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.
Nov 01, 2010... Other than florists and allergy sufferers, most people don't do much sniffing. But scientists in Israel see the ability as a way to assist severely paralyzed people. In the August 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Noam Sobel and his team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot described the first ever sniff-enabled device: a thin plastic tube with two short prongs that are inserted into the nostrils. The gadget measures nasal pressure and converts it into electrical signals that can be read by a computer. The researchers found that, by sniffing, people could quickly and accurately raise or lower their nasal pressure enough to trigger a command, similar to pressing a button.
May 16, 2016... Between shadowy hackers and powerful government agencies, keeping electronic communication private can sometimes feel like a losing battle. Now chemists have come up with a clever alternative that's a little old-fashioned. They describe in Nature Communications a way to encrypt and send short messages on paper using everyday chemicals as keys, although they admit its usefulness probably has limits.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/not-to-be-sniffed-at/
Dec 09, 2010...
For those people who have no other means of communication, sniffing could provide liberation
To suffer from locked-in syndrome—to be mentally alert but physically paralysed—is one of the worst fates imaginable. Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute, in Israel, may have found a way to make this fate slightly more bearable.
He starts from the observation that even those who are otherwise paralysed can sniff. Sniffing is regulated by the soft palate, a flap of tissue in the back of the throat that directs the flow of air through the mouth and nose. The soft palate is controlled by cranial nerves—in other words, nerves that do not pass through the spinal cord. So spinal damage, a common cause of paralysis, does not affect these nerves. Nor does brain damage, unless it is to the exact part of the brain that controls the soft palate.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/feature-stories/security-through-science/
Nov 01, 2006...
With the need for security at an all-time high, finding new ways to stay ahead of terrorists is an ongoing challenge—and Weizmann Institute scientists are using new discoveries in basic research to stay ahead in the security game.
Prof. Yehiam Prior of the Institute's Department of Chemical Physics is researching the detection of trace explosives with lasers and developing an innovative method to protect computer conversations from eavesdroppers.
Apr 07, 2016...
Here’s an interesting problem. When it comes to human senses, we’ve found ways to reproduce the look and sound of the real world reasonably accurately. There are even technologies for reproducing the feel of certain experiences, such as flight and car simulators.
But the problem of reproducing smell is much more intractable. The 1960 SmelloVision experiment is a case in point. This involved some 30 odors that were released into the cinema at certain times during a movie. Only one film – Scent of Mystery – ever used the system, which rapidly failed.
Jan 28, 2016... As our sensory organs register objects and structures in the outside world, they are continually engaged in two-way communication with the brain. In research recently published in Nature Neuroscience, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers found that for rats, which use their whiskers to feel out their surroundings at night, clumps of nerve endings called mechanoreceptors, which are located at the base of each whisker, act as tiny calculators. These receptors continuously compute the way the whisker’s base rotates in its socket, expressing it as a fraction of the entire projected rotation of the whisker, so that the brain is continually updated on the way that the whisker’s rotation is being followed through.
Jul 27, 2010...
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—July 27, 2010—A unique device based on sniffing—inhaling and exhaling through the nose—might enable numerous disabled people to navigate wheelchairs or communicate with their loved ones. Sniffing technology might even be used in the future to create a sort of "third hand" to assist healthy surgeons or pilots.
Developed by Prof. Noam Sobel, electronics engineers Dr. Anton Plotkin and Aharon Weissbrod, and research student Lee Sela in the Weizmann Institute of Science's Department of Neurobiology, the new system identifies changes in air pressure inside the nostrils and translates these into electrical signals. The device was tested on healthy volunteers as well as quadriplegics, and the results showed that the method is easily mastered. Users were able to navigate a wheelchair around a complex path or play a computer game with nearly the speed and accuracy of a mouse or joystick.
Feb 21, 2022... “It is a scientific breakthrough project that will place Israel at the forefront of astronomical research, position it as a rising force in the field of scientific satellites and provide excellent exposure to the Israeli industry,” says Professor Eli Waxman, astrophysicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, principal investigator of the ULTRASAT mission and one of the fathers of the first Israeli space telescope, which is planned to be launched in 2025. “The beautiful thing about this mission is that it is led by science. We have set goals that are at the forefront of science, and to achieve them we have to be the first and the best.”
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