The talk about children does not embarrass the Google people. On the contrary, it seems natural to them. Google's R&D center in Haifa, which opened just over a year ago in the industrial zone at the city's southern entrance, even looks a little like a children's room. Straight lines, simple design, white walls and couches in the familiar Google color scheme give these offices, where tomorrow's innovations are planned, the feel of a playroom. Just with a lot of wires.

Last year, Google world headquarters decided to open two research and development centers here, testimony to the country's technological power. The first opened in March 2006 in Haifa and is headed by Dr. Yoelle Maarek, and was followed by the Tel Aviv center, headed by Matias. Both have around 40 computer scientists working for them, but the plan is to hire another 100 or so scientists at both centers.

Maarek, a native of France, is considered a world expert in the study of information retrieval, on which Google's search engine is based. She worked previously at IBM headquarters, outside New York City, published dozens of articles on the subject and in 2005 organized the SIGIR (Special Interest Group for Information Retrieval) conference, which is considered a world leader in the field of search engines. Matias, a faculty member of Tel Aviv University's computer science department, has over 20 patents in his name and has published over 100 articles.

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With their knowledge and experience, they could have worked for NASA, or developed some kind of satellite to be launched into space, but the two are very happy with their jobs at Google, even though this search engine is used by a lot of people primarily to learn the latest gossip on Christina Aguilera or Shakira. "We're glad to bring enjoyment to children," says Maarek. "As far as I'm concerned, it's like being a cook. The happiest moment is seeing people enjoying the food. Is there anything better than that?" The visit to Google's research and development center in Haifa took place during the week when the Shochat Committee published its findings on the state of higher education in Israel, which dealt among other things with the country's brain drain. According to data presented by researchers from the Shalem Center to the Knesset's Science and Technology Committee in June 2006, the chance of a 30-40 year-old with a graduate degree or more leaving Israel is 15 times higher than the rate of those whose education ended at high school.

Data gathered by economist Dan Ben-David published in Haaretz last week indicate that Israel is a leader in the export of foreign researchers to the U.S., well ahead of South Korea, Canada, Australia and Taiwan (based on the number of foreign researchers at American universities per every 100,000 residents in the countries of their origin).

The most prominent reason for the brain drain is the gaps in salary and advancement between Israel and the world, principally the United States. Newspaper ads published in mid-July by senior academic faculty in Israel expressly stated that "the brain drain is the main result of the huge erosion in the salaries of academic faculty in recent years."

As part of the Shochat Committee's recommendations, it was proposed to increase the budget for higher education in Israel by around NIS 2.5 billion, and to offer an absorption package to entice outstanding scientists to return to Israel, which would include an increased salary for a limited period, coverage of housing expenses, increased research budgets and more.

"When I came back to Israel in the 1990s, after completing my studies," says Maarek, "it was considered the end to my career. My salary was a third of what I could have earned abroad and my chances of getting a promotion were a lot smaller. My work at Google today reduces the risk to my career." Six other computer scientists now working at Google's Haifa and Tel Aviv R&D centers, and who only recently decided to return to Israel, agreed with that sentiment. Fink, for example, who holds a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says unhesitatingly that his original plan was to take a job at Stanford University, in Palo Alto. In the past, he had worked abroad, but the job at Google has made it possible for him to remain in Israel. Alon Dekel completed undergraduate and graduate degrees abroad, and worked in Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. He worked at startups in Israel, but says, "my career was stuck. I wasn't managing to advance, I was always in overdraft." He left Israel, but five months ago returned to take a job in Haifa.

And why Israel? Nir Barlev, the product manager at the development center in Tel Aviv, says the greatest deliberation of Israelis abroad is when to come back. He is married to an Israeli and worked for two years at Google's California headquarters. "I wanted to come back to Israel, the question was just when and how." Matias notes that for most Israelis, the State of Israel is home. "Even when they're sitting there, there is an Israeli community, people try to create around themselves a community that will remind them as much as possible of Israel. They usually try to build a kind of little Israel wherever they may be."

Maarek is also not embarrassed to say the word "Zionism."

"Every one of the people here could be working abroad," she says. "They are here by choice. But Israel also means the atmosphere and it's also the social life. I worked in the U.S. for many years. I can tell you that I had a lot of friends there, but none of them were Americans."

Of course, having a job at Google, which many call the best company in the world to work for, helps. It's not just the salaries and stock options, but also company's famous food-and-drink facilities, which offer workers free repast. One of the company's rules is that no worker should be more than 50 meters from a source of food and drink. "It's good business," says Maarek, "It's not pampering the workers. If you choke the worker, treat him negatively and skimp on everything, that's also how he will treat you." During a visit of several hours at the center in Haifa, the amazingly comfortable massage chair was vacant, and a giant Playstation screen went unused. Occasionally, one worker would take the Segway for a refreshing spin down the corridors, but not more than that. "When they write articles about Google," says Nir Barlev, "they always stress the games and the conditions, as if all we did here all day was take it easy. But it's really incorrect. Our main enjoyment comes from the job."

One word often mentioned by the workers, in English is "impact." Matias says that working at Google in Israel enables a person "to live in Israel but to feel international." What he means is that every innovation of the company reaches millions of computer users all over the world. "I also worked in high-tech," says Barlev. "High-tech is a bummer. You can waste a few years of your life and not see any results. Financially speaking, you can work on development for a very long time and suddenly discover that there's no money. Even from a technological perspective, suddenly you realize that something's not working. You're kind of working with yourself. Here the impact is immediate, all over the world."

The impact is felt also within the society itself. The founders of Google are referred to by the first names only, Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin) as if everyone here meets with at least twice a day. The reason for this, explains Matias, is the level hierarchy in the company, which has no bosses and menial laborers. Everyone is supposed to be capable of doing everything: suggesting ideas, developing projects and programming and primarily, working as a team. "During the first week after a new person arrives, he presents 20 ideas and he always thinks they're amazing," says Maarek. "Then he discovers that 10 of them were already tried and failed, and that the other 10 are in various stages of development. But there are still so many other things to discover and innovate. We really are at the beginning of the road. Look, just recently I heard of a program that identifies rooftops of houses all over the world that have the shape of English letters. There's a program that is capable of sending words comprised of such rooftops. Just like they once sent threatening notes made from letters cut from all kinds of sources. I have no idea why this is a good thing. But it's really cool, isn't it?"