Dara Frank’s experiments with bacteria at the Medical College of Wisconsin require isolating 20,000 cells – by hand.
The tedious task takes about 160 hours and typically is done by scientists and students in her lab over two months. A robot that costs about $280,000 can do it in two days.
Frank, who has a doctorate in microbiology and immunology, hopes that the $10 billion for medical research included in the economic recovery act will enable the Medical College to buy one of the machines.
Quoted: â??This is definitely great news,â? said Jason D. Walker-Crawford, the pharmacy manager at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, in Madison. â??This gives us an opportunity to go back to those companies and see what they might do for us.â?
High above Madison in state government’s administration tower, two men you’ve likely never heard of are working feverishly to turn the riches of federal stimulus into economic salve for ailing Wisconsin residents.
“There is a drinking-out-of-a-fire-hydrant feeling about this,” said Alan Fish, a top University of Wisconsin official appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle along with Madison energy executive Gary Wolter to run a temporary unit dubbed the Wisconsin Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, which will close up shop in six months.
Quoted: “Most lenders are very afraid of you going into default and more afraid of you going into foreclosure because they lose a lot of money. So they are willing to work with you,” says University of Wisconsin financial specialist Michael Collins.
Five members of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association Senate have had it with being lost in the shadow of the University of Wisconsin Madison. They want to change their schoolâ??s name to the University of Milwaukee.
â??We deserve a name that kind of gives us a little prestige and individuality,â? said fresh-faced student politico Tyler Kristopeit who is the driving force behind the move. â??When I tell people I go to UWM, they say â??Oh UW-Madison?â?? no, thatâ??s not the case.â?
A survey on workplace smoking policies in Wisconsin shows employeesâ?? exposure to smoke varies by income, education and gender.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Comprehensive Cancer Center survey says high school graduates are twice as likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke than college grads. It also finds men are 50 percent more likely to be exposed to smoke than women.
Quoted: The calm that meditation engenders produces physical and emotional changes that represent the flip side of fight-or-flight. For those with overtaxed lives, a bonus of meditation is that a little of it apparently goes a long way.
One study of individuals who were new to meditating showed measurable brain and behavior differences after just two weeks of daily 30-minute sessions, says Richard Davidson, director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But meditation is like any other workout: To reap the benefits, don’t stop.
The year 1955 was a good one for a student photographer at the University of Wisconsin named Duane Hopp. He took photos of Frank Lloyd Wright in formal wear and Louis Armstrong in his shorts.
The Wright photo ran in Life magazine. The one of Armstrong â?? the only photograph of him in his underwear, according to Satchmo â?? was published in the UW-Madison student yearbook. Now, a half century on, Hopp thinks it might be time to publish them again.
Hopp, 77, has been thinking there might be a book in the best of the thousands of photos he shot over his extraordinary career, which included 26 years at the Photographic Media Center at UW-Madison.
Q: How do ice ridges form on the lake?
A: Lake ice formation is dynamic. Even when a lake is completely frozen, the ice is not stagnant. It expands and contracts as it warms and cools.
Dr. Catharine McClellan, an anthropologist and educator, died on March 3, 2009. In 1961 Dr. McClellan moved to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she was named John Bascom Professor in 1973 and became emeritus in 1983.
Blog posting from higher education reporter for USA Today.
Yesterday I posted an item about research showing that a review of 30,000 photos in college recruitment brochures for nearly 400 colleges found that black students were overrepresented compared with their actual population on campus. Hispanics and Latinos were underrepresented.
Those brochures are aimed at prospective students. Today, I look at a couple of studies related to college admissions. Specifically, they deal with something called stereotype threat — the fear that your behavior will confirm an existing stereotype of a group with which you identify. Read carefully: It’s a long post on a complex and touchy subject. I look forward to hearing your response from the question I pose below.
Blog posting from the higher education reporter for USA Today. Note: Cover of our viewbook was posted.
Hi everybody! Over the next few days, I plan to post some items related to campus diversity, a hot-button issue in some circles. The first one, below, focuses on recruitment.
Remember several years ago when officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (right) and the University of Idaho confessed to having photo-shopped minority students into photographs used in campus publications?
As her husband lay dying at UW Hospital, Ruthann Lewis was given a form.
Sign it, hospital staff said, or her husband, Dan Martin, wouldnâ??t get a liver transplant. The form said Lewis would have to pay for the procedure if the coupleâ??s insurance didnâ??t cover it.
CURIOSITIES We ask the experts your questions about our world.
Q: When we think about how hot or cold it feels, why do we worry about only wind at cold temperatures (i.e. wind chill), and only humidity at high temps (i.e. heat index)?
Quoted: There are several possibilities, speculated UW-Madison School of Business finance professor Jim Seward. It could be short sellers â?? investors who borrowed the stock and sold it with the idea they could buy it back later at a lower price â?? or it could be individuals watching the low price and thinking it may climb a few pennies.
Mike Westfall calls it the second wave of bad financial news on campus. First came a dramatic drop in university endowments. Now students and their parents are learning those same endowments are short of money for next year’s college scholarships.
It’s a national issue, but small regional universities with less than epic endowments are feeling the pain most sharply, said Westfall, vice president for university advancement at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, near Spokane.
A showdown is shaping up in some of the nationâ??s most conservative states over embryonic stem cell research, as opponents draw language and tactics from the battle over abortion to counter President Barack Obamaâ??s plan to ease research restrictions.
Legislation granting fertilized embryos “personhood” has gained momentum in at least three state legislatures. The strategy – which has been used to try to undermine the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion – is now aimed at embryonic stem cell research. The scientific field uses stem cells from human embryos, which can develop into different kinds of adult cells, to seek answers about human health.
Quoted: Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, said a new line of legal thought holds that scientific inquiry should be protected by the First Amendment, “like a political or religious statement or activity.”
Expanding the Perkins Loan program, as President Obama has proposed, will help millions of middle-class families afford college, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said on Wednesday at the Association for Career and Technical Educationâ??s annual conference.
The extra aid, Mr. Duncan said, would provide “an unprecedented chance for families to go on to college … at a time when going to college has never been more important, more critical.”
â??We arenâ??t going awayâ? wrote an anonymous commenter on The Badger Herald website last week Friday (â??SSFC votes down increased seg feeâ?).
It has been more than three years since the inception of the Student Union Initiative saga â?? during which students have endured systematic deception, incredible theft and blatant infringements on the jurisdiction over their segregated fees â?? and not once has the good side come out ahead. Every effort made to uphold student democracy and defend accessibility to this university has failed. The student voice has been bruised and then battered, while our pocketbooks have turned emptier and then empty. Ultimately, the valiant efforts of countless and diverse students proved to be too little, too late or both, and now the powerful Wisconsin Union appears destined to get away with it all.
Nearly half of college freshmen who drink alcohol spend more time drinking each week than they do studying, suggests a survey involving more than 30,000 first-year students on 76 campuses who took an online alcohol education course last fall.
Students who said they had at least one drink in the past 14 days spent an average 10.2 hours a week drinking, and averaged about 8.4 hours a week studying, according to findings being presented today at a conference in Seattle for campus student affairs officials. Nearly 70% of respondents 20,801 students said they drank. Of those, 49.4% spent more time drinking than studying.
First impressions, second thoughts and the third degree:
The debate whether Lisa Stone is the best person to coach the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team has grown more spirited despite three straight winning seasons, but no matter how much angst and statistical data you bring to the table, one reality trumps all others: The bill. â?¦
It will cost UW Athletics a minimum of $550,000 to make a coaching change â?? which starts with buying out the last two years of her contract â?? and the tab pushes beyond $1 million with the hiring of a new staff. Those are jarring totals for a department looking to cut costs. â?¦
President Obama yesterday signed an executive order to once again permit the use of federal taxpayer money to fund research on *new* embryonic stem cell lines. Opposed to that move is the group “Wisconsin Right to Life”, Executive Director Barbara Lyons joined WPRâ??s Terry Bell for moreâ?¦(8th item, audio.)
Federal funding for more embryonic stem cell lines is expected to help the university where they were first isolated: the UW-Madison.
Madison is home to the national stem cell bank, which distributes federally approved embryonic stem cell lines. During the Bush Administration, that meant only those created before 2001. Now that the funding ban has been overturned by President Obama, the embryonic stem cell bank could see more business.
The fed’s investment could also spur more interest from both a scholarly and commercial standpoint. Carl Gulbrandsen directs the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). He says private investment might be bolstered by the fact that embryonic stem cells are now in clinical trial for spinal injuries. The California company Geron is using a Wisconsin stem cell line.
We welcome President Obamaâ??s decision to lift the Bush administrationâ??s restrictions on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research. His move ends a long, bleak period in which the moral objections of religious conservatives were allowed to constrain the progress of a medically important science.
Canadians Meghan Agosta and Sarah Vaillancourt are among the three finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the top player in NCAA Division I women’s hockey.
Agosta is a junior forward with Mercyhurst College and Vaillancourt is a senior forward at Harvard University. The third finalist is University of Wisconsin goaltender Jessie Vetter.
Noted: Chris Marnay, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been working on microgrids for 10 years. He’s been working with Prof. Robert Lasseter at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who came up with one concept of a microgrid that involves small generators that monitor voltage and frequency nearby in the microgrid and use the information to maintain safe and stable operation when “islanded” from the larger grid. The challenge has been to create microgrids that have control when they are independent of the larger grid, as well as the ability to seamlessly disconnect and reconnect to utility power, says Marnay.
A surge in drug cartel violence along Mexico’s northern border towns has put the spotlight on safety measures for college spring breakers heading south.
Colleges throughout Wisconsin are issuing warnings, a step to reinforce the State Department’s travel alert for Mexico.
Although no one is discouraging travel, the Mexican tourism industry is doing what it can to quell fears of would-be visitors.
Following an act of vandalism last week against a University of Wisconsin-Madison fraternity house involved in rape allegations, Dean of Students Lori Berquam is calling on the Greek community to step up vigilance around Langdon Street.
Three main picture windows were broken at Sigma Chi, 221 Langdon St., early Friday morning, according to Madison Police Department Spokesman Joel DeSpain. Fraternity members found rocks in the common area of the building, DeSpain said.
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business Dean Michael Knetter said he’d stick to investments in the middle of the road.
“I would probably take a somewhat defensive and cautious position yet,” Knetter said. “What am I doing? I’m getting my flat screen TV for $1,000, maybe I’m keeping $1,000 in something fairly liquid, and I’m putting $3,000 in the market and probably betting on the technology sector in the U.S. to really carry the day.”
The Associate Director of Housing responded Tuesday to the resignation of house fellows across the UW-Madison campus.
Kay Reuter-Krohn said over the course of the current school year, four house fellows have resigned. During the â??07-â??08 school year, three house fellows resigned, which she said is in the ballpark for most resignations.
Allegations of a rape at a University of Wisconsin-Madison fraternity house prompted the dean of students to hold a sexual assault forum on campus Tuesday night.
“What we want to provide for anybody who’s been a victim of sexual assault is for them to know that there are people here on this campus who care about them and who want to make sure that they have a successful career while at the University of Wisconsin,” said Lori Berquam, UW-Madison dean of students.
President Barack Obama is ending former President George W. Bush’s limits on using federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research, a move that could bring Wisconsin even more into the forefront in the area.
Obama was to sign an executive order on stem cells and memo on science Monday in an East Room ceremony.
Quoted: “It is particularly important to test for contaminants at this time of year when snowmelt and spring rains recharge our water supplies,” said UW-Madison Water Resources Institute director Anders Andren. “We use more than 800 million gallons of groundwater each day, and Wisconsin is not immune to water contamination.”
An alleged rape at the University of Wisconsin prompted campus officials to hold a forum Tuesday night to address sexual assaults.
This action stems from a series of articles in the Badger Herald newspaper chronicling an alleged rape of a student by fraternity members last October.
Wisconsin’s drunken driving problem is at long last attracting legislative attention. Most proposals involve strengthening penalties, which clearly is warranted. For example, the first offense is only a violation, not even a misdemeanor, in Wisconsin. Unfortunately the sharp focus on penalties is hindering consideration of more comprehensive and effective measures.
Richard L. Brown is an associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Pledging that his administration will â??make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,â? President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush administrationâ??s strict limits on human embryonic stem cell research.
At a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, before an audience that included lawmakers, scientists and patients, several of them in wheelchairs, Mr. Obama announced that he was issuing an executive order intended to advance the research. He said he hoped Congress would follow with bipartisan legislation that would ease the existing restrictions even more.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will hold a campus forum to discuss sexual assault tonight, in the wake of allegations that surfaced last week that a student was raped at a fraternity.
The Badger Herald, a campus newspaper, first reported last week that police are investigating an alleged October sexual assault at the Sigma Chi fraternity house.
The fraternity has voluntarily suspended its social activities during the investigation.
With soaring oratory, President Obama on Monday removed a substantial practical nuisance that has long made life difficult for stem cell researchers. He freed biomedical researchers using federal money (a vast majority) to work on more than the small number of human embryonic stem cell lines that were established before Aug. 9, 2001.
In practical terms, federally financed researchers will now find it easier to do a particular category of stem cell experiments that, though still important, has been somewhat eclipsed by new advances.
President Obama got a lot of applause for declaring in his inaugural address that he would “restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.”
That was uplifting rhetoric, worthy of embrace and encouragement.
But the louder applause should come now, as the president follows through on his promise.
Perhaps nowhere else in the nation was President Barack Obamaâ??s decision to reversal on the governmentâ??s stem cell research policy more celebrated than at the University of Wisconsin.
The university is where the field of embryonic stem cell research got its start and continues.
UWâ??s Dr. Jamie Thompson was the first to isolate embryonic cells more than a decade ago and a new hub of research, the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery is rising up in the heart of the campus.
Tough economic times have caused thousands across the country to lose their jobs. Now, many looking for new careers are asking themselves which fields are recession-proof.
While no job is totally secure, there are some that are still in high demand.
At Madison Area Technical College, many students are coming back to supplement their education after a layoff. Some switch fields altogether, and many are flocking to information technology and health care careers, which offer a wide array of options.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and other local scientists were praising President Barack Obama’s ceremony lifting restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research on Monday.
The president signed an executive order removing restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
“After much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear majority of Americans across the political spectrum. And from all backgrounds and beliefs have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research,” said Obama during Monday’s ceremony.
President Obama reversed a 2001 executive order today that will have a major impact on stem cell research in Madison.
The executive order signed today allows federal taxpayer dollars to fund broader research. In 2001 President George W. Bush limited the use of taxpayer money to just 21 stem cell lines. Researchers say the increased research funding will provide the possiblility of cures for ailments from diabetes to paralysis.
A room full of UW scientists clapped and cheered on Monday morning as they watched President Barack Obama signed a new order significantly loosening restrictions on stem cell research.
The Waisman Center on UW’s campus setup a large projection screen with the presidential news conference.
“It’s very exciting. It feels like a cloud has been lifted,” said Allison Ebert, an associate scientist in one of the center’s many labs.
When it comes to the Wisconsin Union, this board â?? and likely many members of the student body â?? hate that segregated fees are going to fund the reconstruction of the new Union South. We have stated in the past that the Student Union Initiative was an unnecessary proposal and irresponsible use of what is essentially student taxation to remedy what is essentially a nuisance at its worst.
When President Barack Obama this morning announced an executive order lifting some restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, UW-Madison scientist James Thomson was there.
Thomson’s presence, along with several others in the state working in the field, illustrates how Wisconsin has had an impact on this still emerging field, and the promise of what could come as a result of the order.
Thomson, who pioneered embryonic stem cell research at his UW-Madison lab 11 years ago, called the action a â??welcome milestone.â?
Wisconsin’s county clerks have some issues with a provision in Governor Jim Doyle’s budget proposal.
The measure would require counties to register same sex domestic partners. That registry would be maintained by the register of deeds in each county and allow partners to access certain medical and financial benefits.
President Barack Obama’s order lifting restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research was cheered Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the birthplace of the field.
UW-Madison scientists said the order will mean more cells and funding for studies, fewer bureaucratic hurdles for scientists and greater student interest in entering the field.
UW-Madison scientist James Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998. He called Obama’s action “a welcome milestone.”
Wisconsin had a sizable contingent present for the White House signing ceremony marking the end of restrictions on stem cell research funding.
President Obama signed the executive order this morning, which allows increased federal money for the controversial research.
U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, and UW-Madison Professor James Thomson, who pioneered the isolation of human embryonic stem cells more than 10 years ago, attended the East Room ceremony.
To the cheers of scientists packed inside the White House and watching intently nationwide, President Obama signed an order on Monday reversing an eight-year-old federal restriction on experimentation with human embryonic stem cells.
Mr. Obama, overturning one of the most far-reaching obstacles to scientific exploration imposed by the Bush administration, said he recognized the ethnical concerns raised by research involving an embryo, which is the cluster of cells that grows immediately after conception.
President Obama on Monday made good on his campaign promise to lift the restrictions imposed by President George W. Bush on federal support for stem cell research. At the same time, the president issued a strong statement on the importance of protecting science from political interference — and pledged that his administration’s policies would be based on sound scientific advice and would not impose ideological tests on researchers.
Erma Esser, age 65, passed away on March 5, 2009. Erma was employed at the UW-Madison as a custodian in its housing department and with the UW-Madison Extension.
Winston L. Brembeck, age 96, passed away peacefully on Saturday, March 7, 2009. Winston taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1946, until his retirement in 1984, as UW Professor Emeritus of the Department of Communications Arts.
Friday’s article regarding my remarks to the UW Board of Regents concerning the proposed budget lacked some important context. It characterized my view of the university’s fortunes as “grim” when, in fact, the governor’s budget provides many significant advances for our campus.
As my colleagues and I pointed out, it provides new sources of financial aid for low- and middle-income students, funding for research initiatives, resources for faculty retention and recruitment and support for domestic partner health benefits.
The 5 percent cuts mentioned were a worst-case scenario — something that could result if no tuition funds were used to help offset reductions and if there were a 1 percent cut on all funds. I stated that I don’t expect that will be the outcome.
Yes, pay more to protect youth
Thanks for your courageous stand on increasing the beer tax. But let’s not stop at a few pennies per beer. That would hardly start to pay off the annual $5 billion tab for alcohol-related health, social, and legal problems in Wisconsin.
Another reason for a higher tax is that increasing the price of alcohol is the single most effective way to decrease binge drinking by young people. Such drinking in itself causes harm, and for teenagers it poses risk for lifelong alcoholism.
A third reason is that stronger enforcement is only part of a comprehensive package to make our roads safer. In Wisconsin, three-fourths of intoxicated drivers involved in fatal crashes have never before been caught for drunken driving.
President Obama will announce Monday that he is reversing Bush administration limits on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research as part of a pledge to separate science and politics, White House officials said Friday.
While lifting the Bush administrationâ??s restrictions on federally financed human embryonic stem cell research, President Obama intends to avoid the thorniest question in the debate: whether taxpayer dollars should be used to experiment on embryos themselves, two senior administration officials said Sun
Itâ??s remembered fondly as one of the epic moments in the history of the University of Wisconsin menâ??s hockey program.
On Feb. 11, 2006, the Badgers staged their first outdoor game of the modern era, playing Ohio State in the Frozen Tundra Classic at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
Those who were there remember how the weather cooperated â?? bright sunshine for the opening faceoff, steady temperatures in the upper 20s and no precipitation â?? how the 40,890 in attendance enjoyed themselves against the backdrop of â??Jump Aroundâ? and Lambeau Leaps, and how UW came away with a 4-2 victory.
When college basketball players move on, as they inevitably do, it usually is not the points and rebounds or even the wins and losses that you remember.
Itâ??s the person.
In that sense, University of Wisconsin forwards Marcus Landry and Joe Krabbenhoft â?? who along with walk-ons Kevin Gullikson and Morris Cain will play their final home game Sunday night against Indiana â?? have left an indelible impression on those who follow UW menâ??s hoops.
I could hardly believe what I was reading on Sunday’s sports page. I agree that there should be incentives and rewards for exceptional performance, but a $100,000 bonus was awarded to UW football coach Bret Bielema for exceptional achievement.
