In today's news...

Do you find yourself to be a bit ethnocentric? I know it only perpetuates stereotypes to think that Jews are smarter than others of other religions BUT when one looks at the list of nobel prize winners one cannot help but think that perhaps there is something there (slap me- I know this is a horridly racist thought). As a religion Jews are the most literate group because it is a mitzvah to study torah and talmud- which one cannot do if one cannot read.

That being said, today, the Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded. One of the three winners, Ada Yonath whose work is on ribosomes, is an Israeli woman- the eighth Israeli to win a Nobel Prize and the fourth woman to be awarded the chemistry prize.

What other members of the tribe have won the Nobel prize? The Israel Science and Technology Homepage allows you to search the winners of the various science prizes. Here are the winners of the literature prize and the peace prize.

Today's art work is that of Deborah Michael Langsam and is entitled "Me'irah's Quilt: Study of Torah is Equal to Them All ." Deborah is the epitome of the Renaissance Woman and “circuitous” might be the word to describe Deborah’s path to art. The colors, shapes, and textures of fungal spores led her to a doctorate in botany from Duke University and a career as a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. After twenty two years her attraction to the visual and tactile took a different turn … this time in the direction of textiles. Deborah creates contemporary wall-hangings and fiber art wearables. Her wall-hangings combine traditional quilting techniques and fabrics with an array of unique materials — photo transfers, beads, and found objects — to form original contemporary designs that play with color, texture, and light.