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Pure Escapism

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

The new Escape Room Project provides a creative way of making learning more fun

University exams are not the easiest time for students. The pressure leads to thoughts of escape – to anywhere except the test itself. TAU has now taken the concept of “escape” one step further through the Escape Room Project, a physical space that provides a hands-on and alternative way of learning complex course material.  

Escape rooms have become increasingly popular over the last decade. Groups sign up to be locked in a room and are timed on how fast they can solve puzzles, usually following a story line, that will allow them to “escape” the room and complete the game. This interactive format and team based problem-solving is exactly what appealed to TAU educators who are always searching for creative ways of making learning more fun.

The Project is run by Minducate, a collaboration between the Sagol School of Neuroscience and TAU Online— Innovative Learning Center. Last year the Project piloted three escape rooms based on four academic courses with some 250 students and staff taking part.  

From the mad hatter to the disappearing cat

This year the Project is operating an escape room called ChemX, which is based on a course in life sciences, as well as another called “Alice In Wonderland“ for courses in neurobiology, neurophysiology and neuro-anatomy.  

The escape rooms follow two fundamental design principles: they are content-rich and they pose a highly challenging riddle to the students. The game takes advantage of the whole space in the room to create a range of stimuli that work on both the mind and the senses. Student teams move from clue to clue by applying their course knowledge and when they finish – escape the room. They are then also better prepared to take the course exam.   

Guy Teichman, a PhD student at the Sagol School, describes the ChemX room narrative: “A crazy professor created a poison for which he has no antidote. His poor students, now ‘poisoned,’ must quickly find one.”

Guy stresses that the escape room is built to address complex issues that students had problems with during their studies. “In the escape room, abstract concepts become tangible, providing an additional level of understanding of the material,” he says.

The Head of the Project, Dr. Limor Radoszkowicz of Minducate, says that the project has been extremely popular with students and that registration for the slots filled up almost immediately upon opening. She stresses that the escape rooms were designed jointly by academic staff and students.

TAU-led team discovers new way black holes are “fed”

Written by AUFTAU on . Posted in Newsroom.

These “giant monsters” were observed suddenly devouring gas in their surroundings

Supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions times more than our sun and lie at the center of most galaxies. A supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun is situated in the heart of our very own Milky Way.

Despite how commonplace supermassive black holes are, it remains unclear how they grow to such enormous proportions. Some black holes constantly swallow gas in their surroundings, some suddenly swallow whole stars. But neither theory independently explains how supermassive black holes can “switch on” so unexpectedly and keep growing so fast for a long period.

A new Tel Aviv University-led study published today in Nature Astronomy finds that some supermassive black holes are triggered to grow, suddenly devouring a large amount of gas in their surroundings.

Following the light

In February 2017, the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae discovered an event known as AT 2017bgt. This event was initially believed to be a “star swallowing” event, or a “tidal disruption” event, because the radiation emitted around the black hole grew more than 50 times brighter than what had been observed in 2004.

However, after extensive observations using a multitude of telescopes, a team of researchers led by Dr. Benny Trakhtenbrot and Dr. Iair Arcavi, both of TAU’s Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, concluded that AT 2017bgt represented a new way of “feeding” black holes.

“The sudden brightening of AT 2017bgt was reminiscent of a tidal disruption event,” says Dr. Trakhtenbrot. “But we quickly realized that this time there was something unusual. The first clue was an additional component of light, which had never been seen in tidal disruption events.”

Dr. Arcavi, who led the data collection, adds, “We followed this event for more than a year with telescopes on Earth and in space, and what we saw did not match anything we had seen before.”

The observations matched the theoretical predictions of another member of the research team, Prof. Hagai Netzer, also of Tel Aviv University.

“We had predicted back in the 1980s that a black hole swallowing gas from its surroundings could produce the elements of light seen here,” says Prof. Netzer. “This new result is the first time the process was seen in practice.”

Mysterious re-activation ​

Astronomers from the U.S., Chile, Poland and the U.K. took part in the observations and analysis effort, which used three different space telescopes, including the new NICER telescope installed on board the International Space Station.

One of the ultraviolet images obtained during the data acquisition frenzy turned out to be the millionth image taken by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory — an event celebrated by NASA, which operates this space mission.

The research team identified two additional recently reported events of black holes “switched on,” which share the same emission properties as AT 2017bgt. These three events form a new and tantalizing class of black hole re-activation.

“We are not yet sure about the cause of this dramatic and sudden enhancement in the black holes’ feeding rate,” concludes Dr. Trakhtenbrot. “There are many known ways to speed up the growth of giant black holes, but they typically happen during much longer timescales.”

“We hope to detect many more such events, and to follow them with several telescopes working in tandem,” says Dr. Arcavi. “This is the only way to complete our picture of black hole growth, to understand what speeds it up, and perhaps finally solve the mystery of how these giant monsters form.”

TAU’s Ben Luria is one of the first Israeli Rhodes Scholars

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We talked to the Political Science major just before he flew to Oxford to begin his Master’s degree

What does former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner have in common with three Australian prime ministers, Bill Clinton and Ben Luria, a graduate of Political Science at Tel Aviv University? They all received the most prestigious scholarship in the academic world – the Rhodes Scholarship. Rhodes Sholars are considered “future leaders” and receive funding to study at Oxford University. The expectation is that in the future recipients will contribute to their societies and enter public life, although many have also been successful in the business world.

This year two Israelis received the Rhodes Scholarship, an honor not many Israeli students have recieved in the scholarship’s 116 year history. We are pleased to announce that this year one of them is a member of the TAU family – Ben Luria, who holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from Tel Aviv University. A moment before he packed up and went to England for two years, we asked him about his feelings and plans for the future, and also got a tip about his Spotify playlist.

Ben Luria

Ben Luria, recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship

Ben, in all honesty, did you think you’d get the scholarship when you applied?

I hoped, but I didn’t completely believe it. Seeing the high level of the scholarship required from the start, and then when I saw some of the other applicants and how impressive they were, I didn’t think I would be one of the recipients. Even in the introductory meetings with the selection committee and in the interviews themselves, I didn’t feel at any stage that I had it. But I brought my best self and my true self, my ideas and achievements but also my character, humor and honesty. Throughout the process, I made sure I was doing the best I could, and that helped to deal with my fears.

What does the scholarship mean to you? What will you be able to achieve with it that you haven’t been able to before?

Above all, it’s an amazing feeling that you know you were chosen for something like this. In my opinion, more than being a scholarship of academic ability, this is a leadership scholarship and it expresses confidence in my ability to bring about change in the future. The opportunity to study at an institution as esteemed as Oxford and to join such a distinguished family of influential Rhodes Scholars is a wonderful gift, and I hope to use the time there to learn and acquire tools that can serve me in the future and help promote change and social reform.

You were marked as a “future leader”. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Working for the society in which I live, in the hope of being in a position of influence and leadership. It can be on the public level but can also be through the third sector or social entrepreneurship. In any case, I hope and believe that my future will be directly related to contributing to my community.

Tell us a bit about your academic journey at Tel Aviv University.

At the university I studied for a Master’s degree in Security and Diplomacy at the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs. As part of one of my seminars, I was researched the struggle of the Persian Gulf countries against Iran and China-US relations, which is the continuation of a BA in Sociology and Communication at the Open University, which I began during high school.

Have you always been an outstanding student?

Not really. Although I wasn’t afraid of not graduating high school, as an opinionated person from elementary school to high school, I was suspended more than once. My parents have grown accustomed to receiving phone calls and summons from teachers. In fact, I wrote about it as part of the scholarship application. The house I grew up in was very free in its educational approach. It allowed me to delve deeper into my interests, in any way I saw fit. So in high school I found myself taking courses at the Open University out of personal interest.

What do you think studying the social sciences gives students?

I feel that social sciences allow us to understand the reality around us, a bit like unplugging from the matrix. The ideas you lean seep deep into your consciousness and give you the ability to analyze events from a much broader perspective: understanding trends in depth, understanding the social structures in which things take place, analyzing the behavior of the various players in the arena and their interests. Suddenly, news about a demonstration, a new agreement, a social phenomenon or a political turnaround take on deeper, even surprising, meanings. Aside from the fun of understanding the reality around you, I think it also makes us better and more active citizens.

Who are the lecturers at TAU who most influenced you?

In the program I studied there are lecturers from diverse backgrounds, each of whom brought with them a deep and unique knowledge of their field, along with great accessibility to students, which I believe is the key to true learning. I can mention and thank the head of the program, Prof. Ezer Gat, whose course on strategic thought was really profound, and Dr. Yoram Evron, who supported me in the study of China-US relations and helped me a lot thanks to his attempt to help me develop a new sphere of knowledge.

What’s one thing that you’ve gotten from your studies at TAU that will stay with for the rest of your life?

I see learning as a way to avoid freezing in place. The habit of constantly acquiring new knowledge and discovering areas that were foreign to you, and being in another framework besides the professional one, makes us better rounded people, in my eyes.

 What will you miss most when you’re abroad?

I believe I’ll try to keep the home atmosphere going. I really like to cook vegan food, do yoga and try to go to as many live shows as possible, and believe that at Oxford I’ll find all these things too. I will miss the warm weather and the sea, but my playlists on Spotify will certainly help you, and you’re welcome to follow me! I’m BenLur93 or Ben Luria.

Before we say goodbye – do you have a tip for first year students?

Maybe it’s obvious, but I think it’s important to be interested in your field of study and your chosen courses. Obviously you have to think about your professional future and earning potential, but when you find a field you’re already drawn to everything becomes simpler. I chose these two degrees according to a strong personal interest in these fields, and this is what made the learning experience so positive for me.

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