Answering a Question That Has Bugged Ecologists for Decades
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...
Look on the Bright Side of Earth
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...
Building Better Enzymes – by Breaking Them Down
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,...
Down to the Synapse: Connecting Brain Circuits to Behaviour
When a threat is looming and an escape route is open, one would expect any animal to flee imminent danger. But when microscopic worms faced a threatening signal in a...
Weizmann Institute scientists reveal how viruses outwit cellular immune systems
We are used to thinking of the immune system as a separate entity, almost a distinct organ, but the truth is much more complicated. Breakthroughs in recent years – some...
Weizmann Institute scientists observe NASA asteroid shooter in action
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. DART impact as seen...
Human Tumours Are Prized Real Estate for Fungi, Study Finds
Cancer tumours contain multiple species of fungi that differ per tumour type, according to a large study led by researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of...
Putting Liquid Biopsies on Solid Ground: Cancer Diagnosis from a Millilitre of Blood
Blood tests – simple, noninvasive and economically feasible – promise to become the next major milestone in cancer diagnosis. However, most of these tests, dubbed liquid biopsies, are currently not...
Neurons Caught Rapidly Switching Gears
Even during routine tasks such as a daily stroll, our brain needs to shift gears, switching from navigating the city to jumping out of the way of a bike or...
Sweetness That Comes at a Price: Sugar Substitutes May Affect the Human Body in Unanticipated Ways
Non-nutritive sweeteners – also known as sugar substitutes or artificial sweeteners – are supposed to deliver all the sweetness of sugar without the calories. But a controlled trial conducted by...
The Viruses That Fight Disease: A Surprising Precision Weapon against Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis
The myriads of microbes in our gut, collectively termed the microbiome, are considered important to our health, but they can also harbour bacteria that contribute to inflammatory bowel disease or...
Without Egg, Sperm or Womb: Synthetic Mouse Embryo Models Created Solely from Stem Cells, Outside the Uterus
An egg meets a sperm – that’s a necessary first step in life’s beginnings, and it’s also a common first step in embryonic development research. But in a Weizmann Institute...
Curbing Candida: The Cells That Keep Fungal Infections at Bay
Of all the fungi that live in the human body, the most infamous is probably the yeast Candida. This distant cousin of baker’s yeast is notorious for causing various types...
Scent of a Friend: Similarities in Body Odour May Contribute to Social Bonding
Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have found that people may have a tendency to form friendships with individuals who have a similar body odour. The researchers were even able to...
The Heat Is On: Weizmann Institute Scientists Uncover Traces of Fire Dating Back At Least 800,000 Years
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...
Changing the Channel: Study Sheds New Light on a Promising Antidepressant
Ketamine, a well-known anaesthetic used in smaller doses as a party drug, was hailed as a “new hope for depression” in a Time magazine cover story in 2017. Two years...
Harder Winters, Stronger Storms: New Data Reveals Climate Change Might Be More Rapid than Predicted
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...
Settled at Birth: Blood Vessels Remember Their Origins
Our family origins tend to shape our future in many ways. A Weizmann Institute of Science study, published in Nature, found that the same holds true for blood vessels. The...
Designing Proteins Just Got a Lot Easier
Studies at the Weizmann Institute of science is shows that AI is providing researchers the means to design biomolecules with a huge range of valuable functions – from medicine to...
Getting Under the Skin of an Autoimmune Disorder
Supporting actors sometimes steal the show, and in a new study published this week in Cell, researchers, headed by Professor Ido Amit at the Weizmann Institute of Science, showed that...