MADISON, Wis. — Some groundbreaking research being done at the UW could greatly affect those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
The goal of the research is to try to identify Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms start occurring, and researchers believe to do that, you must look at the brain.
That’s exactly what Dr. Sterling Johnson is doing. He’s been doing work where healthy people, both with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease and without, have MRI’s done while performing memory tasks.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison officials are blaming melting snow for causing a power outage that forced the cancellation of classes at Van Vleck Hall on Monday. The outage also caused sporadic network problems around campus.
The outage began early Monday morning and electrical engineers investigated the problem to ascertain the cause of the outage and repair electrical service. Officials said that there’s also a “small amount” of flooding in the building’s basement, according to a UW news release. Officials eventually blamed the problem on a transformer, which is being replaced on Monday.
When the University of Wisconsin faculty members answered a survey a year ago, most indicated that maintaining access to the university for lower-income students was a big concern. And now those faculty members are doing something about it, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
The percentage of students from families with incomes in the bottom 40 percent of all Wisconsin families dropped from 26 percent in 1994 to 21 percent in 2005, the article says.
MADISON, Wis. — The affordability of a state university education is on the agenda of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents this week.
System spokesman David Giroux said that the good news is that the university is reasonably affordable, but he said that the bad news is that is doesn’t offer much financial aid
Parents, especially anxious first-timers who devour every baby book, might panic when their child shows no inclination to speak, even as toddlers playing nearby jabber away with abandon.
Late talkers can cause many moms and dads fits but, in most cases, they need not worry, says brain investigator Susan Ellis Weismer, a professor of communicative disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a principal researcher with UW’s Waisman Center.
Quoted: Gene Clark, a coastal engineering supervisor for the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.
LITTLE ROCK, Ara. — Officials said that there is no word yet on what caused the death of a Little Rock Marathon runner. The 27-year-old Wisconsin man died after completing the 26.2 mile race.
Adam Nickel, 27, was attending graduate school, studying pharmacy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He collapsed shortly after he crossed the finish line in Little Rock and died later at University Hospital.
Nickel was running his sixth marathon; his official Little Rock time of 3:02:26 is considered an elite time. He was preparing for a spring event in San Diego as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training, as a tribute to his grandmother.
Marion P. Stemmler, age 81, of Madison, passed away suddenly on Feb. 27, 2008, at UW Hospital. Marion received a Bachelor of Arts degree in home economics from UW-Madison. Marion spent more than 20 years as a volunteer docent at the Elvehjem, now Chazen Museum of Art. Memorials in Marion’s name may be made to The University of Wisconsin Foundation to support the Chazen Museum of Art.
If the University of Wisconsin business school ever writes a case study about itself, the lesson may be that some things are more valuable unsold.
Condé Nast Portfolio reports that the school persuaded alumni to donate $85 million in exchange for a promise that it would not sell its name for the next 20 years.
Sometimes, a bird in the hand isn’t worth anywhere near two in the bush. In September, the University of Washington School of Business struck a $50 million deal with a family foundation to rebrand itself the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, honoring its largest donor. But as precious a commodity as a school’s name may be, it could prove far more valuable unsold.
In October, the University of Wisconsin School of Business announced that about a dozen alumni had donated a total of $85 million to keep it from selling its name for the next 20 years. In the months since, the value of the school’s name has already appreciated by about $2 million, according to the calculations of Dean Mike Knetter. It took Knetter two years of smooth talking to convince alumni that cash donations remained even more valuable without naming rights.
Sixty-six: Number of young women who auditioned in 2005 for three vacancies in Tangled Up in Blue, an all-female a cappella singing group on the UW campus.
2,251: Seats in Overture Hall, which the all-male a cappella group The MadHatters has sold out for its annual spring concert three times.
Two: Other student a cappella groups — the all-male Fundamentally Sound, and the co-ed Redefined — that will join Tangled Up in Blue and The MadHatters at Union Theater Friday for a first-ever “A Cappella Showcase ” to benefit Madison charities.
State government needs further study to determine whether 26 maintenance projects at state-run power plants violated federal clean air rules, according to documents made public Friday.
Three heart surgeons who have worked at Meriter Hospital but been employed by UW Health are becoming Meriter employees, Meriter said Friday.
The surgeons join 11 other doctors who made the switch a month ago.
An emergency notification system is only effective if people quite literally get the message.
To increase those odds, UW-Madison is preparing to add an emergency text messaging service to its system of getting the word out to students, faculty and staff about any urgent situation involving the campus.
Fighting winter in Wisconsin is a losing gambit. One response, as you hear sometimes, is to try to embrace winter.
And what better way than on cross-country skis?
That ‘s one approach Tammy Sytsma uses. She skis in UW-Madison ‘s Arboretum and elsewhere nearby, sometimes putting on her skis right after work.
The controversy is the latest of several dust-ups involving the Doyle administration and air quality.
Last year, Doyle was criticized by environmental groups for asking the EPA to declare all Wisconsin counties in compliance with ozone pollution standards, even though subsequent tougher federal standards put several counties in violation.
Also, the Department of Administration and UW-Madison hastened efforts to clean up the Charter Street Power plant in Madison and other state-owned power plants after a successful lawsuit by the Sierra Club.
Some UW-Madison faculty members are so committed to holding the door open at the university to low-income students that they ‘re willing to reach into their own pockets to help make it happen.
The Faculty Senate will propose on Monday a faculty fundraising drive aimed at raising money for need-based scholarships to the university. UW Foundation, the official fundraising organization for the university, has said it will match donations.
With wolves now roaming the state in greater numbers than anyone believed possible, their future is tied less to biology and the landscape than to public opinion toward a creature that is defined as much by myth as by science.
Adrian Treves knows this better than just about anyone.
Treves is a UW-Madison animal behaviorist and ecologist, and along with his wife, UW-Madison geography professor Lisa Naughton, has used extensive surveys to plumb public attitudes toward wolves in a deeper fashion than has ever been done before in Wisconsin.
Quoted: Menzie Chinn, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and economics.
A 27-year-old UW-Madison pharmacy student and avid runner collapsed and died Sunday after completing a marathon in Arkansas, race officials and his family said.
According to Little Rock Marathon race officials, emergency personnel tried to revive Adam Nickel until an ambulance arrived with a defibrillator. He was taken to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Hospital, but he couldn ‘t be revived, the officials said. Race officials didn ‘t know the cause of death.
Quoted: Michael Collins of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, an expert on Johne’s disease. “Almost by definition, there’s something wrong with them, and in some cases those can be infections that present issues for humans.”
Quoted: But back in the 1960s, when Kathleen Horning, the director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, was growing up, the pickings were slimmer.
Quoted: Greg Nemet, a professor of public affairs and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, said the Big Stone II dispute is an example of a growing â??California effectâ? in environmental policy.
Quoted: Chris Ott, 37, and his partner, David Danaher, 40, decided to leave Wisconsin after the state passed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Ott moved to Cambridge after he sold his home in Madison. Danaher, a professor of Slavic languages at the University of Wisconsin, plans to remain until he finds a post in Boston.
Quoted: Dr. Somesh Jha, who serves as chief scientist at NovaShield, is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Quoted: Mike Scott, an associate law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former police chief, declined to comment specifically on the agent’s case. But he said removing someone from work burdens other employees and regular citizens can obtain occupational licenses.
A Kaukauna native collapsed and died Sunday after doing what he loved â?? running in a marathon.
Adam Nickel, 27, who currently lived in Madison and attended graduate school in pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died late Sunday morning after completing the 26.2-mile Little Rock Marathon in Little Rock, Ark.
State government needs further study to determine whether 26 maintenance projects at state-run power plants violated federal clean air rules, according to documents made public Friday.
State employees will review whether the projects at 13 coal-fired power plants dating back to 1995 complied with the Clean Air Act. The act requires plants to install modern pollution controls when they undergo major renovations.
MADISON, Wis. â?? The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents should consider raising tuition at high-demand schools and continue a trend of charging more to fund specific programs, according to a report released Friday.
Those options would increase tuition revenue and help the system sustain its goals to educate more students in coming years, the report from a task force concludes.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison is offering free identification scanners to downtown liquor stores and bars to help crack down on underage drinking.
On a weekend night with visitors buying from liquor stores and heading to bars up and down State Street, employees said they usually spot at least three fake IDs through the course of a night.
As manager of Riley’s Wines of the World in downtown Madison, Andy Beaulieu has developed a keen eye for spotting fake IDs.
Quoted: Dhavan V. Shah, a journalism and political science professor at UW-Madison, points to a 20-year study by the Pew Research Center that looked at changes in public opinions and values for answers.
The UW-System has invited public comment on changes it recommended to rules regarding student conduct, including conduct on university property. The rules are contained in chapters 17 and 18 of the administrative code.
The chapters in question involve what the university can do with a student who is repeatedly in trouble off-campus.
David Giroux, spokesman for the System, said this administrative code has the force of law within the university systems. He said that while it lays out the process for disciplinary problems, it never included a “scope” for these rules cover, which is why they needed to make clarifications.
The Wisconsin Tobacco Quit line has seen record numbers of callers this year. Rob Adsit is with the U-W Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. He says the quit line has received 20,000 calls in January and February, compared 9,000 for an entire year typically. He attributes this unprecedented growth to several factors.
You could hear the pounding from practically anywhere from inside Alliant Energy Center’s Exhibition Hall.
Badger football players, using their brute strength to build a home.
“We’re out working for Habitat For Humanity- got quite a bit of guys about 60 guys from the badger men’s football team,” says Badger Football player Andy Kemp.
Bowlers from across Wisconsin came out to to raise money for colorectal cancer research.
Sunday marked the 7th annual Bowlin’ for Colons. More than one thousand people came out to four different bowling centers in the Madison area.
Last year, them UW Carbone Cancer Center raised $30,000. Organizers expected to exceed that amount this year.
A Madison man dies at the finish line of a marathon in Arkansas Sunday morning.
Officials with the Little Rock Marathon say 27-year old Adam Nickel collapsed as he crossed the finish line of the 26.2 mile race.
CPR attempts on Nickel were unsuccessful. No word on the cause of death.
NBC 15 has confirmed Nickel was a graduate student at UW-Madison. Spokesman John Lucas says he was in his third year at the School of Pharmacy.
An emergency notification system is only effective if people quite literally get the message.
To increase those odds, UW-Madison is preparing to add an emergency text messaging service to its existing system of getting the word out to students, faculty and staff about any urgent situation involving the campus.
Five Memorial Union workers were charged with misdemeanor theft Wednesday for allegedly skimming cash register receipts from the bar at the Union’s Stiftskeller – including a $10 bill a police officer used to buy beer while investigating the thefts.
One of the men charged told police that skimming from the till was “the culture of the Stiftskeller” and is a widespread practice, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court.
The College of Engineering does not tend to invite students to build bridges just for fun. The University of Wisconsin-Madison ‘s genetics department doesn ‘t train amateurs to analyze DNA as an unpaid hobby.
But for every credit the UW School of Music awards to music majors, it gives nearly four to non-majors. On Sunday three of the concert ensembles designed for non-majors, the University Bands, will perform.
Call it the Wisconsin Idea in music, the philosophy that the university should share its resources with all.
Q. Why do we need leap days?
A. Leap days appear every four years or so, including this year, and they are needed because the Earth’s orbit around the sun does not take an exact number of days, said Jim Lattis, director of UW Space Place, in the UW-Madison astronomy department.
The global blood supply â?? going vein-to-vein, from donor to warehouse to hospital to patient â?? is tough to track. And tracking problems are part of the reason that thousands of bags of critically needed blood are thrown out every day.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are hoping to use radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to create a way to better track blood supplies around the world. That, according to Alfonso Gutierrez, RFID lab director at the university, could lead to better handling and fewer instances of patients receiving the wrong blood.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has upheld one of the three disputed University of Wisconsin patents on a technique for isolating and maintaining embryonic stem cells. But the two groups that have challenged the patents say they will continue their efforts to overturn that patent, and the two other related ones.
Quoted: Commissioner Pamela Oliver, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist, notes that many of the recommendations are feasible
MADISON, Wis. – A federal agency has upheld a patent that covers embryonic stem cell research, rejecting a challenge from critics who say the patents are hindering research.
An examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled this week that one of three patents can stand. A challenge to two other patents remains pending.
MADISON, Wis. — A recent car crash involving pedestrians on Madison’s University Avenue has some community members re-evaluating safety in the downtown and campus areas. The isthmus area is often jammed with commuters along with more than 40,000 students and staff on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, WISC-TV reported. In the first incident on Monday night, a car apparently struck two people as they crossed the street at the intersection of University Avenue and Mills Street. The two went to the hospital with minor injuries, authorities said.
Two consumer groups said Thursday that they intend to continue challenging three key human embryonic stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office upheld the validity of one of the disputed patents.
The decision was announced just a day after the International Stem Cell Forum in San Francisco, hosted by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, concluded Wednesday.
Quoted: Tuncer B. Edil, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a researcher for FieldTurf, a company that has built many of the cityâ??s turf fields, also said the material poses no hazards.
With a government decision upholding an important 2006 patent on human stem cell techniques, biomedical researcher James Thomson and his school, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have won the latest skirmish in a long-running conflict over patents
MADISON, Wis. — Federal regulators are upholding a patent that covers embryonic stem cell research discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said that one of three patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) can stand. It hasn’t yet ruled on two others being challenged.
Critics had asked the patent office to throw out the patents, which cover discoveries made by UW-Madison scientist James Thomson. They argue the patents have hindered research in the U.S.
The Wisconsin Tobacco Quit line has seen record numbers of callers this year. Rob Adsit is with the U-W Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. He says the quit line has received 20,000 calls in January and February, compared 9,000 for an entire year typically. He attributes this unprecedented growth to several factors.
Last Sunday, the Academy Award for the best documentary feature went to a movie called “Taxi to the Dark Side”. And, this could not have happened without the work of a U-W Madison professor.
“It is a brilliant film. It justifiably won the Oscar,” said U-W Madison Madison Professor Alfred McCoy. “There is no question about it. It is a superb piece of craft.”
In January of 2006 McCoy released his book “A Question of Torture.” He got the idea after the pictures of Abu Ghraib first surfaced in April of 2004. He didn’t see the soldiers in those pictures as simply a bunch of bad apples. He saw sophisticated CIA interrogation methods including sensory deprivation and self inflicted pain
The drinking has already begun. You might be reading this first thing Friday, but somewhere on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, students are pounding beers. Theyâ??ve been up since dawn on this â??Unofficial St. Patrickâ??s Day,â? ready to hit the bars before noon and keep it going throughout the weekend.
The massacre at Virginia Tech last year sent colleges nationwide scrambling to improve how they get alerts to students during crises on campus. One solution: Text messages sent to cellphones.
But while hundreds of campuses have adopted text alerts, most students are not embracing the system â?? even in an age when they consider their mobile phones indispensable.
MADISON, Wis. — Federal regulators are upholding a patent that covers embryonic stem cell research discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said that one of three patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) can stand. It hasn’t yet ruled on two others being challenged.
Critics had asked the patent office to throw out the patents, which cover discoveries made by UW-Madison scientist James Thomson. They argue the patents have hindered research in the U.S.
The research foundation disputes that claim.
Ronald Eugene Richardson, age 61, of Gillette, Wyo., formerly of Lone Rock, died on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008. He received his bachelor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1968.
Robert G. “Bob” Weigandt, age 94, of Whitewater, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. Bob attended Oshkosh public schools and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While an undergraduate at the University, he lettered in both basketball and football, and was co-captain of the 1939 basketball team.
One of three UW-Madison stem-cell patents under review by the federal government has been upheld in a significant step of a process that still could continue for months or years.
It may be the ultimate sign of his youth that Ben Schumaker didn ‘t realize he was rather young to be tackling something as ambitious as his Memory Project.
Schumaker had just graduated from UW-Madison in 2003 when he first came up with the project that by the end of this school year will have provided more than 15,000 orphaned children from around the world with a rare something they could call their own — hand-painted portraits of themselves.
Each Friday a few dozen customers, mostly UW-Madison students and employees and all in on a campus secret, make the trek to Classroom 140 in the Meat Science and Muscle Biology Lab.
In a converted spice room, white-coated UW-Madison students take orders and sift through a big freezer in the middle of the room, pulling out bacon, steaks, lamb chops and the ever-popular Jordan and Clayt ‘s Hot Sticks sausages.
Quoted: human-sexuality researcher John DeLamater, sociology.
