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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.
May 12, 2020...
For a single ant, the world can be an overwhelmingly big place. To safely navigate their environs, ants rely on collective cognition.
According to a new study, published Tuesday in the journal eLife, collective brainpower makes seemingly chaotic environs navigable.
“Cooperation is a common means by which animals can increase their cognitive capacity, and we were intrigued as to whether this cooperation allows ants to extend the range of environments in which they can efficiently collect food,” first study author Aviram Gelblum, a postdoctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a news release.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/using-our-senses-to-fight-coronavirus/
Jun 10, 2020...
Just as COVID-19 is still advancing, so is the research of Weizmann Institute scientists as they develop ways to identify, predict, treat, and prevent the illness. One particularly innovative researcher is Prof. Noam Sobel.
A neurobiologist who is a world leader in olfaction research, Prof. Sobel works in the Weizmann tradition of following his curiosity as he harnesses the sense of smell to fight COVID. His previous studies have shown that our olfactory system has powers that many of us would never have imagined; he has used the sense of smell – our most ancient sense – to quantify the smell of fear; shed light on social miscues in autism and diagnose the condition; help locked-in, vegetative patients communicate; reveal subconscious reactions to the opposite sex; and much more.
May 20, 2020...
While some people see ants as a nuisance, others of us are fascinated by them. How do such tiny, vulnerable creatures navigate this harsh, gigantic world and accomplish such disproportionally outsized feats? (Speaking of disproportionally outsized feats: the most recent studies on how much an ant can carry put it at 5,000 times their own weight!)
Prof. Ofer Feinerman in the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Physics of Complex Systems – and what better describes ant society than “complex system?” – has long studied ants, and clearly admires them. He says that casual observance, like watching a line of ants cross a sidewalk, doesn’t even begin to reveal their sophistication: “their numbers, cooperative skills, efficiency, apparent know-how, and elegance are just too difficult to miss.”
Jun 29, 2020...
A joint study by Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers has yielded an innovative method for bolstering memory processes in the brain during sleep.
The method relies on a memory-evoking scent administered to one nostril. It helps researchers understand how sleep aids memory, and in the future could possibly help to restore memory capabilities following brain injuries or help treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for whom memory often serves as a trigger.
May 27, 2020... Olfaction expert Prof. Noam Sobel takes us through his attempts to “train” an electronic nose to identify Covid. This may be possible because “every disease has an odor,” he says. “Diseases change metabolic processes, and metabolites have a smell.”
Sep 29, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—September 29, 2020—The odors we give off are a sort of body language – one that may affect our relationships more than we realize. New research from the lab of Prof. Noam Sobel at the Weizmann Institute of Science suggests that this “chemical communication” may extend to human reproduction as well. The study, which was published in eLife, found that women who suffer from a condition known as unexplained repeated pregnancy loss (uRPL) process messages concerning male body odor – especially their husband’s – in a different way than other women. These findings may point to new directions in the search for causes and prevention of this poorly understood disorder.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/a-measure-of-smell/
Nov 11, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—November 11, 2020—Fragrances – promising mystery and intrigue – are blended by master perfumers, their recipes kept secret. In a new study on the sense of smell, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have managed to strip much of the mystery from even complex blends of odorants, not by uncovering their secret ingredients, but by recording and mapping how they are perceived. The scientists can now predict how any complex odorant will smell from its molecular structure alone. This study may not only revolutionize the world of perfumery, but eventually lead to the ability to digitize and reproduce smells on command. A proposed framework for odors, created by neurobiologists, computer scientists, and a master perfumer and funded by a European Commission initiative called Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Open, was published in Nature.
Nov 11, 2020...
Israeli scientists say they have made a breakthrough that could pave the way for smellovision TVs, scented digital photos that have a whiff of vacation, and technology that can “print” any odor.
A Weizmann Institute team claims to have created a “smell map” that can determine how any odor will smell to humans based just on an examination of its molecular structure.
The researchers say this provides the theoretical framework to record the qualities of the smell as a set of numbers which can be used to recreate it by means of an electronic device that could be embedded in cellphones, computers, and elsewhere. They believe that a range of just 200 molecules is enough to recreate almost any smell on earth.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/does-the-nose-talk-to-the-womb/
Dec 08, 2020... To be an expectant mother, or the anxious partner of one, is to be keenly, even agonizingly aware of how chemicals affect a developing life. The basic advice is well known, and obsessively followed: Alcohol in strict moderation, and no nicotine at all. Don’t mess with mercury. Folic acid is your friend. More protein and less caffeine. Stay away from BPA, PBCs and PFA, and generally make an enemy of the unpronounceable.
Nov 25, 2020...
Stripping down fragrances to their molecular structure, researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have opened the door to a future where any scent could be digitized and reproduced on demand by a computer.
The group of neurobiologists, computer scientists and a master-perfumer wrote about their achievement in Nature.
Enabling computers to digitize and reproduce smells is a long-held goal of the study’s co-author, Prof. David Harel of the Weizmann’s computer and applied mathematics department.
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