A warning for an apocalyptic situation could result from the next earthquake to hit Israel in which millions of apartments and thousands of public buildings could collapse. According to the ACBI, a strong earthquake could lead to tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of homeless. Earthquakes have occurred in Israel on the average of once every 80 years in recent centuries.

In addition to the major Biblical earthquakes, two major earthquakes occurred in Israel during the last two centuries. The first earthquake, in January 1837, killed some 5,000 people, destroyed the city of Tzfat and damaged nearby Arab villages, while the second one, in July 1927, killed over 500 people, and caused heavy damage in Jericho, Shechem (Nablus), Jerusalem and Hevron. An earthquake centered in Lebanon was felt in Israel and Syria.

The relationship between the Jewish people and the tasty almond is traced back to the Torah. Almonds were among the produce of the Land of Israel presented by Jacob to the Egyptian Pharaoh via his sons in Genesis 43, when they went down to Egypt to buy food during the famine in Canaan.

When leadership roles were being clarified, the staff of Aaron sprouted almond buds to show that he was chosen by G-d in Numbers 17.  Jeremiah also was shown an almond branch by G-d in his first prophetic vision (Jeremiah 1). The beautifully-blossomed almond tree featured prominently in Israeli celebrations of Tu b’Shevat has a dark side.

Nectar of almond flowers contains 4-10 milligrams per litre of amygdalin, which yields the potent poison cyanide. While sweet almonds are safe for eating (though causing an allergic reaction in some people), wild bitter almonds also contain amounts of amygdalin and could be toxic, especially for young children.

A group of researchers at the Department of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Science Education at the University of Haifa-Oranim investigated why the almond tree produces poison, especially when the purpose of flower nectar is to attract bees, which will pollinate them. They discovered that the lethal substance is actually there to give the lushly-flowered tree an advantage over nearby competitors.

The research team exposed honey bees to plates of nectar that had varying concentrations of the toxin and a plate of nectar without the toxin. The team first monitored four different amygdalin concentrations in the range of the natural levels of toxin typically found in almond tree nectar. A second experiment monitored levels much higher than those found in the natural form. In all cases, the bees preferred nectar containing amygdalin over the amygdalin-free variety. While amygdalin is poisonous for mammals, it is not poisonous for insects, such as the honey bee. In fact, it may act as a stimulant which attracts them.

Another theory is that “expert” bees”, the ones who have been pollinating for some time – will have built up a tolerance to amygdalin, resulting in the arrival of only the most seasoned pollinators at the almond tree. There is a posibility that the nectar toxin prevents bacteria from harming the nectar and threatening the pollination of the tree. Honey made from these almond trees is known to have medicinal properties, such as natural anti-biotics

NASA’s new Kepler telescope and extensive new research from the competitive exoplanet field generated interest at the annual American Astronomical Society convention. Scientists are at “an incredible special place in history” and closer to answering a question that has dogged humanity since the beginning of civilization. Simon Worden, an astronomer who heads NASA’s Ames Research Center, stated there’s an optimism that each discovery involving so-called “exoplanets” – those outside our solar system – pointed to the same conclusion: Quiet planets like Earth where life could develop probably are plentiful, despite a violent universe of exploding stars, crushing black holes and colliding galaxies. Worden’s centre runs the Kepler telescope, which is making an intense planetary census of a small portion of the galaxy.

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which is a general instrument, Kepler is a specialized telescope just for planet-hunting. Its sole instrument is a light meter that measures the brightness of more than 100,000 stars simultaneously, watching for anything that causes a star to dim. That dimming is often a planet passing in front of the star. Any planet that could support life would need to be rocky rather than gaseous. And it would need to be in just the right location. Planets that are too close to their star will be too hot, and those too far away are too cold.

Planets are being found on almost a daily basis, thanks to the Kepler telescope. The number of discovered exoplanets is now well past 400. But none of those has the right components for life. Most of the early exoplanet candidates found by Kepler are turning out to be something other than a planet, such as another star crossing the telescope’s point of view, when double-and triple-checked. Kepler is concentrating on about one-four hundredth of the nighttime sky, scanning more than 100,000 stars, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand light years away. A light year is about 5.9 trillion miles. So such planets are too far to travel to, and they cannot be viewed directly like the planets in our solar system.

If there were an Earth-like body in the area Kepler is searching, the telescope would find it, but it can take three years to confirm a planet’s orbital path. What Kepler has confirmed so far keeps pointing to the idea that there are many other Earths. Before Kepler, those bodies were too small to be seen. But all those planets were too large and in the wrong place to be like Earth. When Kepler looked at 43,000 stars that are about the same size as our sun, it found that about two-thirds of them appeared to be as life-friendly and nonviolent as our nearest star.

Excited astronomers say they could find Earth-like planets in just a few years and state they are on the verge of finding NASA officials and other leading scientists state that within four or five years they should discover the first Earth-like planet where life could develop, or may have already. A planet close to the size of Earth could even be found sometime this year if preliminary hints from a new space telescope pan out. Planets like Earth orbiting other stars, a key step in determining if we are alone in the universe. A massive space telescope to scan Earth-like planets for oxygen, water, carbon dioxide – and even faint signs of industrial emissions from civilization – would cost about $5 billion. Once an Earth-like planet is found in the right place, determining if there are the ingredients for life there will pose another hurdle.

Even the Roman Catholic Church has held scientific conferences about the prospect of extraterrestrial life, including a meeting last November. The director of the Vatican Observatory, the Rev. Jose Funes stated these are big questions that reflect upon the meaning of the human race in the universe.

Further inforamtion can be found on the web: NASA’s Kepler Telescope: http://kepler.nasa.gov/ ; NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program: http://exep.jpl.nasa.gov/ ; The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia: http://www.exoplanet.eu/ ; and American Astronomical Society: http://aas.org/