Domestic News - December 1999

December 1999

Survey: 750,000 Surfers in Israel
Maariv (Nov. 4)

A total of 750,000 Israelis, or 19.5 percent of the Jewish population aged 8 and above, surf the Web, according to a new survey conducted by Geocartography. These surfers spend at least an hour a week on the Web on a regular basis.

The survey, conducted a month ago among a representative sample of 1,500 Jews aged 8 and above, indicates that almost one out of every five Israelis spends at least an hour a week on the Web.

More data: One-third of the surfers are children and teenagers aged 8-17; two-thirds are adults 18 and above. Two-thirds of the young surfers are boys and two-thirds of the adult surfers are men. The average age of the Israeli surfer is 26. For the most part the surfers come from secular, affluent, educated families and have a medium or better knowledge of English.

Furthermore, 75 percent of youngsters aged 12-14-i.e., three out of every four-have surfed the Web at least once. Children and teenagers tend to have the most experience using the Internet, even if they do not stay on long; altogether, 38 percent of the population has used the Web.

Of the children and teenagers, 32 percent, or 250,000, report surfing for at least one hour a week. Only 16 percent of adults surf for at least an hour a week; in absolute numbers this amounts to 500,000 people.

The average age at which youngsters are first exposed to the Internet is 11.

New Treatment Lessens Post-Operative Pain by 60 Percent
Maariv (Nov. 16)

A new treatment has managed to reduce post-operative pain by 60 percent. The treatment, developed by a steering team at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, will be presented next week at the National Conference on Quality and Knowledge at the End of the Millennium. With the new method, pain is measured on a regular basis by a special pain meter developed by the hospital's steering team. Based on the results, the patient is given the correct dosage of the appropriate medication.

In the past half-year the treatment has been tried out in several wards in the hospital, and the level of pain suffered by patients after surgery has declined significantly.

Hope for Leukemia Patients: A New Method of Transplanting Bone Marrow
Maariv (Nov. 16)

Researchers in Israel and Italy have developed a new method of transplanting bone marrow that does not require a perfect genetic match between the blood of the donor and the recipient. The new method gives another chance and renewed hope to people who need bone-marrow transplants - patients with various types of leukemia (cancer of the blood).

The method has been used for the past year and a half by Prof. Ya'akov Row of Rambam Hospital in Haifa. The rate of rejection is 2 percent - making this a very significant achievement.

Until now it was generally believed that a bone-marrow transplant could be done only when the donor's blood type matched the recipient's perfectly, or else the transplant would be rejected. With the new method developed in the Israeli-Italian study, however, bone marrow can be transplanted from a father to a son, between siblings, or even from an uncle-without needing a perfect genetic match.

780,000-Year-Old Remains on the Banks of the Jordan
Ha'aretz (Nov. 23)

Prehistoric remains dating back 780,000 years were discovered recently north of the Benot Ya'aqov Bridge over the Jordan River. The finds include the bones of large mammals such as elephants, deer, and horses, a hippopotamus foot, and stone implements fashioned in the prehistoric African style.

According to Prof. Na'ama Goren of the Hebrew University, who is in charge of the excavations, the finds are tremendously important, as they show that the site is on the route taken by ancient hominids from Africa to Asia and Europe. "This is the only place to this day outside Africa where tools of this sort have been discovered," she says.

The finds were discovered when the Israel Antiquities Authority was supervising drainage work there.

Israeli Development: Hand-operated, Motorized Olive Harvester
Hatzofeh (Nov. 29)

A unique device has been developed in the metal factory of Kibbutz Nir David: a hand-operated, motorized olive harvester. According to the company's experts, this sophisticated, modern development makes it possible to pick more than 95 percent of the olives.

The new harvester was tested by the largest organization of olive-growers in Spain and was proclaimed a "tool that performs impressively." The kibbutz subsequently sold some of the tools, which are being used successfully in the Spanish olive harvest. Henceforth, they will be used in Israel and elsewhere, too.

A Great Miracle Happened Here
Maariv (Nov. 29)

An agricultural miracle is taking place in the Negev. The drought, it turns out, is not affecting the farmers in the Negev highlands. Instead of using fresh water, they have developed a method of irrigating with brackish water and have achieved a major breakthrough: a hectare of olive orchards irrigated with brackish water yields four times as much as a hectare irrigated with fresh water. Brackish water, it seems, is good for tomatoes and grapes; even St. Peter's fish have become used to the new conditions.

One of the pioneers of farming with brackish water in the Negev is Yoel de Malakh of Kibbutz Revivim. He explains the success story: "In the past we tried to use brackish water and failed because we lacked the technology and knowhow. There were plenty of skeptics. The idea of irrigating crops with brackish water pumped from a depth of 300 meters didn't sound promising. We started with cotton and then moved on to olives, melons, tomatoes, and other crops. We get help from the Volcani Institute, the Faculty of Agriculture, Ben-Gurion University, and the Blaustein Institute at Sede Boqer."

Revivim's olive orchard is now the largest in Israel. Because the southern Negev has a boundless supply of brackish water, the olive crop is becoming a success story on an international scale. The trees were specially designed for mechanical harvesting with modern shaking devices, some of which were refined in Israel. The local olive-oil industry will make it possible to attract more inhabitants to the region. The tremendous success has elicited the interest of major entrepreneurs, who are already interested in investing in the olive orchards.

Growing olives in the Negev with brackish water was preceded by a scientific breakthrough with other crops. It had already been proven with tomatoes that the saltier the water, the sweeter the fruit. The road from there to olives was short. The principle of irrigating with brackish water works like this: the salt exerts osmotic pressure on the plant, and the plant produces sugars to balance out the concentration of salts. In olives this is manifested in the production of extra oil.

In a series of experiments, the farmers were surprised to discover that the trees were producing astonishing yields-instead of 5 tonnes per hectare in the Galilee, the yield here is 20 tonnes per hectare.

Israeli Researchers Break the Code of Cellular GSM Networks
Ha'aretz (Dec. 9)

Two Israeli researchers, Prof. Adi Shamir and Dr. Alex Biryukov, have devised a system to break the code used in some cellular networks, the New York Times reported yesterday. These networks, which use GSM technology, are extremely popular, currently serving 210 million subscribers around the world. In Israel GSM is used by Partner (Orange).

According to the report, Shamir and Biryukov managed to crack the method used to encrypt conversations and prevent interception and eavesdropping on GSM networks. Until now GSM was considered the most secure of the three common cellular technologies.