What do Christopher Columbus, The Beatles and the Smithsonian Institution have in common? They all have asteroids named after them! Now the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has joined the ranks of places and people whose names appear on minor planets, as the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named an asteroid in honor of the university.
The IAU’s Committee on Small Body Nomenclature is charged with approving names for asteroids (also known as minor planets) and comets. After rejecting the originally proposed name “Hebrewuniversity” as too long, the committee later accepted the informal nickname “Hebrewu,” and the asteroid’s name was announced towards the end of 2012.
15-year-old girl’s donated organs save four lives
The parents of 15-year-old Liel Naomi, who died as a result of edema of the brain, donated organs that saved the lives of four people aged seven to 68.The two lungs were given to a 68-year-old woman at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus; a liver to a 54-year-old woman at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem; a kidney and pancreas to a 45-year-old woman at Sourasky Medical Center; and a kidney to a seven-year-old girl at Schneider Medical Center in Petah Tikva.The donor died after a severe epileptic attack and was hospitalized at the Western Galilee Government Hospital in Nahariya. Brain edema developed immediately, and soon after her death was pronounced.Her family said saving lives was foremost, and that the organ donations would commemorate the girl’s life.The transplants were the first to be performed in 2013.
How we can do math without knowing
Many high school and college students would prefer to forget the mathematics they have learned, having found the experience so difficult and even traumatic.But now, according to a team of Hebrew University psychologists, it is possible to solve multi-step math problems and even read words and phrases subliminally without even being aware of it.The results, they said, pose a challenge to existing theories of unconscious processes that maintain that reading and solving math problems – two major examples of complex, rule-based operations – require consciousness.Their new findings, they stated, call for “a significant update of our view of conscious and unconscious processes.”
Haredi women help develop space vehicle chip
Two female ultra-Orthodox graduates of the Jerusalem College of Technology’s Lustig Institute in Ramat Gan have helped develop a microchip produced by Verisense, a leading Israeli semiconductor design company, for a defense industry company that will place it in a space vehicle.The women, Tehiya Dayan and Lior Halavi, recently received their bachelors of science degrees in software engineering.In recognition of their work, the two received awards from the CEO of Verisense, Pini Lazovik, and the project was chosen as an outstanding development project at the Jerusalem College of Technology.The project was designed to ascertain whether Verisense’s generically produced chip can be produced for operational use.