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.
Jan 05, 2017... Life in a Drop of Water: Prof. Assaf Vardi and Nivi Alroy on Oceanic Plants
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/let-it-rain/
Jan 01, 2012... Rain can be a blessing or a disaster. An hour of steady rainfall can water the roots of plants and percolate underground to replenish water supplies. If the same amount of water falls in a five-minute downpour, however, the results are more likely to be uprooted plants, runoff and even flooding. According to new research, the effects of human activity on the atmosphere appear to be nudging rain patterns in the direction of faster and heavier.
Oct 31, 2019... The ocean is one of the largest and most mysterious ecosystems on Earth. In the tenth episode of Weizmann in Focus, Dave Doneson describes the fascinating research of Weizmann Profs. Ilan Koren and Assaf Vardi who set sail aboard the Tara schooner to unlock some of these mysteries. They were among a select group of scientists who traveled thousands of kilometers across all the world’s oceans to advance research and increase environmental awareness. The research conducted on board the schooner yielded hundreds of scientific papers as well as a better understanding of the ocean ecosystem and how it impacts the entire planet.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/better-energy-for-a-brighter-future/
Mar 23, 2016... Population growth and rising standards of living worldwide are driving a rapid increase in demand for energy. In fact, says Prof. David Cahen of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Materials and Interfaces, “the prediction is that 25 years from now we’ll need double the amount of energy we currently need.” However, he adds, “dearth of funding had, by 2006, created a situation of several decades of few new ideas in basic research that would help address this energy issue.”
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/sea-change-climate-change/
Oct 28, 2014...
Talking to a group of sailors, John F. Kennedy said, "we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean."
Unfortunately, for many of us inhabitants of this watery planet, the ocean is something we get to experience only on occasion. But now, thanks to climate change, the way we think about the sea has to change; as The New York Times stated on Sunday, October 26, "In the next four decades ... sea levels are expected to rise by as much as 30 inches." That's two and a half feet. That's a lot. Fortunately, the Weizmann Institute of Science is on the case, studying the stormy relationship between Earth's oceans and its climate.
Jun 01, 2008... From designing environmental policies and preventing ecological disasters to planning umbrella sales and construction projects, a full spectrum of human activities depends on our ability to understand and predict climate change. Several research projects in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Energy Research at the Weizmann Institute are aimed at understanding our planet’s climate and making better predictions about its potential fluctuations.
Sep 11, 2015...
If this past summer felt hot to you, it’s not your imagination. Meteorologists predict that 2015 will end up being the hottest year on record. There is scientific consensus that the culprit is global warming, caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
Nevertheless, global warming is a hairtrigger issue and that’s because combustion, the chemical reaction responsible for modern industry, produces carbon dioxide (CO2), and carbon dioxide produces global warming. It’s a fact of nature that we can’t wish away, yet we’re unwilling to give up the modern comforts of electricity, automobiles, skyscrapers and advanced technology. Humanity is caught in a tragedy of its own making – our greatest achievements could soon lead to our biological extinction.
Dec 23, 2014... The distinctive “fecal prints” of microbes potentially provide a record of how Earth and life have co-evolved over the past 3.5 billion years as the planet’s temperature, oxygen levels, and greenhouse gases have changed. But, despite more than 60 years of study, it has proved difficult, until now, to “read” much of the information contained in this record. Research from McGill University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), sheds light on the mysterious digestive processes of microbes, opening the way towards a better understanding of how life and the planet have changed over time.
Aug 19, 2005...
Mix a pile of manure with some zinc oxide, angle a few giant mirrors towards the mixture, turn on the sun and steam the result. It may not sound appetising, but Michael Epstein and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel, think that this recipe represents a novel way of collecting solar energy to generate what many hope will be the fuel of the future − hydrogen.
Readers who remember their chemistry lessons may recall mixing zinc with hydrochloric acid in a test tube and standing by, lighted splint in hand, ready to ignite the hydrogen that is given off. (Metallic zinc reacts with the chlorine in the acid, leaving hydrogen behind.) Zinc reacts similarly with water − or, rather, steam − in this case stripping the oxygen from H2O and once again, leaving the hydrogen. Industrialising that process, though, relies on finding a cheap way of turning the zinc oxide that results back into metallic zinc, so that the material can be recycled. And this, courtesy of the Weizmann Institute's Solar Tower laboratory, is what Dr Epstein has done.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/a-plankton-virus-affects-cloud-formation/
Aug 16, 2018...
The phytoplankton species Emiliana huxleyi, coming soon to a cloud near you. Citation: Emiliania huxleyi. Young & Westbroek, 1991
A species of marine phytoplankton that explodes after contracting a virus may play a role in regulating Earth’s climate, a new study finds.
Emiliania huxleyi is a type of single-celled plant-like organism called a coccolithophore that occurs ubiquitously in the world’s oceans. Under the right conditions, it multiplies rapidly to form giant aggregations, known as blooms, up to several thousand square kilometres in size.
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