Although over the centuries we have learned much about our physical world, from the earth below to the stars above, there are still many mysteries to uncover.
Quantifying wildlife reveals human impact – human movement is 40 times greater than that of all land animals combined; livestock biomass up 400% and wild mammals down 70% over the past two centuries. Life on the moveWolves roaming the Mongolian steppes cover more than...
20.10.2025 A new, first-time, model from the Weizmann Institute of Science is solving the mystery of opposite winds on giant planets. Blasting around the equators of the solar system’s giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – are fierce jet streams...
New evidence from the Weizmann Institute of Science points to sweeping urban planning in the city of Jerusalem existed as early as the 9th century BCE. More than 2,800 years ago, residents of Iron-age Jerusalem faced a climate change, marked by years of drought and...
Researchers led by Northwestern University in the United States and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, have discovered a new type of supernova that offers a rare glimpse into the depths of massive stars and exposes hidden sites where heavy chemical elements...
Bacterial species collected from their natural habitat in a series of ponds in Mexico create spectacular kaleidoscopic patterns, shedding new light on collective behaviour according to new Weizmann Institute of Science research. A desert region in northern Mexico...
Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have uncovered physical laws explaining why cracks in materials break their symmetry while spreading. These findings lay the groundwork for the design of more resilient materials which could have significant implications for...
A new Weizmann Institute method reveals how lasers can instantly alter the properties of matter. Instantly turning a material from opaque to transparent, or from a conductor to an insulator, is no longer the stuff of science fiction. For several years now, scientists...
In a new Weizmann Institute of Science experiment just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), cooperation was shown to work out better for ants than for humans. Anyone who has dealt with ants in the kitchen knows that ants are highly...
Modelling a tiny worm’s feeding process at the Weizmann Institute of Science has revealed the power of mathematics and computer science when exploring the complexity of biological organisms. The throat of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans might seem like an odd...
A Weizmann Institute study of super-tough organisms reveals strategies for creating more sustainable, resilient human-made materials. Humans are by no means alone in the search for more sustainable materials. Nature, too, has been 'working' on the problem of...
How are humans affecting the Northern Hemisphere’s wind patterns? A new Weizmann Institute of Science study shows how. The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record and was unfortunately no surprise. Summers have been getting hotter and drier around the world,...
A new Weizmann Institute of Science ceramic could replace lead-based electronic components. Produced in the Weizmann lab or Professor Igor Lubomirsky’s this material seems too good to be true. It belongs to a class of materials that are the backbone of many essential...
The creation of a strange, ‘long-distance’ molecule revealed in a recent physics experiment at the Weizmann Institute of Science sheds light on chemical reactions taking place near absolute zero. When two particles collide, they normally fly off in opposite...
A Weizmann Institute study of photons in quantum computing has made a surprising discovery: When photons collide, they create vortices. Vortices are a common physical phenomenon. You find them in the structure of galaxies, tornadoes and hurricanes, as well as in a cup...
Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have established absolute chronology for Kingdom of Judah’s Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been inhabited continuously for thousands of years, serving as both a center of religious significance and a seat of power for kingdoms, yet...
Humankind has long turned to the skies in search of answers. Accounts of supernovae – exploding stars – go back thousands of years, but while we know today that these events create the building blocks of life itself, the conditions that cause a star to explode still...
A newly discovered binary celestial system via special data analysis led by the Weizmann Institute of Science, may advance our understanding of planet and star evolution under extreme conditions. The search for exoplanets – planets that orbit stars located beyond the...
The journey to Jupiter has begun. The European Space Agency’s unmanned spacecraft JUICE (short for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) recently launched (13 April) from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. JUICE’s voyage, the ESA’s most ambitious mission to date, will be...
NASA will launch Israel’s first space telescope – the Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite, or ULTRASAT – into high-Earth orbit in early 2026, as part of a newly signed partnership between United States’ NASA and Israel's Ministry of Innovation, Science and...
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have produced the first global estimate of the combined weight of all land insects and related arthropods. Arthropods crawl and buzz around us in the wild and on farmlands, on the street and at home, under our floors...
Why do Earth’s hemispheres look equally bright when viewed from space? Weizmann Institute scientists offer a solution to this 50-year-old mystery. When looking at the Earth from space, its hemispheres – northern and southern – appear equally bright. This is...
NASA’s first-ever interception of an asteroid happened in full view of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who documented the collision’s debris last Tuesday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKVhQmZYBgE&feature=emb_imp_woyt DART impact as...
They say that where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers are working hard to investigate that claim, or at least elucidate what constitutes ‘smoke’. In an article published this week in PNAS, the scientists reveal an advanced,...
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is up there with the rings of Saturn and the blue marble of Earth for solar system icon status. In a study published this week in Science, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers and their collaborators on NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter,...