveying the unique finds, Gutfeld shared, “The excavation revealed remains dating from the Second Temple, Roman-Byzantine, and Ottoman periods. The amount of water channels, cisterns and pools discovered in the area reflect the central role played by Jerusalem’s water supply throughout the ages.”

 

As noted, the highlight of the archaeological dig was the ritual bath. Haber explained the significance of this find, “during the Herodian period, the area in question was home to the city’s wealthiest residents. While several other ritual baths have been unearthed in the area, the importance of this particular discovery stems from its striking proximity to the Temple Mount—raising the question of who lived in this grand villa on the eve of the city’s destruction. It may well have been a priestly family.”

 

With the help of Dr. Amit Reem, chief archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Jerusalem District, the ritual bath will be preserved and incorporated into the new Western Wall Elevator complex.

 

The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs, headed by Minister Elkin, continues to develop Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter.  Current projects include the Western Wall Elevator, the Tiferet Israel synagogue, upgrades to the Herodian Quarter and the Broad Wall archaeological site.

 

From the TIMES OF ISRAEL by By YAAKOV SCHWARTZ 

On the heels of a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia, the newly sworn-in United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, said Tuesday at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University that “there is a change afoot in this region.”

She made her comments at the forum “New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism,” which was jointly held by the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Diaspora Ministry.

“For too many decades, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years,” Lipstadt said, noting that the kingdom has also begun to implement changes in religious laws and the position of women in the country.   “I met with the heads and staffs of embassies focused on combating violent extremism, focused on interfaith dialogue, including the Muslim World League, whose secretary-general visited Auschwitz in 2020,” Lipstadt said. “We heard from a number of people who seemed willing to divide between the geopolitical crisis as it stands here in Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the fact that antisemitism is something separate and apart.

“These are important first steps. There was a clear willingness to continue this conversation. There is room to move things forward.”

Among the panelists at the forum were US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, and CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt. The forum was moderated by Hebrew University vice president and former Israeli ambassador Yossi Gal.

US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, left, shakes hands with ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt at the New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, July 5, 2022. (Yaakov Schwartz/ Times of Israel)

Lipstadt spoke about the qualities of antisemitism that set it apart from other forms of racism and prejudice. She cited antisemitism’s ubiquity, its appearance on both the right and the left, and the conspiracy theory that Jews are using their wealth and knowledge to control the world.

Speaking a day after a shooter killed six people and wounded dozens more at an Independence Day parade in the highly Jewish Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Lipstadt recalled the manifesto of the perpetrator of the May 14 massacre in Buffalo, New York, which specifically targeted Black people.

“He was very clear — he wanted to kill as many Black people as he could. Black people were a danger, they were a danger to white society,” Lipstadt said. “But he believed that behind the efforts to destroy white society were Jews. He described them as ‘demons, the biggest problem the Western world has ever had. They have to be killed, and if they are lucky, to be exiled. We cannot show them any sympathy, they have to go back to the hell from where they came.’”

The Foreign Ministry has said that it has received information about Jewish casualties in Monday’s mass shooting north of Chicago, one of whom was identified as a synagogue staffer.

The rabbi of a Chabad Hasidic congregation near the shooting in Chicago’s Highland Park neighborhood said the alleged shooter attempted to enter his synagogue during the Passover holiday several months ago but was told to leave.

At the forum in Jerusalem, Nides said, “None of us would disagree that antisemitism is on the rise. You can’t open a newspaper or look at social media and hear about the violence that takes place and not believe it to be true. We’re doing our best, but our best is not enough.”

Repeating Lipstadt’s statement that antisemitism seeps in from all corners of society and across the political spectrum, Greenblatt said, “Something has changed in the US and around the world. In 2021, the ADL recorded the highest number of antisemitic incidents we’ve ever seen in American history — 2,717 acts, a 34 percent increase over the prior year… The number last year was almost triple that of 2015.”

Greenblatt noted that over 100 white supremacists from a group called the Patriot Front marched on July 4 in front of the state house in Boston, Massachusetts, while just weeks before, an anonymous “mapping project” published details of Boston-area Jewish institutions, calling them part of the “Zionist empire of oppression.”

The website, run by self-described “activists,” said that “every network has an address, every address can be disrupted, every organization can be dismantled.”

“Who do they blame, who do they make this slander against? The Jewish Community Center of Boston, the Jewish day school, the synagogues. How does this happen that you blame the synagogues for the devastation and ‘colonization’? It’s because for years, we’ve seen this in some elements of the anti-Israel community. Anti-Israeli NGOs in the US have been saying this kind of thing for years, with no one stopping them, no one protesting them,” Greenblatt said.

He said the ADL is cooperating with the FBI to find out who is behind the project and to take the perpetrators to court for incitement and slander.

Lipstadt added that the mapping project “has brought something out from behind the scenes and made it very clear what is there.”

“It highlighted the problem in a way that 1,000 speeches and seminars could never do,” said Lipstadt.

 

 

 

 

 

"Currently, there are no efficient, validated platforms for rapidly generating anti-viral drugs," says ViroBlock CEO and Founder Isaiah (Shy) Arkin, who is also an HU professor of biological chemistry in the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences. "Scientists must develop new agents and a customized approach to target every new virus, without the ability to predict how that virus will develop resistance. ViroBlock is working on a promising drug candidate for COVID-19 using an approach that can be duplicated with most other important viruses."

 

According to a new study conducted by pharma research company Evotec, ViroBlock’s new technology platform demonstrated the potential to rapidly provide solutions for treating current and emerging viral threats, including COVID-19 and variants, influenza, Zika, West Nile, and Hepatitis B. The study showed that channel blockers it identified could protect cells from viral-induced death alongside dramatically lowering the amount of viral progeny.

 

ViroBlock's antiviral drug candidates inhibit two targets in the virus: the E (envelope) protein and the 3a protein. The E protein is an ion channel, a type of protein family expressed by virtually all living cells that because of its structure has served as a frequent target for pharmaceutical point interventions. For example, while the spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1 (the 2003 virus) are only about 75% identical, their E proteins are roughly 95% alike. This means the ViroBlock drugs would likely remain effective even when the virus mutates.

 

"With our propriety technology, ViroBlock can identify targets in a new viral threat (or variant), develop inhibitors against it, and determine the resistance potential of the virus against the new drug, all at an unprecedented pace," Arkin says.

 

The next phase of clinical trials will test the efficacy of this anti-viral approach for humans. The company also has drugs in the pipeline produced by the platform currently being tested that could be effective against other viruses.

 

ViroBlock was founded in 2020 by Yissum, the Hebrew University technology transfer company.

 

Pain management is one of the biggest challenges of the modern healthcare system.  Almost 60% of US adults report having experienced pain in the past three months and pain is one of the main reasons adults seek medical care. Adequate pain management is critical for patient health and wellbeing. A new study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that physicians prescribed less pain medication during nightshifts than during the day.

 

The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team led by Professor Shoham Choshen-Hillel from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)’s School of Business Administration and Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, HU Psychology Department’s Dr. Anat Perry, and Dr. Alex Gileles-Hillel from Hadassah Medical Center and HU. 

 

In the first part of the study, 67 doctors were given empathy assessment tasks in the morning and asked to respond to simulated patient scenarios.  These doctors were either at the end of a 26-hour shift or just beginning their workday. The study found that doctors who recently completed night shift showed less empathy for patient’s pain. For example, these physicians’ exhibited decreased emotional responses to pictures of people in pain and consistently scored their patients low on pain assessment charts.

 

In the second part of the study, the researchers looked at actual medical decisions made by emergency room doctors in the United States and Israel.  In all, they analyzed 13,482 discharge letters for patients who came to the hospital in 2013-2020 with a chief complaint of pain (headache, back pain, etc.).  Across all data sets, physicians were 20-30% less likely to prescribe an analgesic during nightshifts (compared to daytime shifts) and prescribed fewer painkillers than were generally recommended by the World Health Organization. “They’re tired and therefore they’re less empathic to patients’ pain.  When we looked at ER doctors’ discharge papers, we found that they prescribed fewer painkillers,” Choshen-Hillel explained. 

 

This bias remained significant even after adjusting for patients’ reported level of pain, patient and physician’s demographics, type of complaint, and emergency department characteristics.  “Our takeaway is that nightshift work is an important and previously unrecognized source of bias in pain management, likely stemming from impaired perception of pain. The researchers explain that even medical experts, who strive to provide the best care for their patients, are susceptible to the effects of a nightshift,” Perry noted.

 

Looking ahead, the researchers suggest implementing more structured pain management guidelines in hospitals.  Another important implication relates to physician work structure, and the need to improve physicians’ working schedules. “Our findings may have implications for other workplaces that involve shiftwork and empathic decision-making, including crisis centers, first responders, and the military. In fact, these results should probably matter to all people who are sleep-deprived,” added Gileles-Hillel.

 

In addition to the three lead authors, the Israeli authors included Tom Gordon-Hecker, Shir Genzer and Salomon Israel from the Hebrew University and Ido Sadras and David Rekhtman the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem. The US research team included David Gozal, Koby Clements, and Adrienne Ohler from Missouri University, and Eugene M. Caruso from UCLA.