Genetics or Lifestyle: What is it that Shapes our Microbiome?
The question of nature vs nurture extends to our microbiome – the personal complement of mostly-friendly bacteria we carry around with us and a new study brings more hope for improving...
‘Brain on a Chip’ Reveals How the Brain Folds
Being born with a ‘tabula rasa’ – a clean slate – for the brain is something of a curse. Our brains are already wrinkled like walnuts by the time we...
Bacterial Immune Systems Take the Stage
A systematic study by the Weizmann Institute of Science, uncovering multiple new and unusual bacterial immune defence mechanisms which could pave the way toward new biotech tools, has just been...
Mapping the Social Landscape
New Weizmann research in bats and published in Science has identified ‘social place cells’ in the brain that respond to the locations of others in the spatial environment, revealing a sub-population...
Malaria Tricks the Immune System
Global efforts to eradicate malaria are dependent on scientists’ ability to outsmart the malaria parasite and a new study suggests a possible defence in the battle against this disease. Plasmodium...
Uncovering Varied Pathways to Agriculture
Around 15,000 years ago, the Natufian culture appeared in what is today’s Middle East. This culture, which straddled the border between nomadic and settled lifestyles, had diverse, complex origins –...
Autism and the Smell of Fear
Autism typically involves the inability to read social cues, often associated with visual difficulty in interpreting facial expression. New research from the Weizmann Institute of Science, reported this week in...
The Science of Joints and Cartilage
The joint pain associated with osteoarthritis is a big medical problem, with 250 million sufferers worldwide. But according to Professor Jacob Klein of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of...
Immune Cells’ New Role in Preventing Obesity
In the 1880s, Russian zoologist EIie Metchnikoff invented the term macrophage – meaning ‘big eater’ – for a certain type of white blood cell, due to the way it devours...
Crashing Neutron Stars Observed for the First Time
An international research team, including physicists from the Weizmann Institute of Science, has for the first time succeeded in observing a merger of two colliding neutron stars. The merger was...
Spare Parts Might “Jump-Start” Protein Design
The idea of proteins that can be designed on computers for specific functions has been a cutting-edge concept that has stubbornly remained ‘in the future’ however new research at the...
Genomic Recycling: Ancestral Genes Take On New Roles
We often hear about the multitude of genes we have in common with chimps, birds or other living creatures, but such comparisons are sometimes misleading. The shared percentage usually refers...
Altitude Training for Cancer-fighting Cells
New research from the Weizmann Institute of Science published in Cell Reports and recently reported in The Times of Israel, indicates that oxygen starvation could toughen up immune T cells for cancer immunotherapy....
Bacteria Hinder Chemotherapy: Antibiotics can Help
There is another reason why chemotherapy sometimes does not work: bacteria. In a study published in Science, researchers found that certain bacteria can be found inside human pancreatic tumours, with...
Recurring Leukaemia Cells there from the Start
Analysing cancer stem cell populations in first-time patients enabled researchers to predict who was most likely to suffer a relapse. For some cancers, remission does not last long: The cancer...
P53 Gene Expands its Reach
Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have found a whole new role for one of the most famous proteins in cancer research – p53. If any gene has a...
The Connection Between Attention and Reflex
How does attention direct the subconscious actions of our sensory organs? Many of us have had the experience of sitting on the sofa at the end of a long day...
Bacteria in Dust Storms Affect Health
Israel is subjected to sand and dust storms from several directions: northeast from the Sahara, northwest from Saudi Arabia and southwest from the desert regions of Syria. The airborne dust...
Stress in the Womb Raises Risk for Compulsive Eating
While the symptoms of binge-eating disorder usually first appear in adolescence, a new study shows that the seeds of the disorder may be sown in the womb as a result...
Cells that Rejuvenate the Brain
A newly discovered immune cell type by Weizmann scientists may lead to a future treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease manifested by various neuronal pathological processes...