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/in-the-news/looking-for-life-in-the-multiverse/
Dec 16, 2009... The typical Hollywood action hero skirts death for a living. Time and again, scores of bad guys shoot at him from multiple directions but miss by a hair. Cars explode just a fraction of a second too late for the fireball to catch him before he finds cover. And friends come to the rescue just before a villain's knife slits his throat. If any one of those things happened just a little differently, the hero would be hasta la vista, baby. Yet even if we have not seen the movie before, something tells us that he will make it to the end in one piece.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-august-2014/
Aug 11, 2014... Blood stem cells have the potential to turn into any type of blood cell, whether it be the oxygen-carrying red blood cells, or the immune system’s many types of white blood cells that help fight infection. How exactly is the fate of these stem cells regulated? Preliminary findings from research conducted by scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Hebrew University are starting to reshape the conventional understanding of the way blood stem cell fate decisions are controlled, thanks to a new technique for epigenetic analysis they have developed. Understanding epigenetic mechanisms (environmental influences other than genetics) of cell fate could lead to the deciphering of the molecular mechanisms of many diseases, including immunological disorders, anemia, leukemia, and many more. It also lends strong support to findings that environmental factors and lifestyle play a more prominent role in shaping our destiny than previously realized.
Feb 14, 2013...
Andromeda galaxy, or M31. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The predicted property in this study is the velocity dispersion, which is the average velocity of objects within a galaxy relative to each other. Astronomers can use velocity dispersion to determine the accelerations of objects within the galaxy and, roughly, the mass of a galaxy, and vice-versa.
To calculate the velocity dispersion for each dwarf galaxy, the researchers utilized Modified Newtonian Dynamics, MOND for short, which is a hypothesis that attempts to resolve what appears to be an insufficient amount of mass in galaxies needed to support their orbital speeds.
Mar 16, 2016...
The Juno space probe near Jupiter. Photo by www.shutterstock.com
An atomic clock – designed and constructed in Israel – will be carried beyond the Earth’s orbit as part of a mission planned by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The ESA mission, known as JUICE – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the solar system’s largest planet and three of its largest moons. Jupiter is known to have 67 moons.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/why-do-we-see-the-man-in-the-moon/
Mar 12, 2012... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—March 12, 2012—There’s something poetic about gazing up at the night sky, seeing the familiar face of the Man in the Moon” who faithfully accompanies us through life. The synchronous rotation of the Moon taking the same amount of time to spin around its own axis as it does to revolve around Earth is what causes the Moon to “lock eyes” with Earth, resulting in one of its hemispheres constantly facing us. But is there a reason why this particular half of the Moon locked with Earth, or was it pure coincidence that it didn't “turn its back” on us?
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/astronomers-observe-biggest-star-explosion/
Dec 03, 2009... REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 3, 2009—What happens when a really gargantuan star—one hundreds of times bigger than our sun—blows up? Although a theory developed years ago describes what the explosion of such an enormous star should look like, no one had actually observed one—until now. An international team, led by scientists in Israel and including researchers from Germany, the US, the UK, and China, tracked a supernova—an exploding star—for over a year and a half, and found that it neatly fits the predictions for the explosion of a star greater than 150 times the sun's mass. Their findings, which could influence our understanding of everything from natural limits on star size to the evolution of the universe, appeared recently in Nature.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/the-israelis-who-went-to-jupiter/
Jul 07, 2016...
Dr. Yohai Kaspi, 42, a planetary researcher at the Weizmann Institute, watched on Tuesday live the Juno spacecraft in space and was reminded of one of his happiest childhood moments in Nahariyah. “When I was 7 years old the Voyager spacecraft passed close to Jupiter and Saturn for the first time,” he explained in excitement.
"There wasn't any internet at that time, and there wasn't any way to actually see it happening. So my father bought me a NASA poster of Jupiter which I posted above my bed."
Dec 14, 2015...
Prof. Oded Aharonson in the observatory at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Nov. 26, 2015. Credit: Eyal Toueg
Prof. Oded Aharonson had a comfortable life in the United States, to which he had moved from Israel when he was 13. At 21, with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in physics from Cornell University, he returned to Israel for two years to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. At 23, he began his Ph.D. in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As soon as he completed his doctorate he started working at California Institute of Technology in planetary science, his area of specialization.
Aug 23, 2012... Gamma rays detected by NASA's Fermi space telescope show that the remnant of Tycho's supernova shines in the highest-energy form of light. This portrait of the shattered star includes gamma rays (magenta), X-rays (yellow, green, and blue), infrared (red) and optical data. CREDIT: Gamma ray, NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration; X-ray, NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared, NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical, MPIA, Calar Alto, O. Krause et al. and DSS
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/explosive-material-the-making-of-a-supernova/
Mar 15, 2017... In the most common type of supernova, the iron core of a massive star suddenly collapses in on itself and the outer layers are thrown out into space in a spectacular explosion. New research led by Weizmann Institute of Science researchers shows that the stars that become these “core-collapse supernovae” might exhibit instability for several months before the big event, spewing material into space and creating a dense gas shell around themselves. The scientists think that many massive stars, including the red super-giants that are the most common progenitors of the core-collapse supernovae, may begin the process this way.
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