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.
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.
Jul 26, 2010... The lakes of southern Titan are shrinking.The level of Ontario Lacus, the largest lake in the southern hemisphere of this Saturnian moon, has fallen by some 15 feet over the last four years, causing its shore to recede by as much as 6 miles in some places. Other lakes nearby have similarly receded, according to radar measurements made by the Cassini spacecraft.However, if prolonged spells of 90-degree temperatures have you yearning for a refreshing icy dip, there are still plenty of bathing opportunities on Titan.Of course the lakes there are made of liquid methane — and the 90 degrees of temperature are on the Kelvin scale, near enough to absolute zero to challenge even the most cosmically adept polar bear. The atmosphere is nitrogen and methane.Titan is the only body in the solar system other than Earth that has been found to harbor liquid on its surface, leading many planetary scientists and aspiring astrobiologists to speculate that the same organic chemical processes that led to life on Earth are occurring in a frozen slush of hydrocarbons on Titan.The discovery that Titan’s lakes are evaporating, at least in the Southern Hemisphere, where summer just ended, suggests that there are active weather and geological cycles on Titan analogous to those on Earth. But on Titan the liquid driving those cycles is not water but methane, explained Oded Aharonson, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology. [Aharonson is now a professor in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Energy Research.]
Jun 01, 2008... From designing environmental policies and preventing ecological disasters to planning umbrella sales and construction projects, a full spectrum of human activities depends on our ability to understand and predict climate change. Several research projects in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Energy Research at the Weizmann Institute are aimed at understanding our planet’s climate and making better predictions about its potential fluctuations.
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.
Dec 23, 2014... The distinctive “fecal prints” of microbes potentially provide a record of how Earth and life have co-evolved over the past 3.5 billion years as the planet’s temperature, oxygen levels, and greenhouse gases have changed. But, despite more than 60 years of study, it has proved difficult, until now, to “read” much of the information contained in this record. Research from McGill University and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), sheds light on the mysterious digestive processes of microbes, opening the way towards a better understanding of how life and the planet have changed over time.
Jul 25, 2018...
The endangered Red Panda has a wild population of less than 10,000 mature individuals Image: REUTERS/Rebecca Naden
Most of us, including scientists, are blind to the full scope of the living world. This was illustrated by an informal survey which asked biologists and ecologists from elite universities two questions. In terms of mass, is the living world mostly composed of animals, plants or bacteria? And is there more global biomass on land or in the oceans? The majority of them answered both questions incorrectly.
Jul 01, 2002... Rehovot, Israel—July 1, 2002—Corn harvests on experimental plots and in farmers' fields in four East and Southern African countries have yielded striking results in long-term trials of an innovative witchweed-fighting technology developed by a Weizmann Institute scientist in collaboration with researchers at CIMMYT (the Spanish acronym for The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center). The new technology will be presented to seed producers, government representatives, regional scientists, and regulatory agencies at a CIMMYT-sponsored meeting in Kisumu, Kenya, on July 4–6, 2002.
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.
Feb 22, 2012...
Among Prof. David Milstein's various research projects, the one considered to be most important helped scientists understand the bonds between carbon and hydrogen.
Prof. David Milstein of the Weizmann Institute is the 5772 Israel Prize laureate for chemistry and physics, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced Sunday.
Milstein won the prize for his innovative research that finds new ways to create compounds using materials containing metals. His studies have environmental ramifications because they can help develop cleaner industrial processes.
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