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The Tao of Axon Pruning
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on May 28, 2013 To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. Lao Tsu Apparently our nervous systems develop according to the Chinese philosopher’s principle of being and not being. As our nerve cells grow, they send out long extensions – axons – throughout the developing tissues. And as they reach out, some…
Outer Planets’ Stormy Weather: All on the Surface
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on May 16, 2013 Have you complained about the weather recently? On the gas giants at the edges of our solar system, Uranus and Neptune, hurricane-like storm systems as big around as Earth blow 1000 km/h winds for years on end. Voyager II image of Neptune, showing storm features. Image: NASA But wait…What exactly constitutes weather on a giant…
The Poetry in Science
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on May 7, 2013 Poetry is finding its way into our consciousness at the Weizmann Institute: At the recent, fourth annual Science on Tap evening, which the Institute hosts in Tel Aviv, several poets joined in the fun, reading from their work before and after the talks given by scientists in over 60 filled-to-capacity pubs and cafes around the…
Flying in all directions
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on April 19, 2013 When we navigate through our environment, do we track mostly in two dimensions or in three? Clearly, we can move in all three dimensions, but does our internal map relate to the vertical direction in the same way as it does to the horizontal axes on the ground? That question has not yet been definitively…
Turing Award to the Institute’s Prof. Shafi Goldwasser
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on March 13, 2013 Prof. Shafi Goldwasser, who is at both the Weizmann Institute and MIT, will receive the 2012 A.M. Turing Award, together with Prof. Silvio Micali of MIT. Goldwasser is only the third woman to receive the Award since its inception in 1966, and she is the third faculty member of the Weizmann Institute to receive what…
Taking the Prize for Advancing Women
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on March 7, 2013 Happy International Women’s Day. In the midst of today’s hand wringing about women in science, here’s some good news: The Weizmann Institute has just been awarded a prize by the City of Barcelona for its efforts to promote women in science. Above: Barcelona Civil Rights councilor Francina Vila i Valls presents the award to the…
Overturning Ideas on Cancer
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on February 24, 2013 Another advance in cancer research is featured on our website this week. Among other things, this one highlights the dangers of assuming causation from correlation. Prof. Dov Zipori and his team were looking at adult stem cells in the bone marrow. These hold a lot of potential for treating many kinds of disease but, like…
Double Attack on Cancer
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on February 7, 2013 New research at the Institute may offer a sliver of hope for treating “triple-negative” breast cancer. “Triple-negative” refers to the fact that the breast cancer cells are missing the three different receptors targeted by the currently available drugs, for instance Herceptin and steroid hormone blockers. This type of cancer also tends to be fairly aggressive,…
Touching on Physics
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on January 28, 2013 What happens when a former physics-student-turned-documentary-director is invited to create a video clip for the first ever physics reunion? The answer is below. You may not learn anything new about physics by watching it, but you will note that Weizmann President Prof. Daniel Zajfman and VP Prof. Israel Bar-Joseph are featured, along with others.…
DiGeorge Syndrome Demystifed
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on January 17, 2013 Does your face reveal what’s in your heart? It might – even more than you know. Take, for instance, a common group of birth defects – forms of a disorder called DiGeorge syndrome. Around one in 4000 is born with this syndrome, which arises from a deletion of a short segment of chromosome 22. Among…