Friday, January 29, 2021
Winfield Myers on Holding "Politicized, Biased" Academia Accountable
Winfield Myers, director of Campus Watch at the Middle East Forum, spoke to participants in a December 18 Middle East Forum webinar (video) about Campus Watch's pivotal role in documenting the misuse of taxpayer funds and the questionable foreign funding sources of various Middle East studies centers at American universities.
A major focus of Campus Watch in 2020 was the widespread misuse of federal grants received by Middle East studies centers under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Title VI statute stipulates that these grants, usually in the neighborhood of $250,000-300,000 per year, be used for "the teaching of area studies and languages that will strengthen America's national security," said Myers. Instead, as Campus Watch research has shown, the monies are typically used to support "politicized, biased, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Western teaching, scholarship, conferences, travel, you name it, in a variety of ways."
Campus Watch has worked in tandem with Clifford Smith of MEF's Washington Project to hold academia accountable for long-overlooked abuses. Campus Watch documents proof of the abuses, which Smith brings to the attention of policymakers, congressional leaders, and others in Washington D.C. to see "what might be done to rein them in."
Campus Watch and the Washington Project organized a congressional letter-writing campaign requesting departmental investigations into various Middle East studies centers that were abusing their grants. These letters found a "sympathetic ear" among Secretary Betsy DeVos and other political appointees in the Department of Education (DoE) during the Trump administration, who began several investigations and completed one. In prior years, the DoE had "cozy relationships" with D.C.'s higher education lobby and various directors of Middle East studies centers. The latter, whom Myers dubbed "the higher education blob," pressed "for more money and less oversight," and largely got their way.
MEMRI: Arab Writers Slam Facebook And Twitter's Hypocrisy: They Block Trump, Yet Continue To Provide Platform For Terror Organizations
Facebook's and Twitter's suspension of former U.S. President's Donald Trump's accounts following the Washington DC riots on January 6, 2021 sparked criticism from Arab writers, who accused the networks of employing a double standard. Twitter and Facebook, they said, shut down Trump's accounts on the pretext of incitement to violence, yet at the same time they continue to provide a platform for numerous terror groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which call for murder and violence against innocent people.
January 9, 2021 Cartoon in Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sabi': Twitter and Facebook silence Trump on grounds of "public security," yet provide the "organizations of chaos and terror" with a platform on the grounds of "freedom of opinion"
The following are translated excerpts from some of the articles:
Akram Al-Qassas, acting editor of the Al-Yawm Al-Sabi' daily, which is affiliated with the Egyptian regime, wrote: "Twitter's decision to shut down the account of U.S. president Donald Trump constitutes a turning point in the practices of the social media networks [in general] and of Twitter in particular… Twitter's closing of [his] account on the pretext of incitement to violence marks a turning point, and one wonders whether Twitter will limit these rules to the U.S. alone or impose them on everyone - especially considering that Twitter is the social media network which in recent years has enabled the promotion of violence more than any other [network]. In fact, organizations like the Islamic State [ISIS] and Al-Qaeda had [Twitter] accounts on which they published statements inciting to violence, and even disseminated and marketed terror attacks. Cached Twitter accounts still include hundreds of videos in which terrorists incite terror, bombings and murder of Egyptian military personnel and police. Moreover, Twitter still provides a platform for people who call for violent demonstrations, incitement and murder, and for videos featuring religious rulings that accuse Egyptians of heresy and incite to murder them.
"[All this] may indicate that Twitter's sudden adoption of a policy opposing violence and terror applies only to the U.S., or that the [network] is employing a double standard: spreading [the messages of] terrorists and those who incite violence in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Europe, while preventing the same in the U.S. This seems to be motivated by some kind of fear by Twitter that it might be sued if it continues to allow Trump to tweet.
"Generally speaking, stopping Trump's tweets after he was accused of incitement to violence represent an important turning point, compelling all the countries in the world to apply these norms in the fight against terror and to block all accounts which call for violence and promote terror. There are hundreds of Twitter accounts… of armed organizations… which clearly incite against Egypt and other Arab countries.
"[But] it seems that the decision to suspend Trump's account is specific to him, and that Twitter will find it difficult to apply the same policy in all cases, for the network apparently profits, directly or indirectly, from fake accounts or accounts inciting violence or terror, so it will be reluctant to block them as it did with Trump."[1]
WATCH: Is the #Qatari government pushing a smear campaign against the world's most widely accepted definition of #antisemitism? pic.twitter.com/DXOyPLqnCj
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) January 29, 2021
This is FALSE.
— Middle East Fact Check (@MEFactCheck) January 28, 2021
What Edelstein really said:
"If it is the responsibility of the Israeli Health Minister to take care of the Palestinians what exactly is the responsibility of the Palestinian Health Minister? To take care of the dolphins in the Mediterranean?" https://t.co/NTPyHAgBlK pic.twitter.com/p7cTSGROze
So, Who Were the Khazars?
Neither the genetic ancestors of Ashkenazi Jewry nor a myth. Introducing the new ‘History Detective’ column.JLens places Illinois company on ‘Do Not Invest List’ due to BDS activity
“Khazaria” is our name for a polity in the Northern Caucasus and around the lower course of the Volga plus subject territories to the north and west that existed between the mid-seventh century until about 970 CE. As such, Khazaria was among the most long-lived of the steppe empires.
The term “Khazars” is misleading. Like the Mongol Empire, or Imperial Russia or USSR, and like Poland-Lithuania, the Khazar realm was a multiethnic entity. We don’t know the percentage of Eteo-Khazars (Khazars proper, members of the ruler’s own tribe) in the population of the realm, or who exactly they were. When we say “Khazars adopted Judaism,” we cannot be certain who we are talking about—the Khazars proper, or also the ethnic relatives of Alans, Volgan Tatars and Eastern Slavs. We simply don’t know and never will. Whoever tells you that he or she found “the Khazar gene” is a charlatan.
Early historians writing in Arabic anachronistically refer to the Khazars as enemies or allies of the late Sasanian kings; they simply projected the situation of their own days into the past and called the ancient western Turks by the contemporary name of “Khazars.” We know nothing about any actual Khazars till the second half of the seventh century when they first appear on the scene, destroying the polity of their neighbors and, possibly, blood relatives and linguistic brothers, the Bulgars.
The Khazar victory over the Bulgars prompted the dispersion of the Bulgars to places like Moesia (today’s Bulgaria); the territory of the present day Tatarstan; the gorges of the northern Caucasus, where Balqars, or Malqars, can be still found; and even to Hungary and to Rimini in Italy. The last case, anecdotally, is reminiscent of an episode of the end of WWII, when a pro-Nazi Cossack Stan was established in the vicinity of Rimini. Cossacks had a history of claiming to be Khazars’ descendants; the names of two peoples can be related and this author believes they definitely are—the names meant something like “freebooters” or “people who roam around.”
The prominent investment organization JLens that focuses on Jewish investments placed the Chicago-based multi-national investor company Morningstar on its “Do Not Invest List” because the firm supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.US professor who gave Nazi salute during video conference retires
JLens conducted an analysis of Morningstar and determined that, in 2020, Morningstar purchased the allegedly pro-BDS Sustainalytics, a Netherlands-based company that sells ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) research to support socially responsible investing. In 2019, Sustainalytics absorbed the GES International, a Swedish company that also implements ESG investment strategies, and advances the aims of BDS, according to JLens.
JLens said that “with over $100 million in assets established by Jewish institutional investors” it “will not own shares of Morningstar (MORN) until such time as JLens can determine the company no longer engages in nor profits from economic warfare activities against Israel. JLens does not offer an opinion as to whether the business activities of Morningstar are in violation of US anti-BDS laws.”
The State of Illinois, where Morningstar is located, passed a robust anti-BDS law in 2015. The law permits the Illinois Investment Policy Board to bar companies from the state’s pension portfolios if the firm is found to be enabling a boycott of the Jewish state. It is unclear if the state Investment agency plans to take punitive action against Morningstar.
JLens came out swinging and , according to its statement, “submitted a shareholder proposal for Morningstar’s annual meeting in May 2021 requesting the board prepare a report for investors on the risks associated with the economic activism against Israel in Morningstar’s business lines.”
Morningstar’s 2019 Annual Report states, “When it comes to investing, ESG is not political, it is practical.”
JLens said “Hopefully Morningstar’s board will heed their own guidance and ensure that discriminatory politically biased agendas have no place in Morningstar’s services going forward.”
An archaeology professor has retired from University of Pennsylvania after facing calls that he be fired for using a Nazi salute and greeting during a video conference in response to another attendee who wouldn’t let him speak.New York Times Writer Facing Iran-Agent Charges Will Serve as His Own Lawyer
Anthropology Department chair Kathleen Morrison announced in a short tweet Monday that Robert Schuyler would be leaving.
Confirmation of Schuyler’s retirement came in an addition to a January 13 statement from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that had condemned his behavior.
“As of January 25, 2021, Professor Schuyler has retired from our faculty,” was added to the end of the statement, which had earlier notified that his classes had been canceled.
“I’m pleased that current and future students and colleagues no longer have to deal with the hostile work environment that Schuyler was complicit in creating,” Liz Quinlan, a doctoral student who was the target of Schuyler’s gesture, told Science in a Tuesday report. “I am disappointed that he gets to skip any true accountability by moving directly to retirement, but I understand that this was one of the best-case scenarios,” given that Schuyler had tenure.
Schuyler, an associate professor of anthropology and associate curator-in-charge of the historical archaeology section at the Penn Museum, made the gesture during the annual Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) conference earlier this month.
The frequent New York Times opinion contributor facing federal criminal charges of serving as an unregistered foreign agent of Iran says he will serve as his own lawyer in the case.Nick Cannon’s Daytime Talk Show to Debut This Year Following Postponement Over His Antisemitic Comments
“I just informed the US government that I am going pro se as of today, let the chips fall where they may,” Kaveh Afrasiabi told the Algemeiner via email. “I intend to represent myself against these totally false allegations.”
The decision to forgo a defense lawyer with legal training may offer Afrasiabi a loophole in the conditions of his release. Under the terms of the release order by Magistrate Judge Jennifer Boal, the US District Court ordered Afrasiabi to have “no contact with any known, current and/or former members of the Iranian government unless in the presence of counsel.” If Afrasiabi serves as his own counsel, that could render the release condition essentially meaningless.
“I expect them to accord me all the rights and privileges of an attorney under the law,” Afrasiabi told the Algemeiner.
As for the Times, it has for now eliminated Afrasiabi as the middleman and published an opinion piece directly from Iran’s ambassador at the United Nations, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, rather than from Afrasiabi.
Nick Cannon’s daytime talk show will premiere later this year after initially being pushed off due to antisemitic comments he made in 2020, it was announced on Thursday.Jewish Agency Head Herzog Calls Out to European Leaders on Rising Antisemitism
Liongate’s Debmar-Mercury and Fox Television Stations said in a press release that a nationally syndicated daytime talk show hosted by the media personality will begin airing this fall.
The show was originally set to premiere in September 2020 but was postponed after he promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories on his podcast “Cannon’s Class” last summer, and slammed critics of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has referred to Jews as “termites.” He initially refused to apologize for his remarks, but days later took to social media to voice regret for his “hurtful and divisive words.” At the time he also demanded an apology from ViacomCBS, the media giant that ended its partnership with Cannon because of his antisemitic statements.
Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus, co-presidents of Debmar-Mercury, said about the new talk show, “We, along with our many other strong broadcast partners, are excited to be able to bring Nick’s unique, light-hearted and entertaining style to the daytime audience starting this fall.”
Isaac Herzog, chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, has called on European leaders to take decisive measures in combating antisemitism and vehemently counter repeated attempts at creating an unsafe and unwelcoming environment for European Jewish life.Montreal Borough Votes to Adopt IHRA Definition of Antisemitism in Wake of Synagogue Vandalism
In an address on Wednesday in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day as part of an event hosted by the European Jewish Association, Herzog noted that the Jewish Agency recently carried out research in partnership with the Institute for National Security Studies think tank, the results of which demonstrated that in a number of key European countries, extremist parties from all sides of the spectrum “are polluting the political and public discourse with antisemitic tropes and rhetoric, while traditional centrist parties are growing weaker.”
“Sadly, we found that 76 years after the Holocaust, there are a growing number of politicians in Europe who intentionally use antisemitic language and ideas for political gain,” he said. “And together with the rise in antisemitism, we are seeing increasingly blatant attempts to distort or deny the history of the Holocaust.”
He also referenced the recent ban on kosher slaughter in Belgium and similar attempts to ban circumcision taking place in Europe.
Herzog sent an urgent communication to European heads of state last month to speak out against legislation prohibiting kosher slaughter that was upheld by the European Court of Justice, which rejected an appeal brought by the Belgian Jewish community. Jewish leaders and communities are concerned that other European nations will adopt similar legislation, preventing Jews across Europe from living a traditional religious life as they have done on the continent for thousands of years.
Councillors in Montreal’s most populous borough voted on Wednesday to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, joining hundreds of civic organizations, city councils and national governments around the world who have already done the same.Jewish Boy Attacked by Assailant in Belgian City of Antwerp Days After Mayor’s Warning of ‘Wave of Antisemitism:’ Report
The motion to adopt the definition was agreed on at a meeting of councillors from Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough, which coincided with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Lionel Perez, the councillor who sponsored the motion, said that adopting the IHRA definition — which addresses both traditional expressions of antisemitism and the more recent mutations that are centered on enmity toward Zionism — was an important milestone.
“It will enable us to have a common understanding and definition of antisemitism, to be able to measure it, to be able to do awareness and education and to fight it,” Perez said, in remarks quoted by broadcaster CBC.
“The first thing you need to do to be able to fight something is to define it,” he argued.
Sue Montgomery, the borough’s mayor, emphasized the significance of adopting the definition on a day when the world commemorated Nazi atrocities against Jews and others during World War II.
Police in the Belgian city of Antwerp reportedly arrested a man on Wednesday night for physically assaulting a 13-year-old Haredi Jewish boy outside his home.MEMRI: U.S.-Based 'Internet Archive' Hosts Massive Amount Of Neo-Nazi, White Supremacist, And Holocaust Denial Propaganda – Serving As Major Resource For Recruitment And Radicalization
The assailant approached the boy on the corner of the Belgiëlei and Haringrodestraat streets in Antwerp, the Orthodox journal Hamodia reported. The paper said that the boy screamed when the assailant grabbed him by the throat, causing his father to immediately rush outside.
The attacker then turned his attention to the boy’s father, grabbing him by his peyos and pulling him down to the ground. At that point, members of the Antwerp Shmira Jewish community response team “engaged the attacker and neutralized him, restraining him until police arrived,” Hamodia said.
The attack came two days after Antwerp Mayor Bart De Wever asserted that the city’s large orthodox Jewish community risked a “wave of antisemitism” because of the alleged non-compliance with COVID-19 social distancing and testing requirements by many of its members.
De Wever’s remark caused offense to some in the Jewish community, who charged the mayor with singling out Jews alone.
“As a member of the community, I can no longer remain silent and am writing this letter to you,” Simon Stern — a member of the Antwerp community — declared in an open letter to De Wever.
“Our community is on average no less compliant with the measures than the rest of the population,” Stern pointed out.
Stern argued that De Wever’s references to “Jewish schools” and the city’s “Jewish quarter” were simply fueling the coronavirus-related antisemitism that has surfaced in Belgium and other European nations.
“Instead of participating in it yourself, you should condemn it decisively,” Stern told De Wever. “And you should certainly not blame the community for antisemitism. You are a wise politician and we expect better from you.”
II. MEMRI Calls On The Internet Archive To Remove Neo-Nazi, White Supremacist, And Other Hate Content, And Add Registration To Deter Uploading And Using ItFormer ADL Chief Foxman Criticizes ‘Hyped’ Polish-Language Edition of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’
As the following report clearly shows, hateful, inciting, and false content continues to be uploaded to the library that Kahle has built. The results for simple search terms like "Jews" and "Talmud" are full of antisemitic libel and dangerous misrepresentations of a cultural tradition and its historic realities. Even actual historical results for these terms often provide, at the bottom of the page of each item, additional suggestions for further reading that include Holocaust denial, antisemitic tracts, and other hate content.
Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are constantly uploading to, downloading from, and sharing links to historical Nazi content on the Internet Archive. This historical Nazi content includes copies of Der Sturmer, the virulently antisemitic Nazi-era newspaper that was a significant part of Nazi propaganda, and speeches and writings by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels – and it is being disseminated today in a way that would very much please Goebbels himself. Also found on the Internet Archive, and constantly being uploaded to it and shared from it, are classic antisemitic tracts such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in multiple languages.
The antisemitic conspiracy, anti-immigrant, anti-black, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, and Holocaust denial material hosted on the Internet archive include videos and writings by well-known and convicted Holocaust deniers such as David Irving, Robert Faurisson, and Ursula Haverbeck; content by violent neo-Nazi groups such as Atomwaffen Division and by other neo-Nazis, antisemites, and white supremacists, including the Ku Klux Klan and former KKK Grand Wizards David Duke and Don Black. All this is being used to spread their ideas, recruit new followers, and incite violent action.
The recent publication of a new Polish-language edition of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was sharply criticized by a prominent US Jewish leader and Holocaust survivor in an interview with a leading Polish news outlet on Wednesday.Germany’s commitment to Holocaust restitutions tested by case of rare violin
Abraham Foxman — the national director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) who survived the Holocaust in Poland as a child in hiding — told the Polish website Onet that publishing Hitler’s tract, written while the Nazi leader was imprisoned in Germany in 1925, was always a risky undertaking.
“This is a hateful book with an explosive nature,” Foxman said. “It should be published really sporadically and weighing all possible consequences, especially negative ones.”
The editor of the Polish edition insisted last week that its publication was intended to commemorate and respect the victims of the Nazis.
“According to the critics, the publication of this book is an offense to the victims of Nazism. In my view, it is the opposite,” Eugeniusz Krol, a historian who spent three years preparing the Polish edition, told the news agency AFP.
That argument cut little ice with Foxman, who dismissed the notion that its publisher intended to respect Hitler’s victims.
“As one of those victims who miraculously survived [thanks to] Bronisława Kurpi — a heroic Polish Catholic woman whose memory I will carry in my heart until the end of my days — I really ‘thank you’ for this kind of respect,” Foxman told interviewer Waldemar Piasecki.
Foxman also rejected the argument that the high cover price of the Polish edition meant that it would be purchased primarily by academic institutions, and not accessed by the wider public.
No one knows why Felix Hildesheimer, a Jewish dealer in music supplies, purchased a precious violin built by the Cremonese master Giuseppe Guarneri at a shop in Stuttgart, Germany, in January 1938. His own store had lost its non-Jewish customers because of Nazi boycotts, and his two daughters fled the country shortly afterward. His grandsons say it’s possible that Hildesheimer was hoping he could sell the violin in Australia, where he and his wife, Helene, planned to build a new life with their younger daughter.New Details Emerge About Israeli Astronaut’s Upcoming Space Mission
But the couple’s efforts to get an Australian visa failed and Hildesheimer killed himself in August 1939. More than 80 years later, his 300-year-old violin — valued at around $185,000 — is at the center of a dispute that is threatening to undermine Germany’s commitment to return objects looted by the Nazis.
The government’s Advisory Commission on the return of Nazi-looted cultural property determined in 2016 that the violin was almost certainly either sold by Hildesheimer under duress, or seized by the Nazis after his death. In its first case concerning a musical instrument, the panel recommended that the current holder, the Franz Hofmann and Sophie Hagemann Foundation, a music education organization, should pay the dealer’s grandsons compensation of 100,000 euros, around $121,000; in return, the foundation could keep the instrument, which it planned to lend to talented violin students.
An undated photo showing Felix Hildesheimer’s music store in Speyer, Germany. The store occupied the first floor of the building, and the Hildesheimers lived on the floors above.Credit...via David Sand
But the foundation is refusing to pay. After first saying it couldn’t raise the funds, it is now casting doubt on the committee’s ruling. In a Jan. 20 statement, the foundation said “current information” suggested that Hildesheimer was not forced to give up his business until 1939, instead of 1937, as previously thought. So, the statement added, “we should assume that the violin was sold as a retail product in his music shop.”
Last week, the Advisory Commission lost patience and issued a public statement aimed at raising pressure on the Hagemann Foundation to comply with its recommendation.
Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe and mission commander Michael López-Alegría will be joined by investor Larry Connor and philanthropist Mark Pathy when they blast off to the International Space Station as part of Axiom Space’s first manned private Low Earth Atmosphere mission, the company announced on Thursday.A novel idea: First-ever translation of an Israeli book to hit shelves in Morocco
The four astronauts will fly aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule with Connor in the pilot’s seat and Stibbe and Pathy serving as mission specialists when they take off for the mission, which has been pushed back from October 2021 to January 2022.
During the concluding events of Israeli Space Week, the Israel Space Agency and the Ramon Foundation announced that the name of the Israeli part of the mission would be “Rakia,” Hebrew for sky, which appears in the Bible during the description of the second day of creation where, according to Judaism, God separated the Earth from the waters and created the skies. The name was chosen by 60 percent of the people who voted in a Science and Technology Ministry online poll. The name of the overall mission will be Ax-1.
The name also has additional resonance with fallen Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who while in space wrote a diary, where he took a line from John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” and translated it into Hebrew as “Rakia.” Later his wife, Rona, published the fragments of the diary, which survived the 2003 Columbia crash tragedy, with the title “Above us only skies” or “Rakia.” They have been on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem since 2008, after forensic researchers restored pieces using technological methods similar to those used to recover the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“I want to encourage children to dream big and far,” Stibbe told crowds via a livestream “to work together, and by doing so bring our hearts closer to the cosmic bodies.”
He announced a competition for teachers, where he will choose four lesson plans that he will conduct in Hebrew from the ISS.
Peace through literature? For the first time, an Israeli novel has been translated for the Moroccan market.Israel-led team creates a ‘Google Map’ of brain RNA; may help Alzheimer’s fight
The acclaimed "A Girl in a Blue Shirt" by Gabriel Bensimhon, has been translated into literary Arabic for a Moroccan publisher, the Casablanca-based La Croisée des Chemins. The Arabic translation is already being sold on Amazon.
Originally published in Hebrew in 2013 by Yedioth Books, "A Girl in a Blue Shirt" tells the story of Yonatan Marciano, a teen who writes a diary about his family's arrival in Israel from Morocco. In Israel, Yonatan falls in love with Nurit, a native-born Israel who is in love with a man who survived the Holocaust. The novel takes place in the lower city of Haifa, an area known for social and ethnic clashes in the 1950s and 60s.
Bensimhon, an author, playwright, and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television, was born in Sefrou, Morocco, in 1938. He and his family made aliyah in 1947 on the ship Yehuda Halevi, the first illegal immigrant ship to embark from North Africa.
Speaking to Israel Hayom, Bensimhon says that the novel was translated into Arabic by Professor Muhammad al-Madlawi of Mohammed V University in Rabat, who has already translated some of Bensimhon's short stories for various Moroccan platforms.
An Israeli-led research team says it has created an unprecedented “molecular Google Map” of a brain’s memory center, in a first application of technology that may help in the fight against Alzheimer’s and other diseases.UAE, Morocco & Bahrain Activists Join Holocaust Remembrance Day for First Time
The breakthrough allows researchers to zoom in on RNA (ribonucleic acid) at nanoscale resolution without having to destroy the tissue to remove the RNA for analysis, giving a view of brain tissue that was hitherto out of doctors’ reach.
The ability to sequence RNA, a building block of life that uses the information from DNA to create proteins, has transformed biology and medicine. But when trying to analyze RNA from brain tissue that had been destroyed, doctors could only get a much less detailed view — like a list of cities instead of a map — creating a major barrier to research into diseases that affect brain function.
On Thursday night, a team from Bar Ilan University, Harvard and MIT published peer-reviewed research in the journal Science detailing how they managed to analyze and map out the hippocampus of a brain, its main memory center, without destroying the tissue.
The brain tissue they used came from a mouse, but they have also proved their method on various human tissues. The researchers say their technology could have benefits in treating diseases of the brain like Alzheimer’s, and others including cancer.
“It’s the equivalent of having a vast and detailed Google Map of the location of genes inside the brain, and other tissues, rather than a low-resolution image or a simple list of the genes that are there,” said Dr. Shahar Alon, the study’s lead author.
“This new method allows us to visualize and measure millions of RNA molecules within the tissue with nanoscale precision, without having to extract them as we did previously,” he told The Times of Israel. “We can zoom in, just like you can on Google Maps, and see the molecules very close up.”
The IDF welcomes US @CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr. to Israel.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 28, 2021
Together with IDF Chief of the General Staff LTG Aviv Kohavi, they planted an olive tree for Tu Bishvat and will hold a strategic situational assessment against emerging regional threats. 🇮🇱🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/i6lsqkuqB3
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