Israel 's achievements in the first months of 2007
Despite the second Lebanon war, the divestments, and the boycotts,Israel's
economy enjoyed the largest growth in its GNP of any Western country at 8%
for the last quarter of 2006. Foreign investment hit a remarkable high of
over US$13 billion and the budget deficit was under 1%. Industrial
exports,
excluding diamonds, rose 11% to $29.3 billion in 2006 with the hi-tech
sector leading the surge, according to the Manufacturers Association of
Israel . Israel 's hi-tech industry exported $14.1 billion in goods last
year, growing 20% from 2005.
What follows is a selection of Israel 's achievements in the first month of
2007:
1. Scientists in Israel found that the brackish water drilled from
underground desert aquifers hundreds of feet deep could be used to raise
warm-water fish. The geothermal water, less than one-tenth as saline as
sea
water, free of pollutants, and a toasty 98 degrees on average, proves an
ideal environment.
2. Israeli-developed designer eyeglasses promise mobile phone and iPod users
a personalized, high-tech video display. Available to US consumers next
year, Lumus-Optical's lightweight and fashionable video eyeglasses feature a
large transparent screen floating in front of the viewer's face that
projects their choice of movie, TV show, or video game.
3. When Stephen Hawkings visited Israel recently, he shared his wisdom
with scientists, students, and even the prime minister. But the world's most
renown victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's
disease, also learned something - due to the Israeli Association for ALS'
advanced work in both embryonic and adult stem cell research, as well as its
proven track record with neurodegenerative diseases, the Israeli research
community is well on its way to finding a treatment for this fatal disease
which affects 30,000 Americans.
4. Israeli start-up Veterix has developed an inno vative new electronic
capsule that sits in the stomach of a cow, sheep, or goat, sending out
real-time information on the health of the herd to the farmer via email or
cellphone. The e-capsule, which also sends out alerts if animals are
distressed, injured, or lost, is now being tested on a herd of cows in the
hopes that the device will lead to tastier and healthier meat and milk
supplies.
5. The millions of Skype users worldwide will soon have access to the
newly
developed KishKish lie-detector. This free Internet service, based on voice
stress analysis (a technique commonly used in criminal investigations), will
be able to measure just how truthful that person on the other end of the
line really is.
6. Beating cardiac tissue has been created in a lab from human embryonic
stem cells by researchers at the Rappaport Medical Faculty and the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's biomedical engineering faculty.
The work of Dr. Shulamit Levenberg and Prof. Lior Gepstein has also led to
the creation of tiny blood vessels within the tissue, making possible its
implantation in a human heart.
7. Israel's Magal Security Systems is a worldwide leader in computerized
security systems with products used in more than 70 countries around the
world protecting anything from national borders to nuclear facilities,
refineries, and airports. The company's latest product, DreamBox, a
state-of-the-art security system that includes intelligent video, audio and
sensor management, is now being used by a major water authority on the US
East Coast to safeguard the utility's sites.
8. It's common knowledge that dogs have better night vision than humans and
a vastly superior sense of smell and hearing. Israel 's Bio-Sense
Technologies recently delved further and electronically analyzed 350
different barks. Finding that dogs of all breeds and sizes bark the same
alarm when they sense a threat, the firm has designed the dog bark-reader, a
sensor that can pick up a dog's alarm bark and alert the human operators.
This is just one of a batch of innovative security systems to emerge from
Israel , which Forbes calls "the go-to country anti-terrorism technologies."
9. Israeli company BioControl Medical sold its first electrical stimulator
to treat urinary incontinence to a US company for $50 million. Now it is
working on CardioFit, which uses electrical nerve stimulation to treat
congestive heart failure. With nearly five million Americans presently
affected by heart failure and more than 400,000 new cases diagnosed yearly,
the CardioFit is already generating a great deal of excitement as the first
device with the potential to halt this deadly disease.
10. One year after Norway 's Socialist Left Party launched its boycott
Israel , the importing of Israeli goods has increased by 15%, the
strongest
increase in many years, Statistics Norway reports.
In contrast to the efforts of tiny Israel to make contributions to the world
so as to better mankind, one has to ask what have those who have strived
to
eliminate Israel from the face of the earth done other than to create hate
and bloodshed.
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