Providing solutions to our planet’s environmental challenges is part of Weizmann’s business.
A Weizmann researcher has uncovered previously undocumented impact of coastal aquifers on ocean chemistry. We have gone to the bottom of the ocean to study how its chemistry shapes our planet’s climate, even chasing lava-spewing underwater volcanoes to do it. But it...
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...
A plant sanctuary established in the Weizmann Institute greenhouses holds valuable lessons for survival and helps to instil a love for plant conservation. When PhD student Gal Raviv thought of creating a sanctuary garden at the Weizmann Institute of Science, what she...
The Weizmann Institute of Science is switching to the use of only green electricity and is becoming an almost fully renewable energy campus – alongside making sustainability and climate change a central theme of its research efforts. This shift brings many benefits,...
A mysterious menace lurks in the oceans – threatening algal blooms. Now, Weizmann Institute researchers have developed a new way to track the culprit – giant viruses – and identify their traces in specific types of tiny algae that they attack. They were said to come...
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,...
Will a better understanding of photosynthesis help us grow plants under artificial light? New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science is looking to answer this question. Photosynthesis, the process by which plants, algae and certain kinds of bacteria convert...
New findings from the Weizmann Institute of Science may improve flood warnings for millions living on the Indian subcontinent. In 2018, in the Indian state of Kerala, more than 400 people died in a single series of floods that displaced millions. Flooding is a regular...
A new Weizmann Institute study shows that building solar farms in arid regions is a far more effective way to tackle the climate crisis than planting forests. A verdant forest is one of the most iconic symbols of the power of nature, from the abundance of plant and...
Why do parts of Earth become rainforests, whereas others turn into deserts? A new study from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Massachusetts Institute of Technology exposes the far-reaching impact of human activity on a global airflow phenomenon that crucially...
We often think that our world is an infinite realm comprising great plains, jungles and oceans, teeming with wild animals featured in memorable nature shows like the BBC’s Planet Earth. But the first global census of wild mammal biomass, conducted by Weizmann...
In a major step toward greener industry, Weizmann Institute scientists have created a computational method for generating effective enzymes with unprecedented efficiency. This new study is now published in Science, and brings this vision closer to reality. Enzymes...
The Earth’s climate is changing faster than we expected. A new study led by the Weizmann Institute of Science reveals that storms in the Southern Hemisphere have already reached intensity levels previously predicted to occur only in the year 2080 About 30 massive,...
A new database developed in collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Science is helping to reveal tomato riddles and may facilitate the breeding of delicious, disease-resistant tomatoes. Wild tomatoes that grow in South America, the ancient relatives of modern...
A new study has uncovered how some Australian fires produced a spreading stratospheric haze rivalling that of a volcanic eruption. It’s not just how hot the fires burn – it’s also where they burn that matters. During the recent extreme fire season in Australia, which...
Around 2.5 billion years ago, our planet experienced what was possibly the greatest change in its history: According to the geological record, molecular oxygen suddenly went from non-existent to becoming freely available everywhere. Evidence for the ‘great oxygenation...
As the plastic in our oceans breaks up into smaller and smaller bits without breaking down chemically, the resulting microplastics are becoming a serious ecological problem. Now, a new study at the Weizmann Institute of Science and published in Nature reveals a...
A new study at the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that we are doubling the mass of the human-made ‘anthropogenic’ part of the world every twenty years and the curve is not flattening. Earth circa 2020: The mass of all human-produced materials – concrete, steel,...
Among other things, the history of our planet has been written in the periodic reversal of its magnetic poles. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science have now proposed a new means of reading this historic record: in ice. Their findings, recently reported in...
A new census at the Weizmann Institute of Science asks why the oceans have so little biomass compared to land, and shows how small marine producers pull their weight. If you took all the fish in the ocean and weighed them, how much biomass would that be? Now add all...
Bacteria in the lab of Professor Ron Milo at the Weizmann Institute of Science have not just sworn off sugar, they have stopped eating their normal solid food, existing instead on carbon dioxide (CO2) from their environment. This bacteria could contribute to new and...
Antifreeze is life’s means of surviving in cold winters: Natural antifreeze proteins help fish, insects, plants and even bacteria live through low temperatures that should turn their liquid parts to deadly shards of ice. Strangely, in very cold conditions, the same...
Although new trees are cropping up in many places around the globe in an effort to fight climate change, it has become apparent that not all types of forests are created equal. A new study piloted by Weizmann Institute scientists suggests that planting trees that are...
A new analysis from the Weizmann Institute of Science and partners suggests hundreds of millions more could eat from the same resources if we switched to plant-based diets. About a third of the food produced for human consumption is estimated to be lost or wasted...