The Red Sea Reef Foundation (RSRF) has awarded research grants to five scientists from Israel and Jordan – including two from Bar-Ilan University — who are studying the Red Sea’s coral reef, one of the world’s largest marine refuges from climate change. Read More.

Eytan Stibbe, the second Israeli who will venture into space, visited Bar-Ilan University with the “Rakia” space mission team. On his space flight in early 2022, Stibbe will take with him an experiment from Bar-Ilan’s School of Optometry and Visual Science, which examines how changes in gravity affect vision. Read More.

The world is expected to continue living in the shadow of COVID-19 for much longer, but it is likely that the virus will not always have the overwhelming impact that it had for most of last year. JPost One-on-One weekly ‘Zoomcast’: Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman spoke to Prof. Cyrille Cohen, head of immunotherapy at Bar-Ilan University. Read More.

Although climate change will certainly bring warmer conditions, it will also bring greater shifts in global weather patterns – and the Red Sea may be cooling unlike other coral reef habitats around the world. This phenomenon led scientists from the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Science in Eilat and Bar-Ilan University to study the effects of cooling on corals in the Gulf of Aqaba. The researchers found that winters even 1°C cooler than the current average could be stressful for corals. Read More.

The accumulation of the amyloid-beta protein in the brain leads to the type of cognitive impairment observed in people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or Down Syndrome. A study conducted by Prof. Eitan Okun’s group at the Paul Feder Alzheimer’s Disease Research Laboratory in BIU’s Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center found that immunity transmitted from the mother to the fetus may lead to a significant reduction in the accumulation of the amyloid-beta protein and less damage. Read More.

BIU’s Azrieli Faculty of Medicine will open a Teddy Bear Hospital on Monday, May 3. The event aims to alleviate any pre-existing fears that children might have toward medical treatment. Children aged 3-7 are invited to bring a favorite teddy bear or doll and to ask questions about illness, injuries, or medical care. Azrieli Faculty students and doctors will talk to the children, suggest medical treatment for their dolls and teddy bears, and answer questions. The Teddy Bear Hospital is a popular community event held annually by the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee for children, their parents, and...

The mobile clinic of the School of Optometry and Vision Science in BIU’s Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences recently arrived in Beit Shemesh to perform vision tests at a nursing home as well as for local welfare recipients. The mobile clinic regularly goes out to the field, providing free vision tests mainly for residents of the periphery and underprivileged populations. Read More.

Israel is approaching herd immunity against corona, which has allowed the country to celebrate recent holidays and gradual rounds of openings without experiencing any new outbreaks, according to the head of the immunotherapy laboratory at Bar-Ilan University. “My opinion is that we are nearing the state of herd immunity,” said Prof. Cyrille Cohen. “Why do I say it? Because even after so many openings, and Purim, and Passover, the reproduction rate of the virus in Israel has remained between 0.7 and 0.8.” Read More.

Geoffrey Clarfield visited the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine in Tsfat, northern Israel and wrote about it in The Epoch Times. “Tsfat’s Azrieli Faculty of Medicine and upgraded Ziv Medical Center are thanks to the hard work and dedication of Bar-Ilan University, based in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. I wanted to know more, so I visited Noam Reshelbach, administrative head of the faculty,” he said in the article. Read More.

Bar-Ilan University’s central location in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area has put it on the map of the purple line of the new light rail (now under construction), with two stations that will facilitate the commute to campus. Read More.