Following on from an earlier blog "Drumming on Heart Strings" telling a story about Aleh Hanegev, a village caring for the disabled http://haifadiarist.blogspot.com/2010/05/drumming-on-heart-strings.html , now comes a lovely story of the installation of a therapeutic Music Garden. a gift to Aleh Negev from Colin and Pamela Wagman and Allan and Carole Wagman, in memory of th
eir parents. 
The garden features instruments that are easily accessible to mobile and wheelchair bound residents from a variety of positions. A mix of sounds, colours, shapes and textures encourage sensory interaction, and the instruments can be played by a simple banging of the fist or sweep of the hands – perfect for people who have limited mobility but who nonetheless enjoy creating music just like the rest of us.
In the year since its dedication, the Musical Garden has proven to be a smashing success from a therapeutic perspective, and has earned ringing endorsements from the diverse population who make use of it every day. The sounds of music emanating from the garden have provided hours of enjoyment and benefit for the cognitively and physically disabled residents of the village, offering a relaxing environment that encourages contact with nature and the outdoor world, while also stimulating the senses of sight, hearing and touch.
Much more can be read at http://www.aleh.org/eng/news.asp?AID=397
An Israeli discovery allowing stem cells to be cultivated in quantities ample enough to meet the world's needs means that stem cell therapy could soon be within the reach of millions.
Mass-market manufacture of stem cells is closer than ever after a breakthrough by researchers from Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem's Hadassah University Medical Center has announced a breakthrough in methods for cultivating embryonic stem cells that enables the next step in the development of stem cell therapy, and the world has taken notice.
Citing medical breakthroughs in the scientific community can be irresponsible. Such announcements can raise expectations and false hopes for cures that are plausible only decades in the future, or even impossible to attain.
However, Hadassah's advance, as the scientists report in the prestigious journal Nature Biotechnology, takes stem cell researchers closer to realizing their dream of manufacturing mass market stem cell treatments for disorders such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes and age-related macular degeneration.
Lead researcher in the Hadassah study, Prof. Benjamin Reubinoff, director of the Hadassah Human Embryonic Stem Cells Research Center and an established and recognized researcher in the field, reports to ISRAEL21c that stem cell therapy applications are not just science fiction.
Within the next year or two, companies in the US and Hadassah's technology company in Israel will start clinical trials on humans. His center's advance - a novel technique that allows researchers to grow and cultivate embryonic cells in suspension - paves the way for making this therapy available to everyone, not just the rich.
See full story at http://tinyurl.com/28nnmv3
eir parents. 
