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Protecting Our Planet
Plant Research at Weizmann: Food Security for a Growing World
E-News, July 2017
How Weizmann Institute scientists are advancing food security in an insecure era
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Exploring the Physical World
Lucky Break Leads to Controversial Supernova Discovery
Quanta Magazine
It was not a slow death — it lasted a few hours at most. The casualty was a star in a spiral galaxy some 160 million light-years away. Its core collapsed in on itself, triggering a supernova explosion as bright as 100 billion suns. On a cosmic scale, this star was rather ordinary, probably a red supergiant some 10 times more massive than our sun. But on October 6, 2013, when the light from the explosion finally reached Earth, its death made history. The glow from SN 2013fs, as it’s now called, hit the right robotic witness, and then astronomers caught a cosmically lucky break.
July 05, 2017
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Weizmann House Reopens to the Public
A water tank concealed below the eastern patio, cork insulation inside the walls, and a drainage system hidden in the columns of the pool – these are just a few of unique features uncovered as Weizmann House underwent an extensive restoration and conservation process over the past year. The house has now reopened to the public. More than 80 years after it was built, the house of the first president of the State of Israel – designed by Erich Mendelsohn, one of the giants of modern architecture – continues to garner interest around the world. In parallel with its reopening to the public, the international organization Iconic Houses chose to add Weizmann House to its ranks. This makes Weizmann House the first building in Israel to become a part of this network, joining such modern architectural wonders as Fallingwater, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; Vila Tugentdat of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; and another 150 houses around the world.
July 03, 2017
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Protecting Our Planet
The Dust Storm Microbiome
Israel is subjected to sand and dust storms from several directions: northeast from the Sahara, northwest from Saudi Arabia, and southwest from the desert regions of Syria. The airborne dust carried in these storms affects the health of people and ecosystems alike. New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science suggests that part of the effect might not be in the particles of dust but rather in bacteria that cling to them, traveling many kilometers in the air with the storms. Some of these bacteria might be pathogenic – harmful to us or the environment – and a few of them also carry genes for antibiotic resistance.
June 27, 2017
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Exploring the Physical World
A Possible Explanation for Why No Intermediate Sized Black Holes Have Been Found
Phys.org
A pair of researchers, one with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel the other with Princeton University in the U.S. has come up with a possible explanation for the inability of space scientists to find any intermediate-sized black holes. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, Tal Alexander and Ben Bar-Or offer an outline of current theories regarding how black holes in general are believed to develop, theories about the early universe, and finally, their ideas on how current theories may lead to an explanation for the dearth of intermediate sized black holes.
June 27, 2017
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Exploring the Physical World
Carbon Dating Undermines Biblical Narrative for Ancient Jerusalem Tower
The Times of Israel
A new Weizmann Institute study has discovered radiocarbon-dating evidence of the First Temple period under a tower in Jerusalem’s City of David that was previously dated to the Canaanite period. The findings, based on soil samples taken from under a seven-meter thick walled tower, shave nearly a thousand years from previous archaeological dating of the structure, which placed it c. 1700 BCE — and contradict a presumed biblical linkage to the site. Downhill from the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, the Gihon Spring guard tower was discovered in 2004 by archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron. Based on pottery and architectural signifiers, the heavily fortified structure — and the rest of the Spring Citadel protecting Jerusalem’s precious water source — were dated to Canaanite construction (Middle Bronze II period).
June 19, 2017
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Exploring the Physical World
Jerusalem Tower Younger than Thought
Science Tips
Gihon Spring, just downhill from the ancient city of Jerusalem, was crucial to the survival of its inhabitants, and archaeologists had uncovered the remains of a massive stone tower built to guard this vital water supply. Based on pottery and other regional findings, the archaeologists had originally assigned it a date of 1,700 BCE. But new research conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science provides conclusive evidence that the stones at the base of the tower were laid nearly 1,000 years later.
June 2017
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Exploring the Physical World
Jupiter, Revealed: Israeli Scientists Peer Beneath the Cloud Cover of Our Solar System’s Largest Planet
Science Tips
More than 400 years after Galileo turned his telescope toward the planet Jupiter, the clouds and mist covering this giant of our Solar System are beginning to disperse. Since 1973, no fewer than six spacecraft have flown by Jupiter. But the Juno probe, launched in 2011 and in orbit around the planet since July 2016, is the first one equipped with systems that are able to reveal the secrets of Jupiter’s inner structure beneath the thick clouds.
June 2017
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Advancing Technology
Algo-Vision: A Glimpse Into the Future
Mega
For humans, seeing really is believing. That’s probably because sight is the most sophisticated of all the senses. So sophisticated, in fact, that 40 per cent of our brain is devoted to processing visual data.
If scientists could find a way to create artificial seeing systems with human-like capabilities, it would represent a major technological breakthrough. Computers would be able to replace human eyes, both in the performance of labour-intensive tasks and in more complex processes such as identifying individual cancer cells among normal tissue. Such systems could even help visually-impaired people to “see.”June 2017