Environment

• An Israeli inventor has developed the world’s first cardboard bicycle from recycled materials. The bike is resistant to rain and sun, and costs around $9 each.

• Israel has the largest raptor migration in the world, with hundreds of thousands of African birds of prey crossing as they fan out into Asia.

• Israeli engineers and agriculturalists developed a revolutionary drip irrigation system to minimize the amount of water used to grow crops.

• An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California’s Mojave desert.

• An Israeli company is providing the technology behind an American all-electric bus for urban use.

• Some 500 million birds representing 300 species migrate across Israel’s skies twice a year in the autumn and spring along the Great Valley Rift.

• Israeli biologists have successfully managed, for the first time, to prepare the flowering of the “Madonna Lily” – a rare white Easter lily – in time for Easter.

• An Israeli company – Evogene – is developing cotton plants that are resistant to adverse salinity conditions and drought.

• An Israeli company has developed the world’s first jellyfish repellent.

• An Israeli two-flush system is saving Americans billions of gallons of water a year.

• Drinking water for visitors to Indiaís Taj Mahal has just got a great deal safer thanks to Israelís Aqwise, which will be purifying 150,000 cubes of water daily from the cityís nearby Yamuna River.

• A new IBM-Israel partnership is helping toward a goal of reducing California water usage by 20 percent by the year 2020.

• Israelís Univerve is breeding a strain of algae to fuel your car.

• Israel’s Etenergy can get 40 percent more power from the sun with lightweight solar energy trackers based on the principles of kite surfing.

• Israel is one of the leading countries in providing ornamental fish to aquariums around the world.

• NASA is interested in knowing what Israeli researchers can learn about conditions on Mars by studying the Negev desert.

• Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees.palm trees

• An Israeli company has developed a nano-lubricant that one day could mean the end of changing your car oil.