Space.com reports on recent findings from NASA’s Juno mission. Weizmann’s Prof. Yohai Kaspi made remarkable discoveries about Jupiter’s famous stripes.
March 07, 2018
The Jerusalem Post covers new gender research by Prof. Tali Kimchi, who has found a mechanism in the brain that helps determine gender attraction.
March 05, 2018
In just the past few years, understanding of the microbiome has transformed how we perceive diet and nutrition, and is already altering how we take care of ourselves. Weizmann Institute scientists from a range of disciplines – just some of which are immunology, neuroscience, biology, genetics, chemistry, machine learning, mathematics, and computer science – have led the way in microbiome research, regularly producing headline-making discoveries. Several of these researchers are also medical doctors, and their experience in working with patients helps move therapies more quickly from the lab to you.
The question of nature vs. nurture extends to our microbiome – the personal complement of mostly friendly bacteria we carry around with us. Study after study has found that our microbiome affects nearly every aspect of our health, and that the composition of our microbes, which varies from individual to individual, may hold the key to everything from weight gain to mood. Some microbiome researchers had suggested that this variation begins with differences in our genes, but a large-scale study conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science challenges this idea and provides evidence that the connection between microbiome and health may be even more important than we thought.
February 28, 2018
Environment plays a much greater role than host genetics in determining the composition of the human gut microbiome, according to a study published today (February 28) in Nature. And including microbiome characteristics when predicting people’s traits, such as cholesterol levels or obesity, makes those estimates more accurate than only personal history, such as diet, age, gender, and quality of life, the study finds.
February 28, 2018
From the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and beyond, curiosity about materials—both natural and man-made—has been a major driver of human progress. The Center for Advanced and Intelligent Materials (C-AIM), a new research initiative that will include a state-of-the-art building on campus, will bring together Weizmann scientists in a variety of fields to advance the materials of tomorrow. Profs. Leeor Kronik, Jacob Klein, Lia Addadi, David Cahen, and Oren Tal, and Dr. Michal Leskes discuss their groundbreaking research, which has important implications for medicine, energy, electronics, and more.
The Wall Street Journal reports on the promise and potential of DayTwo, a personalized-diet algorithm based on Weizmann research.
February 25, 2018
Being born with a “tabula rasa” – a clean slate – is, in the case of the brain, something of a curse. Our brains are already wrinkled like walnuts by the time we are born. Babies born without these wrinkles – called smooth brain syndrome – suffer from severe developmental deficiencies and their life expectancy is markedly reduced. The gene that causes this syndrome recently helped Weizmann Institute of Science researchers to probe the physical forces that cause the brain’s wrinkles to form. In their findings, reported in Nature Physics, the researchers describe a method they developed for growing tiny “brains on chips” from human cells that enabled them to track the physical and biological mechanisms underlying the wrinkling process.
February 20, 2018
China’s Global Times reports on a project, involving Weizmann astrophysicists, aimed at helping us understand potential living conditions on Mars.
February 20, 2018
