Sciences

Findings will Help Develop New Strains for Medical Cannabis Users and Increase Crop Yields

Probing the world of the very, very small is a wonderland for physicists.  At this nano-scale, where materials as thin as 100 atoms are studied, totally new and unexpected phenomena are discovered.  Here, nature ceases to behave in a way that is predictable by the macroscopic law of physics, unlike what goes on in the world around us or out in the cosmos.

Dr. Moran Yassour at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)’s Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Dr. Haitham Amal, at HU’s Institute for Drug Research and the School of Pharmacy, have been awarded the prestigious Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research, which is administered by the Wolf Foundation. The Krill Prize is awarded each year to 10 outstanding young researchers who have not yet been granted tenure. Winners are chosen based on standards of excellence and on the subject of their research.

Perhaps you are wearing glasses while reading this or have a cell phone, binoculars, a virtual reality headset or telescope.  All of them rely on high-quality lenses, which are bulky, expensive and heavy—especially when considering drones and satellites, where every gram counts.

Sometimes, to see the roots, you have to look up.

Roots are normally associated with things that live underground, in the damp and the dark. Think of turnips, radishes and yams. However, many plants make their roots above ground.  Ivy uses its roots to climb on buildings and the mighty ficus tree uses them to support their large branches.  What makes plants form roots in the “wrong place,” so to speak? That would be like us humans sprouting legs from our shoulders.

Movement is ubiquitous across the natural world. All organisms move, actively or passively, regularly or during specific life stages, to meet energy, survival, reproductive and social demands.  Movement affects a variety of ecological processes and the ability of individuals to cope with human-induced, rapid environmental changes.

An article published by the Nature Communications journal illustrates the innovative approach to the realization of increasingly performing sensors by researchers from the Politecnico di Torino and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

For almost two years, newsfeeds have kept us updated on the daily battle to annihilate the coronavirus.  So, it’ s easy to forget that there are also many types of bacteria threatening human health – our survival depends on the constant quest for new antibiotics that can destroy them.  Recent research provides an important insight into the complex response of bacteria to antibiotics and opens up the possibility of developing a novel and more effective class of drugs to combat major bacterial diseases.

The human brain is a constant buzz of activity, with its 86 billion nerve cells (neurons) sending electrical signals from one region of the brain to another. The signals travel along the white matter fibers, a maze of wire-like fibers, ultimately giving rise to all brain functions. Uncovering these wire-like highways between neurons has been a longstanding challenge for neuroscience.  Existing methods for mapping this neural circuitry at the cellular level are either limited to animal studies or require highly specialized equipment for data acquisition and processing.

In our increasingly industrialized world, what we produce “out there” has a direct impact on what happens inside our bodies.  A new study by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) reveals the link between rates of metal production and toxic lead exposure in humans.  The research team closely examined human remains from a burial ground in central Italy that was in consecutive use for 12,000 years.

In an effort to increase agricultural productivity and limit waste, a team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment developed a method to detect signs of stress before the plant is damaged.

A long-standing, unresolved puzzle concerns the taste of heavy water.  Regular water has no distinct taste but rumors indicate that heavy water tastes sweet.  Why is this so if heavy water, D₂O, is practically identical to ordinary water, H₂O?