While we humans find food crops tasty, so do other animals like rodents. In the battle to control these pest populations, we’ve often resorted to pesticides; those chemicals, however, can do significant damage to the ecosystem as a whole. As an alternative, scientists and farmers are working together to promote natural methods of pest control.

Desert Pavement in the Rub’ al-Khali. Scale cube measures 1cm on a sidePhoto by Meteorite Recon on Wikimedia Commons. Used under Creative Commons License.

Newspapers, among them the New York Daily News, reported today based on a report on LiveScience that scientists in the Negev have discovered the Earth’s oldest surface. What’s that, [...]

Photo: SouthernPixel on Flickr, used under Creative Commons License

Cities around the country went dark today to celebrate Earth Hour and Earth Day. Beginning at 8 P.M., Tel Aviv landmarks cut their lights, followed by Jerusalem, Haifa, and Beer Sheva. Government officials took part in the efforts, which call attention to global warming and [...]

Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research.Photo: David Shankbone, on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Covering over half of Israel, the Negev can often seem like a rocky, hot desert. But there’s a lot more to the area than meets the eye, as we were reminded in this post from Shankblog. There are [...]

Still the Dead Sea. Photo: Israel Ministry of Tourism
As some of you may have guessed, IsRealli’s recent post on a plan to sell off naming rights to national landmarks was our post for April Fools’ Day. We should note, however, that almost everything in that story is real.
Just for starters: Israel does have [...]

The Sea of Love. Photo: Israel Ministry of Tourism

In a bold attempt to raise money for Israel’s growing green technology infrastructure, the State of Israel has decided to sell the naming rights of the Dead Sea to the Ahava cosmetics company. While the full details of the Ahava agreement weren’t made public immediately, [...]

Photo: Israel Ministry of Tourism

Israel’s water conservation efforts have drawn praise from experts at the 5th triennial World Water Forum in Istanbul this week. According to Haaretz, some of the heartening statistics include a high percentage of sewage water that is treated for reuse. The article notes that 70% rate of Israel’s sewage [...]

Photo: Getty Images

One of the most important fields of research these days is finding renewable forms of energy. Israel has been a leader in this field for many years, with many innovations especially in generating solar energy. So when the US Government wanted to find partners in alternative energy research, it figured Israel [...]

Photo:Almond Tree in BloomBy: Lourdes Cardenal on Wikimedia Commons, used under GNU license.

Israelis noted the minor holiday of TuBiShvat today in a number of interesting ways. For years, thousands of people would turn out to plant trees on this quasi Arbor Day, helping Israel end the 20th Century as the only country with [...]

Photo: Cafe Aroma, JerusalemBy ToastieIL on Wikimedia Commons. Used under Creative Commons license.