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The Technical Side of Research
Posted by weizmann science writer on August 14, 2013 Last month we reported on the first people who, around twelve thousand years ago, were lining their loved ones’ graves with flowers. This month, we have a piece on the “extinct” frog that was “resurrected” and then discovered to be a living fossil. Both of these studies were led by Israeli researchers from other institutions.…
Science Haiku 2
Posted by weizmann science writer on July 31, 2013 Since the haiku post was well received, and since we have another three pieces online today – each on a different finding and each interesting in its own right – I have decided to return to the haiku format. Among other things, there is something quite satisfying about distilling complex scientific findings down to 17…
A Scientific Road Trip
Posted by weizmann science writer on July 7, 2013 Right above the tree tops — where most people might think there is just air — Prof. Dan Yakir sees a distinctive atmospheric layer in which all sorts of complex exchanges are taking place. CO2, of course, is one of the important ones, and we still don’t understand all of the ins and outs of…
Mice on Camera
Posted by weizmann science writer on June 17, 2013 Take a bunch of peculiar individuals, put them all together in one setting; film their every move, every second of the day. Sound familiar? Dr. Tali Kimchi is explicit about the resemblance of her experiments to a well-known reality TV show. The difference, of course, is that Kimchi’s subjects are mice. She places large groups…
Google features WEIZAC on its blog
Posted by weizmann science writer on June 9, 2013 Google’s official blog has a post today on the first computer in Israel: WEIZAC, built at the Weizmann Institute in the 1950s. Prof. Aviezri Frenkel gives a charming description of the project, including the fireworks when the machine was first turned on, in the presence of the VIPS who had come to see the new…
Outdoors and In: Innovations in Education
Posted by weizmann science writer on June 4, 2013 The world – or at least a large swathe of Israel – was their classroom. An unusual international conference for science teaching experts started out at the Clore Garden of Science, on the Weizmann Institute campus. From there the “nomadic” conference made its way down to Eilat at the southern tip of the country, Jerusalem…
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…