Category: Science and Health

Israeli Consul-General in Shanghai Eddie Shapira was held in a medical facility for 10 days, as part of China’s zero-COVID policy, he wrote on Facebook over the weekend. Shapira said the “conditions are reminiscent of a prison,” and that he experienced “the 10 most bizarre days that I could imagine.” The diplomat caught COVID-19 with […]

A woman with a nut allergy was in for a sickening surprise when she found out that the very allergy she’s lived with and grown accustomed to was to blame for some serious discomfort she had in her nether regions. The 28-year-old woman had a history of anaphylaxis caused by the presence of antibodies called […]

Just learning to play a musical instrument – and playing the piano – has a positive impact on the brain’s ability to process sights and sounds and can even help to lift a “blue” mood.  Music involves different senses and is emotional in nature, and musicians show enhanced detection of audio-visual temporal discrepancies and emotion […]

Every winter, seasonal varieties of diseases such as the flu arrive in Israel, creating many waves of illness. Right now it seems like many people are sick, with runny noses, deep coughs and a general bad feeling, and we might also get sick.  Yet some people easily get through the winter easily, and they don’t […]

A recommendation to drink eight glasses of water a day is one of the most recognized dietary recommendations and it even appears on the recommendations of government websites. However, a new and stringent study on water consumption, reveals that the amount of water that one needs to consume varies widely from person to person. Some […]

Israel entered the coronavirus crisis with the highest number of people dying from infectious disease per capita in the developed world – some 73% more than the No. 2 country, Greece, according to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report at the time. It also had the highest hospital occupancy rate of any […]

In winter the days get shorter and we have the sudden plunge into early darkness when the clocks change. There are some positives, like saving energy and making it easier for people to get up, but it has a negative effect on the mental state of many people and several studies have found that there’s […]

A 38-year-old woman from Qinzhou in southeastern China died after being infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, the first death due to the strain in China since 2015, Hong Kong’s Center for Health Protection announced on Wednesday. The woman developed symptoms on September 22 and passed away on October 18. Largest ever bird […]

The Bible offers many details about how Jewish holidays are to be celebrated and, in some cases, explanations for how they came about (the Exodus giving us Passover, the victory of Mordechai and Esther giving us Purim). But there’s one holiday missing entirely from the Hebrew scriptures: The story of Hanukkah is found nowhere in […]

My childhood classrooms were crammed with motivational posters, including a seemingly-ubiquitous image of an oversized lightbulb emblazoned with the words “Knowledge Is Power!” (Electric power specifically, I suppose.) Indeed, many parents and teachers are persuaded that a proper education will propel their children to a life of happiness and material comfort. It’s easy to slip […]