From left, Lior Benizri of Brussels, Ramon Castaneda of Mexico, Aleix Segui of Barcelona and Karna Morey of Durham, North Carolina tackle a problem in a physics lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science. (Weizmann Institute)

This story is sponsored by the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science.

REHOVOT, Israel — One hot day this summer, 18-year-old Aleix Segui of Barcelona walked around an academic campus in this central Israeli city wearing a gray T-shirt with a mathematical equation on the front.

The meaning of the shirt’s cryptic message would be lost on most people, but Segui’s new friends in a unique Israeli summer science program easily got the esoteric mathematical joke.

Among them was Miyu Terashima, a 16-year-old originally from Japan who now lives in Hong Kong.

“It’s fun that people understand scientific jokes around here,” she said.

Segui and Terashima are two of 73 recent high school graduates who came to Israel this summer to participate in a hands-on scientific research program at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Dr. Bessie F. Lawrence International Summer Science Institute, or ISSI.

The full story is available here.