EurekAlert March 2, 2021 During hundreds of millions of years of evolution, insects have evolved some of the most efficient and robust sensing organs, often far more sensitive than their man-made equivalents. Researchers in Israel integrated a locust tympanic ear with a robotic platform using hybrid bio-technological approach. Using an Ear-on-a-Chip method, they created a long-lasting miniature sensory device that operates as part of a bio-hybrid robot. The neural signals recorded from the ear in response to sound pulses, are processed and used to control the robot’s motion. This work is a proof of concept, demonstrating the use of biological […]
Tag Archives: S&T Israel
Rapid Identification of Ricin in Serum Samples Using LC–MS/MS
Global Biodefense January 23, 2021 Researchers in Israel have developed a sensitive, rapid, antibody-independent assay for the identification of ricin in body fluids using mass spectrometry. The assay involves lectin affinity capturing of ricin by easy-to-use commercial lactose–agarose beads, followed by tryptic digestion and selected marker identification using targeted Multiple Reaction Monitoring analysis. This enables ricin identification down to 5 ng/mL in serum samples in 2.5 hours. They demonstrated the technology in a clinical scenario where the toxin was identified in an abdominal fluid sample taken 72 h post self-injection of castor beans extraction. This method has the potential application […]
New cyberattack can trick scientists into making toxins or viruses — Ben-Gurion University researchers
EurekAlert November 30, 2020 According to the researchers in Israel a malware could easily replace a short sub-string of the DNA on a bioengineer’s computer so that they unintentionally create a toxin producing sequence. To regulate both intentional and unintentional generation of dangerous substances, most synthetic gene providers screen DNA orders which is currently the most effective line of defense against such attacks. Unfortunately, the screening guidelines have not been adapted to reflect recent developments in synthetic biology and cyberwarfare. Screening protocols can be circumvented using a generic obfuscation procedure which makes it difficult for the screening software to detect […]
New technology allows cameras to capture colors invisible to the human eye
Phys.org November 5, 2020 In upconversion imaging phase matching severely limits the spectral bandwidth, therefore requires serial acquisitions to cover a large spectrum. Researchers in Israel have designed an upconversion imaging scheme covering the mid‐IR based on adiabatic frequency conversion. They presented mid‐IR multicolor imaging and demonstrated simultaneous imaging on a CMOS camera of radiation spanning a spectrum from 2 to 4 µm. This approach being coherent and ultrafast in essence, spectrally resolved spatiotemporal imaging is further demonstrated that allows spatially distinguishing the temporal evolution of spectral components. The findings has applications in a variety of fields from computer gaming […]
Magnetic memory states go exponential
EurekAlert July 9, 2020 When spintronic devices are used for storing data, the number of stable states sets an upper limit on memory capacity. Researchers in Israel have shown that relatively simple structures can support exponential number of magnetic states – much greater than previously thought. They studied structures that are magnetic thin films patterned in the form of N crossing ellipses which have two to the power of 2N magnetization states. The researchers demonstrated switching between the states by generating spin currents. The finding may pave the way to multi-level magnetic memory with extremely large number of states per […]
New method to remove dust on solar panels
Science Daily December 9, 2019 To better understand the forces that attach and detach particles from surfaces during the self-cleaning mechanism and the effect of nanotextures on these forces, researchers in Israel prepared four silicon-based samples relevant to solar panels: (1) smooth hydrophilic (2) nanotextured hydrophilic surfaces and (3) smooth hydrophobic (4) nanotextured hydrophobic surfaces. They found that hydrophilic particle removal increased from ∼41%, from hydrophilic smooth Si wafers to 98% from superhydrophobic Si-based nanotextured surfaces. They determined that the reason for the increased particle removal is due to the reduction of the adhesion force between the particle and the […]
New computer attack mimics user’s keystroke characteristics and evades detection
Science Daily June 6, 2019 Researchers in Israel have developed a new attack called Malboard and a detection module. Malboard automatically generates keystrokes that have the attacked user’s behavioral characteristics. The keystrokes are injected into the computer in the form of malicious commands and thus can evade existing detection mechanisms designed to continuously verify the user’s identity based on keystroke dynamics. In demonstration attack against three existing detection mechanisms, the results showed that Malboard managed to evade detection in 83–100% of the cases, depending on the detection tools in place. They also developed three different modules, aimed at detecting keystroke […]
Low-bandwidth radar technology provides improved detection of objects
Phys.org April 2, 2019 Researchers in Israel have demonstrated a ranging system which possesses superior range resolution that is almost completely free of bandwidth limitations. By sweeping over the coherence length of the transmitted signal, the partially coherent radar experimentally demonstrates an improvement of over an order of magnitude in resolving targets, compared to standard coherent radars with the same bandwidth. They developed a theoretical framework to show that the resolution could be further improved without a bound, revealing a tradeoff between bandwidth and sweep time. This concept offers solutions to problems which require high range resolution and accuracy, but […]
Researchers map light and sound wave interactions in optical fibers
Science Daily November 28, 2018 Optical fibers carry data and guide ultrasound waves. Earlier this year researchers showed that mutual effects of light and sound waves that co-propagate in a fiber. In their research researchers in Israel constructed a distributed spectrometer, a measurement protocol that can map local power levels of multiple optical wave components over many kilometers of fiber. The measurements unravel how the generation of ultrasonic waves can mix these optical waves together. Rather than propagate independently, the opto-mechanical interactions lead to the amplification of certain optical waves, and to the attenuation of others, in a complicated fashion. […]
Hackers could turn your garden sprinklers into a cyber weapon
MIT Technology Review August 8, 2018 The researchers in Israel found security weaknesses in popular commercial irrigation systems that could allow hackers to turn them on and off remotely. Large numbers of zombie sprinklers could be linked in a “botnet” that rapidly drains a city’s water reserves. The researchers claim a botnet of 1,350-odd sprinklers could empty an urban water tower in an hour, and around 24,000 could empty a flood water reservoir overnight. The researchers have notified manufacturers of the flaws they found in the software controlling the sprinklers… read more.