AFHU News Spring 2023

PAGE 22
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
AFHU NEWS VOL. 30 PAGE 23
News & Updates
HEBREW UNIVERSITY AND META AI LAUNCH
JOINT AI PH.D. PROGRAM
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) School
of Engineering and Computer Science and Yissum,
HU’s technology transfer company, announced a
new research partnership with Meta AI.
Meta AI’s research advances state-of-the-art
artificial intelligence through fundamental and
applied research in open collaboration with the
community.
This partnership stems from Hebrew University’s
initiatives to strengthen the ties between
academia and the tech industry. Ph.D. students
who are accepted into the program will have
the opportunity to merge theory with actual
work experience, gain a better understanding of
emerging fields, and develop new technologies.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND CANAANITE COMB
WITH ‘FULL SENTENCE’
The alphabet was invented around 1800 BCE
and was used by the Canaanites and later by
most other languages in the world. Until recently,
no meaningful Canaanite inscriptions had been
discovered in Israel, save only two or three
occasional words. Now an amazing discovery
presents an entire sentence in Canaanite, dating
to about 1700 BCE. It is engraved on a small ivory
comb and includes a spell against lice.
A team from HU and Southern Adventist University
in the United States, under the direction of
Professors Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel, and
Martin Klingbeil unearthed the comb at Tel Lachish
in Israel. The inscription was deciphered by Semitic
epigraphist Dr. Daniel Vainstub at Ben Gurion
University (BGU). The ivory was tested by HU Prof.
Rivka Rabinovich and BGU Prof. Yuval Goren and
was found to originate from an elephant tusk. Their
findings were published in the Jerusalem Journal
of Archaeology.
OLDEST EVIDENCE OF FIRE FOR COOKING
FOUND
Researchers from the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Bar-Ilan
University, in collaboration with the Steinhardt
Museum of Natural History, Oranim Academic
College, the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological
Research institution, the Natural History Museum
in London, and the Johannes Gutenberg University
in Mainz made a remarkable discovery.
A close analysis of the remains of a carp-like fish
found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological
site in Israel shows that the fish was cooked
roughly 780,000 years ago. Cooking is defined
as the ability to process food by controlling the
temperature at which it is heated and includes a
wide range of methods and until now, the earliest
evidence of cooking dates to approximately
170,000 years ago. The question of when early
man began using fire to cook food has been the
subject of much scientific discussion for over a
century. These findings shed new light on the
matter and were published in Nature Ecology and
Evolution.
FOLLOW-UP STUDY SHOWS SIGNIFICANT
DECLINE IN GLOBAL SPERM COUNTS
An international team led by Professor Hagai
Levine of Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s
Hadassah Braun School of Public Health, with Prof.
Shanna Swan at the Icahn School of Medicine,
Mount Sinai, New York, along with researchers
in Denmark, Brazil, Spain, Israel, and the U.S.,
published the first meta-analysis to demonstrate
declining sperm counts among men from South
and Central America, Asia, and Africa.
Alarmingly, this study also shows that the decline
in sperm counts in North America, Europe, and
Australia—reported by this team in 2017—has
continued and even accelerated in the 21st
century. Sperm count is not only an indicator of
human fertility; it also is an indicator of men’s
health, with low levels being associated with
an increased risk of chronic disease, testicular
cancer, and a decreased lifespan. The authors
say the decline reflects a global crisis related to
our modern environment and lifestyle, with broad
implications for the survival of the human species.
BIONIC TECHNOLOGY LEADS TO
BREAKTHROUGH IN ANTIBIOTIC SAFETY
Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health
concern with global implications. Antibioticresistant
infections affect over 2.8 million
individuals each year in the United States alone,
resulting in more than 35,000 annual deaths. New
resistance mechanisms constantly emerge and
spread globally, threatening our ability to treat
common infectious diseases, such as pneumonia,
tuberculosis, and sepsis.
Gentamicin is a commonly used antibiotic,
considered an essential medicine by the World
Health Organization (WHO). Antibiotics of this kind
(aminoglycosides) cause kidney damage in up to
25% of hospitalized patients using the medicine.
This is a major problem for more than 37 million
Americans estimated to suffer from chronic kidney
disease, according to the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC). In fact, the American Federal Drug
Administration (FDA) considers the development
of antibiotics for patients with chronic kidney
disease to be a national priority.
A group of researchers, led by Professor Yaakov
Nahmias, Director of the Grass Center for
Bioengineering at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, and founder of the biotechnology startup
Tissue Dynamics, found a new mechanism of
antibiotics-induced kidney damage, never previously
identified.“This is a dramatic demonstration
that bionic technology, which blends sensors
with human tissue, could rapidly propel drug
development forward,” shared Nahmias, whose
company Tissue Dynamics was recently selected
as one of the top five organ-on-chip companies
in the world.
MEDIEVAL REMAINS REVEAL ASHKENAZI
JEWS HAVE BECOME MORE GENETICALLY
SIMILAR OVER TIME
Excavating ancient DNA from teeth, an
international group of scientists peered into the
lives of a once-thriving medieval Ashkenazi Jewish
community in Erfurt, Germany. The findings,
shared recently in the journal Cell, show that the
Erfurt Jewish community was more genetically
diverse than modern-day Ashkenazi Jews.
About half of Jews today are identified as
Ashkenazi, meaning that they originate from Jews
living in Central or Eastern Europe. The term was
initially used to define a distinct cultural group of
Jews who settled in the 10th century in Germany’s
Rhineland. Despite much speculation, many
gaps exist in our understanding of their origins
and demographic upheavals during the second
millennium.
“Today, if you compare Ashkenazi Jews from
the United States and Israel, they’re very similar
genetically, almost like the same population
regardless of where they live,” shared geneticist
and co-author HU Professor Shai Carmi. But unlike
today’s genetic uniformity, it turns out that the
community was more diverse 600 years ago.
Digging into the ancient DNA of 33 Ashkenazi Jews
from medieval Erfurt, the team discovered that the
community can be categorized into what seems
like two groups. One relates more to individuals
from Middle Eastern populations and the other to
European populations, possibly including migrants
to Erfurt from the East. The findings suggest that
there were at least two genetically distinct groups