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://weizmann-usa.org/blog/seeing-titan-a-most-earthlike-moon-in-a-new-light/
Aug 01, 2018...
Titan-ic accomplishment. It took scientists 13 years to create these six new images of Titan, which incorporate layers of data from various angles of approach and light. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ University of Nantes/University of Arizona
Last September 15, the Cassini-Huygens craft went obediently to its death, burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere. Its 20-year mission was more successful than scientists had hoped, and they will spend many years studying its data about the mysterious planet and its many, equally mysterious moons – such as Titan.
https://weizmann-usa.org/blog/meet-steve-the-purple-atmospheric-phenomenon/
Jul 06, 2018...
Hello, My Name Is Steve, a purple ribbon of hot ionized gas, manifests farther south than most auroras. Photo courtesy Vanexus Photography
The universe is big. While that’s a ridiculously oversized understatement, such vastness means that there’s much to see and learn – and scientists can’t be everywhere. Enter citizen scientists: knowledgeable amateurs who contribute to research by looking for new phenomena, species, etc.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/saturn-s-atmosphere-proves-deep-its-rings-young/
Jan 17, 2019...
Cassini’s view from orbit around Saturn on Jan. 2, 2010. This natural-color view is a composite of images taken in visible light with the spacecraft’s narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 1.4 million mi (2.3 million km) from Saturn. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—January 17, 2019—Grand Finale was the official name of Cassini’s last act: a risky orbit between Saturn’s rings and atmosphere in a daring attempt to view the planet up close, just before going down in flames. Prof. Yohai Kaspi and Dr. Eli Galanti of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences led one of the studies on Cassini’s final mission: revealing the depth of Saturn’s jet streams ‒ the strongest measured in the Solar System, with winds of up to 1,500 km (about 932 mi) per hour ‒ and found them to reach a depth of around 9,000 km (about 5,600 mi). Teaming up with research partners in Italy and the U.S., their study also helped reveal the age of the planet’s iconic rings. The findings of these studies were published in Science.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/electrons-can-form-solid-orderly-structure/
Nov 21, 2019...
(l-r) Ilanit Shapir and Prof. Shahal Ilani answered an 80-year-old question
JERUSALEM, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) — Israeli scientists have shown that electrons can form, like atoms, an organized structure to form a solid inside a solid, the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) reported Thursday.
In a study published in the journal Science, the WIS researchers image such electron solid showing electrons arranged in a row on a nanowire, like birds on wire.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-june-2008/
Jun 02, 2008...
Scientists in the Weizmann Institute’s Faculty of Chemistry, together with colleagues in Germany, have made a startling prediction: Simply “taking the temperature” of certain quantum systems at frequent intervals might cause them to disobey a hard and fast rule of thermodynamics.
Thermodynamics tell us that the interaction between a large heat source (a heat bath) and an ensemble of much smaller systems must bring them – at least on average – progressively closer to thermal equilibrium. Now Prof. Gershon Kurizki, Dr. Noam Erez, and doctoral student Goren Gordon of the Chemical Physics Department, in collaboration with Dr. Mathias Nest of Potsdam University, Germany, have shown that ensembles of quantum systems in thermal contact with a heat bath could present a drastic departure from this allegedly universal trend, a prediction they recently reported in Nature.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/students-join-safe-cracking-competition/
Apr 03, 2017...
From left, Weber School Safe-Cracking Club members Justin Cobb, Levi Durham, Ross Williams, Eric Lieberman and Becky Arbiv with their confounding device. (Special)
Safe-cracking is the unusual hobby of five Weber School students, who won fifth place on March 29 in an international science competition where they matched wits with other students.
The safes in question aren’t the steel-and-combination-lock variety. They’re physics experiments where students build devices with clever locking mechanisms, such as lasers, that they challenge others to unlock with only a few hints.
Mar 09, 2020...
Electrons spin. It's a fundamental part of their existence. Some spin “up” while others spin “down.” Scientists have known this for about a century, thanks to quantum physics.
They've also known that magnetic fields can affect the direction of an electron’s quantum spin, flipping it from up to down and vice versa. And it doesn't take much: Even a bacterial cell can do it.
Researchers at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science have found that protein “wires” connecting a bacterial cell to a solid surface tend to transmit electrons with a particular spin.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/using-a-noise-canceling-camera-to-get-rid-of-glare/
Oct 19, 2016...
Researchers used wavefront shaping and an optimization algorithm to progressively reduce the background glare to reveal an image of a toy figurine. Image courtesy of Yaron Silberberg/Weizmann Institute of Science
If you’ve ever turned on your car’s high beams while driving through fog, you've seen glare in action. As the extra light reflects off the fog, it becomes even more difficult to see what lies ahead. Fortunately, two research teams have developed innovative methods for counteracting glare and reducing unwanted light similar to how noise-canceling headphones eliminate unwanted sound.
https://weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/the-breaking-point/
Aug 24, 2017...
The trajectory of a crack tip, showing one cycle of oscillation. The horizontal wavy line shows the trajectory of the tip of the crack.
It is said that a weak link determines the strength of the entire chain. Likewise, defects or small cracks in a solid material may ultimately determine the strength of that material – how well it will withstand various forces. For example, if force is exerted on a material containing a crack, large internal stresses will concentrate on a small region near the crack’s edge. When this happens, a failure process is initiated, and the material might begin to fail around the edge of the crack, which could then propagate, leading to the ultimate failure of the material.
Oct 11, 2012...
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—October 11, 2012—The experimental system: two supersonic valves followed by two skimmers. The blue beam passes through a curved magnetic quadrupole guide, and the merged beam (purple) enters a quadrupole mass spectrometer. B is a front view of the quadrupole guide.
At very low temperatures, close to absolute zero, chemical reactions may proceed at a much higher rate than classical chemistry says they should — because in this extreme chill, quantum effects enter the picture. A Weizmann Institute of Science team has now confirmed this experimentally; their results will not only provide insight into processes in the intriguing quantum world in which particles act as waves, but they might explain how chemical reactions occur in the vast frigid regions of interstellar space.
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