Author: jplucas

Daedalus used feathers and wax â?? and we all know what happened to his son when he flew too close to the sun. Instead, you could try surgery, says Samuel Poore, a reconstructive surgeon at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who has now described the steps that would be needed to transform human arms into wings.

MADISON, Wis., March 31 (UPI) — U.S. agricultural scientists said they’ve discovered organically grown wheat or alfalfa can be as productive as conventional crops.

University of Wisconsin researchers investigated yield differences between organic and conventional cash grain and forage crops in the Upper Midwest.

MADISON â?? No one has to tell Jim Leonhart that Wisconsin is the stem cell state.

As head of the Wisconsin Biomedical and Medical Device Association, heâ??s watched â?? with keen interest – scientific breakthroughs by UW researchers and the launching of five stem cell companies.

â??The commercialization of that research is just starting to have an impact now,â? argues Leonhart, who says his sentiment was reinforced when Gov. Jim Doyle announced in March that Madison would host the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit.

An impromptu network of federal and state agencies, and teams of veterinary pathologists â?? from the University of Connecticut, Cornell and the University of Wisconsin â?? have been meeting all winter via teleconferences to share information and the results of necropsies of affected bats. But so far they have not been able to determine the cause of the syndrome. The scientists mostly agree, however, that the fungus found on the bodies of infected bats is probably a symptom and not a cause of the condition.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Patients with heart failure are especially vulnerable to influenza and most doctors recommend they get flu shots, but a study suggests these annual jabs may not offer them full protection, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.

“What we theorize is that heart failure as a condition leads to impaired immune function, which renders these patients less able to respond to the vaccine,” said Orly Vardeny of the University of Wisconsin, who presented the study at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago.

Parents might be surprised to hear this, but babies analyze language and their environment like miniature mathematicians, says researcher Jenny Saffran.

Newborns are already at work deciphering sounds that make up language, how sounds combine into words, how words combine into sentences and then what words mean, Saffron maintains. “They have to figure it out. They don’t come with English factory installed.”

Saffran, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of UW’s Waisman Center infant learning lab, is the second brain investigator to speak on early brain development as part of the “Brain to Five” community education series sponsored by the Appleton Education Foundation.

The Great Lakes region is deeply involved in research aimed at clearing technology bottlenecks associated with biofuels, partly because of the interest from agribusinesses and automakers. In 2007, the University of Wisconsin-Madison received a $125 million grant to establish the U.S. Department of Energy’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center in Madison.

A handful of companies are using different approaches to designing synthetic versions of gasoline and other fuels. The work at Virent includes creating a system that converts plant sugars into hydrogen fuel.

“There won’t be one solution. Instead, there will be a suite of technologies customized for different needs, from heating a home to fueling a vehicle,” said Margaret Broeren, a spokeswoman for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.

Most people probably have never made an economic or social justice connection to the food they eat, but University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Jack Kloppenburg suggests trying it.

It may affect where you decide to purchase your food.

“What you put in your mouth not only builds your own body â?¦ but you’re also building landscapes or you build connections,” Kloppenburg told a crowd of about 150 people at UW-Green Bay on Thursday evening.