https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/people-campus/gentle-way
September 24, 2012
“Just before my 12th birthday, my father signed me up for judo lessons. I was a bit clumsy – the kind of kid who drops plates and runs into things. I was a good student in school, played chess and the synthesizer. But my father thought I needed a sport for balance. He was ri...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/math-computer-science/life-begins-80
September 27, 2012
In the spring of 2000, Prof. Victor Zalgaller had an extraordinary dream: It revealed to him the proof of a geometrical theorem. The revelation was not entirely out of the blue; Zalgaller had spent an entire year thinking about that theorem day and...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/space-physics/quantum-effects-cold-chemistry
November 18, 2012
At very low temperatures, close to absolute zero, chemical reactions may proceed at a much higher rate than classical chemistry says they should: In this extreme chill, quantum effects ente...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/math-computer-science/seeing-baby
November 18, 2012
Infants soon learn to make sense of the complex world around them: Their understanding far surpasses any of the current attempts to design intelligent computerized systems. How do such young infants arrive at this understanding? Answering this question has been a challeng...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/coupling-protein
November 18, 2012
At any given moment in the cell, all sorts of genes are being activated and proteins are getting churned out one after the other. One of the big shots directing this activity is the protein NF-kappaB – a sort of production overseer responsible for the activation of many of t...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/lesson-sleep-learning-0
November 18, 2012
Is sleep learning possible? A new Weizmann Institute study that appeared recently in Nature Neuroscience has found that if certain odors are presented after tones are heard during sleep,...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/living-arsenic
November 18, 2012
Microorganisms living in environments that are naturally rich in the arsenic-based compound arsenate face a unique challenge: How to take up the phosphate compounds they need to live, while avoiding the toxic arsena...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/immune-cells’-flexible-choices
November 18, 2012
One of the mechanisms used by the immune system to cope with the huge variety of possible threats from viruses, bacteria and cancerous cells is to randomly combine DNA segments for the production of receptors on lymphocytes – a type of white blood cell. T...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/arms-race
November 29, 2012
The H.G. Wells classic War of the Worlds tells of a fictional invasion of Earth by evil Martians. Just when the Earthlings are about to give in to the aliens’ superior strength, the Martians pick up and leave, defeated by the tiny bacteria and viruses they encounter...
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/gene-control-hierarchy
November 29, 2012
About 90% of the mutations that cause disease occur in short regulatory segments of the genome that sit next to the genes and determine whether a particular gene will be turned on, where and how strongly. A research team led by Dr. Ido Amit of the Weiz...