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 benefit of humanity.
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.
Sep 17, 2007... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—September 17, 2007—Blue Planet, a curriculum package for middle school students written by Weizmann Institute scientists on the link between man and the environment, has won recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a worldwide model in environmental studies. This international organization is promoting and financing the translation of the program into different languages, as well as its distribution throughout schools worldwide.
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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/a-rusty-green-early-ocean/
Jan 26, 2017...
Green rust (l) forming in Dr. Halevy’s lab in conditions similar to those in the Precambrian ocean. (r) Electron microscope images reveal the thin, hexagonal plates typical of green rust
Though they may seem rock solid, the ancient sedimentary rocks called iron formations – the world’s chief economic source of iron ore – were once dissolved in seawater. How did that iron go from a dissolved state to banded iron formations? Dr. Itay Halevy and his group in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences suggest that, billions of years ago, the “rust” that formed in the seawater and sank to the ocean bed was green – an iron-based mineral that is rare on Earth today but might once have been relatively common. Their findings were published in Nature Geoscience.
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.
Jul 25, 2018...
The endangered Red Panda has a wild population of less than 10,000 mature individuals Image: REUTERS/Rebecca Naden
Most of us, including scientists, are blind to the full scope of the living world. This was illustrated by an informal survey which asked biologists and ecologists from elite universities two questions. In terms of mass, is the living world mostly composed of animals, plants or bacteria? And is there more global biomass on land or in the oceans? The majority of them answered both questions incorrectly.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/hydrology-keeping-our-water-clean/
Dec 22, 2003... Hydrologist Brian Berkowitz sees the movement of water through rock formations as a random and jagged path, sometimes virtually stopping, sometimes surging ahead. The description could be aptly applied to his career, which has landed him at the forefront of hydrology, an increasingly important field as the world's water supply is threatened by pollutants, salinization, and drought. He has arrived here by chance, through a series of plot twists in his life. Now he runs a large lab at Weizmann, where he studies groundwater hydrology from every angle.
May 28, 2020...
California's giant Sequoias can live for more than 3,000 years, their trunks stretching two car lengths in diameter, their branches reaching nearly 300 feet toward the clouds. But a few years ago, amid a record drought, scientists noticed something odd. A few of these arboreal behemoths inside Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks were dying in ways no one had ever documented—from the top down.
When researchers climbed into the canopies, they discovered that cedar bark beetles had bored into a few branches. By 2019, at least 38 of the trees had died—not a large number, but “concerning because we’ve never observed this before,” says Christy Brigham, the park’s chief of resource management.
Jul 01, 2020...
Israeli researchers have discovered collaboration between trees deep in the ground, Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in central Israel said Wednesday.
In their study, WIS researchers found underground intricate networks of fungi connecting the roots of different tree species with one another.
These networks enable the trees to exchange of minerals, nutrients, water and carbon, while funneling carbon to the fungi in return.
https://curiosity.weizmann-usa.org/a-damaging-storm-s-nourishing-side/
Jul 13, 2020...
Godzilla. Biblical. Historic. Muy malo. Even “new” (although it’s not; most people just haven’t heard of it).
This is the Saharan Air Layer – often given noms de guerre such as “African dust storm” – an approximately 5,000-mile-long, 2-mile-high plume of dust. It is a “phenomenon that develops every year off the coast of Africa,” writes Slate, “where powerful winds from thunderstorms over the Sahel can push the dust many thousands of feet up into the atmosphere.”
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