Where Behavior and Brain Intersect

TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY REVIEW
Summer 2010
The first-ever sighting of
a mushroom coral dining on
jellyfish was captured in this
intriguing photograph taken
by TAU PhD student Omri
Bronstein while investigating
the species on reefs off
the coast of Eilat. While corals
typically feed on plankton
and other microscopic organisms,
this was the first time
scientists have witnessed a
coral devouring an animal almost
its own size. According
to Bronstein, who is a student
of TAU marine biologist Prof.
Yossi Loya, incumbent of the Robert
Raynor Chair in Environmental
Conservation at the George S. Wise
Faculty of Life Sciences, the mushroom
coral took advantage of a seasonal
bloom of moon jellyfish to stock
up on valuable protein and gain an
edge over other coral life.
Bornstein believes that the corals
may be responding to changes in their
underwater climate due to global
More than
a Mouthful
for Predatory
Coral
warming. As an “indicator species,”
he notes, sensitive coral have been
among the first to die as the marine
environment heats up. They may be
fighting back by radically changing
their diets – to the dismay, perhaps,
of their jellyfish neighbors.
The images have been published on
the websites of the BBC, Discovery
Channel, National Geographic and
Popular Science, and as Picture of the
Month by Scientific American.
Keeping on Track
TAU joins international research project
to make train travel safer
Millions of people around the
world travel by train each day,
but this popular mode of transportation
may not be as safe as
it seems. According to Dr. Lev
Eppelbaum, Associate Professor at
the Department of Geophysics and
Planetary Sciences of the Raymond
and Beverly Sackler Faculty of
Exact Sciences, thousands of train
accidents are reported yearly. Many
of the more devastating ones are
caused by environmental factors
such as earthquakes, mudslides and
the collapse of tunnels.
Dr. Eppelbaum is working in collaboration
with European scientists
to provide comprehensive surveillance
of the geophysical environment
surrounding transit networks
and to predict potential dangers
ahead.
The international team is developing
a monitoring system that uses
electric, electromagnetic and optical
sensors. Dr. Eppelbaum says the sensors
will monitor three main dangers:
geodynamic activity which may herald
an earthquake; environmental indicators
of threats such as rock slides,
the development of underground
caves and water movement; and possible
terrorist activity such as the
presence of explosives along the train
tracks.
The system utilizes underground,
surface, satellite and geophysical observations
as well as measurements
obtained by unmanned aircraft technology.
The TAU team, for its part, is responsible
for developing advanced
algorithms for analyzing all the geophysical
data. They are developing a
system that can generate a comprehensive
report on the potential dangers
facing a particular railway line.
Several of the algorithms developed
by the team have proven successful in
processing the physical data.
The three-year project is being carried
out in cooperation with scientists
from Italy, France, Romania, Sweden,
Norway and England, and is funded
by a grant from the European Union’s
Seventh Framework Program.
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