No, it's not a bug. It's micro robot -- less than a 20th of an inch in diameter and about one-half inch long -- that can crawl through the human body. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology "hope the robot will be able to travel through a blood vessel, the digestive tract or the lungs, delivering targeted medicines to specific locations, clearing blockages, performing biopsies, or placed inside a shunt to drain body fluids from clogged areas," says professor Moshe Shoham, who headed the research team.
If that fails, maybe researchers can program it to entice and kill roaches.
Tweet your prayers
Everyone seems to have a Twitter account these days, even the Western Wall. Can't make it to Jerusalem to place a note in that last remainder of the Second Temple? Just tweet it instead.
Twitter messages sent to @TheKotel will be printed out, cut to small notes and, as the press release states, "placed on the Wall (all this with respect to privacy)."
And, thanks to twitter.com/TheKotel, we also know that actor Zach Braff visited the Wall not long ago and that the Kotel gets an awful lot of e-mails from "Son of Nigeria Minister of Money."
Don't wish Kournikova 'mazel tov'
Tennis player Anna Kournikova didn't take too kindly to a "mazel tov" wish on her engagement last week, according to a Washington Times column.
In D.C. with the St. Louis Aces for a match against the Washington Kastles, Kournikova was asked about her engagement so singer Enrique Iglesias. When photographer Carrie Devorah wished her "mazel tov," the Russian Kournikova asked what the phrase meant.
Devorah reports, according to the Washington Times, that when she told Kournikova the phrase is a common Yiddish one meaning congratulations and good luck, the tennis player snapped, "I am not Jewish -- Can't you see my cross."
Apparently, Kournikova accepts only certain kinds of good wishes.
The Kastles' Jewish owner, Mark Ein, declined comment, telling the paper he hadn't heard the exchange.
Dead Sea still lives
The Dead Sea has advanced in an international competition to name the seven natural wonders of the world.
Voters in the global Natural Wonders Internet contest narrowed the list last week from 261 sites to 77. Twenty-eight will be chosen for the final round of online voting, to be announced on Tuesday.
The Dead Sea, which sits in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, almost didn't make it into the competition: Under the contest rules, if a nominated site is located in more than one country, each country must have a contest committee. The P.A. initially had refused to establish a committee due to the participation of an Israel municipal council that represents settlements.
Hamas: Israel wants our kids to have sex
A Hamas police spokesperson in the Gaza Strip is claiming that that Israeli intelligence operatives are attempting to "destroy" the young generation by distributing libido-increasing gum in Gaza, Ynet reports.
Gaza police got their hands on gum that increases sexual desire that, according to spokesperson Islam Shahwan, reaches merchants in Gaza by way of the border crossings. Shahwan tells Ynet that a Palestinian drug dealer admitted that he sold products that increase sex drive. The dealer said that he received the materials from Israeli sources by way of the Karni crossing.
As Uriel Heilman says on JTA's The Telegraph blog, "Now, explain to me again why Israel would want to give Palestinians more motivation to have sex and produce children?"
-- compiled with reports from JTA News and Features, The Jerusalem Post and other sources
