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.
Feb 24, 2020...
If you’re Jewish and observe kosher dietary restrictions, you likely have never looked into a shrimp’s eye.
However, if you have, you might have noticed that it gleams in low light. That is because the shrimp has a reflector underlying its retina (a “tapetum”) made up of tightly packed nanoparticles that allow the eye to collect more light underwater.
This was discovered by scientists from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, central Israel.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/brain-research-gets-a-boost-from-mosquitos/
May 11, 2021... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—May 11, 2021—Can a protein found in a mosquito lead to a better understanding of the workings of our own brains? Prof. Ofer Yizhar and his team in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology took a light-sensitive protein derived from mosquitos and used it to devise an improved method for investigating the messages that are passed from neuron to neuron in the brains of mice. This method, reported in Neuron, could potentially help scientists solve age-old cerebral mysteries and pave the way for new and improved therapies to treat neurological and psychiatric conditions.
May 11, 2021...
Israeli scientists have developed a way to switch off connectors that link different parts of the brain, in an advance they say could prove key to treating neurological disorders like epilepsy.
The innovation, which relies on a light-sensitive protein from mosquitos, was reported on Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Neuron. The breakthrough has been discussed in medical circles for several weeks, and dozens of neurobiology teams around the world are already ordering the protein and using the protocol in their own labs.
Feb 21, 2022... “It is a scientific breakthrough project that will place Israel at the forefront of astronomical research, position it as a rising force in the field of scientific satellites and provide excellent exposure to the Israeli industry,” says Professor Eli Waxman, astrophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, principal investigator of the ULTRASAT mission and one of the fathers of the first Israeli space telescope, which is planned to be launched in 2025. “The beautiful thing about this mission is that it is led by science. We have set goals that are at the forefront of science, and to achieve them we have to be the first and the best.”
Jan 25, 2023...
WASHINGTON — The United States and Israel are finalizing an agreement that would see NASA contribute to an upcoming Israeli astrophysics mission.
The focus of the agreement, which could be signed as soon as later this month, involves a mission called Ultrasat under development by Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science with support from the Israel Space Agency and German research center DESY.
As part of the agreement, NASA would provide the launch of Ultrasat, which will operate in geostationary orbit. NASA will likely arrange to fly Ultrasat as a secondary payload on a commercial GEO launch, said James Rhoads, NASA project scientist for Ultrasat, during a session of the 241st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society Jan. 11.
Jan 24, 2023...
“Seeing eye to eye” is an expression of harmony, but do different people literally see the same things in the external world? “The short answer is – no,” says Dr. Liron Gruber. “Even the same person sees the same thing differently each time they look at it,” adds Prof. Ehud Ahissar.
After Weizmann mathematicians (headed by Prof. Shimon Ullman) established that a computer algorithm was much worse than humans at interpreting image fragments, Gruber and Ahissar built upon these findings. In an earlier study, they were able to show that, contrary to the widely accepted view, the human eye does not work like a camera, taking passive snapshots. In the new study, Gruber and Ahissar teamed up with computer scientist Ullman to put human vision to the test.
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