Did Jesus love dates? We may never know, but a BBC documentary short asks the question, spurred by the fruit of the Methuselah date tree, which was germinated from an ancient seed found dried in the food storage at Masada. Judean dates were apparently a renowned delicacy in the time of Jesus, and perhaps he…
(JTA) — Daniel Chamovitz, a Pennsylvania native and former dean at Tel Aviv University, will assume the presidency of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev on Jan. 1. He succeeds Rivka Carmi, the first woman to be appointed president of an Israeli university, who served three four-year terms. Chamovitz, who grew up in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, immigrated to Israel in…
The French Jewish biologist François Jacob, who died April 19 at age 92, braved imminent death to arrive at explanations of the essence of life. He was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in medicine, along with his co-workers Jacques Monod and André Lwoff, for a discovery that explained how, by using DNA and RNA, cells…
Rita Levi Montalcini, an Italian biologist who defied World War II fascist anti-Semitism and went on to win a Nobel Prize in medicine, died at the age of 103. Her niece told reporters that Levi Montalcini died quietly in her sleep on Sunday at her home in Rome. Tributes poured in from across the Italian…
When I met biologist Lynn Margulis, she spoke with such authority and passion, that I immediately dubbed her “Rabbi Lynn.” She would have laughed at that. At best, she thought of religion as a useful tribal activity of anthropoids, but one that could be superstitious and antithetical to the search for truth. When she heard…
100% of profits support our journalism
