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.
Oct 20, 2015...
Steel is ubiquitous in our daily lives. We cook in stainless steel skillets, ride steel subway cars over steel rails to our offices in steel-framed building. Steel screws hold together broken bones, steel braces straighten crooked teeth, steel scalpels remove tumors. Most of the goods we consume are delivered by ships and trucks mostly built of steel.
While various grades of steel have been developed over the past 50 years, steel surfaces have remained largely unchanged – and unimproved. The steel of today is as prone as ever to the corrosive effects of water and salt and abrasive materials such as sand. Steel surgical tools can still carry microorganisms that cause deadly infections.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/the-breaking-point/
Aug 24, 2017...
The trajectory of a crack tip, showing one cycle of oscillation. The horizontal wavy line shows the trajectory of the tip of the crack.
It is said that a weak link determines the strength of the entire chain. Likewise, defects or small cracks in a solid material may ultimately determine the strength of that material – how well it will withstand various forces. For example, if force is exerted on a material containing a crack, large internal stresses will concentrate on a small region near the crack’s edge. When this happens, a failure process is initiated, and the material might begin to fail around the edge of the crack, which could then propagate, leading to the ultimate failure of the material.
May 18, 2017...
Prof. Rybtchinski’s self-assembling membrane for water purification
Separation technology is at the heart of water purification, sewage treatment, and materials reclamation, as well as numerous basic industrial processes. Membranes are used to separate out the smallest nanoscale particles, and even molecules and metal ions. Prof. Boris Rybtchinski and his group of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Organic Chemistry have developed a new type of membrane that could extend the life of a separation system, lower its cost and, in some cases, increase its efficiency as well.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/making-spines-from-sea-water/
Nov 30, 2016... Some sea creatures cover themselves with hard shells and spines, while vertebrates build skeletons out of the same minerals. How do these animals get the calcium they need to build these strong mineral structures? Profs. Lia Addadi and Steve Weiner of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Structural Biology asked this question about sea urchins, which need to extract quite a few calcium ions from sea water in order to build their spines. The answer surprised the two – and it could change the way scientists think about the process of biomineralization.
Dec 12, 2014...
Touchdown: Rossetta mission crew celebrate
The first ever landing of a man-made probe onto a comet has been named Physics World Breakthrough of the Year for 2014.
From a shortlist of 10 highly commended breakthroughs, the historic achievement by scientists working on the Rosetta mission was singled out by the Physics World editorial team for its significance and fundamental importance to space science.
Dec 11, 2014...
The science of invisibility could make micro machines work without friction. Image © TEDxBrussels/Scorpix.
From the galactic to the quantum, the science of invisibility is revealing new ways to manipulate the world, said Professor Ulf Leonhardt, from Israel’s Weizmann Institute, after giving a presentation at TEDxBrussels on 1 December.
You discussed the science of invisibility during your presentation, and in your European Research Council (ERC)-funded research you are linking theoretical physics with invisibility, but what does that mean in practice?
Sep 19, 2019...
JERUSALEM, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) – Israeli researchers have deciphered the unique “self-healing” process of solar materials halide perovskites, making the development of optoelectronics materials possible, the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) reported on Thursday.
Halide perovskites are exceptionally effective at converting solar energy into electricity, but it is unclear how they contain only one structure defect on every trillion atoms, a million times less than regular semiconductors.
Dec 05, 2017...
Image of silkworm cocoons via Shutterstock.com
Scientists from Israel and abroad have designed microscopic silk capsules that can serve as a protective environment for the transport of fragile protein “cargo” for cosmetic, food and pharmaceutical applications — particularly the delivery of drugs within the body.
The collaborative research, performed by an international team of academics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel; the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Sheffield in the UK; and the ETH in Switzerland, was reported in Nature Communications on July 19.
Oct 19, 2015... Newswise — WASHINGTON, D.C., October 19, 2015 — Whereas human and many animals use teeth to crush or grind food as an initial part of the digestive process, some species such as birds that lack teeth grind food inside the gizzard – a structure between the mouth and the stomach – with the help of stones. Another interesting adaptation of this approach to digestion has evolved in most of the Cephalaspidean gastropods, a common type of marine mollusks, who use hardened plates that line the gizzard for crushing or grinding.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/just-rolling-along/
Sep 21, 1997... A smooth, friction-free future may be in the offing—for machinery, that is. Prof. Reshef Tenne and his team in the Materials and Interfaces Department have created a new kind of lubricant that promises to cut friction in half. The synthetic material is made of inert, round molecules of tungsten disulfide. Says Prof. Tenne: "They just roll against each other and against the machinery parts, and don't stick to anything, like Teflon."
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