Saliva could be used to diagnose diseases, thanks to a new device developed by a Hebrew University professor.
Prof Aaron Palmon’s device separates human saliva from alpha amylase, its most abundant protein component. This allows other protein components , which can indicate disease, to be detected.
Prof Palmon and his team found a way to remove amylase from saliva using potato starch, which absorbs it.
Secrets of the immune system are being uncovered by researchers at the National Jewish Medical and Research Centre in Colorado.
Immunologist Dr Raul Torres and his team recently discovered a connection between the innate immune system, which recognises viruses and bacteria and attacks within minutes, and the adaptive response system, which can take days to react.
Molecules that trigger the innate system were seen to interact with B cells in the adaptive system, speeding up its response.
The discovery could have implications for the effectiveness of vaccines.
The world’s first solar thermal energy field has opened in Israel’s Negev Rotem Industrial Park. The site, built under the control of Arnold Goldman, Chairman and Founder of Bright Source Energy and Luz II, will serve as a testing site for five larger solar fields the company plans to build in California’s Mojave Desert.
Sixteen-hundred computerised mirrors (heliostats) have been installed to concentrate the sun’s rays into renewable energy.
The Israeli company Do-Coop Technologies has developed a new kind of water — Neowater — which it says more closely resembles the physical properties of the water found in human cells.
The team, led by Irit Gabbai, has concluded that water found outside living organisms is “unstructured” and different from the “structured” kind found clinging to the large surface area inside the cells of living organisms, where biological reactions take place. The creation of Neowater, the company says, promises to revolutionise the outcome of experiments carried out using test tubes and the way new drugs are developed and their effects measured and perceived.
Moshe Dgani and Moshe Levy of the Israeli company Emoze have developed a free way to send unlimited emails from mobile phones.
Users simply have to download a free program from Emoze’s website (emoze.com), where the email is then “pushed” from the computer’s email in-box in real time to any standard mobile phone without even having to press the send/receive button.
Its version of push email is available in the download folder of the Nokia N series phones and very soon it will be available on the Orange Global network.
Emoze’s product is being marketed as a rival to the popular BlackBerry device.