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21 hours ago
Monday, 23 November 2009
Jewish Thought of the day - The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels
Jewish Thought of the day -The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels
Israel Matzav: Three new Israeli medical technologies
Three new Israeli medical technologies
Another day, another three new Israeli medical technologyies. Here's one that deals with skin cancer.
A new Israeli invention allows cancerous tumors on the skin to be detected and examined before they become visible to the naked eye, Ben-Gurion University announced. In initial testing carried out in the Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, the new instruments managed to identify several types of skin tumors, including melanoma. The findings were presented yesterday at the Israeli Union of Plastic Surgery conference in Tel Aviv.
Dermatologists and plastic surgeons usually diagnose skin tumors by the appearance of the tumor, normally with the naked eye, only rarely using a dermatoscope - a magnifying tool that allows tumors to be examined in detail.
The newly developed instrument, known as OSPI, uses safe levels of radiation, projected at the tumor and returned to the gadget, which measures its character, including its contours and spread. OSPI also uses liquid crystals to carry out the examination.
A second medical technology helps to dress burn wounds.
Despite advances in treatment regimens and the best efforts of nurses and doctors, about 70% of all people with severe burns die from related infections. But a revolutionary new wound dressing developed at Tel Aviv University could cut that number dramatically.
Prof. Meital Zilberman of TAU's Department of Biomedical Engineering has developed a new wound dressing based on fibers she engineered -- fibers that can be loaded with drugs like antibiotics to speed up the healing process, and then dissolve when they've done their job. A study published in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research - Applied Biomaterials demonstrates that, after only two days, this dressing can eradicate infection-causing bacteria.
The new dressing protects the wound until it is no longer needed, after which it melts away. "We've developed the first wound dressing that both releases antibiotic drugs and biodegrades in a controlled manner," says Prof. Zilberman. "It solves current mechanical and physical limitations in wound-dressing techniques and gives physicians a new and more effective platform for treating burns and bedsores."
The third technology has to do with repairing bone fractures.
A team at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Medical Center has managed for the first time in the world to separate platelets and adult stem cells from the blood and bone marrow of patients with fractures and inject them - causing the bones to meld in a quarter to third of the time it usually takes to repair bones, and repairing some breaks that without the therapy would fail to heal at all.
...
Under regional or general anesthesia, the patient undergoes a short procedure to remove 50 milliliters of mesenchymal bone marrow cells and 100 milliliters of blood from the hip area, which is often done for bone-marrow transplants on certain cancer patients. Adult mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into a variety of cell types.
The patient is returned to the orthopedics department, while the cells and blood are taken to a lab approved for good manufacturing practice (GMP) and dedicated only for this purpose. Out of billions of bone marrow cells, millions of mesencymal stem cells were obtained, and platelets were taken from the blood. In principle, Liebergall said, any type of fracture that takes six to nine months to meld or doesn't heal at all can be treated with the technique, however, the team will wait to monitor patients until a year passes before regarding it as a full success or submitting a medical journal article.
Anyone who wants to boycott Israel is free to ignore these technologies.
Heh.
Heh.
Israel Matzav: Three new Israeli medical technologies
Israel Matzav: Overnight music video
Overnight music video
I'm not really a maven in Jewish music. But I clicked on the video I'm about to show you, and expected the same words to a different tune - one I remember from about 35 years ago. I found something completely different. As the music comes out of my laptop (to which I have not yet attached headphones this week), my 15-year old daughter comes in and asks me whether I know this is her favorite song (of course I didn't) and that it was on all the time in camp.
And who sings it? She has no idea (neither do I, but I'm sure someone clicking on this post will).
The song says that one who desires life must guard his tongue from bad things and his lips from speaking treachery. It is a verse in Psalms that provides the foundation for much of the Jewish law of relations with other people - an area of Jewish law I have been studying daily for about 12 years now.
It's a beautiful tune too.
Let's go to the videotape.
Israel Matzav: Overnight music video
And who sings it? She has no idea (neither do I, but I'm sure someone clicking on this post will).
The song says that one who desires life must guard his tongue from bad things and his lips from speaking treachery. It is a verse in Psalms that provides the foundation for much of the Jewish law of relations with other people - an area of Jewish law I have been studying daily for about 12 years now.
It's a beautiful tune too.
Let's go to the videotape.
Israel Matzav: Overnight music video
Israel Matzav: Anne Bayefsky stripped of UN credentials
Anne Bayefsky stripped of UN credentials
I had heard that Anne Bayefsky of UN Watch had been thrown out of the United Nations because of a speech she made at the General Assembly the day that it voted to refer the Goldstone Report to the Security Council. What I did not realize is that Bayefsky (whom I greatly admire - I believe that she's brilliant) was actually barred from returning to the United Nations, having been stripped of her credentials as an NGO representative. Ms. Bayefsky's sin was a two-minute talk she delivered at the U.N. earlier this month after the General Assembly had issued a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, which levels war crimes charges at Israel for defending itself in the face of Hamas's rockets. "The resolution doesn't mention the word Hamas," she said. "This is a resolution that purports to be even-handed; it is anything but."
Ms. Bayefsky's comments were the only note of criticism on a day otherwise marked by much U.N. jubilation. Whereupon she was summarily stripped of her U.N. badge and evicted from the premises. "The Palestinian ambassador is very upset by your statement," Ms. Bayefsky says the U.N. security chief told her. Journalist Matthew Russell Lee tells us that he heard the ambassador asking whether U.N. security had "captured" Ms. Bayefsky.
For the record, the U.N. claims that Ms. Bayefsky violated procedures by bringing a colleague who lacked a proper badge, and that she was not entitled to speak where she did, though representatives of nongovernment organizations have used it in the past. And when we called the Palestinian Mission to get their side of the story, they told us the fracas was the last of their worries. Maybe so.
Yet the U.N. continues to bar Ms. Bayefsky from the premises, despite calls on her behalf by the U.S. mission and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. Best-case scenario, one U.N. insider tells us, is that "they'll put her on probation." We hear the U.N.'s NGO accreditation committee, chaired by Sudan, will likely make the final decision.
Where is the Obama administration, which ought to be protecting this brilliant, articulate woman's right to freedom of expression? Where are the other Western purported powers? For that matter, why has Israel (apparently) not spoken up on her behalf? Could there be anything much more absurd than having the likes of Sudan determine whether she should be allowed back into the United Nations?
George Orwell is the only person who could have imagined this ridiculous scenario.
George Orwell is the only person who could have imagined this ridiculous scenario.
Israel Matzav: Anne Bayefsky stripped of UN credentials
Israel Matzav: A negotiated deal with Iran?
A negotiated deal with Iran?
At Harvard's Belfer Center, Matthew Bunn argues in favor of a negotiated deal on Iran's nuclear program. Outline of a Limited Compromise
Here is one example of what a compromise with Iran could look like:
The Compliance Problem
One of the key realities negotiators must face is that Iran has violated past agreements and may violate a new one. The United States should work with the rest of the P5+1 to ensure that there is real agreement that if Iran agrees to a pact with all of the P5+1, and then violates it, they will jointly support severe sanctions in response. Such an agreement should be as specific as practicable to minimize the chances of a dispute over whether Iran is complying. In the event of noncompliance, the U.S. and others should be prepared for rapid action.
This is an academic's fantasy. It assumes that Iran wants to compromise and would be willing to compromise to avoid sanctions and possible military action. But Iran doesn't want to compromise. It doesn't believe that real sanctions will ever really happen (nor apparently does Bunn), nor is there any credible military threat against Iran other than the threat emanating from Israel, which appears unlikely to be able to do more than delay Iran's eventual accession to the nuclear club.
When and if there is a credible threat of real biting sanctions against Iran, backed up by a credible military threat, there might be room for a compromise with Iran (although even then I doubt that there will be any compromise, because the Iranian regime is apocalyptic and not rational). But at the moment, there is no credible threat of sanctions and no credible threat of any military action other than by Israel. Iran isn't going to consider compromising with anyone under these circumstances.
What could go wrong?
When and if there is a credible threat of real biting sanctions against Iran, backed up by a credible military threat, there might be room for a compromise with Iran (although even then I doubt that there will be any compromise, because the Iranian regime is apocalyptic and not rational). But at the moment, there is no credible threat of sanctions and no credible threat of any military action other than by Israel. Iran isn't going to consider compromising with anyone under these circumstances.
What could go wrong?
Israel Matzav: A negotiated deal with Iran?
Israel Matzav: Sarah Palin redux
Sarah Palin redux
Thinking about Sarah Palin's comments on Israel over the past week, I'd like to remind you all of this post from the summer. Right now the narrative presented the world by the political right in Israel is ignored, not even heard let alone listened to or given credibility. With that state of affairs in mind, I want to help the Israeli right find their “zivug.” So I offer here a “shidduch.” [Zivug and shidduch both mean "match" - usually, but not always, in the sense of finding a spouse. CiJ]
What an opportunity a “shidduch” with Sarah Palin presents. Stepping down as Governor of Alaska she now confronts the challenge of an expanded political horizon. And that means developing thoughtful, rational alternatives to President Obama’s Muslim-centric worldview. And Sarah Palin has a megaphone loud enough to impact American opinion.
Begin the courtship. Sarah Palin meet the Israeli political right. The two of you will meet for coffee. See how it goes.
As she steps onto a bigger stage questions will dog her. But they won’t be questions about her experience. No, the non-stop attack of her critics will be centered on Sarah Palin’s threshold of knowledge and her success at grasping, and communicating the issues of the day.
This much is obvious she has a political gift. How she presents herself, how she frames the issues, how she connects with people, how she uses her gift… that’s the unresolved question.
Read the whole thing. Sounds prophetic, doesn't it? Hmmm.
Israel Matzav: Sarah Palin redux
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