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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 03, 2011...
Hot spots aid brain, “exciting, disturbing” study hints.
Millions of receptors in the nose’s smelling organ aren’t scattered at random, a new study says. Instead, the receptors congregate in tiny hot spots that help the brain discern good smells from bad ones, among other potential functions.
The evidence was gathered by sticking electronic probes up people’s noses and measuring the chatter of nasal neurons as subjects were exposed to scents.
Jan 06, 2011... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—January 6, 2011—Emotional crying is a universal, uniquely human behavior. When we cry, we clearly send all sorts of emotional signals. In a paper published online today in Science Express, scientists at the Weizmann Institute have demonstrated that some of these signals are chemically encoded in the tears themselves. Specifically, they found that merely sniffing a woman’s tears—even when the crying woman is not present—reduces sexual arousal in men.
Aug 30, 2016...
Image via GeebShot/Shutterstock.com
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in people over age 60. About 90 percent of those with AMD have the “dry” form for which there is no approved therapy.
And so the race is on to find a cure. The potential is huge, as products for treating the much smaller population of those with wet AMD ring up about $5 billion in annual sales.
Mar 20, 2019... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 20, 2019—A shot of espresso, a piece of chocolate, or a headstand – all of these have been recommended before taking a big test. The best advice, however, could be to take a deep breath. According to research conducted in the lab of Prof. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology, people who inhaled when presented with a visuospatial task were better at completing it than those who exhaled in the same situation. The results of the study, which were published in Nature Human Behavior, suggest that the olfactory system may have shaped the evolution of brain function far beyond the basic function of smelling.
Jan 04, 2011...
In his 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic in Colorado Springs, Bruce Monson, 43, has had his little fist-bumps with death: a burning roof collapsing on top of him, toxic fumes nearly suffocating him.
Yet far more terrifying than any personal threats are what Mr. Monson describes as the "bad kid calls," like the one from a mother who had put her 18-month-old son down in his crib right next to a window with a Venetian blind and its old-fashioned cord.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/can-you-learn-while-you-re-asleep/
Aug 28, 2012...
Research suggests basic forms of learning are possible while snoozing. iStockphoto.com
If you’re a student, you may have harbored the fantasy of learning lessons while you sleep. Who wouldn’t want to stick on a pair of headphones, grab some shut-eye with a lesson about, say, Chinese history playing in his ears — and wake up with newly acquired knowledge of the Ming Dynasty?
Sadly, it doesn’t work. The history lesson either keeps you from going to sleep, or it doesn’t — in which case you don’t learn it.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/bats-remember-directions/
Jan 12, 2017...
Egyptian fruit bat. In a new issue of Science, Prof. Sarel et al. report on a new functional class of hippocampal neurons in bats, which encode the direction and distance to spatial goals – suggesting a novel neural mechanism for goal-directed navigation.
Navigating to a destination, whether you are a human or a bat, requires a complex set of calculations and interactions among brain cells. Weizmann Institute of Science researchers, working with bats, have now revealed the network of cells that encode the direction of one’s destination. Among other things, their findings may help explain how memory loss and “getting lost” tend to go together in Alzheimer’s patients.
Nov 23, 2012...
Light of all colors or wavelengths combines to form white light. Similarly, sounds of all different frequencies mix to produce white noise. A group of scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel decided to find out whether this phenomenon applied to smell as well.
The researchers discovered that a white odor does, in fact, exist. They described how they arrived at the indescribably bland scent, which they coined “olfactory white,” in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 19.
Nov 27, 2017...
ISTOCK MRKORNFLAKES
While humans aren’t as smell-dependent as many other animals, studies have shown we respond differently to others when they’re emitting certain olfactory signals—even if we can’t consciously detect them. In a study published today in Nature Neuroscience, researchers find that men with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), researchers find that men with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sometimes respond differently to these chemical cues in human sweat than do people without the disorder, indicating that such responses may partly explain the disorder’s symptoms.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-january-2010/
Jan 14, 2010...
How do the visual images we experience, which have no tangible existence, arise out of physical processes in the brain? New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science provides evidence, for the first time, that an “ignition” of intense neural activity underlies the experience of seeing.
In research recently published in the journal Neuron, Prof. Rafael Malach and research student Lior Fisch of the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Neurobiology worked with a neurosurgeon, Dr. Itzhak Fried of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, a distinguished team of medical doctors from the Center, and Weizmann Institute students. They asked a group of epileptic patients who had had electrodes clinically implanted into their brains in preparation for surgery to volunteer for some perceptual awareness tasks. The subjects looked at a computer screen, which briefly presented a “target” image—a face, house, or man-made object. This image was followed by a “mask”—a meaningless picture for distraction—at different time intervals after the target image had been presented. This allowed the experimenter to control the visibility of the images—the patients sometimes recognized the targets and sometimes failed to do so. By comparing the electrode recordings to the patients’ reports of whether they had correctly recognized the image or not, the scientists were able to pinpoint what was happening—and when and where—in the brain as transitions in perceptual awareness took place.
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