Foto Friday – Mediterranean Coral Reefs
Filed under: education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, News, Picture of the Week, Travel
The exploration vessel Nautilus is a 64-meter research vessel based in Turkey, owned and operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust, and funded in part by the US NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration. It’s also the flagship for marine explorer Dr. Robert D. Ballard, whom you might recognize from the National Geographic channel.
Nautilus was here off the coast of Israel this month, using sonar to explore the depths – as far down as 1.7 km – of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, “home to underwater landslides, deep-sea corals, ancient archaeological sites, gas seeps, and many other interesting features.”
Already this week, together with a team of experts headed by Professor Zvi Ben-Avraham of the University of Haifa’s Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, the researchers announced a major discovery: for the first time, an area of reefs with deep-sea corals has been found in the Mediterranean.
The area apparently stretches over a few kilometers, 700 meters under the surface and some 30-40 km off the coast of Tel Aviv. The southeastern region of the Mediterranean has only sparse sea life, which means, as team member Dr. Yizhaq Makovsky put it, “It’s like finding a flourishing oasis in the middle of the desert.”
The collaborative research team has begun to examine their discoveries which include two shipwrecks, probably modern boats that sank sometime during the past few decades…
A Chimaera Monstrosa, of the “ghost shark” family that branched off from sharks some 400 million years ago…
And a 10 centimeter long (or is that wide?) crab hiding in the recess of a rock.
The Haifa team gave special thanks to Nautilus’ technological capabilities. The vessel is equipped with the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) Hercules, Argus, Diana, and Echo (Hercules did the work in Israel but you can read more about all the ROVs here). It has a high-bandwidth satellite system on board to facilitate remote science and education via the Inner Space Center (ISC) at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography and Exploration Command Consoles located around the world.
You can also log into Nautilus’ webcams, any time of the day or night, to see what crew is up to. They’re in Santorini right now, exploring underwater volcanoes. Hope they come back soon – there’s lots more to discover here.
Foto Friday – Michal Heiman
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles
Michal Heiman is one of Israel’s most prolific multimedia artists. Since the early 1980s, Heiman has been on the art scene, working in photography, painting, performance, installation and video. Two weeks ago, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, selected Heiman as the first recipient of the Shpilman International Prize for Excellence in Photography, a new biannual prize that aims to catalyze and support international research projects exploring theoretical and practical issues in photography.
Heiman teaches at the M.A. Interdisciplinary Program, Faculty of Arts, and the Advanced Studies Psychotherapy Program at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University and her work draws on her extensive research in psychology and philosophy. The prize money will fund a new project investigating the interaction between art and psychoanalysis, concentrating on the role of photography and visual imagery as diagnostic tools.
Heiman’s works ask the viewer seemingly simple questions: “What did you see?”, “What are you thinking?“, “What didn’t you see?”, “What’s on your mind?“. But the questions gain in complexity when juxtaposed against images that are original, found, or found and modified.
For the new project, Heiman will interview the creators of visual psychological tests and investigate aspects of photography—including portraiture, stereoscope, and World War I documentary imagery—that influenced and were influenced by such tests. Visit her website to learn more about this important Israeli artist.
Foto Friday – Miraculous Pomegranates
Filed under: design, Environment, Food, Foto Friday, General, health, History and Culture, Holidays, Medical Breakthroughs, Picture of the Week, Religion, Technology
It was at about 9:30 last night when I spilled the pomegranate seeds on the floor. While picking them up, one by one, I reflected first on the story of Demeter and Persephone, then on the fact that some Jewish schoolchildren are taught that there are 365 seeds in a pomegranate (the number of days in the year) while others are taught that there are 613 (the number of mitzvot or good deeds), and finally (it took some time collect them all) about the long-standing Jewish relationship with the pomegranate as a symbol of fertility and plenty. Well, it has a lot of seeds so you can see why that might be.
© Пётр Рогов
It’s hard to say where Judaism’s connection to this beautiful and fascinating fruit begins; some scholars believe is was the pomegranate, not the apple, that got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden. It is mentioned often in the Bible both as a fruitand as a symbol and is one with the Seven Species celebrated at Sukkot.
© RomKri
What is for certain is that the pomegranate has been in this region for thousands of years. According to the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) site, “The pomegranate is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times.” The pomegranate features prominently in this mosaic fruit basket from the Nabatean city of Mamshit.
Photo: Pikiwiki
Also from CRFG: “The pomegranate widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies and tropical Africa, and was introduced into California by Spanish settlers in 1769.” In those days, pomegranates and their juice were valued as much for their medicinal properties as for their beauty, but in modern times they were for decades nothing more than a martini mixer or an exotic decorative item.
Photo: Pikiwiki
And then researchers like Dr. Ephraim Lansky, co-founder of Israel’s Rimonest came along, with proof — as reported by ISRAEL21c — of the pomegranate’s high anti-oxidant activity: “the stuff of potential anti-cancer therapies”.
Israel wasn’t the first country to produce pomegranates for commercial export but — as always — is an innovator. Israel was first, for example to give pomegranate juice an upgrade via wineries such as Azarad and Rimon, which produce varieties such as dessert wine, port style wine and dry wine, all the while touting the fruit’s antioxidant properties.
The rise in global interest for all things Punica granatum has resulted Israel’s doubling its pomegranate growing capacity, and the establishment of companies like Pomeg-Tech that provide expertise to those wishing to get into the pomegranate growing game. Here, in case you’ve never seen it, is a picture of the fruit’s flower:
Photo: Lior Almagor, Frommycamera.com
And Israeli pomegranate innovations don’t stop there: Shoham, inventors of a new gadget, the ART – Arils Removal Tool (that’s a pomegranate seed plucker to you and me), were recently awarded the 2010 Innovation Award at Fruit Logistica Berlin, one of the major events in the fresh produce industry. Here’s a picture of the happy Shoham team. An instructional video can be found on their website – and while it can’t prevent you from dropping the finished product on the floor, I can vouch that the ART actually does the job.
Foto Friday – Sound the Shofar
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Pop Culture, Religion, Travel
Is the shofar — the ram’s horn instrument sounded in the Jewish High Holy Day ceremonies — an ancient form of vuvuzela? Is the vuvuzela a shofar? This question has been plaguing Jewish football (that’s soccer to us Yanks) fans and non-fans alike since we first heard the annoying but compelling buzz during the World Cup Finals this past summer.
The issue’s been discussed roundly by writers at The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Post, and of course, the authoritative Vuvuzela South Africa blog, as well as by rabbis and church clergy alike, to no obvious conclusion (except that the vuvuzela is annoying but here to stay).
Photo by Zoltan Kluger, National Photo Archive of the State of Israel
Image left: shofar; right: Shofar by Alphonse Lévy. All courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The shofar is mentioned frequently in the Bible, most famously in the Book of Joshua , but one of the earliest depictions we have also comes from Jericho: a 6th century synagogue mosaic floor.
They say that the Yemenite Jews procured their shofarim from the horn of the African Kudu, with its dramatic twists and exaggerated size. But this photo from the 1930s of a Yemenite Jew would prove otherwise.
Photo by Matson Photo Service. The G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Nonetheless, this style of exotic shofar has become extremely popular. Once they were quite unusual but nowadays you can buy them in bulk — likely made of more common stock like the local Nubian Ibex or mountain goat — in the open market.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
There’s no doubt that there’s something extremely macho about this type of shofar… we’ll just leave it at that.
Photo by Martin Kozák, Wikimedia Commons
The shofar may not be sounded on Shabbat, because blowing it might be construed as work. So we won’t get to hear its call till sundown tomorrow. At that time, the Yom Kippur fast will be broken and we’ll truly be able to begin our New Year.
Foto Friday – 9/11 Living Memorial
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Picture of the Week, Politics, War
With the somber anniversary of 9/11 approaching, it is fitting to call attention to Jerusalem memorial erected to mark the event and its fallen.
The memorial is literally off the beaten path, situated outside Jerusalem on a road that isn’t yet completed or well-marked. You basically get off Highway 1 at Motza, start heading towards Mevasseret Zion and then veer off on an unpaved road towards Emek HaArazim. A short drive brings visitors to the JNF-KKL Arazim Park and the Bronka Stavsky Rabin Weintraub Living Memorial Plaza.
© Pes & Lev, JerusalemShots
The 30-foot bronze sculpture by artist Eliezer Weisshoff represents an American flag that gradually turns into a memorial flame. It rests on a base of granite brought over from the Twin Towers and is the only memorial site outside New York on which are engraved the names of all those killed. The sculpture was created with the purpose of expressing the event simply and symbolically without the use of elements of destruction, loss and ruin.
Some more excellent images of the 9/11 Memorial by photographer Hanan Isachar are available on his website. And a video of last year’s dedication ceremony has been posted on the US Embassy Tel Aviv YouTube channel. Take a moment to watch and reflect.
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