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/developing-better-solar-cells/
Jun 01, 2008... Solar cells produce electricity just by lying in the sun; they use the energy of photons, the particles of sunlight, to directly generate an electric current, hence their scientific name, photovoltaics. Although photovoltaic technology is still considered too expensive for large-scale applications, it increasingly finds its way into “niche” markets in locations with no readily available connection to the electricity grid—such as satellites, boats, camps, or remote settlements. According to PV News, between 1995 and 2000 the world market for photovoltaics more than tripled, from 78 to 288 megawatts per year; and by 2020 it is expected to increase more than tenfold, to 4 gigawatts per year. Weizmann Institute scientists are exploring new methods and materials for making photovoltaics a viable energy source in small- and large-scale applications.
Jun 24, 2018...
Kevin Hong for Quanta Magazine
Early on in the study of quantum computers, computer scientists posed a question whose answer, they knew, would reveal something deep about the power of these futuristic machines. Twenty-five years later, it’s been all but solved. In a paper posted online at the end of May, computer scientists Ran Raz and Avishay Tal provide strong evidence that quantum computers possess a computing capacity beyond anything classical computers could ever achieve.
Nov 02, 2016...
“The composition of intestinal bacteria affects the decisions made by our brain. The more I learned about intestinal bacteria, the more it kept me awake at night,” says DayTwo founder and CEO Lihi Segal. Her company is using the breakthrough science of intestinal bacteria for commercial purposes.
The composition of intestinal bacteria is set in most people by age 2, and thereafter changes only slightly. DayTwo’s technology is based on research at the Weizmann Institute led by Prof. Eran Segal and Dr. Eran Elinav, which was first reported in “Globes” in 2013. This research showed that the composition of intestinal bacteria, which is unique for each person, has a differential impact on how that person responds to certain food, and specifically on his blood sugar levels. Eating a banana might greatly increase the blood sugar level for one person with a certain intestinal bacteria composition and eating an apple would not, while another person might have opposite responses to the two fruits.
Apr 23, 2019...
For years, Israeli neurologist Tamar Flash has had a fascination with the octopus, and the way the invertebrate’s eight arms propel it effortlessly through the water.
She’s convinced this has major implications for diagnosing and treating Parkinson’s disease — and possible other disorders as well.
“My major interest is the brain’s representation of movement, or the principles underlying the organization, control, and perception of movement by humans,” she recently told Parkinson’s News Today. The octopus has no bones. It’s totally soft. It’s just made of muscles.”
Sep 11, 2015...
If this past summer felt hot to you, it’s not your imagination. Meteorologists predict that 2015 will end up being the hottest year on record. There is scientific consensus that the culprit is global warming, caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
Nevertheless, global warming is a hairtrigger issue and that’s because combustion, the chemical reaction responsible for modern industry, produces carbon dioxide (CO2), and carbon dioxide produces global warming. It’s a fact of nature that we can’t wish away, yet we’re unwilling to give up the modern comforts of electricity, automobiles, skyscrapers and advanced technology. Humanity is caught in a tragedy of its own making – our greatest achievements could soon lead to our biological extinction.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/study-reveals-clue-to-glass-mystery/
Aug 16, 2018...
The fictive temperature, which pertains to the material’s structure, can dramatically affect the toughness of metallic glass. Above, notched samples of metallic glasses of different fictive temperatures (increasing from left to right) change from brittle to ductile, as indicated by the yellow-marked region ahead of the notch.
Addressing a centuries-old question, researchers have uncovered a key element to how glasses transition into very resilient states. This breakthrough could allow for more reliable ways to use glasses — metallic glasses in particular — in a wide range of applications.
Mar 22, 2012... Procognia (TASE:PRCG) is pleased to announce that the feasibility stage of the research, which focused on the glycosylation structures of stem cells, has been successfully completed. The research, directed by Prof. Dov Zipori from the Weizmann Institute of Science, was designed to develop a platform that will significantly improve the ability to identify and develop unique stem cells for transplant and treatment. Today, stem cell treatment faces a number of challenges, which both parties aim to handle successfully and therefore make a significant contribution to this field.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/the-human-brain-project/
May 01, 2012... Reductionist biology—examining individual brain parts, neural circuits and molecules—has brought us a long way, but it alone cannot explain the workings of the human brain, an information processor within our skull that is perhaps unparalleled anywhere in the universe. We must construct as well as reduce and build as well as dissect. To do that, we need a new paradigm that combines both analysis and synthesis. The father of reductionism, French philosopher René Descartes, wrote about the need to investigate the parts and then reassemble them to re-create the whole.
Apr 03, 2016...
Cancer cells (Pixabay)
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute may have found the cure for prostate cancer, at least if it is caught in its early stages – via a drug that doctors inject into cancerous cells and treat with infrared laser illumination.
Using a therapy lasting 90 minutes, the drug, called Tookad Soluble, targets and destroys cancerous prostate cells, studies show, allowing patients to check out of the hospital the same day without the debilitating effects of chemical or radiation therapy or the invasive surgery that is usually used to treat this disease.
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.
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