Scientists and public health officials are using genomic sequencing to plan for future pandemics and to detect variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, such as the more contagious Delta variant. UW-Madison virology professors and researchers Tom Friedrich and Dave O’Connor explain.
Madison: As many as one-third of the state’s gray wolves likely died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government announced it was ending legal protections, according to a study released Monday. Poaching and a February hunt that far exceeded kill quotas were largely responsible for the drop-off, University of Wisconsin scientists said, though some other scientists say more direct evidence is needed for some of the calculations
Wisconsin was the first state to resume hunting of wolves. A study released this week by University of Wisconsin scientists says that as many as one-third of Wisconsin’s gray wolves likely died at the hands of humans in the months after the federal government announced it was ending legal protections.
The aim of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was to have a hunting season that “resulted in no annual increase or decrease in the state’s wolf population.” Wolf hunts are annual events where hunters congregate to hunt the animals for sport, though this practice has become controversial in many countries. However, that no change in the wolf’s population goal was not met, says Adrian Treves, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and coauthor of the new findings.
In 1990, the late physician-scientist Jon Wolff and his University of Wisconsin colleagues injected mRNA into mice, which caused cells in the mice to produce the encoded proteins. In many ways, that work served as the first step toward making a vaccine from mRNA, but there was a long way to go—and there still is, for many applications.
Students receive the scholarship after being nominated by their universities.
UW System President Tommy Thompson announced Tuesday that he has named Jeff Buhrandt as Interim Vice President for University Relations. Buhrandt is replacing Scott Neitzel who is resigning his position after helping the UW System during the pandemic.
Nearly 270 University of Wisconsin System students will share $1 million in scholarships under the new Wisconsin Regents Opportunity Scholarship program. Each of the UW System’s 13 universities received an equal allocation of $77,000. Universities then determine the number and size of each scholarship and nominated students for eligibility, which the UW System certified.
Concert on Market Street featured “Echoes of Camp Randall” Tuesday evening, ringing in the Badger spirit less than two months from UW-Madison’s first home game.
Climate activists on the UW-Madison campus have long argued that the university foundation’s investments in fossil fuel companies are immoral. Now they’re arguing that those investments are illegal, too.
Matt Henningsen, University of Wisconsin football player
Maybe now, half a century later, it’s finally time to end the war on drug users—repeal the heavy penalties for possession, pardon the millions of nonviolent offenders, replace mass incarceration with mandatory drug treatment, restore voting rights to convicts and ex-convicts alike, and, above all, purge those persistent stereotypes of the dangerous Black male from our public discourse and private thoughts.If only…
Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As a former biosafety officer for UW-Madison, I am extremely interested in the debate about the origin of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.
Not everyone in the field is convinced of the timeline, though: Caitlin Pepperell, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison not involved with the study, told NS that when organisms recombine their DNA—like adenovirus C often does, ’the signal gets scrambled.’
“The difference in the survival rate among ICU patients was much higher than I expected,” said William Hartman, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Hartman was not one of the study authors.
Hilbert is based on pioneering work over the last several decades by Mark Saffman, ColdQuanta’s Chief Scientist for Quantum Information and professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Cold Atoms are nature’s qubits. Their pristine characteristics enable control of their quantum state with a clear pathway to rapidly scaling to multiple thousands of qubits,” said Mark Saffman.
Leslie Bow, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin, describes Blackfishing as “a racial masquerade that operates as a form of racial fetishism.”
“There is still so much to learn – how long immunity persists after vaccines, what kinds of reactions people might have with additional doses, and do the vaccines need to be updated for new strains of SARS-CoV2 – that it’s just too soon to know whether we will all need to have booster shots like we do for the flu,” Dr. Jim Conway, medical director of UW Health’s Immunization Program and professor of pediatrics and infectious disease specialist at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, said.
Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend boosters for any COVID-19 vaccine, indicating that the need for and timing of COVID-19 booster doses have not been established. It may be a while until those recommendations are made, according to Dr. Jim Conway, medical director, UW Health Immunization Program, and professor of pediatrics and infectious disease specialist, UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that at this time they are not recommending booster doses of any of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in use in the United States. Dr. Jim Conway, the medical director of the UW Health Immunization Program, and professor of pediatrics and infectious disease specialist at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, says it might be a while before those recommendations are made.
He held various jobs before joining the University of Wisconsin Physical Plant where he worked as a custodian for over 25 years until retirement.
