Inventions & Innovations

Forbes: Israeli Web site “Best Innovation in Years”

The prestigious magazine Forbes has termed Israeli start-up GuruNet the “best Internet innovation in years.” The company’s software enables users to click on any word on their screen—whether in an e-mail, a Word document, or even a PDF file—to receive an instant pop-up box full of relevant information.

For example, clicking on the word “Intel”—or typing it in—turns up a single page with a brief company history, including pictures of the founders, a company profile, annual sales, employees, office phone numbers, executives’ names, stock charts, and recent news.

Gush Katif Produces Bug-Free Vegetables

Alei Katif, a company in the Gaza settlement of Kfar Darom, is selling the world’s first guaranteed bug-free produce and, along with other ventures, expects sales to increase by 20% in the coming months. Since observant Jews are prohibited by Jewish law from ingesting bugs, bug-free vegetables are very popular in the religious community. Otherwise, the vegetables have to be soaked for hours or thoroughly checked for bugs.

Another Possible Parkinson’s Gene Identified

{image_1} Israeli researchers have added another gene to the list of those possibly linked to Parkinson's disease, saying their finding could one day affect the treatment options available to patients.

The gene is one that, in a mutated form, causes Gaucher's disease, a genetic condition in which lipids-blood fats-can't be metabolized properly. There is a high incidence of the disease among Ashkenazic Jews, from Eastern Europe.

Molecules Form Nano Containers

{image_1} Researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have found a way to coax the self-assembly of minuscule, multi-compartment structures made from molecules, the smallest structures made by man.

Man-Made Spider Webs Stronger than Steel

{image_1} For the first time ever, self-assembled spider web fibers, which are much stronger than silk spun by silkworms, have been created under laboratory conditions outside of the bodies of the arthropods.

Innovative Bandages Save Lives

In the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, United States soldiers fighting on the Middle Eastern battlefield sometimes found themselves using dressings dated from World War II to patch up their wounds. In the present Iraqi conflict, however, American forces are now using an advanced new bandage, developed in Israel, that can save lives by stopping traumatic hemorrhaging wounds and can also be used as a tourniquet, or a sling.

Israel Introduces In-Flight Cell-Phone Usage

Israeli technology will soon enable passengers to call ahead about delays in arrival times, rendering obsolete in-flight announcements to “turn off all cell phones.”

Intel Unveils NEW Israeli-Designed Chip

In January, Intel, the world’s largest maker of computer chips, unveiled its latest technology, an upgraded version of its Centrino chipset, which, like its predecessor, was conceived in Intel’s development center in Haifa.

No more oil changes?

Imagine buying a new car and driving it for 10 years without once taking it for an oil-and-lube job. The engine won’t even have a dipstick to check the oil. That’s what the future holds if Rehovot-based ApNano Materials succeeds in marketing NanoLub.

No Need For the Needle

{image_1} A portable device, developed in Israel, which uses ultrasound to deliver medications painlessly, including local anesthesia, through microscopic pores in the skin, has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration and put on the market.

The device—developed by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—also offers future applications for continuous and painless testing of blood sugar in diabetics, speedy administration of pain medications to cancer patients, and providing influenza vaccines to the general public.