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.
May 20, 2019... Prof. Noam Sobel is interviewed for the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s series “Spotlight on Basic Research” about his investigations of the sense of smell. Among other breakthroughs, he has found a way to manipulate smell to increase our trust in robots.
Nov 01, 2010... Other than florists and allergy sufferers, most people don't do much sniffing. But scientists in Israel see the ability as a way to assist severely paralyzed people. In the August 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Noam Sobel and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot described the first ever sniff-enabled device: a thin plastic tube with two short prongs that are inserted into the nostrils. The gadget measures nasal pressure and converts it into electrical signals that can be read by a computer. The researchers found that, by sniffing, people could quickly and accurately raise or lower their nasal pressure enough to trigger a command, similar to pressing a button.
May 04, 2014... This three-minute video tells the story of Weizmann Institute researcher Prof. Nachum Ulanovsky, who studies free-flying bats to explore the brain's ability to work in three dimensions. His work with bats has considerable implications for human neuroscience.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/mapping-the-social-landscape/
Jan 11, 2018... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—January 11, 2018— Whether we’re playing a team sport or just strolling through the park, we’re continually aware of the positions of those around us – and where each is heading. Scientists have, in recent decades, pinpointed neurons called “place cells” in our brains that encode our own location in the environment, but how our brains represent the positions of others has been a mystery. Published in Science, new Weizmann Institute of Science research in bats reveals a sub-population of neurons that encode the specific locations of other bats that are flying nearby.
Apr 06, 2010... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—April 6, 2010—Darwin's finches—some 14 related species of songbirds found on the Galapagos and Cocos Islands—will forever be enshrined in history for having planted the seeds of the theory of evolution through natural selection. Today, 150 years after Darwin's famous book, finches can still teach us a lesson about evolution. A large, international group of researchers, among them Prof. Doron Lancet and Dr. Tsviya Olender of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, recently produced the full genome of the zebra finch and analyzed it in detail. The report on the zebra finch genome, which appeared April 6 in Nature, is especially significant for what it reveals about learning processes for language and speech. For Prof. Lancet and Dr. Olender, however, the findings have provided an interesting twist on the evolution of the sense of smell.
Sep 26, 2011... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—September 26, 2011—The fact that certain smells cause us pleasure or disgust would seem to be a matter of personal taste. But new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that odors can be rated on a scale of pleasantness, and this turns out to be an organizing principle for the way we experience smell. The findings, which appeared today in Nature Neuroscience, reveal a correlation between the response of certain nerves to particular scents and the pleasantness of those scents. Based on this correlation, the researchers could tell by measuring the nerve responses whether a subject found a smell pleasant or unpleasant.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/behavioral-changes-seen-after-sleep-learning/
Nov 12, 2014... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 12, 2014—New Weizmann Institute of Science research may bring the idea of sleep learning one step closer to reality. The research, which appears in The Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that certain kinds of conditioning applied during sleep could induce us to change our behavior. The researchers exposed smokers to pairs of smells – cigarettes together with rotten eggs or fish – as the subjects slept, and then asked them to record how many cigarettes they smoked in the following week. The study revealed a significant reduction in smoking following conditioning during sleep.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/the-power-of-sniff/
Oct 06, 2010...
A new device lets the disabled move and communicate with their noses.
The key to restoring movement and communication for the severely disabled may lie on the roofs of our mouths. Researchers have invented a device that allows the paralyzed to write, surf the Web and steer an electric wheelchair—all by sniffing. Initial tests, described recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, suggest that patients with severe paralysis may soon have a new way of doing everyday tasks.
Nov 06, 2019...
Computer-enhanced MRI images of the brains of left-handed women identified two that were missing olfactory bulbs
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 6, 2019—Is a pair of brain structures called the olfactory bulbs, which are said to encode our sense of smell, necessary? That is, are they essential to the existence of this sense? Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently showed that some humans can smell just fine, thank you, without said bulbs. Their finding – that around 0.6% of women, and more specifically, up to 4% of left-handed women, have completely intact senses of smell despite having no olfactory bulbs in their brains – calls into question the accepted notion that this structure is absolutely necessary for the act of smelling. The findings of this research, which were published in Neuron, could shake up certain conventional theories that describe the workings of our sense of smell.
Nov 05, 2012...
Image from Shutterstock.com
People can learn to “see” with plastic whiskers attached to their fingers, heralding the potential of a next generation of sight aids that could take advantage of the human ability to adapt to new kinds of sensory perception.
A study from the Weizmann Institute has suggested that people can learn to use prosthetic whiskers to gain a better understanding of their surroundings just like a cat can.
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