What if work could be more like Facebook?

What if work could be more like Facebook? Israeli startup Hoop aims to banish the work-life balance by bringing a social network to workplace communications. Rachel Mendelovich thinks work should be more like Facebook. Her new company, Hoop, aims to bring the kind of shared interest groups that make social-media sites so irresistible to the business world, in order to improve corporate culture and improve employee recruitment and retention.

A cotton that can kill germs and viruses on contact.

A cotton that can kill germs and viruses on contact.Jerusalem-based Argaman Technologies’ bio-inhibitive cotton is being made into facial masks, hotel linens, uniforms, active wear and much more. The constantly intensifying battle against viruses and antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” isn’t only about finding stronger drugs against infection. The focus is moving to preventing infections in the first place. Textile engineer Jeff Gabbay, founder and CEO of Argaman and inventor of CottonX, led ISRAEL21c on an exclusive tour of the factory, where enhanced copper-oxide particles are ultrasonically and permanently blasted into cotton fibers using an environmentally friendly technique. Ninety-nine percent of bacteria and viruses are killed within seconds of coming into contact with copper oxide, and bacteria cannot become resistant to copper oxide as they do to antibiotics, Gabbay explains. Hospital-acquired infections cost US hospitals about $25 billion annually. A trial by the US Centers for Disease Control has recently been completed, checking the effectiveness CottonX sheets, pillowcases, and pajamas to reduce hospital-acquired infections.

Fresh lemon grass fields in Israel become mecca for cancer patients.

Fresh lemon grass fields in Israel become mecca for cancer patients.A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt cancer cells to commit suicide according to new Israeli research. At first, Benny Zabidov, an Israeli agriculturalist who grows greenhouses full of lush spices on a pastoral farm in Kfar Yedidya in the Sharon region, couldn’t understand why so many cancer patients from around the country were showing up on his doorstep asking for fresh lemon grass. It turned out that their doctors had sent them. It all began when researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev discovered last year that the lemon aroma in herbs like lemon grass kills cancer cells in vitro, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

The super potato strain that can grow in hot, dry climates.

The super potato strain that can grow in hot,dry climates .After nearly 30 years of research, Professor David Levy has developed a strain of potato that can be grown in hot, dry climates, and irrigated by saline water sources. Professor David Levy’s windowsill is lined with potatoes of numerous shapes and sizes. It’s an appropriate decoration for a man who has spent his lifetime breeding the staple food. Now Levy, an Israeli scientist from the Hebrew University Institute for Plant Sciences, at the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, has developed not only a new strain of potatoes suitable for growth in hot, dry climates, but also new strains that can be grown using irrigation from saline water sources. His development will have a huge impact on potato production in hot, desert regions like the Middle East, where temperatures are scorching, and water resources scarce. Levy believes that farmers in these desert regions will now be able to grow their own potatoes, and market them to Europe and the US, helping their economies thrive.

12 top ways Israel feeds the world.

12 top ways Israel feeds the world.From drip irrigation to natural pesticides, Israeli innovations are helping to fill hungry bellies everywhere, but particularly in the developing world. Food security is a major concern for our rapidly growing planet. As resources dwindle and the population rises, smart solutions for better agriculture and safer food storage are essential.No other single country – certainly not one as young and as tiny as Israel – has contributed more breakthroughs in this area than Israel. Since the 1950s, Israelis have not only been finding miraculous ways to green their own desert but have shared their discoveries far and wide through channels including MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ISRAEL21c has highlighted dozens of food-related advances pioneered by Israelis. Here are 12 major ways Israel helps feed the world. 1) Grain cocoons; Israeli-designed GrainPro Cocoons provide a surprisingly simple and cheap way for African and Asian farmers to keep their grain market-fresh. The huge bags, invented by international food technology consultant Prof. Shlomo Navarro, keep both water and air out. They’re used all over the developed world, including Africa and the Far East, and even in countries that have no diplomatic ties to Israel, such as Pakistan. As much as 50 percent of every grain harvest and 100% of every pulse harvest is lost to pests and mold, Navarro told ISRAEL21c. Subsistence farmers in developing countries tend to store their crops in primitive baskets or bags, which are not effective in keeping hungry bugs and micro-contaminants out. The Cocoon solves that problem, even in extreme heat and humidity. 2) Biological pest control On Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a company called Bio-Bee breeds beneficial insects and mites for biological pest control and bumblebees for natural pollination in greenhouses and open fields. Subsidiary Bio-Fly sells sterile Mediterranean fruit flies to control this major pest in fruit trees. R&D manager Dr. Shimon Steinberg told ISRAEL21c the company’s top seller worldwide is two-millimeter-long, pear-shaped orange spider that is a highly efficient enemy of the spider mite, a devastating agricultural pest. “Sixty percent of California strawberries since 1990 are treated with this predatory mite from the Holy Land,” he reported. In Israel, Bio-Bee products have enabled sweet-pepper farmers to reduce the use of chemical pesticides by 75 percent. Bio-Bee exports eight different species of biological control agents, plus pollinating bumblebees, to 32 nations from Japan to Chile. Bio-Fly collaborates with Jordanian and West Bank Palestinian Authority agricultural experts.

Innovation for climate-smart agric key to ending hunger.

Innovation for climate-smart agric key to ending hunger. Rising temperatures and unpredictable rainy seasons could destroy crop yield gains made in the recent past, and the threats of extreme weather such as flooding, drought and pests becoming more real. These will make production more difficult and spike food prices, hurting the prospects of reaching Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 on ending hunger. Already, many countries in Africa have seen a decline in food security, with other key factors contributing to this deterioration being urban growth, greater household expenditures on food and decrease in international food aid programmes. The recent drought across Eastern and Southern Africa has slowed down programmes for adaptation and resilience-building, forcing a shift towards alleviating hunger and malnutrition-related crises.

Farm experts take stock to tackle food security in Nigeria.

Farm experts take stock to tackle food security in Nigeria. Farm experts drawn from the diverse field of the country’s agricultural value chain rose from a two-day meeting, at the Reiz continental hotel Abuja, on Tuesday, hearing how a German development initiative, the Green Innovations Centres for the Agriculture and Food Sector in Nigeria, has trained over 27,000 farmers and is setting sail to create partnership with rice, cassava, maize and potatoes processors and input dealers to secure the country’s food future. The coordinator for the Green Innovations Centre in Nigeria, Annemarie Matthess, who organized the meeting, said while “the purpose of this meeting is to have a stock taking of what has been achieved in the last 27 months and create partnership with rice, cassava, maize and potatoes processors and input dealers,” the centre’s strategic goal is to train over 200,000 smallholders and processing companies, boost employment growth with at least 1000 new jobs, and increase in income by an average of 20 per cent for 170,000 smallholder farms. The Green Innovations Center, GIZ, is an initiative commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and has the additional mandate of taking innovation centers to Institutions across Nigeria, said Ms. Matthess who doubles in her role as the head of programme of the Sustainable Smallholders Agricultural business programme in the country.