Yearly Archives: 2019

NEW YORK (February 4, 2019) – Would people believe a news story is accurate if it is published by a source that shares their worldview? Or would they believe claims that agree with their views, regardless of where they are published?

Associate Prof. Mor Naaman, of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech

A new report by Associate Professor Mor Naaman and colleagues at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech shows that Americans are more likely to believe that a news story is accurate if the headline aligns with their political views and that it does not matter whether the headline comes from a source that aligns with the reader’s views.

For instance, a left-leaning reader who sees the headline “Trump lashes out at Vanity Fair, one day after it lambastes his restaurant,” is more likely than a right-leaning person to rate the headline true. For both these readers, it doesn’t matter whether the headline appears on Fox News or The New York Times, the researchers discovered.

The results provide insight and nuance to the important question of trust in news, the researchers suggest. “On the bright side,” Naaman said, “the source of news might be less polarizing than previously thought. On the negative side, though, the experiment shows that people are likely to reject disagreeable information, even if they trust its source.”

Naaman and his colleague Maurice Jakesch of Cornell Tech, Moran Koren of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Anna Evtushenko of Cornell University are presenting their findings at the 2019 Computation + Journalism Symposium, held February 1-2 in Miami, Florida.

After an online experiment conducted with 400 Americans, the researchers concluded that “participants overwhelmingly report believing headlines that align with their political views, regardless of the source of the report.”

They also found strong evidence that those participating in the experiment were not always truthful about how they evaluated the headlines. “For example, right-leaning readers would often say a left-leaning headline is false, even when they believe it is true,” they note.

When some of the participants were offered a small payment for “correctly” answering whether the headlines were true or false, they were less likely to respond in ways that aligned with their political leanings. The researchers found that right-leaning participants, in particular, rated more of the left-leaning headlines as true when they were offered the payment option.

Maurice Jakesch, the lead author on the study and a Ph.D. student at Cornell Tech, said: “While we do not expect Facebook to start handing out money for people’s evaluation of headlines, these results suggest the potential for incentives that may change people’s behavior regarding evaluating and maybe even sharing of misinformation and fake news.”

A 2018 survey by the Gallup and Knight Foundation concluded that Americans perceive news articles as biased (62 percent of news stories) or inaccurate (44 percent of stories) depending on whether they believe the news outlet shares their political affiliation.

But Naaman and colleagues suggest that this survey and other recent studies on the phenomenon did not dig deep enough, to find out whether individuals might be influenced by the political nature of the claims published in the news stories themselves.

To remedy this, the researchers recruited 400 people through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform for surveys and other tasks. The participants were shown a set of left-leaning, right-leaning and non-political headlines assigned randomly to either Fox News or The New York Times, and asked to evaluate whether the headlines were true or false. The researchers then asked the participants a series of questions to determine their political affiliation.

The researchers say the results of their experiment are preliminary, and should be expanded in the future with more headlines, more news sources and a larger and more diverse group of participants.

The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute is a uniquely experimental, transdisciplinary graduate institute housed at the Cornell Tech campus in New York City. A partnership between Cornell University and the Technion, the Jacobs Institute represents a next-generation model for STEM education, designed around industry-focused “hubs” that address specific areas of social and economic need. As the embodiment of the Technion and Cornell’s winning submission in the City of New York’s competition to create a new applied sciences grad school, the Jacobs Institute is growing the City’s tech sector and fostering technologies and companies that will have a global impact.

Three exceptional researchers granted 2019 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel

The three researchers, from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, will be awarded US$100,000 each – one of the largest unrestricted prizes ever created for early-career researchers in Israel

Jerusalem, February 4, 2019 – The Blavatnik Family Foundation, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (IASH) announced today the 2019 Laureates of the second annual Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel.

The Blavatnik Awards recognize outstanding, innovative early-career scientists and engineers for both their extraordinary achievements and promise for future discoveries.

The prizes are awarded to promising scientists and engineers aged 42 and younger for their breakthrough research in the disciplines of Life Sciences, Chemistry, and Physical Sciences and Engineering.

In 2019, 33 nominations were received from seven universities across the country. Members of the Awards’ Scientific Advisory Council, which includes IASH President, Professor Nili Cohen and is co-chaired by Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Aaron Ciechanover and President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, Mr. Ellis Rubinstein were also invited to submit nominations. A distinguished jury of leading senior scientists and engineers from throughout Israel selected the Laureates.

The 2019 Blavatnik Awards in Israel Laureates are:

LIFE SCIENCES

Dr. Michal Rivlin (40), Senior Scientist, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science

Dr. Rivlin’s groundbreaking work has transformed our understanding of how we see. Her research has led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of the retina, a part of the eye where all visual processes begin. Dr. Rivlin’s work has revealed that cells in the retina can dynamically change their response properties to stimuli such as motion and light. Her findings challenge the dogma that responses of retinal cells are fixed and hardwired. Her discoveries raise fundamental questions about how we see and have implications for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying computations in neuronal circuits, the treatment of retinal diseases and blindness, and the development of computer vision technologies.

CHEMISTRY

Dr. Moran Bercovici

Dr. Moran Bercovici (36), Associate Professor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Dr. Bercovici is being recognized for his innovative research in microfluidics, contributing to fundamental understanding of the chemical and physical behavior of fluids at extremely small scales, as well as to the invention of cutting-edge technologies in this field.   His highly multidisciplinary research which couples fluid mechanics, electric fields, heat transfer, chemical reactions, and biology has the potential to not only miniaturize existing large-scale processes but also to create new capabilities that are not possible at large scale. For example, Dr. Bercovici and his team at Technion have developed a series of Lab-on-a-Chip technologies which significantly shorten the time and improve the sensitivity of traditional molecular analysis techniques, enabling rapid and early disease diagnostics as well as offering new research tools to scientists.   Innovations coming from his lab also have potential use in many other fields including soft actuators, adaptive optics, single cell analysis, and microscale 3D printing.

PHYSICAL SCIENCES and ENGINEERING

Dr. Erez Berg (41), Associate Professor, Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science

Dr. Berg has conducted creative and influential theoretical studies to gain valuable insights into quantum materials — materials whose electronic properties cannot be understood with concepts from contemporary physics textbooks. Dr. Berg developed a landmark computational method to study an important phenomenon, called metallic quantum criticality, which is commonly seen in many quantum materials. Recently, he predicted a new method to reversibly switch superconducting devices between topological and non-topological states, which is very promising for storing and manipulating quantum information. His research has provided important insights into the physics principles behind a wide variety of exotic phenomena in quantum materials, which will help to speed up the implementation of these materials in next-generation electronics, including quantum computing, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and superconducting power lines.

“For over 70 years, Israeli innovation has led to groundbreaking discoveries in science and technology,” said Len Blavatnik, Founder and Chairman of Access Industries and Head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation. “These exceptional researchers demonstrate the immense potential of the new generation of scientists in shaping the future. It is imperative to recognize and support leading innovators early in their careers to maximize impactful scientific breakthroughs.”

Ellis Rubinstein, President and Chief Executive Officer at the New York Academy of Sciences, noted that: “The sensational, cutting-edge innovations by these dynamic young researchers who are being honored, are truly inspirational. These future leaders join the growing global alumni of extraordinary talent and dedication who are at the core of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists program.  We look forward to celebrating their future game-changing discoveries.”

Professor Nili Cohen, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, said, “Together with the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences, we are proud to recognize and support these exceptional young scientists with this prestigious award. Each of them demonstrates their outstanding merit, their passion for pushing the frontiers of scientific discovery, and their bright future as part of a new generation of pioneering Israeli scientists.”

The 2019 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel will be conferred at a formal ceremony in Jerusalem on April 7, 2019. The Laureates will join over 250 of their peers as fellow members of the Blavatnik Science Scholars community. They will also be invited to attend the annual Blavatnik Science Symposium each summer in New York City, where members come together to collaborate on cross-disciplinary research and share new ideas.

About the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists

The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, established in 2007 by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, honor exceptional young scientists and engineers by celebrating their extraordinary achievements, recognizing outstanding promise, and accelerating innovation through unrestricted funding. The Awards were established in New York and began as regional awards for young scientists and engineers in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists were established in 2014 and are awarded to faculty-rank scientists annually across the United States. With the 2017 launch of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel ― in collaboration with the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities ― and in the United Kingdom, there are now more than 250 recipients of regional, national, and international Blavatnik young scientist honors.

About the Blavatnik Family Foundation

The Blavatnik Family Foundation is an active supporter of leading educational, scientific, cultural, and charitable institutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and throughout the world. The Foundation is headed by Len Blavatnik, an American industrialist and philanthropist. Mr. Blavatnik is the Founder and Chairman of Access Industries, a privately-held U.S. industrial group with global interests in natural resources and chemicals, media and telecommunications, venture capital, and real estate. Among other assets, Access Industries owns the Israeli Clal Industries group.  For more detailed information, please visit www.accessindustries.com or   www.blavatnikfoundation.org.

 About The New York Academy of Sciences

The New York Academy of Sciences is an independent, not-for-profit organization that since 1817 has been committed to advancing science, technology, and society worldwide.  With more than 20,000 Members in 100 countries around the world, the Academy is creating a global community of science for the benefit of humanity. The Academy’s core mission is to advance scientific knowledge, positively impact the major global challenges of society with science-based solutions, and increase the number of scientifically informed individuals in society at large. Please visit us online at www.nyas.org and follow us on Twitter at @NYASciences.

About the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities is the preeminent scientific institution in Israel. It was established by law in 1961, and acts as a national focal point for Israeli scholarship in all branches of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The Academy comprises 128 of Israel’s most distinguished scientists and scholars who operate in two sections – the sciences section and the humanities section.

It is tasked with promoting Israeli scientific excellence; advising the government on scientific matters of national interest; publishing scholarly research of lasting merit, and maintaining active contact with the broader international scientific and scholarly community. For more information about the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, please visit www.academy.ac.il.

To learn more about this year’s Laureates, go to:

http://blavatnikawards.org/honorees/israel-laureates/michal-rivlin/
http://blavatnikawards.org/honorees/israel-laureates/moran-bercovici/
http://blavatnikawards.org/honorees/israel-laureates/erez-berg/

To follow the progress of the Blavatnik Awards, please visit www.blavatnikawards.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@BlavatnikAwards).

Researchers from the Faculty of Biology at Technion present a new technique for estimating the efficacy of antibiotic ‘cocktails’.

Researchers from the Faculties of Biology and Computer Sciences at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, have developed an innovative framework for measuring the efficacy of “antibiotic cocktails,” that combine different types of antibiotics.

Prof. Roy Kishony

Published in the journal Nature Microbiology under the title, “Additivity of inhibitory effects in multidrug combinations,” their study shows how the efficacy of an antibiotic cocktail depends on the number of different antibiotics present in it.

The research was conducted by Prof. Roy Kishony of the two faculties and doctoral student Dor Russ of the Faculty of Biology.

Antibiotics are one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history; in fact, they were more of a discovery than an invention, since antibiotics evolved and are produced naturally by fungi and yeast in the wild.

The development of drugs based on the naturally occurring antibiotics began a century ago, thanks to the research of Sir Alexander Fleming, Howard Fleury, and Sir Ernest Chain, who jointly received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945. Fleming first observed the antibiotic properties of a mold that produces penicillin, but it was Chain and Fleury who developed it into a useful treatment. The three scientists are credited with saving the lives of over 200 million people around the world.

Doctoral student Dor Russ

Antibiotics are a variety of molecules derived from microorganisms that control the growth of or kill other bacteria. Synthetics antibiotics, which are usually related chemically to natural antibiotics, have since been produced to accomplish the same tasks.

Despite saving so many lives, the success of antibiotics has made it a double-edged sword. That is because the use of antibiotics leads to the evolution of bacteria resistant to antibiotics – a process that Prof. Kishony demonstrated in the past using a unique platform that he built with his colleagues at Harvard University.

Today, many researchers express concern about a ‘post-antibiotic era in which bacteria will no longer be overcome by antibiotics. One of Prof. Kishony’s contributions in this context is a method for estimating the current level of resistance of a given bacterium to antibiotics as well as predicting the resistance it is likely to develop in the future. Based on this information, it is possible to prescribe the most effective antibiotics for the patient.

The current study examined the efficacy of cocktails of various antibiotics. The researchers have developed an innovative, automated system that enables the accurate measurement of the effect of different combinations of antibiotics on bacteria.  They found that when the number of drugs in a combination is increased, the total drug dosage required for growth inhibition increases as well, but the dosage of each individual drug can be decreased without reducing the cocktail’s efficacy.

The researchers examined different combinations of multiple antibiotics on several types of bacteria, thus confirming the efficacy of this novel system which they developed.

The study was supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Israeli Centers for Research Excellence (I-CORE) and the European Research Council (ERC).

Click here for the paper in Nature Microbiology

In the diagram: The total amount of antibiotics required for bacterial growth inhibition is increases as the square root of the number of different drugs in a cocktail. Each point in the chart represents a combination of two to 10 different antibiotics. When the number of different antibiotics in the cocktail is increased, the amount required from each of the drugs decreases (the slope of the graph α is less than one), while the total amount increases.

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology together with two German institutions, RWTH Aachen University, and the Jülich Research Center, collaborated in a joint Umbrella Winter School in Kfar Blum in the North of Israel on December 9-13.  The three institutes have been collaborating within the framework of the Umbrella Program for over three decades, to promote scientific exchange and collaboration between Israel and Germany.

Program of the Joint Umbrella Winter School

This year, for the first time, the Umbrella Program hosted together with The Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), a Winter School. The five day Winter School focused on material characterization and electron microscopy. Fourteen world-class lecturers and some 140 graduate students from the three institutions, as well as other universities in Israel and abroad, participated in the event.

Prof. Gadi Eisenstein, head of RBNI highlighted in his opening remarks the high level of speakers and the uniqueness of having Israeli students bonding with peers from countries, the world over. Professor Eisenstein announced that in the summer of 2019, a follow-up, “hands-on” school will take place in Jülich, where participants will have the opportunity to experience working with the most advanced microscopy systems in the world.  Finally, Professor Eisenstein thanked the Institute staff: Meirav Sondak-Minikes, Pazit Savyon-Maram, and Tanya Ashkenazi, and the organizations that helped finance the event.

The opening lecture was presented by Prof. Knut Urban the former head of the Ernst Ruska-Centre for Electron Microscopy and Spectroscopy at the Jülich Research Center and RWTH Aachen University. Today, Professor Urban serves as an active researcher at the center.

Prof. Urban, the winner of the prestigious Wolf Prize (Physics, 2011) and a world renown researcher working in the field of microscopy, spoke about correcting aberrations (distortions in the image formed by electron microscopes).  According to Prof. Ubran, “Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was developed in the 1930s, but it was only in 1997 that we succeeded in demonstrating a technology that corrects its distortions. Today, there are some 800 microscopes based on the technology we developed, and this is a dramatic revolution.”

The Technion Executive Vice President for Research Prof. Wayne Kaplan presented the progress in Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDS) spectroscopy and its advantages in characterizing chemical constituents on surfaces and interfaces between different materials.

“EDS detectors receive X-ray signals and convert the energy of each X-ray beam into an electrical signal which is proportional to the energy of the X-ray signal. This makes it possible to identify atoms in materials, and together with high-resolution electron microscopy, the chemical composition of materials can be characterized at atomic resolution,” Kaplan said.

Prof. Yeshayahu Talmon of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion presented developments in Cryo-TEM microscopy of biological materials and other soft materials. “In order to view these materials, we must freeze them, but the freezing process must be done carefully so as to ensure that the crystalline structure that is investigated is not destroyed. Our mission is to understand their nanoscale crystalline structure, and to this end, we use innovative, highly sensitive cameras that allow the monitoring of individual electrons.  It is also very important to ensure that the electron beam used in the microscope is of low intensity so that it does not destroy the material,” Talmon said.

Prof. Uri Sivan of the Technion’s Physics Department lectured on “The Last Nanometer” – Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) at super high resolutions.

Prof. Sivan is an expert in microscopy of surfaces, specifically of liquids, and he combines basic research with biological applications.  He and his students construct all their microscopes. In recent years, they have achieved significant improvements in 3D mapping of DNA and other objects at the atomic scale.

Prof. Claus Ropers of the University of Göttingen presented the developments in electron microscopy where the electron beam is pulsed and is synchronized to a pulsed laser. Prof. Ropers is one of the leading scientists in this revolutionary field.  There are currently only a hand full such systems in the world and the Technion has recently established the only such microscope in Israel.

Prof. Thomas Kelly from the University of Wisconsin, a groundbreaking scientist in Atom Probe Tomography, described the latest developments in these microscopes and the enormous potential embodied in their use.

Prof. Jean Susini, director of research at the ESRF Center for Electronic Analysis and X-rays in Grenoble, France, described the activities at the center, where researchers from 22 countries participate in some 10,000 experiments per year.

Prof. Rafal Dunin-Borkowski, the current director of the Ernst Ruska-Centre surveyed holographic activities in electron microscopes; an area in which he is one of the leading scientists in the world.

Technion mourns the passing of Moshe (Misha) Arens, former Technion faculty member, and Honorary Life Member of the International Board of Governors. During his career, Arens served as Israel’s Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs and also as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States in 1982. Throughout the years, he maintained a close relationship with the Technion.

Moshe Arens 1925-2019

In 1986, Technion conferred an honorary doctorate on Moshe Arens. During 1957-1965, Arens served as faculty member at Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. “During the ’50s there was much doubt with regards to the necessity of an Aeronautics Department,” Arens told former Technion President Prof. Zehev Tadmor, during a videoed interview on the phenomenon of the Start-up Nation.  “Founders of the faculty were seeking engine experts and that’s how they found me, a Caltech alumnus who had a few years’ experiences working for the US industry. At Technion, I started to teach aircraft design and was very impressed with the students’ academic level. Indeed, as years went by, the department evolved into a world-renowned faculty in its field.”

1958 saw the first graduation class of Technion’s then-Aeronautical Engineering Faculty, with 11 male graduates and a single female graduate. These aspiring students and those that followed them created Israel’s aerospace industry.

Moshe Arens was proud of the graduates of the faculty’s early years who have contributed to making Israel the aerospace power that it is today.

May his memory be a blessing.

On January 1, 2019, four new deans took office at the Technion 

• Prof. Yasha Jacob Grobman; Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning. Prof. Grobman combines research and hands-on architectural design. In 2003, he founded T_CODE, Technion’s Computer Oriented DEsign; an experimental computer design research laboratory.
• Prof. Oleg V. Gendelman; Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Prof. Gendelman’s main fields of interest are nanomaterials and nanoparticles. He specializes in heat transportation in nanosystems; nanomechanics of polymer systems; mechanical and thermal properties of nanostructured metals.
• Prof. Yoram Reiter; Faculty of Biology. Prof. Reiter’s main field of interest is immunology. He established a cutting-edge research program in the molecular immunology of cancer. His major work involves the development of novel immunotherapeutic approaches as well as the study of molecular mechanisms in anti-tumor and anti-viral immunity.
• Prof. Elon Eisenberg; Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. Prof. Eisenberg is also the Director of the Pain Relief Unit at Rambam Medical Center. His main areas of research include mechanisms and treatment of neuropathic pain including complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), cancer pain, opioids and electrical stimulation.

Prof. Yasha Jacob Grobman

Prof. Elon Eisenberg

Prof. Yoram Reiter

Prof. Oleg V. Gendelman

On November 21st the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology hosted the inaugural Technion-Waterloo Research Symposium. The two-day conference was part of an ongoing collaboration between the Technion and the University of Waterloo (UW) in Canada.

The ties between the two institutions were established in 2014 with the signing of an agreement aimed at accelerating breakthroughs in collaborative research and commercialization opportunities in priority areas of national and international importance; namely water, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing and technology.  The agreement was supported by the Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation and includes support for workshops and for 11 research projects, one of which has already borne a spin-off company, as well as for research grants totaling some $3.4 million.

Technion-Waterloo Research Symposium

Vice President of the Technion for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Boaz Golany spoke about the importance of cooperation and of the university’s extensive and in-depth entry into new fields, including cyber and artificial intelligence.  He noted the great achievement in setting up the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering at the Technion and added that the two universities have many points in common, including the recruitment of female faculty.

Vice President of University Research at the University of Waterloo Charmaine Dean, conveyed the blessing of Waterloo University President Feridun Hamdullahpur. Dean said that “since the signing of the agreement, a number of very significant research studies had been launched. In the beginning, the collaboration focused on quantum information, nanotechnology and water, and today we are also supporting cybersecurity.  This is an opportunity to work at the forefront of global innovation for the benefit of society and humanity as a whole.”

Prof. Derek Schipper from the University of Waterloo, who delivered the first lecture at the symposium, presented his joint research with Prof. Nir Tessler from the Technion and stressed that “this research would not have been possible without this important partnership between the Technion and the University of Waterloo.”  Prof. Philippe Van Cappellen presented his joint research with Prof. Eran Friedler. The two are developing new ways to monitor populations of microorganisms underground.

The final remarks were delivered by Prof. Gadi Eisenstein, head of the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, who also hosted several of the conference’s sessions.