Foto Friday – Solar UFOs Over Haifa
Filed under: Environment, Foto Friday, General, Pop Culture, Technology
Haifa is Israel’s home to UFO activity but these objects, although flying, aren’t unidentified. They’re prototypes for the SunHopes project, a breakthrough solar energy product developed by Dr. Pini Gurfil and Dr. Joseph Cory of the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.
According to the project website, “Lightweight, thin-film photovoltaic cells are attached to the exterior surface of large helium balloons levitating at altitudes ranging from a few meters to a few hundred meters. The electricity generated by the cells is then conducted to the ground using electrical cables…” In other words, higly sophisticated balloon-on-a-string technology!
These magnificent photos document the project’s successful 2007 pilot, in which 50 watts of power were generated. That’s enough juice for only a single dim light bulb, but hey!, that’s what pilots are for. The project is seeking funding for the R&D phase for an upgraded prototype, capable of providing 1 kilowatt of power, and then, as my dad used to say, we’ll be cookin’ with gas.
A word about flying saucers and Haifa. In March 1950, Reuters reported that, “Flying saucers… have been reported skittering in all directions across the heavens above the Mediterranean. In Haifa today, reports circulated that they had been seen over northern Israel.” Throughout the 1980s, tales of mysterious flashing lights were periodically reported by local Haifa rag “Kol Haifa”. A quick flick through Google Hebrew reveals that UFO activity – at least on the part of those actively seeking UFOs – is alive and well. After all, wouldn’t seeing something like this floating over your home one bright day make a true believer out of you?
The Jurassic Park of seeds
Israeli agrotech experts like to break the bounds of science every now and then – well actually pretty frequently. So it should come as no surprise that a team of Israeli researchers has now resurrected a 2,000-year-old date tree by using a seed excavated from Masada.
What a fun project this must have been.
Apparently the seed was one of three discovered at the ancient Jewish fortress in the 1960s and was radiocarbon-dated to the 1st century BCE – AD73 to be exact – around the time the Romans laid siege to Masada.
Three years ago, a team from the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies bathed the seeds in fertilizer and enzyme-rich solutions and then planted them.
Lo and behold, about four weeks later one of the seeds sprouted, making it the oldest germinated seed in the world. Today’s it’s a four-foot tall Judean palm sapling called Methuselah –named by the scientists after the oldest person in the Hebrew bible.
The main researcher, Elaine Solowey – who was featured on ISRAEL21c some months ago and specializes in reviving extinct plants, said: “I really never thought we would get life out of this group of seeds because when we first acquired them, they looked so dry. Most of the seeds were dead and then suddenly, we saw that we could get life out of this one.”
According to the scientists this region was once covered in thick forests of Judean palms reaching up top 80 feet high, but they have all become extinct. Methuselah is the only living Judean date palm in the world.
The researchers hope that by reviving the plant they can study its medicinal uses. It’s also got quite a bit of history behind it – researchers believe the seeds were most likely the remnants of fruits stored or eaten by the Zealot Jewish community living in Masada at that time.
Perhaps I watch too much Sci-Fi. Although I think this is absolutely fascinating, there’s also part of me that finds it faintly scary.
A resurrected seed… what comes next?
Israel Picks National Bird, The Hoopoe
With bated breath, Israelis waited for Shimon Peres’ announcement yesterday: Israel’s National Bird will be the … (drum roll) …
The hoopoe!
Known as “Duchifat” (doo-khi-faht) in Hebrew, we had our first exposure to the hoopoe through Salman Rushdie’s novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, where Haroun the protagonist gets a mechanical hoopoe bird to fly him to the Land of Gup. A good read.
If you’ve even been to Israel you can see these delightful-looking birds, with a majestic headpiece, flying through Israel which is a migratory bottleneck for millions of birds heading to Europe or back to Africa.
According to the Haaretz newspaper, the hoopoe garnered 35 percent of the popular vote, barely edging out the goldfinch and the warbler. However, it won the unanimous support of a public committee, and since the national bird committee’s vote was worth one-quarter of the total vote, that gave the hoopoe a decisive victory.
In the birdwatching community, reactions to the results were mixed. Alon said he had supported the goldfinch at the beginning of the process. “The finch’s numbers are declining and it is being hunted,” he explained.
Dr Uzi Paz, a veteran birder and former head of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, supported the warbler: “That is a bird I researched, so I was rooting for it.”
The Bible mentions the hoopoe as a non-kosher bird, and the Quran tells a tale of King Solomon who spoke to animals and told the hoopoe of his visit to the Queen of Sheba’s land.
James, a Green Prophet, has been following the vote for some time, writing a series of posts about the vote here, here, here and here; and also over on Jewcy where he talks about an unusual bird that sings in his garden. Worth a read.
Our boyfriend asked us, “Why the hoopoe? Israel should have picked the dove.” Cute. We hadn’t even thought of that possibility. What do you think? Was the hoopoe the right choice for Israel?
Farmer creates crop graffiti for Israel’s 60th
We all have our own unique ways of celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary. At our house we hung up an Israeli flag that we got free inside a newspaper.
Peter Viner went a little further, however.
The farmer, from Beit Sh’ean, decided to inscribe a huge message “Israel at 60″ on a 17-acre piece of his land, using five different types of grain.
Apparently, no-one’s ever done this kind of stuff before. Well, apart from aliens who have been decorating our fields with rather attractive mathematical patterns for some years now.
Art experts are calling this new form of art, Crop Graffiti.
Actually I just made that up.
Anyway, this isn’t Peter’s first foray into the world of art. He’s an old hand at turning his fields into canvases and has done about 25 of these works, starting in 1994 after the peace treaty with Jordan. Then he wrote the word ‘peace’ in Hebrew, English and Arabic.
For Peter this is all philosophical stuff. “I am a man of the land and deeply connected to this country. The field is my canvas, and my tools are the paintbrush,” he told the guys at Ynet.
You can see Peter’s sign for the next few months, until it’s harvest time no doubt.
Wonder what he’s planning to do if Israel signs a peace treaty with Syria?
Ehh, no-one believes that’s going to happen anytime soon.
Big Al in Da Hooooooooooouuuuuuuuusssse!
Former U.S. Vice Prez Al Gore will be at Tel Aviv University tonight to accept the $1 mill. Dan David Prize for his society-enriching contributions to humanity. Ditto Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan and British playwright Tom Stoppard.
Israelity will be sending delegates.
Because it’s a cool event. With shee shee people. And slick production. And a cocktail hour.
Enough said?
Look for the report tomorrow…
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