Israel

Israel's first attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon has ended in failure. At about 7:23 pm Israel time, interrupted communications and an engine malfunction aboard the unmanned Beresheet lander resulted in the craft crashing into the lunar surface.

Space history was made again today as the first private mission to the Moon lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. At 8:45 pm EST, Israel's Beresheet lunar lander was lofted into space atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it begins its two-month voyage.

Beer is generally thought to be about 7,000 years old, but now archaeologists have found clues that could date beer-making to almost twice that age, meaning it predates agriculture and represents the oldest record of man-made alcohol.

The Israeli Defence Force brings artificial intelligence to armored combat with the latest variant of its main battle tank​. The Merkava Mk 4 Barak is billed as the first tank to have an advanced AI and sensor system​ that takes over many routine tasks.

Israel has put in its bid to be the fourth nation to reach the Moon and the first privately-funded mission to do so. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the nonprofit SpaceIL today outlined plans to send up an unmanned spacecraft that will make a lunar landing on February 13, 2019.

The origin story for modern humans basically goes that Homo Sapiens first arose several hundred thousand years ago in Ethiopia, before migrating out of Africa about 100,000 years ago. Now, a jawbone discovered in a cave in Israel pushes back the date of our African exodus by at least 50,000 years.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are among the most important historical texts ever discovered, and for decades archeologists have been searching for more. Now, for the first time in 60 years, a new cave has been excavated that once contained more Dead Sea Scrolls. Sadly, looters got there first.

Archaeological evidence proves that the Bible wasn't making stuff up: Hezekiah meant business when he said he was cracking down on pagans.

Drones invariably require human intervention in one way or another as they can't carry on forever on their own. Or can they? An Israeli startup has developed an end-to-end autonomous system for 24/7 drone flight that uses a robotic arm to swap out flat batteries and get the aircraft back in the air.

You'd hope that a school of environmental studies would practice what it preaches. Well, Tel Aviv University's Porter School of Environmental Studies does so emphatically. Its newly inaugurated building is, it says, the first LEED Platinum-certified in Israel and the greenest in the Middle East.

Unveiled at the Eurosatory defense industry show in Paris, the “first-of-its-kind” Robotic Weapon System (RWS) from Israel-based Duke Airborne Systems is a concealable robotic gunnery module that allows utility helicopters to fly into hostile territory without an armed escort.

Instead of requiring the wholesale replacement of your existing watch, Modillian is a “smart strap” that turns a mechanical or "dumb" wristwatch into a smartwatch by pairing with Android smartphones via Bluetooth.