Good news from the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population.

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New Israeli treatment improves blood flow. Israeli doctors performed the first operation of its kind, injecting genes which stimulated the growth of new blood vessels into a cardiac patient, said a spokesman for Rabin Medical Center in Tel Aviv. This experiment marks a major breakthrough in the field of genetics and catheterization.

Turkey to buy $200m. of Israeli UAVs. Turkey’s Defense Ministry chose the Israel Aircraft Industries’ Heron drone and Elbit System’s ground stations over the US General Atomics Aeronautical System’s Predator. The Heron is a multi-role drone used for surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The deal involves some 10 ground stations, each one with three or four UAVs. TheTurkish army, navy and air forces are all to use them. The Heron is manufactured by IAI’s Malat Division, which says it has a range of 1,000 kilometers and can carry a 250-kilogram payload. With a 16-meter wingspan, the Heron can fly for up to 52 hours of continuous flight and reach an altitude of 30,000 feet, according to IAI. The Heron is a long-endurance system meant to provide real-time strategic intelligence. The fourth-generation platform, with new fully automatic take-off and landing features, provides deep-penetration, wide-area, real-time intelligence. Among other international customers for the Heron is India. IAI has in the past sold Turkey Harpy killer drones. Elbit and IAI have also cooperated in the past on a number of defense deals including the upgrade of Turkey’s F-4 fighter jets."

Putin's Residence to Get Israeli Defenses. Security officers for Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered $10,000 worth of sophisticated locking devices from the Israel-based MultiLock company, for installation in Mr. Putin's Moscow residence. The Russian president's house is to be secured with 60 MultiLock devices, after Russian security officials examined many competing proposals for the operation. Sources at MultiLock, based in Yavneh, explained that the system sold to Russia includes a lock integrated with a sophisticated electromechanical safety-catch mechanism which includes an electronic combination secured with cutting-edge encoding.

Young Israeli robot builders. Once again the Israelis took home top prizes at the 12th annual Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest at Trinity College in Hartford. Forty Israeli high school seniors competed in the April 9-10 contest, which featured hundreds of participants of all ages and from several countries. The goal of the contest is to build a robot that can find its way through a maze of four rooms, locate a room with a lighted candle and extinguish the flame. Israeli teams took home the top four prizes in the High School Entry Division for first time entrants. 'Building these robots combines the use of mechanical engineering and electronic and computer science. It is very complicated to build a robot which will do all the tasks required in the competition,' said Eli Kolberg, robotics teacher and member of the Robotics Steering Committee of the Minister of Education in Israel.

Israeli Geniuses . A Jerusalem high school pupil who "improved on" an algorithm formulated by a 19th-century British mathematician to study black holes has won first prize in the eighth annual Intel-Israel Young Scientists Competition. Elad Oster of the Jerusalem High School for the Sciences and Arts was awarded a scholarship from Intel for his achievement, which was hailed by President Moshe Katsav at Beit Hanassi on Tuesday. Oster looked at the Newton-Raphson algorithm, which is a dynamic system to solve concrete numerical equations but is not effective on complex equations. Over a century ago, a British mathematician published a short article in which he asked whether the algorithm can solve complex equations, but there has been no answer until now. Oster took the problem to the three-dimensional sphere and suggested ways of improving the algorithm and finding solutions in a way that has practical applications for raising the level of accuracy in calculations. The team of judges, headed by Hebrew University physicist Prof. Hanoch Guttfreund, said the teenager had contributed to a real breakthrough in solving the mathematician's problem. Other winners also included: developing algorithmic solar sensors to support a project for sending nano-satellites to revolve around Earth, and investigating the influence of replication conditions of DNA in on the frequency and type of mutations in Im7 genes.

High-Tech Wealth Shows Israel Is More Than Politics. After the success of Silicon Valley in the 1990s, few countries have managed to repeat the mix of education, innovation and investment to create new wealth, and Israel is one of them, a new book said on Tuesday. Israeli researchers in recent years have developed instant messaging on the Internet, wireless computing chips for Intel, miniature video camera capsules to examine internal organs, filters and tubes for veins to prevent heart attacks and strokes, security software and new cancer treatments. High-tech exports from Israel amounted to $26 billion in 2000, making up 57 percent of total exports, up from 23 percent in the early 1990s. Risk capital available to new companies is the highest in the world, with a whopping 5 percent of gross domestic product devoted to research and development. Research is done by graduates from universities heavily geared toward sciences and medicine, producing 135 engineers per 1,000 citizens, compared with 85 in the United States. Scientists also publish more in journals than anywhere else. There are more university students, proportionally, than anywhere else.

Mutant Protein Holds Promise For Cell Growth Control. A unique technique for neutralizing the action of the leptin protein in humans and animals – thereby providing a means for controlling and better understanding of leptin function, including its role in unwanted cell growth -- has been developed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Leptin was discovered ten years ago and has attracted attention first because of its involvement in control of appetite and later by its effect on growth, puberty, digestion and immunological processes. Leptin can also have negative consequences, such as, for example, enhancing the spread of tumorous growths.

Israeli Export Institute Announces Recent Advances in Agrotechnology. Farming isn't what it used to be. And in Israel, whose agrotechnology industry leads the world in pioneering new technologies to improve the growing and harvesting processes, farming is downright high-tech. Newly introduced agrotech solutions include vacuum removal pest control, computerized phyto-monitoring sensors, and a cooling system for cows that has boosted milk production by 10% during the region's hottest months. And those are just the tip of the agrotech iceberg, says the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute's (IEICI) Agrotechnology Department

Organic Semiconductors Bring Foldable Computer Screens Closer. An Israeli research team has manufactured new organic semiconductors using proteins designed from scratch in the lab and linking them together in precise chains to create electronic-grade material. The new semiconductors, called electronic peptides, could lead to lighter, cheaper and more flexible electronic devices within the next two years, the researchers say. The electronic peptides created by Professor Nir Tessler and colleagues at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology could be used in full color, foldable LED displays with a sharper resolution than today’s computer screens, and large, flexible solar cells that spread flat and roll up like a blanket. The peptides could also be used in sensor devices that detect tiny amounts of disease molecules in the body or toxins in the environment.

Facts about the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population.


  • Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
  • Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
  • In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia to safety in Israel.
  • When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.
  • When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day - and saved three victims from the rubble.
  • Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
  • Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.
  • Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."
  • Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.
  • Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
  • Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
  • Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.
  • Israel has the highest per capita ratio of scientific publications in the world by a large margin, as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
  • In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).
  • Israel is ranked #2 in the world for VC funds right behind the US.
  • Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
  • Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies
  • Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 is over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.
  • With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley).
  • With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.
  • Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
  • The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola-Israel. Motorola built its largest development center worldwide in Israel.
  • Windows NT software was developed by Microsoft-Israel.
  • The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.
  • Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
  • AOL's instant message program was designed by an Israeli software company.
  • Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel
  • The city of Beer Sheva in Israel has the highest percentage in the world of Chess Grand Masters per capita – one for every 22,875 residents.
  • On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups
  • Israel has the largest raptor migration in the world, with hundreds of thousands of African birds of prey crossing as they fan out into Asia.
  • Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees -- ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland -- and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.