The former German leader, who was Israel's most important ally in Europe during her long tenure spanning 4 terms from 2005 to 2021, toured the Nova site Wednesday alongside Gail Shoresh, from the Dvora Forum that promotes women's equality, receiving explanations about sexual atrocities committed by Hamas some two years ago during the massive attack on the Gaza border communities, with German Ambassador Steffen Seibert sharing her visit on social media. Nahal Oz resident Amir Tibon also shared with Merkel his unique ordeal, retelling the story of how he managed to survive after terrorists invaded his kibbutz and started slaughtering and kidnapping residents.

Oct 7 revisited: Angela Merkel met Gail Shoresh of Project Dvora at the Nova site who explained about sexual violence on that terrible day. And @amirtibon showed her the room in Nahal Oz where he and his family hid for 10 hours and survived. pic.twitter.com/gDLbc3kCRs

— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) November 12, 2025

"Oct 7 revisited: Angela Merkel met Gail Shoresh at the Nova site who explained about sexual violence on that terrible day," Seibert wrote.

"Tibon showed her the room in Nahal Oz where he and his family hid for 10 hours and survived," he continued. Tibon, who lives in Nahal Oz with his wife and children, was rescued after his father, former IDF Major General Noam Tibon, rushed to the south with his wife to help fight against the Hamas terrorists who had invaded his kibbutz and other locations in the area. 

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel received an honorary degree from @WeizmannScience, praising Israeli and German scientists who were the first to build new bridges between our peoples after the Shoah. Amid anti-scientific tendencies worldwide she spoke for science-based politics. pic.twitter.com/smSGbhcwcN

— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) November 11, 2025

During her visit this week , Weizmann Institute of Science conferred an honorary degree upon Merkel, who delivered remarks praising Israeli and German scientists as the first to construct new bridges between the two peoples following the Holocaust, the German Ambassador wrote. Speaking amid worldwide anti-scientific tendencies, the former chancellor advocated for science-based politics during the ceremony, Seibert noted.

The beauty of „attosekundenschnelle Rastertunnelmikroskopie" - former Chancellor Merkel firmly in her element visiting @TechnionLive in Haifa - world class science flourishing through diversity and international cooperation. pic.twitter.com/pKMOOJdv2p

— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) November 11, 2025

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa received a visit from Merkel as well, with the German Ambassador describing world-class science flourishing through diversity and international cooperation at the institution. The former chancellor appeared firmly in her element exploring "attosekundenschnelle Rastertunnelmikroskopie" during the tour, according to Seibert's social media posts.

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Israeli universities have once again demonstrated their world-class caliber, with three institutions ranking among the top 100 academic institutions globally. The Weizmann Institute of Science, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have all clinched positions in the 2024 Shanghai Ranking, widely regarded as one of the most authoritative global university rankings.

Leading the Israeli contingent, the Weizmann Institute secured the 69th spot worldwide, slipping just one place from last year's ranking. It's noteworthy that the Weizmann Institute exclusively offers graduate programs, setting it apart from its peers.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem made significant strides, climbing to 81st place in the ranking of the world's best universities. This advancement crowns it as the highest-ranked Israeli institution offering undergraduate degrees. Last year, the Hebrew University stood at 86th place, trailing behind the Technion in the rankings.

This year, the Technion holds the 85th position on the list of the world's best academic institutions, a slight drop from its 79th place last year. However, it maintains a strong 11th place among the world's leading technological universities. The Shanghai Ranking is widely acknowledged as the gold standard for assessing higher education institutions globally.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has climbed five places this year, now ranking 81st among the top 100 universities worldwide according to the 2024 Shanghai Ranking!

Professor Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University: "The presence of three Israeli universities in the… pic.twitter.com/0UGfSRGQET

— Hebrew University (@HebrewU) August 15, 2024

The top three spots were claimed by US powerhouses: Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. Published annually, the Shanghai Ranking is revered for its reliability in academic circles. The rankings evaluate the quality of research at academic institutions based on various indicators, including the number of faculty members and graduates who have clinched Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, as well as the scope and quality of publications in leading journals. The comprehensive ranking covers approximately 2,500 universities. Among the top 100 institutions, 38 hail from the US, 14 from China, 8 from the UK, 5 from Australia, 4 each from France and Germany, 3 from Canada, and, as highlighted, 3 from Israel.

Professor Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University, celebrated this achievement while also voicing concerns about the current state of Israeli academia. His remarks come against a backdrop of strained relations with Education Minister and Chair of the Council for Higher Education, Yoav Kisch, and looming budget cuts. "The presence of three Israeli universities in the list of the world's top 100 universities is an extraordinary feat, especially in such a challenging and complex year. The Hebrew University's rise to 81st place in the most prestigious international ranking is a testament to our unwavering commitment to groundbreaking research and pursuit of excellence," Professor Cohen stated.

He added, "We're immensely proud of and grateful to our researchers and administrative staff. Their dedication to advancing excellent research persists daily, despite internal and external challenges, in an era where some segments of society view scientific truth and human progress as arbitrary occurrences. We remain steadfast in our role as the preeminent civilian institution for Jerusalem, a cornerstone for the State of Israel, and a source of international pride."

Professor Uri Sivan, President of the Technion, echoed these sentiments: "Our consistent standing in the Shanghai Ranking reaffirms the Technion's position among the world's finest technological universities. The Technion, like its Israeli counterparts, competes on the global stage with universities that are often older, larger, and better-funded. Our success, even in this latest index summarizing 2023 – one of our most challenging years – is remarkable. The inclusion of three Israeli academic institutions in the world's top 100 universities list is a resounding endorsement of Israeli science and academia and a source of national pride."

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In a bold initiative aimed at combating global warming, Professor Yoram Rozen, head of the Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI) at the Technion and a professor in the Faculty of Physics and a team of academics and industry experts has formulated a daring plan to launch a massive foil sheet into space to act as a sunshade, deflecting a portion of the sun's rays and lowering the Earth's average temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius within a relatively short span of 18 months.

Q: From the outside, your idea sounds a bit presumptuous, Prof. Yoav Rosen: to send a shade into space that will cover part of the Earth to help deal with global warming and even lower the temperature here by a degree and a half. Tell me about your plan at the Technion.

"The idea is to send an enormous sunshade, covering an area of 2.5 million square kilometers (965,255 square miles) – roughly the size of Argentina – to a unique point between the Earth and the sun. It will unfurl between the sun and the Earth, blocking a portion of the sun's radiation and lowering the average temperature here on Earth by 1.5 degrees Celsius within a relatively short period of about a year and a half. Since we will not be able to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions entirely – and even if we do, we will still be left with the current high temperatures – we need to address the problem from the outside."

Q: It is commonly thought that since the beginning of the Industrial Age, the temperature on Earth has risen by about a degree and a half. So you're closing a gap of about 250 years in a year and a half.

Rozen acknowledges that lowering the Earth's temperature by 1.5 degrees Celsius in just 18 months is an ambitious goal, given that global temperatures have risen by approximately the same amount over the course of 250 years since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. However, he asserts, "According to all our analyses, this will work. The current average temperature on Earth is around 15 degrees Celsius, and it would be preferable to be around 13.5 degrees."

The sunshade itself would be constructed from a material already used in space missions and turns out to be relatively accessible. "It's not all that different from the survival or shock blankets used by pilots, hikers, and marathon runners to keep warm after physical exertion. It's the same material as the survival blankets you can find at Decathlon for 34 shekels (around $10)," Rozen explains. "The material is the same material – but it's clear that when sending it into space, some changes are required, and everything becomes more expensive."

Q: You're talking about a shade the size of Argentina, Algeria, or Kazakhstan. How will the production work?

While acknowledging the enormity of the task, Rozen emphasizes that the production process would be modular, with the sunshade constructed in separate components that need not be connected in space but could operate adjacently to create the desired shade. "The production will be done in parts," he clarifies. "Even in space, the components don't have to be connected; they can be side by side to create the shade."

Q: Will the shade be noticeable on Earth in any way? Will we have a shadow in the middle of the day?

"We won't feel it, and there won't be a noticeable shadow. It's a bit like a fly casting a shadow on Earth from a kilometer up. But in practice, it will lower the temperature for us, and also block 2% of the radiation that reaches us, which is the goal. The shade will mainly affect the area within 1,600 km (994 miles) from the equator, which is the critical area that affects the entire planet."

Q: How did you come up with the idea in the first place?

"The idea for the sunshade project germinated a few years ago when an Israeli group of academics and industry experts convened to explore potential solutions to global warming. While initial suggestions included launching 250 million massive (2.5 acre) balloons to shade the Earth, the group quickly recognized the impracticality of such a vast number of balloons, which could potentially fall into the atmosphere."

"A few months later, while traveling back from a conference, the idea clicked – how to send the sunshade, to what point, and what materials to use," Rozen recounts. "The next day, I discovered that someone had proposed a similar concept 16 years earlier, which gave me confidence that I was on the right track. The difference is that all the previous papers on this were theoretical, while we're coming up with a structured implementation plan."

While acknowledging the project's astronomical cost – an estimated $30 trillion – Rozen and his team have decided to start small by sending a prototype sunshade the size of a classroom into space. "After we succeed with the small one, we can enlist the world's support for the larger project," he states.

Q: When will you be able to send the prototype into space?

"Within three to four years from the moment we have the money. Sending the prototype into space will cost about $15 million. Right now, our progress is slow because we don't have money to invest, and the expectation is that in the future, we'll be able to rely on outside companies to prepare the sail, computer, and other parts."

Solar storms, pressure, and darkness

Q: You emphasize that shading the Earth must be done from outside it, i.e., from space, and that shading from the Earth's surface won't work. Could you explain that a bit more?

"On a hot sunny day in Israel, you go into an air-conditioned building. Maybe it's more comfortable for you, but you haven't changed the temperature of the Earth. If a bus stop has a roof, it's a bit more comfortable underneath it, but it doesn't change the temperature of the Earth because the roof absorbs the heat. So the shading has to be done outside the atmosphere. You need to block the radiation from reaching in the first place."

Q: The point for positioning the shade is 1.5 million kilometers (932,057 miles) from here. Why exactly?

"It's a fantastic point because it's one of five fixed points in space that rotate with the entire system. It's the only one that interests us because positioning the shade at other points would likely cast a shadow on other stars, not just us. So we have to be at the first Lagrange point, which is the distance where the gravitational forces of the Earth and the Sun are in equilibrium."

Q: What will you do about the radiation pressure?

"The radiation pressure is not negligible and knocks the system out of balance, so we'll position the shade a bit farther 'to the right,' about 50,000 km (31,069 miles) towards the Sun, to restore the system to equilibrium. By the way, the new point is also unstable, meaning the shade could still lose balance and fall. So we'll need to make corrections, just like a person standing on one leg adjusts their stance to stay upright."

Q: is the significance of such corrections in space?

"In principle, you can put an engine and make minor corrections all the time, but an engine adds weight and complexity, both of which we want to avoid. So we will deploy a sail and move to one side, or close the sail and move to the other side. The movement and reorientation won't happen every few seconds or minutes, but every 100-200 days. This is a solution that isn't problematic for us. It seems that between these two points, we can move within a certain range and stay within the area without falling. The shade will be modular and made up of many such blankets, as mentioned, and more units will be regularly launched to join the larger system."

Q: How many such launches will you need?

"We're talking about 2.5 million tons. We can currently launch 100 tons, and each time we'll launch the maximum possible. We'll likely need thousands of launches. The travel time will also be relatively short. The James Webb Space Telescope was launched about two and a half years ago to the relevant point for us, and the travel time was a few weeks."

Q: Will there be annual routine maintenance for such a project?

"There's not really an option for maintenance. Any part that fails, meaning it's in the wrong orientation, will be replaced with another. The cost of replacement is marginal compared to the entire project."

Q: What about the Sun's heating affecting the shade negatively? Just a month ago, satellites detected strong solar storms.

"It's true that the Sun has its cycles, but broadly speaking –the Sun is cooling over the course of billions of years. In a few billion years, it's also expected to go out, and then we'll need to talk again and see what we're doing."

International interest

Q: I'm trying to think about what's more presumptuous: thinking it's possible to send such a shade into space, or raising the amount of money we're talking about – $30 trillion.

"Fortunately, I'm not dealing with raising the global amount. That depends on a lot of politics."

Q: The annual US budget is about $5 trillion. I assume this is a global interest, and every country will have to contribute its share.

"To be honest, I was sure that for such a project, with keywords like sustainability, global warming, and saving planet Earth, it would be very easy to raise money – but it turns out that's not exactly the case."

Q: What kind of reactions are you getting in academia and beyond about this idea?

"Everyone is excited about it," he affirms, "but some professional bodies are skeptical about the costs. Nevertheless, technology companies, countries, and prominent environmental activists have reached out to us and expressed great interest."

However, Rozen expresses surprise at the opposition from certain environmental circles, who fear that a solution to global warming might lead to complacency about pollution. "It's important for me to note that our solution, effective as it may be, needs to coexist with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," he emphasizes.

Q: On the subject of opposition – how did October 7 affect your project?

"We had a major partner that left us on October 7. I'm talking about an academic institution from the United Arab Emirates, the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC). They want to continue working on this project, but it's possible they were instructed to stop working with us. We visited them several times, they were our research partners and they also have a larger budget."

Q: Are you in any contact with them?

"No, they're not responding to us right now."

Q: Is there a chance they'll come back to the table?

"Yes, I'm optimistic. It's an academic institution supported by the government, and we had a great relationship that included weekly meetings that led to progress. We were supposed to visit them and present the project at the UN Climate Conference. But they told us not to come and that this project won't be in our pavilion. If the collaboration had continued, we could already be counting down to sending the prototype into space."

Q: What will happen if your plan to send this shade doesn't go through? Are there other solutions for lowering the Earth's temperature?

"Let's start from the premise that we agree the Earth's temperature is rising. As I see it, there are three branches to the solution: The first is to absorb carbon dioxide, CO2, back from the atmosphere or the oceans, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is possible, but we're talking about insane amounts of CO2 that we'd need to liquefy and store, and anything stored can always leak out. It's an option, but it's not without problems."

"The second solution, believe it or not – is painting everything white. The brighter an object is, the more light it reflects and doesn't absorb as heat. When you wear a black shirt you absorb more heat, while a white shirt will lower your temperature."

Q: That doesn't sound very realistic.

"Right. A sub-branch of that is to do it in space. That is, to create more clouds that reflect light and lower the temperature, but there's an extreme game with the weather here."

Q: What are the long-term risks if we don't send this shade? What could happen to the Earth over a few decades?

"I'm a physicist, not a climate scientist, but we're already witnessing more and more disasters and extreme events. If we don't address the problem, we'll see even more of them, with greater damage and a threat to our lives, within two or three decades. If we continue to allow the Earth's temperature to rise over a longer period, we could reach a point where no functioning humanity can solve its problems. It's hard to predict the future, but very negative changes could occur for humans, perhaps even irreversible ones."

Q: There are those talking about relocating humanity to another planet. Your shade solution sounds more realistic.

"If we can't live on Earth, we'll need to find another place. And relocating humanity to another planet – Mars, for example – is much more expensive than the $30 trillion we're talking about. Moreover, think about the extreme conditions on Mars: We'd have to live there in a biosphere because the radiation there is lethal and the temperature is extreme. We'd need spacesuits and a constant oxygen supply. But here, on Earth, we have great conditions, we just need to invest in solutions."

Q: It's sad, but we need a "climate October 7" for people to wake up.

"I have news for you – we're already in a 'climate October 7,' and we're not aware of it because the disaster is ongoing, not happening all at once. Fortunately, we're not annihilating 100 million people in one event, but it's happening gradually. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on a solution that will advance and improve our lives, humanity is invested in another global project that costs us much more – wars. It's so easy for us to spend money on wars, but when it comes to our future here, the expense becomes harder and more complicated. I'll never be able to understand that. We need to take action now, so we don't pay compound interest on our inaction."

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Three Israeli universities were recognized among the world's top 100, according to the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) released on Tuesday by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.

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Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot ranked 67th, compared to 83rd place last year. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa placed 78th, while the Hebrew University of Jerusalem dropped to the 85th position from 77th in 2022. Harvard University topped the ranking list for the 21st year in a row. It is followed by two other US universities – Stanford and MIT.

Video: An interview with a Hebrew University professor / Credit: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Like most items with which we live and use on a daily basis, electronics are subject to wear and tear, which reduces their performance until they need to be replaced.

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However, the field of self-repairing material is growing rapidly, and scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed eco-friendly nanocrystal semiconducters that can "heal" themselves – potentially saving users from shelling out for another new smartphone.

The journal Advanced Functional Materials recently published the researchers' findings, which show a group of materials called double perovskites displaying self-healing properties after being damaged by radiation from an electron beam. Perovskites, first discovered in the 19^th century, caught scientists' attention because of their electro-optical characteristics that make them highly efficient in converting energy.

Professor Yehonadav Bekenstein from the Technion's Faculty of Materials Sciences and Engineering and the Solid-State Institute is leading a team that specializes in the synthesis of nano-scale crystals from new materials. By controlling the crystals' composition, shape, and size, they change the material's physical properties. The team is seeking out environmentally friendly alternatives to toxic lead, and engineering perovskites that are free of lead.

Bekenstein's lab produced perovskite nanoparticles through a short, simple process that involved heating the material to 100°C for a few minutes. When Ph.D. students Sasha Khalfin and Noam Veber examined the particles using a transmission electron microscope, they discovered that the microscope's high-voltage electron beam created holes in the nanocrystals. The researchers were then able to explore how those holes interacted with the surrounding material.

The researchers developed a code that analyzed dozens of videos made using the electron microscope and discovered that found that holes formed on the surface of the nanoparticles, then moved to energetically stable areas inside. They hypothesized that holes moved inward due to organic molecules that coated the nanocrystals' surface. Once these organic molecules were removed, the group discovered the crystal spontaneously ejected the holes to the surface and out, essentially repairing itself.

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Researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed a method that harvests an electrical current directly from seaweed in an environmentally friendly and efficient fashion. 

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The research, the idea for which came to doctoral student Yaniv Shlosberg while swimming at the beach, has been developed by a consortium of researchers from three Technion faculties and has been presented in the peer-reviewed Biosensors and Bioelectronics scientific journal. 

The research was led by Professor Noam Adir and Shlosberg in cooperation with researchers from the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute and others. 

The use of fossil fuels results in the emission of greenhouse gases and other polluting compounds, which have been found to be connected to climate change. Pollution due to the use of these fuels starts from their extraction and transportation around the globe, to be used in centralized power plants and refineries.

These problematic issues are the driving force behind research into methods of alternative, clean and renewable energy sources. One of these is the use of living organisms as the source of electrical currents in microbial fuel cells. Certain bacteria have the ability to transfer electrons to electrochemical cells to produce electrical current. The bacteria need to be constantly fed and some of them are pathogenic. A similar technology is Bio-PhotoElectrochemical Cells, the source of electrons can be from photosynthetic bacteria, especially cyanobacteria. 

Many different species of seaweed grow naturally on the Mediterranean shore of Israel, especially Ulva which is grown in large quantities at IOLR for research purposes.

After developing new methods to connect Ulva and BPEC, currents a thousand times greater than those from cyanobacteria were obtained. Adir noted that these increased currents are due to the high rate of seaweed photosynthesis, and the ability to use the seaweed in their natural seawater as the BPEC electrolyte – the solution that promotes electron transfer in the BPEC. In addition, the seaweed provides currents in the dark, about 50% of that obtained in light. The source of the dark current is from respiration – where sugars made by the photosynthetic process are used as an internal source of nutrients. In a fashion similar to the cyanobacterial BOEC, no additional chemicals are needed to obtain the current. The Ulva produce mediating electron transfer molecules that are secreted from the cells and transfer the electrons to the BPEC electrode.

Fossil fuel-based energy-producing technologies are known as "carbon positive." This means that the process releases carbon into the atmosphere during fuel combustion. Solar cell technologies are known as "carbon-neutral", no carbon is released into the atmosphere. However, the production of solar cells and their transportation to the site of use is many times more "carbon positive". The new technology presented here is "carbon negative". The seaweed absorbs carbon from the atmosphere during the day while growing and releasing oxygen. During the harvesting of the currents during the day, no carbon is released. During the night, the seaweed releases the normal amount of carbon from respiration. In addition, seaweed, especially Ulva, is grown for a variety of industries: food (Ulva is also considered a superfood), cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.

"It is a wonder where scientific ideas come from," Shlosberg said. "I had the idea one day when I went to the beach. At the time I was studying the cyanobacterial BPEC when I noticed seaweed on a rock that looked like electrical cords. I said to myself – since they also perform photosynthesis, maybe we can use them to produce currents. From this idea came the collaboration from all the Technion and IOLR researchers which led to our most recent paper. I believe that our idea can lead to a real revolution in clean energy production."

Technion and IOLR researchers built a prototype device that collects the current directly in the Ulva growth vat. 

Professor Adir added: "By presenting our prototype device, we show that significant currents can be harvested from the seaweed. We believe that the technology can be further improved leading to future green energy technologies."

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Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, which this year fell on Sept. 6, the staff of IsraelHayom.com took a look through our archives and identified the most popular stories for our readers in the year that had passed since Rosh Hashanah 5781.

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But nearly four months have passed since then, and the news – good, bad, and bizarre – keeps rolling on.

As 2021 comes to a close, these are a few of the more recent stories that resonated most with Israel Hayom readers.

Noah's Ark might not be where you think it is

In October, archaeologists with the Noah's Ark Scans project said that using advanced 3D scans, they had located a giant shape in the Turkish mountains the proportions of which match the biblical descriptions of Noah's Ark. The discovery was made in the Durupinar site on Mount Tendurek in eastern Turkey.

Miss Universe tweets and the world responds

Israel hosted this year's Miss Universe pageant in the resort city of Eilat on Dec. 13. The winner, Miss India – Harnaaz Kaur Sandhu – graciously sent out a tweet saying how much she had enjoyed her visit, upsetting some social media users.

Will we or won't we?

Israel Hayom military commentator Yoav Limor's analysis of the challenges inherent in any attack on Iran's military facilities was a fascinating read that delved not only into the tactical but also the strategic and diplomatic aspects of Israel employing the "military option."

Water, water, everywhere – and a lot of cheap energy, to boot

Hydrogen fuel could solve a lot of problems for humanity, but it's expensive to produce. Now researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology might have solved that problem.

Really, Dave?

Comedian Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix special, "The Closer," included a joke about alien "space Jew" travelers who want to claim the earth for their own, which apparently took aim at the outlandish and frightening accusations targeting Jews since the start of the COVID pandemic. Later on, however, Chappelle continued to riff, and it wasn't quite as funny.

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Which factors determine how fast a quantum computer can perform its calculations? Physicists at the University of Bonn and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have devised an elegant experiment to answer this question, the results of which are published in the journal Science Advances.

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Quantum computers are highly sophisticated machines that rely on the principles of quantum mechanics to process information. This should enable them to handle certain problems in the future that are completely unsolvable for conventional computers. But even for quantum computers, fundamental limits apply to the amount of data they can process in a given time.

The information stored in conventional computers can be thought of as a long sequence of zeros and ones, the bits. In quantum mechanics it is different: The information is stored in quantum bits (qubits), which resemble a wave rather than a series of discrete values. Physicists also speak of wave functions when they want to precisely represent the information contained in qubits.

In a traditional computer, information is linked together by so-called gates. Combining several gates allows elementary calculations, such as the addition of two bits. Information is processed in a very similar way in quantum computers, where quantum gates change the wave function according to certain rules.

Quantum gates resemble their traditional relatives in another respect: "Even in the quantum world, gates do not work infinitely fast," explains Dr. Andrea Alberti of the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bonn. "They require a minimum amount of time to transform the wave function and the information this contains."

More than 70 years ago, Soviet physicists Leonid Mandelstam and Igor Tamm deduced theoretically this minimum time for transforming the wave function. Physicists at the University of Bonn and the Technion have now investigated this Mandelstam-Tamm limit for the first time with an experiment on a complex quantum system. To do this, they used cesium atoms that moved in a highly controlled manner.

"In the experiment, we let individual atoms roll down like marbles in a light bowl and observe their motion," explains Alberti, who led the experimental study.

Atoms can be described quantum mechanically as matter waves. During the journey to the bottom of the light bowl, their quantum information changes. The researchers now wanted to know when this "deformation" could be identified at the earliest. This time would then be the experimental proof of the Mandelstam-Tamm limit. The problem with this, however, is that in the quantum world, every measurement of the atom's position inevitably changes the matter wave in an unpredictable way. So, it always looks like the marble has deformed, no matter how quickly the measurement is made. "We therefore devised a different method to detect the deviation from the initial state," Alberti says.

For this purpose, the researchers began by producing a clone of the matter wave, in other words an almost exact twin. "We used fast light pulses to create a so-called quantum superposition of two states of the atom," explains Gal Ness, a doctoral student at the Technion and first author of the study.

"Figuratively speaking, the atom behaves as if it had two different colors at the same time," Ness said. Depending on the color, each atom twin takes a different position in the light bowl: One is high up on the edge and "rolls" down from there. The other, conversely, is already at the bottom of the bowl. This twin does not move – after all, it cannot roll up the walls and so does not change its wave function.

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The physicists compared the two clones at regular intervals. They did this using a technique called quantum interference, which allows differences in waves to be detected very precisely. This enabled them to determine after what time a significant deformation of the matter wave first occurred.

By varying the height above the bottom of the bowl at the start of the experiment, the physicists were also able to control the average energy of the atom. Average because, in principle, the amount cannot be determined exactly. The "position energy" of the atom is therefore always uncertain. "We were able to demonstrate that the minimum time for the matter wave to change depends on this energy uncertainty," says Professor Yoav Sagi, who led the partner team at Technion: "The greater the uncertainty, the shorter the Mandelstam-Tamm time."

This is exactly what the two Soviet physicists had predicted. But there was also a second effect: If the energy uncertainty was increased more and more until it exceeded the average energy of the atom, then the minimum time did not decrease further – contrary to what the Mandelstam-Tamm limit would suggest. The physicists thus proved a second speed limit, which was theoretically discovered about 20 years ago. The ultimate speed limit in the quantum world is therefore determined not only by the energy uncertainty, but also by the mean energy.

"This is the first time that both quantum speed boundaries could be measured for a complex quantum system, and even in a single experiment," Alberti said. Future quantum computers may be able to solve problems rapidly, but they too will be constrained by these fundamental limits.

The study was funded by the Reinhard Frank Foundation (in collaboration with the German Technion Society), The German Research Foundation (DFG), the Helen Diller Quantum Center at the Technion, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

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In honor of the International Arabic Language Day, students from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed an application to help Israelis who study Arabic with Madrasa, a social, technological, and community-oriented initiative that advocates for better communication in Israeli society through spoken Arabic courses.

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With over 100,000 registered students, Madrasa promotes language learning through a platform that includes free online courses, extensive activity through digital channels, and various other collaborations.

"During our seven years of operations, we have seen the need for people to practice their speaking proficiency while learning, and heard the same question from students over and over again: 'What about an app?" Gilad Sevitt, founder and director of Madrasa said.

This question led to the collaboration between Madrasa and Technion students – from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science – to create an application that features a voice recognition component that will support tens of thousands of students.

"Working with the students was very effective and helpful," Sevitt said. "They came on board and contributed greatly to our project and we enjoyed working together on both the linguistic and technological levels.

The component will be integrated as soon as possible in the courses alongside all videos, games, and exercises, and will be a kind of conversation bot through which students can practice their proficiency of spoken Arabic."

Technion students created an infrastructure for learners to have conversations with voice recognition components. Such bots "converse" in spoken Arabic and teach students to pronounce words and discuss various topics.

The app will upgrade the students' learning experience, provide alerts, and serve as the basis for other developments, such as mobile games. A trial version of the app will be released in the coming months.

The United Nations' World Arabic Language Day is commemorated annually on December 18, which is the anniversary of a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly making Arabic one of its official working languages.

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Researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed a technology that inhibits the development of skin cancer using a one-millionth dosage of the active ingredient.  

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The innovative approach is based on the body's immune system's own ability to destroy cancer cells, which is a more accurate and specific system than synthetic anti-cancer drugs. It helps the immune system target the malignant tumor, which is otherwise heterogeneous and evasive.

The study – published in the Advanced Functional Materials peer-reviewed scientific journal – was led by Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering Professor Marcelle Machluf and doctorate student Lior Levy.

At the core of this new development is a protein called TRAIL, which is found in the body's immune system. It knows how to induce the death of cancer cells, and does so selectively, meaning it only affects cancer cells, a highly desirable feature in anti-cancer treatment.

The application of TRAIL in immunotherapy has so far encountered various technical challenges, like the absorption of the protein in the body, its distribution, and the fact that it does not survive for very long. 

Technicon's study offers a solution to these problems.

The Nano-Ghost platform is produced by emptying specific biological cells in a way that leaves only the cell membrane and reducing their size to a nanometer scale. Any drug can be inserted into the membrane and injected directly into the bloodstream. Because the body's immune system treats nano-ghosts as natural cells, it delivers them to the affected site. They do not release the drug on the way, and therefore do not harm healthy tissue. They target the malignant tissue alone, delivering the drug to the tumor cells.

By integrating the three aforementioned factors – the immunotherapy concept, the TRAIL protein, and the Nano-Ghost technology – researchers created a drug delivery system that allows reduction of the drug dosage by a factor of a million while maintaining the same treatment effect.

"This integration turns the Nano-Ghost platform from a 'taxi' that delivers the drug to the target into a 'tank' that participates in the war," Machluf said. "The integrated platform delivers the drug to the tumor and enables a significant reduction in drug dosage yet still does the job. We also showed that our method does not harm healthy cells."

The technology was demonstrated on cells in the lab and on human cancer cells in mice. The researchers estimate that this new strategy, which was demonstrated in their study on a melanoma model, will also be effective on other types of cancer.

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