About Us
Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the future of humanity.
Mar 20, 2019... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 20, 2019—A shot of espresso, a piece of chocolate, or a headstand – all of these have been recommended before taking a big test. The best advice, however, could be to take a deep breath. According to research conducted in the lab of Prof. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology, people who inhaled when presented with a visuospatial task were better at completing it than those who exhaled in the same situation. The results of the study, which were published in Nature Human Behavior, suggest that the olfactory system may have shaped the evolution of brain function far beyond the basic function of smelling.
Jan 04, 2011...
In his 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic in Colorado Springs, Bruce Monson, 43, has had his little fist-bumps with death: a burning roof collapsing on top of him, toxic fumes nearly suffocating him.
Yet far more terrifying than any personal threats are what Mr. Monson describes as the "bad kid calls," like the one from a mother who had put her 18-month-old son down in his crib right next to a window with a Venetian blind and its old-fashioned cord.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/can-you-learn-while-you-re-asleep/
Aug 28, 2012...
Research suggests basic forms of learning are possible while snoozing. iStockphoto.com
If you’re a student, you may have harbored the fantasy of learning lessons while you sleep. Who wouldn’t want to stick on a pair of headphones, grab some shut-eye with a lesson about, say, Chinese history playing in his ears — and wake up with newly acquired knowledge of the Ming Dynasty?
Sadly, it doesn’t work. The history lesson either keeps you from going to sleep, or it doesn’t — in which case you don’t learn it.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/brain-on-a-chip-reveals-how-the-brain-folds/
Feb 20, 2018...
Fluorescence images show the development of an organoid over days 3-11, in which the emergence of wrinkles is clearly seen
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—February 20, 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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/bats-remember-directions/
Jan 12, 2017...
Egyptian fruit bat. In a new issue of Science, Prof. Sarel et al. report on a new functional class of hippocampal neurons in bats, which encode the direction and distance to spatial goals – suggesting a novel neural mechanism for goal-directed navigation.
Navigating to a destination, whether you are a human or a bat, requires a complex set of calculations and interactions among brain cells. Weizmann Institute of Science researchers, working with bats, have now revealed the network of cells that encode the direction of one’s destination. Among other things, their findings may help explain how memory loss and “getting lost” tend to go together in Alzheimer’s patients.
Nov 23, 2012...
Light of all colors or wavelengths combines to form white light. Similarly, sounds of all different frequencies mix to produce white noise. A group of scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel decided to find out whether this phenomenon applied to smell as well.
The researchers discovered that a white odor does, in fact, exist. They described how they arrived at the indescribably bland scent, which they coined “olfactory white,” in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 19.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/the-brain-s-rejuvenating-cells/
Jun 08, 2017... Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease manifested by various neuronal pathological processes and a significant decline in brain function. Aggregates of beta-amyloid protein (“plaques”) accumulate within and between brain cells. Due to both structural changes and the weakening of chemical communication pathways, the junctions of neuronal networks (synapses) are lost. In addition, the cytoskeletal proteins of the axons lose their normal structure, impairing their function and causing massive neuronal death.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/memory-machine/
Aug 16, 2007... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—August 16, 2007—What happens in our brains when we learn and remember? Are memories recorded in a stable physical change, like writing an inscription permanently on a clay tablet? Prof. Yadin Dudai, Head of the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department, and his colleagues are challenging that view. They recently discovered that the process of storing long-term memories is much more dynamic, involving a miniature molecular machine that must run constantly to keep memories going. They also found that jamming the machine briefly can erase long-term memories. Their findings, which appear today in the journal Science, may pave the way to future treatments for memory problems.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/an-end-to-the-winter-blues/
Mar 09, 2015...
Are you feeling down? Want to sleep more than usual? Is spending your evenings at home in front of the television with comfort food more appealing than going out with friends? If so, you – like 11 million other Americans – may be suffering from the winter blues.
Also aptly called SAD – for seasonal affective disorder – winter depression is thought to be linked to lack of sunlight; thus, existing treatments include sitting under a special type of lamp that mimics the sun’s rays. However, this therapy does not help vast numbers of sufferers. And even if you don’t have SAD yourself, odds are you know someone who does. The disorder tends to run in families, with women four times more likely to have it than men.
Sep 23, 2019...
JERUSALEM, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) – Israeli and U.S. researchers found that glioblastoma brain cancer cells come in four states and can transition from one state to another, the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in central Israel reported on Monday.
The study, published in the journal Cell, was led by researchers from WIS, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.
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