Nobel Prize in chemistry shared by Israeli professor
(JNS.org) Arieh Warshel, an Israeli-American professor at the University of Southern California, will share the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work that made it possible “to map the mysterious ways of chemistry by using computers,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced.
Warshel shares the honor with Martin Karplus, a researcher at the University of Strasbourg and Harvard University, and Michael Levitt, who works at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
“The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton’s classical physics work side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics,” the Swedish academy said in a statement. “Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or.”
“In short, what we developed is a way which requires computers to look, to take the structure of the protein and then to eventually understand how exactly it does what it does,” Warshel told reporters.
Knesset members thwart anti-Israel move at Geneva meeting
(JNS.org) Members of Knesset Meir Sheetrit (Hatnuah) and Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) were able to thwart an anti-Israel initiative promoted by Palestinian representatives at a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva this week.
The Palestinians tried to insert an “emergency motion” into the agenda that called for all parliaments to boycott Israel and condemned settlement construction, Israel Hayom reported.
“Immediately after I landed in Geneva, I informed the heads of the organization that I had no intention of participating in meetings with Palestinian representatives unless they changed their intentions,” said Sheetrit. “The proposal that they put forward for the agenda hurts peace efforts and negotiations. Together with MK Lavie, I worked with all my might, and the Palestinians said today that they were pulling the motion.”
Iran appointment to U.N. disarmament committee slammed by Israel
(JNS.org) Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, compared the recent appointment of Iran to the U.N. First Committee on Disarmament and International Security to “appointing a drug lord CEO of a pharmaceutical company.”
“Iran’s appointment erodes the U.N.’s legitimacy and its ability to promote arms control and disarmament, as well as preserve global peace and security,” Prosor wrote in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, The Associated Press reported. “Rather than provide a global stage for Iran’s defiance and deception, the U.N. should shine a spotlight on the regime’s ongoing pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for terrorism across the globe.”
IDF chief: Next war will see missiles fall on Tel Aviv
(JNS.org) Israel’s enemies will target Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv with long-range missiles to spark the next war, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said Tuesday, Israel Hayom reported.
Speaking at a conference at Bar-Ilan University, Gantz warned that Israel’s next conflict could start in a number of ways, including “a precision missile attack on the General Staff building at the heart of the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, or a cyberattack on a site providing essential services to Israelis. Stoplights would malfunction, banks would shut down.”
Rare 18th-century Haggadah discovered in garage could fetch six figures
(JNS.org) A rare 18th-century Passover Haggadah was discovered in the trash during a house clearance in the UK. The prayer book dates back to 1726, and its illustrations are hand painted on goat skin.
The manuscript arrived in the UK from Belgium with a family that was fleeing the Nazis. With an estimated value between 100,000 and half a million pounds, the book will go to auction next month.
“I think one of the fascinations of Haggadot is that illustrations often are not necessarily depicting what the Jew in Egypt would have looked like, but what the local Jew would have looked like… I very much hope it finds a very good home,” Rabbi Yehuda Brodie of Manchester, UK, told the BBC.
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