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Capturing the High End
Posted by weizmann science writer on March 13, 2014 Perovskite (say it: pə-ˈräv-ˌskīt, -ˈräf-). It may never become a household word, and the chemical formulas (eg., CH3NH3PbI3−xClx ) are as long as the name. But if you find yourself, in the not-so-distant future, adding new-and-improved solar panels to your roof, they may well contain a perovskite layer. If they do, it will be these…
A Matter of Time
Posted by weizmann science writer on February 5, 2014 The next time you reach into the fridge for a midnight snack – take heed: New research by Weizmann Institute scientists has shown that the time at which you eat your meals might have a profound effect on your liver triglyceride levels. Their research was conducted on mice, but if found to be true…
Palestinian and Israeli Chemists Meet in Malta
Posted by weizmann science writer on February 3, 2014 “Billions of dollars are being spent on weapons of mass destruction. A small fraction of that could go so far to engage more Israeli and Arab scientists in collaborative projects in order to create a critical mass that will bring about peace.” The speaker is Dr. Zafra Lerman, President of the Malta Conferences Foundation, which…
Guest Post: Black Holes, Quantum Information and Fuzzballs
Posted by weizmann science writer on January 29, 2014 Today’s guest post is by Weizmann Institute physicist, Prof. Micha Berkooz. Berkooz, a string theorist, recently organized a conference at the Institute on “Black Holes and Quantum Information Theory.” We asked him about Hawking’s recent proposal, reported in Nature under the headline:”There are no black holes.” Celebrated theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has opened a…
Breaking the Law
Posted by weizmann science writer on January 1, 2014 A recent paper by Weizmann Institute scientists suggests that we might be able to break the third law of thermodynamics. This is how that law was originally formulated in 1908 by Walther Nernst: “It is impossible for any procedure to lead to the isotherm T = 0 in a finite number of steps,” (source: Wikipedia).…
Mario Livio at the Weizmann Institute
Posted by weizmann science writer on December 31, 2013 Prof. Mario Livio takes the long view on science. In his newest book, Brilliant Blunders, he points out some of the mistakes made by some icons of science — Einstein and Pauling among them. More importantly, he insists that researchers must be free to make mistakes. Livio recently gave us a taste of his subject…
Science Haiku 3×3
Posted by weizmann science writer on November 25, 2013 More science-themed haikus. I seem to keep writing them because we tend to put out three “mini press releases” at a time (a relic of the days when they were printed on two sides of a fold-up page and mailed). So I could pick just one to blog about, or I could try to fit…
Building a Better Stem Cell
Posted by weizmann science writer on October 31, 2013 In the future, stem cells created from our own skin cells will be used to renew damaged organs or grow new ones. We know this promise has often been made before, but the latest research in the lab of Dr. Jacob (Yaqub) Hanna is producing some solid findings that may make you believe in the…
Physical Benefits
Posted by weizmann science writer on October 13, 2013 Of the four new articles online on our website, three happen, purely by accident, to be on physics research. The three are very different, and yet each is an illustration of the ways that basic physics research changes our world – in small and large, practical and enlightening ways. And each is situated at a…
A Computer for Nobel Prize-Winning Work
Posted by weizmann science writer on October 10, 2013 Here is a photo of one of the Golem computers on which Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt — this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners, along with Martin Karplus — did much of their original work. My dad was a computer programmer at that time, so I have some idea of what their work…