How Israeli Agricultural Technology is Transforming India.

How Israeli Agricultural Technology is Transforming India. Israeli agricultural technology is transforming the way millions of farmers across India cultivate and harvest. Almost 25 years after the establishment of diplomatic relations, agricultural cooperation has undoubtedly emerged as the cornerstone of India-Israel ties. In 2008, Israel launched the India-Israel Agriculture Project (IIAP) aimed at setting up specialised agriculture centres across India. Today, 15 such Centres of Excellence (CoE) are operational in India, being jointly run by MASHAV, Israel’s agency for international development and India’s Ministry of Agriculture. Additionally, 12 more centres are expected to be launched in coming years, taking their number to 27. In one such centre, located in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, experts have come up with 24 new varieties of oranges created by combining the traits of selected Israeli and Indian varieties, promising high yield and longer shelf life.

New drug-testing tech could drastically cut animal testing.

New drug-testing tech could drastically cut animal testing.Israeli human-on-a-chip platform has the unique ability to predict risk of toxicity in pharma and cosmetic product candidates without animal testing. After spending an average of $2.5 billion to develop a single new drug, sometimes pharma companies have to pull it from the market due to a bad outcome that was not detected in clinical studies.That’s what happened in 2000, when a promising Type 2 diabetes drug called troglitazone led to idiosyncratic (unexplained) liver damage in one of every 60,000 users. The troglitazone mystery wasn’t solved until March 2016, when a novel “liver-on-a-chip” platform developed by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Yaakov Nahmias revealed what no animal or human tests could: even low concentrations of this drug caused liver stress before any damage could be seen. “It was the first time an organ-on-chip device could predict information to help pharmaceutical companies define risk for idiosyncratic toxicity,”

The benefits of eating the purple potato.

The benefits of eating the purple potato.Israeli scientists synthesize healthier potatoes and tomatoes in brilliant colors. The technology can also produce unusually hued ornamental flowers.Are you ready for violet-colored potatoes? How about orange tobacco? Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have figured out how produce betalain pigments in plants and flowers that don’t normally have them. If you’re thinking, “Who needs violet tomatoes?” you should know that red-violet and yellow betalain pigments contain healthful antioxidant properties. They’re also the basis for natural food dyes for products such as strawberry yogurt. Antioxidant activity is 60 percent higher in betalain-producing tomatoes than in average ones, said Prof. Asaph Aharoni of Weizmann’s Plant and Environmental Sciences Department, who teamed up with Dr. Guy Polturak for the pigment research. “Our findings may in the future be used to fortify a wide variety of crops with betalains in order to increase their nutritional value,” he said. Betalain pigments also protect plants against gray mold, which annually causes crop losses worth billions of dollars. The Weizmann study showed that resistance to gray mold rose by 90% in plants engineered to make betalains.

Fruit fly ‘Iron Dome’ for the farmers of India.

Fruit fly ‘Iron Dome’ for the farmers of India. Biofeed’s revolutionary no-spray, environmentally friendly solution against the Oriental fruit fly is a hit with Indian mango growers. There is a revolutionary no-spray, environmentally friendly solution against the Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) made by Biofeed, a 10-employee ag-tech company. Biofeed’s lures, hung on trees, contain an organic customized mix of food, feeding stimulants and control or therapeutic agents delivered by a patented gravity-controlled fluid release platform.Attracted by the odor, the fly takes a sip and soon dies – without any chemicals reaching the fruit, air or soil.

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.