Research in Focus

March 20, 2021

Mouse Embryos Grown Outside the Uterus

A new method is set to reveal the hidden first stages of embryonic development – from a tiny ball of cells to organ growth – this unique research is from...

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March 20, 2021

Bacteria May Aid Anti-Cancer Immune Response

Cancer immunotherapy may get a boost from an unexpected direction: bacteria residing within tumour cells. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science and...

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March 19, 2021

How Bushfire Smoke Travelled Around the World

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...

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March 14, 2021

Killing Them Softly – with Proteasomes

A collaborative research effort at the Weizmann Institute of Science has revealed that deadly malaria parasites’ are a pre-invasion strategy for softening up red blood cells. Red blood cells are...

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February 28, 2021

How ‘Great’ was the Great Oxygenation Event?

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...

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February 28, 2021

Uncovering the Anti-Myeloma Resistance Files

Multiple myeloma patients live much longer today than in the past, thanks to new targeted anti-myeloma drugs, but ultimately most develop resistance to the medications, and in some the disease...

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January 28, 2021

Study Could Help Develop New Antibacterial Therapies

Bacteria that cause life-threatening infections sometimes resort to the nastiest ploy of all: Stealing the human body’s defence weapons and exploiting them to their own advantage. Researchers at the Weizmann...

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January 28, 2021

Research on Stress Reveals New Cells and Drug Targets

Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, focused on uncovering the activities organs, tissues and cells responsible for our body’s stress response has revealed...

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January 9, 2021

A Brain Mechanism Underlying ‘Vision’ in the Blind Revealed

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have observed slow spontaneous fluctuations in the brain’s visual centres preceding visual hallucinations in blind people. Some people lose their eyesight, but continue...

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December 27, 2020

Plastic’s Just Blowing in the Wind

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...

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December 20, 2020

How Cancers Hurt Themselves to Hurt Immune Cells More

A study of melanoma cells explains a puzzling response they exhibit to ward off T cell attacks.  Cancers like melanoma are hard to treat, not least because they have a...

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December 12, 2020

The Mass of Human-Made Materials Now Equals the Planet’s Biomass

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...

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November 21, 2020

A New Look at the Social Brain

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”  Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, vol. 5 Communication with others – verbal and...

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November 15, 2020

Digital Aromas on the Horizon

Fragrances – promising mystery, intrigue and forbidden thrills – are blended by master perfumers, their recipes kept secret. In a new study on the sense of smell, Weizmann Institute of...

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November 8, 2020

Mystery Molecule in Bacteria Is Revealed to Be a Guard

Peculiar hybrid structures called retrons that are half RNA, half single-strand DNA are found in many species of bacteria. Since their discovery around 35 years ago, researchers have learned how...

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November 1, 2020

Ice Could Exist Near the Lunar Surface

New collaborative research from the United States and the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that micro cold traps near the Moon’s poles could contain a ready supply of water ice....

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October 30, 2020

Surprising Players in Acute Liver Failure Point to Potential Treatment

Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have found that gut microbes and host cells jointly contribute to the progression of acute liver failure – a mostly incurable disease – yet also...

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October 24, 2020

Wrong on Time

We cannot stop the march of time, but our perception of time can shrink or stretch. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science recently uncovered a new cognitive bias: The...

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October 24, 2020

Creativity Emerges from Spontaneous Neural Activity

Nicola Tesla thought up his alternating current induction motor while walking, Margaret Atwood comes up with ideas while bird-watching, and Archimedes was famously inspired to formulate the laws of buoyancy...

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October 18, 2020

Ancient Hominins Used Fire to Make Stone Tools

Our ancestors not only knew how to use fire, they also developed sophisticated technologies for making tools. Weizmann Institute of Science research, recently published in Nature Human Behaviour, suggest that...

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