Quoted: Susan Crowley, prevention services director of the Pace Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which works to reduce high-risk drinking and targets policy issues relating to alcohol.
The number of foreign students coming to the United States this fall may increase over last year, according to colleges contacted by The Chronicle and visa-issuance figures from India and China, the two countries that send the most students to American shores.
Two consumer groups that had challenged three key human embryonic stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation said Friday that they have filed an appeal to the patent office’s decision to uphold the patents.
Consumer Watchdog, formerly The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, and the Public Patent Foundation appealed to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Board of Appeals and Interferences. The appeal comes three weeks after the agency ended the review of two key patents, upholding the validity of both in official certifications.
More than 25 government officials and environmental experts from China are in Madison to attend the first â??China-US Water Symposium: A Wisconsin Idea Approach, Connecting Science, Policy and Practice.â?
The gathering is the brainchild of Xiaojun Lu, a UW-Madison microbiology doctoral candidate from Beijing and one of 1,300 Chinese students and 100 Chinese faculty on the campus.
MADISON, Wis. â?? Multiple confessions and a DNA match were enough for a judge to order a college dropout from Minnesota to stand trial today in a murder that left Wisconsin’s capital city on edge for weeks.
Adam Peterson, 20, told his parents during calls from jail and detectives who arrested him that he stabbed Joel Marino in his home in a robbery attempt, according to transcripts and testimony during a preliminary hearing in Dane County Circuit Court.
Quoted: Dr. Georgiana Wilton, an associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine in Madison.
“It is very exciting!” exclaims Dr. John Fleming, “It’s the first time in the world that it’s been tried in a systematic way with Multiple Sclerosis patients. So in Wisconsin, we will be ground zero.”
Dr. Fleming is the lead researcher on a new study to determine whether drinking a worm potion can reduce the symptoms of MS.
MADISON, Wis. — Former University of Wisconsin-Madison student Adam Peterson has been bound over for trial in connection with the January stabbing death of Joel Marino.
Twenty-year-old Peterson faces one count of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Marino.
Peterson is accused of attacking Marino at the victim’s south side home on Jan. 28.
Assistant district attorney Corey Stephan on Friday played tapes of calls Peterson made from jail to his parents in which he confesses to killing Marino in a robbery.
Madison, Wis.â??The patent dispute between two California organizations and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation isn’t over yet: The groups filed an appeal today to have a key stem-cell patent overturned after its claims were narrowed, but upheld.
Consumer Watchdog, formerly The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, and the Public Patent Foundation claim that WARF’s control of the patent is slowing down stem-cell research. They are attempting to have the patent overturned on the grounds that the creation of human embryonic stem cells was obvious after the work had been done on other species.
Northern Wisconsin may see some tree species fade with global warming, while southern species may be slow to fill the gap. That according to UW-Madison professor of forest ecology David Mladenoff, who says species like Blasam Fir, Spruce, and Jack Pine are likely to decline as the climate warms.
The financial impacts of invasive species in the Great Lakes region could be felt for years to come.
A study from the University of Notre Dame and University of Wyoming estimates invasive species will cost Great Lakes states $200 million a year. Dr. Phil Moy with the UW Sea Grant Institute says those numbers may be a little conservative. He says officials in Wisconsin have come up with numbers close to that just for the effects of zebra mussels on water intake pipes.
MADISON (WKOW) — A former University of Wisconsin-Madison student has been bound over for trial in connection with a January stabbing death.
Twenty-year-old Adam Peterson faces one count of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Joel Marino.
Assistant district attorney Corey Stephan on Friday played tapes of calls Peterson made from a Minnesota jail to his parents in which he confesses to killing Marino in a robbery.
Madison police officials told 27 News there are no plans for any detective to travel to Wood County to further check out the presence of a newspaper clipping on UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann’s murder in the home of a suspected kidnapper.
“No one’s going to Wood County, at least at this point,” Madison police spokesperson Joel DeSpain told 27 News.
Madison dropped 36 places on this year’s top 100 list compiled by Money Magazine.
Madison again has made Money Magazine’s top 100 places to live, and for the second straight time, you won’t find it in the top 10 or even top 50.
Ruth Jacobson, age 101, passed away on Thursday, July 17, 2008. Ruth worked at the University Hospital for more than 30 years as the supervisor in the cafeteria.
A new book, “Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin ‘Bud’ Shrake Reader,” contains a column Shrake wrote for the Dallas Morning News about a plot to sabotage the halftime show of a Cowboys-Redskins game in Washington.
I have long been a connoisseur of stories about unusual happenings at sports stadiums, and am proud to say that Camp Randall and Madison figure in a few of them.
Quoted: Dr. Justin Sattin, a neurologist at UW Hospital who specializes in strokes.
Q. Which saves more gas: driving with the windows closed and the air-conditioning on, or AC off and windows open?
A. That depends on conditions.
“Today’s cars are designed to be very aerodynamic,” said Glenn Bower, a senior scientist at the Engine Research Center at UW-Madison. “They ‘cut’ through the air at moderate speeds. At lower speed, stopping and starting dominate the vehicle’s energy consumption, while at highway speed (45 to 65 mph), most of the power is lost to the air we drive through.”
A state appeals court dealt a setback to animal rights activists’ plans to build a museum protesting animal research in a warehouse that separates two University of Wisconsin primate labs. The court ruled business owner Roger Charly could back out of a $675,000 deal with activists from the Primate Freedom Project and instead sell the property to the university for $1 million.
MADISON, Wis. – Animal rights activists’ plans to build a first-of-its-kind museum protesting animal research between two University of Wisconsin primate labs received a major blow Thursday from a Wisconsin appeals court.
The 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that business owner Roger Charly was free to revoke an offer for activists who run the Primate Freedom Project to purchase his property and dismissed the breach of contract lawsuit against him.
The decision overturns a November 2006 lower court ruling ordering Charly to sell the property for $675,000 to Richard McLellan, a retired California doctor who wanted to bankroll a National Primate Research Center Exhibition Hall.
MADISON, Wis. — If Gov. Jim Doyle ever has a tough science question, he doesn’t have to go far for the answer.
Doyle has named University of Wisconsin professor James Dahlberg as his science adviser.
Doyle signed an executive order Wednesday creating the unpaid position.
The position is designed to keep the governor and administration informed on ongoing scientific research and to serve as a liaison to the scientific research community.
The nonprofit Illinois corporation that was paid the bulk of a $694,000 federal grant now being investigated at the University of Louisville was dissolved a year before the U of L deal was struck, the Illinois secretary of state’s office verified yesterday.
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Also yesterday, U of L provided documents showing that the man listed as director of the Illinois center — Thomas D. Schroeder — was on the university’s payroll from Jan. 1, 2005, until this past April.
Schroeder was paid $2,400 a month as a research assistant to Robert Felner, former dean of U of L’s College of Education and Human Development, who managed the grant, according to the documents.
Quoted: Dr. Justin Sattin, a neurologist at UW Hospital who specializes in strokes.
People with certain common genetic variations that affect their nicotine receptors seem to be at higher risk for becoming life-long nicotine addicts if they begin smoking before they turn 17, a new study says.
The study was published in the July 11 issue ofPLoS Geneticsand, in addition to researchers at the University of Utah, involved investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Department of Civil Rights celebrated Richard Davis at its annual picnic on Thursday.
Davis was awarded the James C. Wright Human Rights Award. Write is a professor at the University of Wisconsin.
He’s also a bass player, and has recorded with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand and Miles Davis, WISC-TV reported.
Madison, Wis. â?? Using a $1.6 million federal grant, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is adding to its collection of large scientific instruments a device that will help it search for new antibiotics and drugs and perform other research.
The device will live at the National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison and consists of a mass spectrometer, a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and a liquid-chromatography system, integrated into a single instrument. The facility will be the first to have a device combining all three technologies, according to a university news release.
Menomonie, Wis. – James Dahlberg, a professor of biomolecular chemistry in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, has been appointed as the first scientific advisor to Governor Jim Doyle.
Doyle announced the appointment during an address at the Wisconsin Science and Technology Symposium at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
By the time high school seniors start filling out their college applications, much of what admissions officers will use to give a thumbs up or down is set. No wonder there’s such angst over the college admissions essay.
As president of the American Association of University Professors, Cary Nelson, the 62-year-old gadfly and erudite literary theorist, is trying to breathe new life into a group with a complicated dual role: speaking out on behalf of academic freedom, while also representing faculty at some colleges in contract talks.
The association’s core issues are front and center these days. Colleges are increasingly relying on part-time faculty, who have less job security and protection if they speak out on controversial subjects. But at such a critical time, the association has been hobbled by declining membership, staff turmoil and financial dysfunction.
A slew of recent reports have warned that talented women are continuing to leave research because academia is overpoweringly ‘masculine’.
Writing in this issue of Chemistry World, Annette Williams, director of the Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC), points out that although 47 per cent of chemistry graduates are female, only 6 per cent of chemistry professors are women.
Jo Handelsman is professor of bacteriology and co-founder of the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) at the University of Wisconsin, US. She agrees that a brutally competitive culture is off-putting to many women. ‘Chemistry seems to be much more cut-throat than biology in terms of competition. It’s more about getting to the finish line first than how you get there, and I think competition, in its fiercest form, is more appealing to men.’
Quoted: Ellen Zweibel, an astrophysicist at the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison.
David Dougherty Gilboe, Ph.D., age 78, died on Wednesday, June 18, 2008. David entered UW-Madison in 1954 to begin his graduate studies in biochemistry and earned his M.S. (1955) and Ph.D. (1958). After receiving his Ph.D. he became an instructor in the Departments of Surgery and Physiological Chemistry. He reached the rank of professor in 1973 and then held faculty appointments with both physiology and neurological surgery, after the Department of Neurological Surgery was established in 1989. In 2000, Dr. Gilboe became an emeritus professor, but still remained active in the recruitment and mentoring of residents, graduate students and faculty in the Department of Neurological Surgery.
A new map produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s WisconsinView program shows just how much the water from flooding last month had a widespread and devastating impact across southern and central Wisconsin.
To view the map, visit http://www.news.wisc.edu/15388.
Investigators in Wisconsin are working to determine whether 46-year-old Edward Lanphear, accused last week of kidnapping and sexually assaulting two men, is connected to the murder of a female college student in April.
According to Dean Berres, an investigator with the Wood County sheriff’s department, inquiries into a link between the two crimes began with a small, but ominous piece of evidence.
“We don’t have the indication that this case is linked to the homicide other than the small newspaper clipping we found at the suspect’s residence,” Berres told ABC News.
Fairbanks, Alaska – A 150-meter ice core pulled from the McCall Glacier in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer may offer researchers their first quantitative look at up to two centuries of climate change in the region.
A team using a drill from the Ice Core Drilling Service at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pulled the cores from the glacier, one meter at a time, for nearly two weeks straight, despite storms strong enough to break and blow away some of their tents. About midway down, drillers hit an aquifer in the ice, which filled the borehole with water and complicated the drilling effort.
With spurring local economic development central to its mission, the two-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Research Foundation is making headway, especially through assistance from area groups like the Helen Bader Foundation and local businesses.
The Dane County Board could consider an ordinance requiring companies doing business with the county to offer domestic partner benefits to their employees.
Under the proposal, businesses that have contracts with Dane County would have to make the same benefits that are offered for spouses of employees available to domestic partners. County Executive Kathleen Falk says it’s an issue of fairness for all workers. She says the proposal is just another basic requirement companies will need to meet, if they want to work for the County.
WISC-TV’s Neil Heinen talks with members of a University of Wisconsin-Madison group who are making life significantly better for the people of Rwanda. (Video.)
Colleges are willing to do a lot to capture the eye of potential students, even if it means creating temporary illusions of students who don’t really exist.
In September of 2000, the University of Wisconsin attempted to illustrate how diverse it was by using some old-fashioned cut and paste strategies.
Companies that want to do business with Dane County would have to offer benefits to their employees ‘ domestic partners under a proposal being introduced Thursday.
The proposal also would create a countywide domestic-partner registry through the County Clerk ‘s office, similar to what Madison has offered since 1990. Dane would be the first county in the state to create a registry and the first municipality to tie its contracts to domestic-partner benefits.
Madison police are investigating whether there is a connection between a Wood County man charged with kidnapping and sexual assault and the homicide of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann, based on a newspaper clipping about Zimmermann ‘s death found in the man ‘s home.
MENOMONIE, WIS. – Three college students who died in a house fire in April had blood-alcohol levels from two to almost four times the legal limit in Wisconsin drunken driving cases, authorities said Tuesday.
Dunn County Medical Examiner Chris Kruse, who released toxicology test results, said the deaths of the three University of Wisconsin-Stout students have been ruled accidental.
Georgia showed the largest improvement in the United States in a national study evaluating state policies to improve pain management and patient care, with its “grade” jumping from a D to a B, the American Cancer Society reported Tuesday.
Researchers analyzed whether state pain policies and regulations enhanced or impeded pain management. The study, by the University of Wisconsin’s Pain & Policy Studies Group, said only five states received a grade of “A” for enabling health care professionals to effectively alleviate the suffering of their patients, without encountering barriers in legislation or regulation.
Quoted: Bill Wendorff, dairy professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and cheddar judge for the American Cheese Society.
In two years, NASA plans to begin the new space program that will send human astronauts to Mars. It won’t be easy, and technical issues aren’t the only challenges. The US Congress and President George W. Bush want NASA to begin work on the new Constellation Program now.
Yet NASA cannot expand its 18,000-member workforce, and its employees cannot devote their full attention to Constellation until the final shuttle mission is complete in 2010.
It’s a conundrum for NASA administrator Michael Griffin, and for advice he has turned to the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) and its human capital committee. Gerald Kulcinski, University of Wisconsin-Madison associate dean for research and Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering, is chair of the committee.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin officials are asking the city council to approve a plan that would put 63 new bus shelters around the campus.
The idea behind the new shelters is to tie together the outdoor areas of the university with the UW brand, WISC-TV reported.
“They don’t lend any sort of sense of campus to our university,” said UW transportation planner Rob Kennedy. “What we’re trying to do is take all of our furniture such as our benches and make sure it says Univ. of Wis. to people when they come onto the campus and we’re going to do that with our shelters now.”
Matt Tegenkamp, the former UW-Madison distance runner who has qualified to compete in the 5,000 meters at the Olympics next month, ran the fastest 1500 meter race ever on Wisconsin soil Tuesday night, beating training partners Jonathon Riley, Chris Solinsky and Sean Quigley in front of approximately 1,000 cheering fans at the McClimon Track.
Tegenkampâ??s time of 3:37.94 falls just three seconds short of his personal best, but beats the previous track record of 3:42.63, set by John Wild of Oklahoma State in 1996.
MADISON, Wis. — Authorities said that a newspaper clipping about the death of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was found in a search of the Wood County home of a man accused of abducting and sexually assaulting two men.
Edward Lanphear has been charged with 12 felonies in connection with the abduction and sexual assault two young men, who police said were chained naked inside his home.
Lanphear is being held on a $1 million bond.
MADISON (WKOW) — Madison police are investigating whether a Wood County man accused of kidnapping two young men is connected to college student Brittany Zimmermann’s unsolved murder.
Edward Lanphear is accused of holding the men captive in his home near Wisconsin Rapids and sexually assaulting them. Court records show investigators found a newspaper clipping about slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann in Lanphear’s home.
Could Edward Lanphear have been involved in the murder of Brittany Sue Zimmermann? The 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison student from Marshfield was found dead in her apartment in April.
A newspaper clipping taken from the home of a 46-year-old Saratoga man charged in connection with the kidnapping of two men is raising some questions about a Madison homicide.
A Madison detective involved in the investigation into the murder of Brittany Zimmermann, 21, of Marshfield is looking into why Edward J. Lanphear, 46, of Saratoga had a newspaper clipping regarding Zimmermann’s homicide, said Joel DeSpain, Madison Police Department spokesman.
Caryl M. Johnsrud, age 80, passed away on Thursday, June 26, 2008. Caryl worked in food service at Edgewood High School and at concession stands at the Dane County Coliseum and UW-Madison Field House.
Effie Anne Amos, age 84, of Madison, died on Thursday, July 10, 2008. From 1972 until 1985, Effie worked for the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene as a bacteriologist.
Daniel G. Rider, Jr. passed away peacefully on Friday, July 11, 2008. Dan received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1964. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow. After nearly 40 years with the UW-Madison, he retired in 2003 as Professor Emeritus of mathematics.
MADISON, Wis. — Authorities said that a newspaper clipping about the death of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann was found in a search of the Wood County home of a man accused of abducting and sexually assaulting two men.
Edward Lanphear has been charged with 12 felonies in connection with the abduction and sexual assault two young men, who police said were chained naked inside his home.
In 2004, the nation took notice as California and Wisconsin independently announced major investments in stem cell and biotechnology research. In California, voters approved Proposition 71, a massive $3 billion commitment over ten years to fund stem cell research. In Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle announced a $750 million state investment in biotechnology in order to help the state maintain a leadership position in the life sciences. Four years later, let’s take a look at what is going on inside Wisconsin and around the country to gauge just how well Wisconsin’s biotech leadership is holding up.
A high-profile push by American business groups to double the number of U.S. bachelor’s degrees awarded in science, math and engineering by 2015 is falling way behind target, a new report says.
In 2005, 15 prominent business groups warned that a lack of expert workers and teachers posed a threat to U.S. competitiveness, and said the country would need 400,000 new graduates in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields by 2015.
It takes Mother Nature millions of years, but an hour is all Eric Apfelbach needs.
Apfelbach is president and chief executive officer of Virent Energy Systems, a Madison-based company founded in 2002 by UW-Madison scientists Randy Cortright and Jim Dumesic.
Building upon technology invented and patented at the university, Virent uses solid-state catalysts to trump Mother Nature in the conversion of plant sugars into “biogasoline” and other hydrocarbon biofuels.
A persistent rumble on the NHL coaching front is the Los Angeles Kings have their eyes on Eaves.
Eaves, the UW coach since 2002, has heard that rumor on multiple occasions, too, but said he’s had no contact with the Kings.
The Kings fired coach Marc Crawford last month after they finished last in the Pacific Division with a 32-43-7 record.
General manager Dean Lombardi has interviewed Mike Johnston, the associate head coach under Crawford, but reportedly is sorting through a list of other candidates.
People who take the bus to and from UW-Madison may soon have a more stylish wait.
UW-Madison wants to build 63 new bus shelters on campus at a cost of about $10,000 a piece by 2012 in order to lend a “campus-like character” to the bus stops.
