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.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/let-it-rain/
Jan 01, 2012... Rain can be a blessing or a disaster. An hour of steady rainfall can water the roots of plants and percolate underground to replenish water supplies. If the same amount of water falls in a five-minute downpour, however, the results are more likely to be uprooted plants, runoff and even flooding. According to new research, the effects of human activity on the atmosphere appear to be nudging rain patterns in the direction of faster and heavier.
Oct 31, 2019... The ocean is one of the largest and most mysterious ecosystems on Earth. In the tenth episode of Weizmann in Focus, Dave Doneson describes the fascinating research of Weizmann Profs. Ilan Koren and Assaf Vardi who set sail aboard the Tara schooner to unlock some of these mysteries. They were among a select group of scientists who traveled thousands of kilometers across all the world’s oceans to advance research and increase environmental awareness. The research conducted on board the schooner yielded hundreds of scientific papers as well as a better understanding of the ocean ecosystem and how it impacts the entire planet.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/sea-change-climate-change/
Oct 28, 2014...
Talking to a group of sailors, John F. Kennedy said, "we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean."
Unfortunately, for many of us inhabitants of this watery planet, the ocean is something we get to experience only on occasion. But now, thanks to climate change, the way we think about the sea has to change; as The New York Times stated on Sunday, October 26, "In the next four decades ... sea levels are expected to rise by as much as 30 inches." That's two and a half feet. That's a lot. Fortunately, the Weizmann Institute of Science is on the case, studying the stormy relationship between Earth's oceans and its climate.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/a-rusty-green-early-ocean/
Jan 26, 2017...
Green rust (l) forming in Dr. Halevy’s lab in conditions similar to those in the Precambrian ocean. (r) Electron microscope images reveal the thin, hexagonal plates typical of green rust
Though they may seem rock solid, the ancient sedimentary rocks called iron formations – the world’s chief economic source of iron ore – were once dissolved in seawater. How did that iron go from a dissolved state to banded iron formations? Dr. Itay Halevy and his group in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences suggest that, billions of years ago, the “rust” that formed in the seawater and sank to the ocean bed was green – an iron-based mineral that is rare on Earth today but might once have been relatively common. Their findings were published in Nature Geoscience.
Aug 19, 2005...
Mix a pile of manure with some zinc oxide, angle a few giant mirrors towards the mixture, turn on the sun and steam the result. It may not sound appetising, but Michael Epstein and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel, think that this recipe represents a novel way of collecting solar energy to generate what many hope will be the fuel of the future − hydrogen.
Readers who remember their chemistry lessons may recall mixing zinc with hydrochloric acid in a test tube and standing by, lighted splint in hand, ready to ignite the hydrogen that is given off. (Metallic zinc reacts with the chlorine in the acid, leaving hydrogen behind.) Zinc reacts similarly with water − or, rather, steam − in this case stripping the oxygen from H2O and once again, leaving the hydrogen. Industrialising that process, though, relies on finding a cheap way of turning the zinc oxide that results back into metallic zinc, so that the material can be recycled. And this, courtesy of the Weizmann Institute's Solar Tower laboratory, is what Dr Epstein has done.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/hydrology-keeping-our-water-clean/
Dec 22, 2003... Hydrologist Brian Berkowitz sees the movement of water through rock formations as a random and jagged path, sometimes virtually stopping, sometimes surging ahead. The description could be aptly applied to his career, which has landed him at the forefront of hydrology, an increasingly important field as the world's water supply is threatened by pollutants, salinization, and drought. He has arrived here by chance, through a series of plot twists in his life. Now he runs a large lab at Weizmann, where he studies groundwater hydrology from every angle.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-november-2014/
Nov 18, 2014... Satellite image of Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest volcano in the solar system at about three times the height of Mount Everest. Around 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, the release of volcanic gases, especially the greenhouse gas sulfur dioxide, may have warmed the surface of Mars episodically, melting the ice and thereby explaining the presence of geomorphological features indicative of the flow of water on the planet’s ancient surface.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/plastic-is-blowing-in-the-wind/
Dec 23, 2020... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 23, 2020—As the plastics in our oceans break up into smaller and smaller bits without breaking down chemically, the resulting microplastics are becoming a serious ecological problem. A new study by the Weizmann Institute of Science, published in Nature Communications, reveals another troubling aspect of microplastics (defined as particles smaller than 5 mm across): they are swept up into the atmosphere and carried on the wind to far-flung parts of the ocean, including those that appear to be plastic-free. Analysis reveals that such minuscule fragments can stay airborne for hours or days, spreading the potential to harm the marine environment and, by climbing up the food chain, to affect human health.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/science-is-heeding-the-ocean-s-sos/
Jul 19, 2021...
What’s one of the first things you do when you get to the ocean? It’s probably to take a deep breath, inhaling the instantly familiar smell that inspires calm, evokes memories, and lets you know exactly where you are.
Every other breath you take is provided by the ocean, which supplies half of the entire planet’s oxygen. It is Earth’s life support system: it regulates our climate, feeds us and innumerable other species, and its health and well-being are critical to maintaining our own – yet we do not behave as though it is.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/video-gallery/a-sustainable-future-our-vision/
Sep 07, 2022... Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science — with their pioneering spirit and a profound sense of urgency — are working to achieve transformational scientific breakthroughs and forge a path toward sustainability with innovative solutions to global warming, alternative energy, conservation, carbon reduction, food security, and much more.
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