Made at room temperature - a first time achievement, the tubes exhibit unique electrical, optical and other properties, depending on their components, and as such, may form the basis for future nanosensors, catalysts and chemistry-on-a-chip systems.

The study, published in Angewandte Chemie, was performed by Prof. Israel Rubinstein, Dr. Alexander Vaskevich, postdoctoral associate Dr. Michal Lahav and doctoral student Tali Sehayek, all of the Institute’s Department of Materials and Interfaces.

“We were amazed when we discovered the beautifully formed tubes,” says Rubinstein. “The construction of nanotubes out of nanoparticles is unprecedented.

The new nanotube created at the WIS lacks the mechanical strength of carbon nanotubes. Its advantages lie instead in its use of nanoparticles as building blocks, which makes it possible to tailor the tube’s properties for diverse applications. The properties can be altered by choosing different types of nanoparticles or even a mixture, thus creating composite tubes. Moreover, the nanoparticle building blocks can serve as a scaffold for various add-ons, such as metallic, semiconducting or polymeric materials - thus further expanding the available properties.

The resulting tube is porous and has a high surface area, distinct optical properties and electrical conductivity. Collectively, the tubes’ unusual properties may enable the design of new catalysts as well as sensors capable of detecting diverse substances present in minuscule amounts.

A key feature of their success would be the ability, due to the tube’s room-temperature production, to add on biological molecules that would otherwise be destroyed by high production temperatures. These would then perform their natural function of recognizing other molecules in nature, in a key-fits-lock manner. Other tube applications might include lab-on-a-chip systems used in biotechnology, such as DNA chips that detect genetic mutations or evaluate drug performance. Yeda, the Institute's technology transfer arm, has filed a patent application for the tubes.

Nanotubes may soon join these preventive efforts. Prof. Daniel Wagner of the Institute’s Materials and Interfaces Department has found that the nanotubes (tiny, extremely tough tubes made of a web of carbon atoms) can be used to monitor mechanical stress in materials. His study, published in Applied Physics Letters, revealed that nanotubes offer a highly sensitive means of detecting material defects induced by stress, such as microscopic breaks or holes. Future applications based on this finding may use nanotubes as an early warning system of material fatigue in airplanes and other structures.

A new recruit to the Institute, Dr. Milko van der Boom of the Organic Chemistry Department, is working to create thin films with such desirable qualities as low weight and long-term thermostability. He is targeting an “all-organic” product, which he hopes will replace today’s inorganic materials. The rationale is simple. Organic films would be much easier to modify, offering far better, cheaper devices that could even be introduced into home appliances, revolutionizing the electronics industry.

The challenges of creating these films, however, are considerable - from effectively integrating organic molecules into thin films, to creating films that are thick enough to efficiently convey the light signal.

To address these challenges, Van der Boom and groups led by Prof. Tobin J. Marks and Prof. Pulak Dutta at Northwestern University have created a novel bottom-up growth method. The teams begin by producing custom-designed organic molecules, which they then integrate into the film, building it up layer by layer (each layer is only 2.5 nanometers thick).

They had to “trick” nature to do so, organizing the molecules in a novel arrangement in which the molecules are all aligned in one direction. “Nature prefers a random orientation,” says Van der Boom.

Another innovation is the introduction of polymers that help to organize the films, creating smoother materials. Using this approach, the teams have created highly organized films consisting of 100 layers - a marked improvement over the average 10-layer films achieved to date. The team has recently created the first prototype electro-optic modulators based on these films.

Roentgen had discovered X-rays. Within weeks, physicians were using these magical rays to see inside the human body and less than three months later, 14-year-old Eddie McCarthy of Massachusetts became the first person to have a broken bone set with their help. The new technology quickly found its way into scientific research, exploding into experimental significance following the 1912 development of X-ray crystallography, which offered a first-time look into the atomic-scale arrangement of crystals. Having exposed crystals to X-ray beams, the father-son team of Henry and Lawrence Bragg, found that the beams diffracted off the crystal’s atoms, and could be captured on film to disclose the crystal structure.

X-ray crystallography has since contributed to the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, drug development and far more. Today, sophisticated computational methods are applied to analyzing crystal diffraction patterns.

Crystal clear
Studies of how crystals form may weave together a web of unrelated fields, from those targeting semiconductor technologies, to studies of the origin of life, to the design of polymorphs - crystal formations of key importance in pharmacology.

The common denominator is size. To study these research challenges, Institute scientists apply X-rays to view as well as control the growth of crystals at the atomic level.

Profs. Meir Lahav and Leslie Leiserowitz of the Institute’s Materials and Interfaces Department pioneered the use of grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD) to analyze the structure of nanosized crystallites formed at the interface between air and water. The investigators are able to work out the exact structure of the crystals formed, according to the way the beam diffracts.

In their analyses, the team has yielded insights into a list of riddles, including how cholesterol crystals form in the body, causing heart disease and gallstones when in excess; the fundamental mechanisms of how water freezes; and the possible routes by which biological molecules such as proteins were first formed. The approach was developed in collaboration with a team of Danish physicists.

The team is currently studying how to control the design and growth of polymorphs - crystals that have different shapes despite being made from the same compound. Polymorphs are of keen interest to the pharmaceutical industry due to their potential influence on drug efficacy. For instance, penicillin crystallized into a form that easily dissolves in the body may be more potent than a penicillin drug packaged in a less soluble crystal. Polymorphs also feature prominently in the production of nanoscopic films used in semiconductors.

Based on principles of active sensing adopted widely in the animal kingdom, the multinational team is developing touch technologies, including a "whiskered" robotic rat. The whiskered robot will be able to quickly locate, identify and capture moving objects.

"The use of touch in the design of artificial intelligence systems has been largely overlooked, until now," said Professor Ehud Ahissar of the Weizmann Institute of Science and one of the researchers. "In nocturnal creatures, or those that inhabit poorly lit places, the use of touch is widely preferred to vision as a primary means of learning and receiving physical information about their surrounding environment."

Several groups of the international consortium are investigating ways in which rats use their whiskers to explore their environment and how the brain processes such information.

"If we succeed in understanding what makes an animal's sense of touch so efficient, we will be able to develop robots imitating this feature and put them to effective use," said Ahissar.

Based on principles of active sensing that are widely adopted in the animal kingdom, the multinational team is developing innovative touch technologies, including a “whiskered” robotic rat. The whiskered robot will be able to quickly locate, identify, and capture moving objects. “The use of touch in the design of artificial intelligence systems has been largely overlooked, until now,” says Prof. Ehud Ahissar of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Neurobiology Department, whose research team is one of the groups participating in the multinational project.

“In nocturnal creatures, or those that inhabit poorly lit places, the use of touch is widely preferred to vision as a primary means of learning and receiving physical information about their surrounding environment.” One such animal that employs this method is the rat. Several groups of the international consortium are investigating the ways in which rats use their bristly whiskers to explore their environment, and how their brains process such information. “If we succeed in understanding what makes an animal’s sense of touch so efficient, we will be able to develop robots imitating this feature, and put them to effective use.”

What is the whisker’s “secret”? Why is the sense of touch through a rat’s whiskers much more efficient than that of the average person’s fingertips? The consortium’s teams have provided some insights into these questions. One explanation concerns the way in which the sensory system works: Whiskers actively sweep back and forth repetitively, accumulating information about the surrounding environment. The sensing begins in the neurons at the whiskers’ bases, which then fire signals off to the brain. Moreover, experiments have shown that the way in which a rat uses its whiskers is context-dependent. The seemingly simple act of feeling out a three-dimensional object, for example, requires three different types of code, each encoding a different dimension — the horizontal, the vertical, and the radial (distance from the whisker base). The horizontal plane, for instance, is encoded in the precise timing of neural signals relative to the whisking motion. The vertical, i.e., the object height, is encoded by the vertical spacing of the whiskers, which are arranged grid-like on either side of the snout. The radial plane, on the other hand, is encoded in the number of times the neurons fire: The closer an object is to the rat’s snout, the higher the number of neuron-signaling spikes.

The consortium’s research also suggest that the signals travel from the whiskers through parallel pathways that function within parallel closed feedback loops, constantly monitoring the signals they receive and changing their responses accordingly. The researchers believe that it is the complex interactions between the feedback loops that are responsible for the rich and accurate control of movement, but at the same time, it poses an engineering challenge when trying to build artificial systems based on this concept.

“In order to investigate the role of feedback loops further,” says Prof. David Golomb of Ben Gurion University, Israel, whose research team is one of the groups participating in the multinational project, “consortium members will implement theoretical methods and calculations from theoretical physics and applied mathematics in order to develop and research models that describe the complicated neural processes that control active sensing.” The models are based on experimental observations, and are expected to be tested by experimental consortium teams.

Ahissar: “The aim of this research is to help gain a better understanding of the brain, on the one hand, and to advance technology on the other. That is to say, researchers can use robots as an experimental tool, by building a brain-like system, step-by-step, gaining insights into the workings of the brain’s inside components. With regard to technological applications, we suggest that it is the multiple closed feedback loops that are the key features giving biological systems an advantage over robotic systems. Therefore, implementing this biological knowledge will hopefully allow robotics researchers to build machines that are more efficient, which can be used in rescue missions, as well as search missions under conditions of restricted visibility.”

The BIOTACT project, which is funded primarily by the EC Seventh Research Framework Programme, includes participation by scientists from universities, research institutes, and high-tech companies from Britain, Israel, Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, and the U.S.

Prof. Yehiam Prior of the Institute’s Department of Chemical Physics is researching the detection of trace explosives with lasers and developing an innovative method to protect computer conversations from eavesdroppers.

Finding a needle in a haystack
The detection of materials employed in explosives is generally done by moving suspect particles from a given location, such as a person’s clothing, to a detector for analysis. For example, “puff machines,” which are installed in many airports, blow a puff of air across a traveler’s clothes and skin and into a machine. If the traveler has had any contact with a number of “red flag” substances, such molecules will be detected and identified.

Puff machines may be adequate for airport security purposes, but contact detection has limitations, says Prof. Prior.

“Puff machines identify molecules by their mass and the way in which they shatter into their fragments. This is fine for common explosives such as TNT, but it does not work for complex objects such as anthrax. Some compounds may be too similar to other compounds to make a distinction by weight only,” he explains.

Prof. Prior’s laboratory is also working on an innovative method that employs laser light to identify trace explosives. The technique is based on the principle that the reflection of light shined on molecules provides a unique “optical fingerprint” that computers can be trained to identify. Thanks to the special properties of lasers, detection can be done from afar, negating the need to bring a suspect molecule to a machine.

A fascinating aspect of this technology is that pulses of laser light can be shortened and manipulated to selectively excite individual bonds within a molecule before that molecule has a chance to redistribute its excitation within all degrees of freedom. The pulses are so short that they must be measured in “femtoseconds” – one millionth of a billionth of a second.

Using selective excitation by these ultrashort pulses, methods are being developed to identify minute amounts of a material – for example, 10 drops of a hazardous substance in a large lake.

When fully developed, one may envisage a remote sensing laser-based machine that will routinely and nonintrusively monitor crowds and identify people who have been in contact with hazardous substances.

Making computer communication more secure
The word “eavesdropping” conjures up images of listening in on a private telephone conversation from an extension phone in another room. But eavesdropping can easily be done on computer conversations: the message is simply diverted to another computer, read, and sent on its way without the user’s knowledge.

Weizmann scientists are striving to make communication more secure by preventing a message from being read without the knowledge of the intended recipient. One method is to scramble the message so that it is difficult to decipher without knowing the code.

In a good example of Weizmann’s complementary research, Prof. Prior is taking a different approach to this problem. In order to make it impossible to surreptitiously intercept a communication, he has tapped the principles of quantum mechanics by invoking the power of photons, which are massless particles. Single photons can be copied by a computer, but if they are prepared as entangled pairs, any manipulation of one of them can be undeniably traced.

“Photon-tapping is not possible if photon pairs are used, because the connection between the two photons is such that when one is detected the other one, which might be miles away, will tell the difference. Therefore, any conniving listener will leave a clear sign of the intrusion,” explains Prof. Prior.

These are just two examples of projects that will be tackled in the Nancy and Stephen Grand Research Center for Sensors and Security, which is being established at the Institute with a $5 million grant from Nancy and Stephen Grand. The interdisciplinary center will enable Weizmann physicists, chemists, and biologists to work together on useful technologies that make the world a safer place.

“In the next few years, we want to build on our significant strengths and establish several new research groups in these and related fields. This will enable us to develop new methods to win the confrontation between the bad guys and us,” says Prof. Prior.

“Rather than listening to the radio, I listen to my iPod because it’s my music,” he said. “There are no news or commercial interruptions, so I get to be in my own little world.”

Allen is among millions of users of Apple Computer iPods and other MP3 digital devices who depend on their tiny music players as a prime means of escape from the cares of the day.

Their numbers are growing. According to market tracker IDC, 171 million MP3 players will be shipped this year worldwide.

Easy To Get Absorbed

While people have been using portable music technology for decades - from transistor radios to Sony Walkmans - MP3 device users are more apt to become absorbed in their entertainment. That’s because they can play personally selected, high sound quality digitized music for hours, uninterrupted, with no need to flip a cassette tape or endure the ranting of some disc jockey.

Studies show that teens and young adults are spending the most time listening to their MP3 music. In a recent survey by the Harris Group, a Waterbury, Conn.-based market research firm, respondents from ages 13 to 19 said they have their MP3 devices on for four hours a day on average. Respondents in the 20-to-34 age group said their devices are on 2.7 hours a day.

With so much of the world’s population piping nonstop music into their ears for extended time periods, some critics wonder about the health and sociological impacts of these devices. They fear MP3 players are creating a population whose brains are overloaded on technology and out of touch with the rest of the world.

One neurobiology professor is singing a more positive tune. Rafael Malach of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science has published a study in the journal Neuron with a different take on iPods, video games and similar technologies.

His study found that when individuals are preoccupied with intense entertainment activities, part of the brain’s cerebral cortex shuts itself down for a while.

That, says Malach, is important because, rather than overloading our brains, these activities provide a release that helps the brain operate more efficiently, and better focus on tasks.

“Our results show that, when presented with a very demanding sensory task, the part of the brain involved in self-awareness shuts off,” said Malach, a visiting professor at New York University. “This is our brain’s attempt to optimize its process. At some point being conscious of yourself interferes with the learning. It can be better to let go and be absorbed by the task you’re trying to do rather than be aware of yourself and get distracted.” Malach adds that by letting the brain turn off the civilized aspects of ourselves, these technologies help create a state of escapism similar to that of Eastern meditation, a state one normally attains through discipline and study.

Marlene Goldman, a San Francisco yoga teacher, writer and radio DJ, enjoys her iPod and Eastern meditation. She doesn’t agree they have a similar effect on her brain.

Being ‘In The Moment’
“The iPod and meditation are both good tools, but they do different things for different reasons,” she said. “I meditate occasionally to quiet all the chatter, so I can get to the bigger picture. It’s kind of like brain surgery, delving into your mind to see what’s really going on.”

Like Allen, Goldman says she’s more apt to use her iPod to completely zone out.

“It’s as if my brain goes numb,” she said. “The iPod allows me to relax, but not to delve into my mind and focus the way meditation does.”

However one interprets the goals or effect of Eastern meditation, Malach sees contradictions in the findings of his study.

“Eastern and Western philosophies present two ways of looking at the world,” he said. “The Western perspective is often about somebody being in control. Eastern philosophy is more about being in the moment and letting go of the self.

“It’s ironic that this brain research involves a Western type of technology, but its results are more analogous to some Eastern philosophies, which emphasize shutting off the inner observer to truly experience reality.”

A synchrotron is a large, ring-shaped pipe in which electrons are accelerated to near-light speeds. As they whiz through the pipe, the electrons emit radiation, such as X rays. In research stations situated around the facility, scientists perform experiments using this radiation. Although the synchrotron is a sort of particle accelerator, such as those used in nuclear physics research, many scientists employ it as a giant microscope that allows them to observe things at the scale of molecules and atoms. SESAME will have five different beam lines, making it valuable for research in nanotechnology, atomic medicine, spectroscopy, atomic and molecular physics, archaeology, environmental science and more.

Structural biologists, for instance, rely on synchrotrons to unravel the three-dimensional structures of proteins - an essential step in understanding how they work as well as in creating new and better drugs. To solve a protein’s three-dimensional structure, scientists crystallize the protein and then bombard it with strong X-ray radiation. As the rays bounce off the crystal, they create a pattern that, after analysis, yields the structure of the protein molecule.

With a capacity of 2.5 GeV (2.5 billion electron volts) and an accelerator ring circumference of 125 meters, the synchrotron is mid-sized - smaller than the three giant synchrotrons in the U.S., Japan and France - but it will have boosters to up that capacity if needed.

The idea of a Middle Eastern synchrotron was first suggested by Prof. Herman Winick of the Stanford Linear Accelerator in Palo Alto, California. Winick recently received the New York Academy of Sciences Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights Award, in part for his work on SESAME. A number of Israeli scientists, including the Weizmann Institute’s Profs. Irit Sagi and Joel Sussman of the Structural Biology Department, have been actively involved in the project. Instead of flying five hours to Grenoble each time he or one of his colleagues wants to carry out an experiment, says Sussman, "I thought it would be good, when possible, to drive a few hours and be able to return home that evening or the next day."

The final green light for the project came in 1997, with the decision to close down the BESSY-1 accelerator in Germany. Rather than junk the old accelerator, it was agreed to fix it, upgrading the facility to meet the demands of modern, cutting-edge science; and thus the German government donated it to the Middle East project. Jordan was chosen as a "good place in the middle," and construction commenced in 1998. If all goes well, SESAME will begin operating in 2009.

Just as scientific cooperation between Germany and Israel in the 1960s helped pave the way to full political and economic ties, those involved in SESAME hope that their example can spur other types of regional cooperation. Already, the project is an exemplary model of cross-cultural participation. For instance, the synchrotron’s Italian technical director, Dr. Gaetano Vignola, works with a skilled team of Jordanians, Palestinians, Iranians, Moroccans and Turks. The head of the SESAME council is Prof. Herwig Schopper from Switzerland, and the scientific director, Prof. Khaled Toukan, is also Jordan’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Sagi is a member of the project’s international steering committee.

Participation in workshops has already led to the creation of a regional scientific network and an exchange program for students and young scientists that exposes promising Arab researchers to global science. Israel’s participation and investment in the project are seen in a positive light by the other partners. Chaim Weizmann, the first President of the State of Israel and of the Weizmann Institute, had a vision over 50 years ago that science could play an important role in bringing peace to the region. SESAME may help to prove him right.

In one way, medicine hasn't changed much over the millennia: Doctors still wait for patients to feel sick before beginning treatment of an illness. Genomics promises to change that. By analyzing an individual's genetic makeup, physicians will be able to intervene early − and more precisely. "Generic treatments for certain diseases will be a thing of the past," says Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health. A malady can look the same in two patients, but be caused by a different series of physiological missteps, he explains. "Treatments will be tailored to your particular genomic background."

"NANO" IS THE NEW "CYBER." Attach the prefix to any word and it sounds like the future. Nano-enthusiasts predict a boggling array of micromanufacturers (such as the above plasma chamber for growing nanotubes). An experiment at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science last spring hinted at nanotech's most compelling use: medicine. Scientists created nano-size computers, says research team leader Ehud Shapiro, that "sense and diagnose molecular symptoms for two types of cancer and release a drug molecule upon diagnosis." The experiment took place in a test tube, but the goal is to send the nanocomputers coursing through the blood to hunt down harmful cells.

Will It Happen? Yes: Stem Cell Cures
While embryonic stem cell research is controversial, little stands in the way of treatments based on the pluripotential stem cells found in bone marrow. One day, they'll help regenerate not only bone and cartilage, but also damaged heart muscle.

Not So Fast: Human Cloning
Dolly the cloned sheep made headlines at birth − and again when, riddled with disease, she was euthanized at an early age. Fewer than 10 percent of cloned embryos survive, and most cloned animals die young, many of gross anatomical abnormalities or cancer. There have been claims of human cloning. Given the technique's record, let's hope they're not true.

DNA COMPUTERS
The smallest computers in the world aren't built, they're grown. A drop of water can hold a trillion strands of DNA, each carrying encoded data just like the rows of 0s and 1s in a silicon computer. A few years ago scientists actually solved a tough mathematical puzzle (dubbed the "traveling salesman" problem) using DNA. Researchers, including Weizmann's Shapiro, now say that DNA computing may find its destiny in medicine, as the basis for blood-borne computers.

1−EYE SCANS
Lasers will help analyze ocular tissue and fluids to detect chemical changes indicating illnesses such as diabetes. The technique, part of routine checkups, will reveal problems months earlier than blood tests once did.

2−SAFE TREATMENTS
Diagnosis of, say, skin cancer will flow from microbiopsies and analysis of a lesion's genetic material. Options may then include designer viruses and nanoparticles that won't harm healthy cells.

3−CARDIAC INTERVENTION
Instead of relying on broad-stroke heart drugs, doctors will target the precise metabolic pathways−which vary among patients−that can lead to blood vessel inflammation and high cholesterol.

4−REBORN JOINTS
Plastic and steel hip and knee replacements will be supplanted by autologous (self-to-self) tissue transplants.

The synthetic molecule has a structure similar to the soccerball-like clusters of carbon atoms called fullerenes, or buckyballs, named after R. Buckminster Fuller, architect of the geodesic dome. Fullerenes were discovered in the last decade when a U.S.-British team of scientists noted that, under certain conditions, carbon atoms will cluster together to form a stable, hollow sphere. The discovery won the researchers the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Initially, it was believed that only carbon, or molecules containing carbon, exhibit this behavior. But in 1992, Tenne and his Institute colleagues succeeded in producing inorganic fullerene-like molecules from tungsten disulfide. Since then, several other inorganic buckyball compounds have been synthesized at the Institute and elsewhere. To Tenne, the properties of the new, inert molecules seemed to have great potential for the development of a new generation of solid lubricants.

Why solid? Liquid lubricants, it turns out, are not appropriate for all environments. They freeze in the extreme cold of outer space and lose their effectiveness in a heated engine and in heavy-load transmission systems. Currently available solid lubricants, even ones made of tungsten or molybdenum disulfides, have drawbacks too.

"Existing solid lubricants contain crystallites, which are shaped like flat platelets and have chemically reactive edges," says Tenne. "In working conditions, they stick to machinery parts and undergo chemical reactions that lead them to decompose and rub off." The parts are then subject to grinding, substantially shortening the lifespan of the machinery.

The Weizmann tungsten disulfide buckyballs get "around" this problem. Being round and inert, they have no edges where the chemical reactions that make other lubricants stick can take place. Since machine parts just roll over them, they make reliable chemical ball-bearings. They wear better, too, because they are made up of many layers, like an onion. If the top layer wears off, the underlying layer continues the lubricating action. These balls are also larger than the carbon fullerenes, thus keeping the metal parts further separated and giving more bounce to resist mechanical pressure.

Tenne's next challenge was to produce the new material in the laboratory and test it under conditions simulating those prevailing in industry. The results that rolled in proved that this was definitely the right stuff. The new lubricant outperformed all existing solid lubricants, including normal tungsten disulfide and molybdenum disulfide. The synthetic buckyballs caused half the friction and only one-sixth as much wear.

The potential market for this new substance is tremendous. The automobile industry faces ever stricter environmental regulations that require it to reduce pollution and make engines and transmission systems more efficient. In general, earthbound enterprises are looking for ways to conserve resources and cut costs by making machinery last longer. In microelectronics, where minuscule transistors are produced under sterile conditions, solid lubricants are preferred over liquid ones because they cause no contamination of the electric circuitry. And in space, where commercial projects are proliferating, more and more equipment that can function in extreme temperatures will be required.

Currently, the Weizmann Institute laboratory can synthesize about a gram a day of inorganic buckyballs. To get this enterprise moving, it will be necessary to scale up the synthesis to at least a couple of hundred grams daily, a matter for smart engineering. Then a homogenous and stable emulsion of the solid particles in oil and cooling fluids must be formulated. And finally, extensive field tests have to be carried out to ascertain the stability of the lubricant in various environments. Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd., the Institute?s technology transfer arm, has filed patent applications for the new material. Interest in it is being expressed by industrial companies around the world.

Tenne's team was made up of doctoral students Yishay Feldman and Moshe Homyonfer, Dr. Sidney Cohen of the Institute?s Chemical Services Unit and Dr. Lev Rapoport and other researchers from the Center for Technological Education in Holon.

Israel-born Shapiro, now on leave of absence from the Institute's Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Department, has made a hit with his Virtual Places software, which allows interaction on the World Wide Web part of the Internet. The program enables users to meet at any Web site, explore different sites together and discuss their findings, via computer.

At the Institute, Shapiro's major focus was programming languages and, particularly, logic programming, and he spent a decade participating in Japan's Fifth Generation Project to advance artificial intelligence. Virtual Places arose from that research.

Shapiro was quick to realize the potential of the Internet, the global computer network that has mushroomed exponentially this decade. In late 1993, he took official leave and obtained a license from Yeda Research & Development Co. ? which is responsible for the commercialization of Weizmann Institute research ? to set up a company, Ubique. In March last year, he launched Virtual Places at a computer trade fair. America Online, the giant computer services company, was impressed and offered to buy Ubique. Shapiro sold the company in September 1995, and now serves as Ubique's president, reporting to America Online executives. Ubique's Vice President, Avner Shafrir, and the development staff remain in Rehovot.

In April this year, America Online officially launched Virtual Places for open testing on the Web.