Generosity and the spouse

December 17, 2011 - 8:26 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: education, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Science 

I’m reading the paper the other morning — yes, still read ‘a paper’, and saw an interesting piece about happy marriages and research from the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project. They studied the role of generosity in marriage and found that generosity — “the virtue of giving good things to one’s spouse freely and abundantly”, such as making coffee in the morning — is a major component in happy unions.

According to the article in the New York Times, “successful couples say or do at least five positive things for each negative interaction with their partner — not an easy feat.”

Interesting, right?

A little farther down — this is why it does pay to read until the end of an article — it mentioned that social scientists wonder whether this virtuous cycle extends to children. A study of three-year-old twins was mentioned, and the fact that it is being led by Ariel Knafo, the principal investigator and a psychologist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the study, the researchers have identified a genetic predisposition toward generosity that may be influenced by a parent’s behavior. Also interesting.

And, I realized, my twins have been part of this study, meeting with Knafo’s researchers several times over the last few years. You could say that makes them famous, but I’m thinking that I’d better be sure to be generous with their father/my husband. The apple, they say, does not fall far from the tree.

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Mothers and brain function

October 26, 2011 - 11:11 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: education, General, Life, Medical Breakthroughs 

A mom mouse and her pups

I’d had a sense that some kind of instinctive mothering call had been installed in my brain upon becoming a mother — and there are many who would agree — but now two Hebrew University researchers have proof, thanks to mice.

According to Dr. Adi Mizrahi and his post-doctoral colleague Dr. Lior Cohen, and based on research conducted on mice, neural changes integrating odors and sounds lie behind a mouse mother’s ability to recognize and respond to distress calls from her pups. In other words, those certain behaviors associated with motherhood are driven, at least in part, by alterations in brain function.

Mizrahi, who just had the findings published in the journal Neuron, commented that while the distinct brain changes linked with motherhood are known, it was the impact of those changes on sensory processing as well as the emergence of maternal behaviors that were unknown.

“In mice,” explained Mizrahi, “olfactory and auditory cues play a major role in the communication between a mother and her pups. Therefore, we hypothesized that there may be some interaction between olfactory and auditory processing so that pup odors might modulate the way pup calls are processed in the mother’s brain.”

The researchers exposed regular mice, mice that had experienced interaction with their pups, and lactating mother mice to pup odors, and then monitored both spontaneous and sound-evoked activity of neurons in the auditory cortex. The odors triggered dramatic changes in auditory processing only in the females that had interacted with pups, while the lactating mothers were the most sensitive to pup sounds. The olfactory-auditory integration appeared in lactating mothers shortly after they had given birth and had a particularly strong effect on the detection of pup distress calls.

Having been in the mother mouses’s situation, I’m commiserating. But it feels good to have science behind you.

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The new U.S. ambassador

July 20, 2011 - 6:45 AM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics 

So the new U.S. ambassador to Israel is a friend of a friend. That is, we have mutual friends, he just doesn’t know it yet. Daniel Shapiro, as he’s known, is the 18th U.S. ambassador to Israel, one of President Barack Obama’s closest Middle East confidants, and is active in the Washington, DC Jewish community, which is how I — sort of — know him.

In Washington, he was a member of the Conservative Adas Israel shul and sent his three kids to local day schools. The Adas Israel membership is one of our connections. The other is through Brandeis University, where another mutual friend introduced him to his wife. I found that one out through Facebook, where that mutual friend posted pictures of his swearing-in ceremony, during which his boss, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, alluded to his sophomore year spent at Hebrew University:

“At Hebrew University during the first intifada, Dan and his classmates spent many hours discussing how Israelis and Palestinians could one day live in peace, side-by-side,” she said. “Dan has seen firsthand that the status quo is unsustainable,” she said.

I don’t think we spent the same year together at Hebrew U., since he’s a tad younger than I, although it’s possible.

But what is worth considering is that mutual friends #1, who will be in Israel in August, and will be spending some time at my house, will also be hosted by the new U.S. ambassador and his family in their lovely Herzliya digs. Certainly a worthwhile invitation, considering the pool and great location.

So who knows? Maybe we’ll be receiving an invite ourselves, through the ever-narrowing degrees of separation. Me and the new U.S. ambassador to Israel? We’re like this.

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Save the trees

April 4, 2011 - 10:09 AM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: education, Environment, General, Life 

A 'troubled' Aleppo pine (Photo credit: Green Prophet)

When heavy rain follows days of sunny, summer-like weather, and you have limes growing all winter long as well as peach buds in early March, you gotta start wondering what’s really going on with global warming.

In fact, many tree species may become extinct due to climate change if action isn’t taken soon, according to research recently carried out at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The research showed that trees which disperse their seeds by wind, such as pines and maples, “will be unable to spread at a pace that can cope with expected climate changes.”

The research was conducted by Professor Ran Nathan, head of the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science at the Hebrew University; his student, Nir Horvitz; and researchers from abroad.

Professor Nathan explained that climate changes that can already be sensed already today and which are expected to continue in the next 50 years, include the increase of carbon dioxide concentration in the air and a reduction of surface wind speed in many areas. On the basis of earlier work, elevated concentration of carbon dioxide is expected to cause trees to produce many more seeds and to reach maturity earlier than under current conditions, hence speeding up their spread. On the other hand, the weakening of wind speed in certain areas should reduce spread rate of these trees. The balance between these opposing forces remained unknown.

“Our research indicates that the natural wind-driven spread of many species of trees will increase, but will occur at a significantly lower pace than that which will be required to cope with the changes in surface temperature,” said Prof. Nathan. “This will raise extinction risk of many tree populations because they will not be able to track the shift in their natural habitats which currently supply them with favorable conditions for establishment and reproduction. As a result, the composition of different tree species in future forests is expected to change and their areas might be reduced, the goods and services that these forests provide for man might be harmed, and wide-ranging steps will have to be taken to ensure seed dispersal in a controlled, directed manner.”

In Israel, the research results could affect various native tree species whose seeds are dispersed by the wind, such as Aleppo pine, Syrian maple and Syrian ash. Trees with wind-dispersed seeds are mainly common in forests of North America and Eurasia. The current research emphasizes the need to take action to insure the dispersal of the seeds of these trees within the next half century, in view of the expected climate changes. Professor Nathan comments that those responsible for forest management need to realize that nature alone won’t do the job, and that it will require human action to help minimize unexpected and detrimental effects to the world’s forests.

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Israel celebrates Oscar wins

March 1, 2011 - 9:20 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Movies, Pop Culture, Social Justice 

Students at the Bialik-Rogozin School in Tel Aviv.

Even though Israel didn’t have a film nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at this week’s Academy Awards in Los Angeles for the first time in a few years, our tiny country still made its presence felt at the Oscars.

Of course, Jerusalem’s native daughter Natalie Portman walked away with the Best Actress award for her role in Black Swan. Portman, who was born here in 1981 and returned to study at Hebrew University in 2004, was congratulated by Culture Minister Limor Livnat, who said that Portman “brought pride to Israel.”

And while, not as high-profile as that award, but no less satisfying, was the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short going to US filmmakers Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon for Strangers No More, about the children of foreign workers and refugees at Tel Aviv’s Bialik-Rogozin school.

Goodman told The Jerusalem Post she hopes that following the Oscar win, “the spotlight will shine on the school and the world will see it as an example of hope and tolerance.”

The 40-minute film tells the story of the school’s educators, in particular principal Keren Tal and teacher Smadar Moeres, and shows the day-to-day lives of three students; Johannes from Ethiopia, Esther from South Africa, and Mohammed from Darfur. The film was shot over the course of a school year and depicts the turmoil and heartbreak faced by the children en route to Israel, and how the school has become a sort of safe haven for them in Israel.

Located in south Tel Aviv, Bialik-Rogozin teaches more than 800 students from 48 countries around the world, all of them learning in classes taught in Hebrew, which serves as a sort of unifier for the children from scattered backgrounds. While the issue isn’t covered in the movie, the school has become very famous in Israel over the past year, because 120 of its students face possible deportation in the wake of a cabinet decision last July. Bialik-Rogozin’s 120 students are among the around 400 students nationwide who are slated to be deported.

The school put that aside on Monday morning, hosting a celebration for teachers, students, and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. Following his visit to the school Monday, Huldai issued a statement on Monday praising the film, saying “in a world of cynicism, alienation, and hatred, this movie proves in the most direct and convincing way that there is the chance for a better world.”

And President Shimon Peres called filmmaker Tal to tell her that Strangers No More had cast a beam of light on Israel’s humanity.

Not bad for a night on the red carpet.

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