(Video) Karin Swanson talks to a group of Wisconsin scientists heading to Antarctica to study weather. Quoted: Matthew Lazzara, principal investigator of the Antarctic Automatic Weather Station Program, and Lee Welhouse, instrument technician.
Irish-born Nobel Prize laureate William C. Campbell has warned of the great cost of a decline in the kind of scientific research that lead to him beating the parasitic infection that leads to river blindness.
Alta Charo interviewed on Central Time about the future of gene editing and the implications it could have for treating disease and much more.
The project is researching the size and behavior of packs of coyotes and foxes on and around the UW-Madison campus by capturing the animals and putting radio collars on them. Physical examinations and bio-testing of anesthetized animals provides data for the eventual mapping of the transmission of disease from wild canids to domestic dogs, said David Drake, a professor in the UW-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology and UW Extension wildlife specialist.
More than half of community college students surveyed at 10 schools in seven states are at risk of hunger or homelessness, according to a new study released Friday by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Makers of beer, wine and other products using yeasts may soon produce new flavours and entirely new products with a new method that creates yeast interspecies hybrids. The method delivers more strains of yeast for the industry to conduct experiments with and enhance their production.
Research released in 2014 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that “participants who engaged in cognitive activities like card games have higher brain volume, in specific regions, compared to peers who played fewer or no games,” said Ozioma C. Okonkwo, an assistant professor of medicine at the university and the study’s senior author.
Akatsuki’s 2-year mission aims to peel away some of the mystery of Venus’s dense, cloudy atmosphere. Mostly carbon dioxide, it includes a 20-kilometer-thick layer of sulfuric acid clouds, and it sweeps over the planet at speeds exceeding 300 kilometers per hour, or 60 times faster than Venus itself rotates. What drives the superrotation “is a fundamental physics question,” says Sanjay Limaye, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and member of the Akatsuki scientific team. To try to answer it, the probe will use a suite of cameras to observe cloud formation and movement as well as heat flux from the planet’s surface to the upper atmosphere. It will also record lightning flashes and send radio signals through the atmosphere to receivers on Earth to probe its temperature and composition.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a way to generate cells similar to primitive leukemia cells, an advance that will allow researchers to study the disease in a lab dish and perhaps even find better treatments. The new work appears in the journal Stem Cell Research.
Eight months into the search, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation identified a candidate for its top job — which one observer called one of the most important openings in the state — but failed to clinch the deal.
Quoted: “For those that acquire HIV, there is every reason to come in early to be on treatment to not have this disease have any important part of your life,” said Dr. Bennett Vogelman [Senior Associate Chair for Education for the Department of Medicine]. He’s one of the founding fathers of the UW Health HIV/AIDS Comprehensive Care Program. “It would be like treating high blood pressure or diabetes. We can control this and that’s a big change.”
A grant will fund collaborative research between Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin-Madison [WCER] to narrow gaps in student opportunity and achievement levels, according to a release.
The $5.2 million U.S. Department of Education grant will fund research on data from all state public schools over the next four years, officials said. The goal of the research is to identify proven techniques that teachers can use to narrow gaps in student opportunity and achievement levels across all racial and ethnic backgrounds and family incomes.
(Video) On World AIDS Day, Dr. Ryan Westergaard talks about what UW is doing in the battle against HIV.
(Video) The Dictionary of American Regional English took researchers at UW 49 years to complete. The five volumes document dialects in all regions of the country. But they thought it would be time to update it. Joan Houston Hall talks about the project.
Sheepshead lives. So does the card game’s Germanic name, Schafskopf. Wisconsin residents still gulp water at bubblers and eat cannibal sandwiches (made from raw ground beef seasoned with onions, and also known as tiger meat).
The latest figures on academic research spending in the United States provide, on the surface, some reassuring news for Wisconsin. For starters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison held its position as the nation’s fourth-largest research and development powerhouse. Lurking under the waves, however, are currents that should send a chilling message to policy-makers who believe the state can continue to reduce support for higher education — especially basic research — without taking on water over time.
Various kinds of cranberry juices, dried berries and supplements contain different levels of the compounds thought to promote health. That can make research findings unclear. “They’re not drugs, but we’re using a paradigm that has been really designed for clinical studies of drugs,” said Jess Reed, a UW-Madison animal sciences professor who studies cranberries.
Five UW-Madison scientists have been honored as elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, according to the university.
Madison is about to get another startup hub. Nestled in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, right across the street from the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a (formerly purple, as some Madisonians know) brick building was christened “@1403,” named for its location at 1403 University Ave., last week.
UW-Madison retained its 4th place national ranking in research spending, despite a continuing erosion of federal and state funding, the university’s news service reported Tuesday.
Video: Associate Professor of Surgery Dr. Nathan Welham on the creation of lab-grown vocal cords.
A $5.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will fund a collaboration between the state Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin-Madison aimed at helping schools narrow the achievement and opportunity gaps among Wisconsin students, the DPI and the university announced Tuesday.
Caitilyn Allen has had an early glimpse at the devastation climate change might bring. A professor of plant pathology at the UW-Madison, Allen studies how climate change is likely to increase disease in crops and other plants. The possibilities aren’t pretty.
Why are cranberries and sugar a seemingly inseparable pair? The typical fresh cranberry is an acrid thing to put on the tongue without sugar to balance it out.But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Cranberry breeders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed an experimental variety that’s naturally sweet. It’s called the “Sweetie.”
Top biological research institutions in Wisconsin fought a proposal to ban the use of fetal tissue obtained through abortion and nearly half the state’s voters agree it’s a bad idea, according to the latest Marquette University Law School Poll.
UW-Madison’s computer sciences department has received a $5 million donation from a Milwaukee businessman and his wife.
The university announced the donation from Sheldon and Marianne Lubar on Friday. Other Badger alumni, John and Tashia Morgridge, matched $2 million of the Lubars’ donation, making the total donation $7 million.
The state’s two public doctoral research universities are stepping up efforts to more effectively compete for top graduate students who play key roles in research and teaching undergraduates.
A Milwaukee businessman and his wife have donated $5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s computer sciences department.
Throughout history, the natural world has inspired important scientific breakthroughs. For example, the Wright brothers incorporated the concepts of lift and drag into airplane designs after they observed how birds in flight tilted their wings back and forth.
Mike Randall knows what it takes to spark children’s interest in science. On Thursday the former rocket scientist with a Santa Claus bearing donned a suit of chain mail and stepped between musical Tesla coils.
Vocal cords are small and complex — and, when badly damaged, they’re difficult to treat. Now, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have engineered lab-grown vocal cord tissue for the first time.
A team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has bioengineered vocal cord tissue capable of vibrating and generating sound as well as natural tissue. The feat is being hailed as a scientific first.
People with damaged vocal cords may one day sing again with the help lab-grown vocal cords.
Vocal cords are small and complex — and, when badly damaged, they’re difficult to treat.
For the first time, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have grown this superhero-like tissue in the lab, using human vocal cord cells as their raw ingredients. Their hope is to one day implant these engineered vocal cords into patients so they can recover their voices.
UW-Madison scientists have grown human vocal cord tissue in a dish, which made sound when transplanted into voice boxes from cadaver dogs — a development that could lead to better treatments for people with voice disorders.
In an experimental first, scientists reported Wednesday that they have grown about 170 human vocal cords in a lab, starting from cells taken from four surgical patients and one cadaver. “We never imagined that we would see the impressive level of function that we did,” said study senior author Nathan Welham of the University of Wisconsin Medical School at a briefing for reporters.
What is happening inside the brain when a soldier experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder is badly startled by a loud noise?
From mom’s comforting croon to a shout of warning, our voices are the main way we communicate and one we take for granted unless something goes wrong. Now researchers have grown human vocal cords in the laboratory that appear capable of producing sound – in hopes of one day helping people with voice-robbing diseases or injuries.
Nestled in the northern Wisconsin woods, Peter Lake once brimmed with golden shiners, fatheads and other minnows, which plucked algae-eating fleas from the murky water. Then, seven years ago, a crew of ecologists began stepping up the lake’s population of predatory largemouth bass. Today, largemouth bass still swim rampant. “Once that top predator is dominant, it’s very hard to dislodge,” said Stephen Carpenter, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the experiment.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone sent a campuswide email Tuesday to squelch a rumor that top-level discussions were underway to possibly drop research from the Milwaukee campus’ mission.
With concussions cut in half among high school football players in Wisconsin this year, a new study from UW-Madison is recommending athletic trainers be on the sidelines at games and practices, to better manage injuries.
The American Physical Society named a UW-Madison electron storage ring a historic site Friday, recognizing it as an imperative tool for many scientific studies over its 20 years of operation.
The electron storage ring, named Tantalus, was the world’s first source of synchrotron radiation in 1968, according to a university release. It used a powerful magnetic field to force fast-moving electrons to change direction, creating synchrotron light.
Interviewed: Irwin Goldman UW-Madison professor and vegetable breeder who develops new strains of beets and other vegetables.
Politicians spoke longer making statements that registered “false” or “pants on fire” on the Politifact truth-o-meter than did politicians saying something that registered as “true,” research conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found.
Coauthored by Clif Conrad:
Visit an American college campus today and you’ll see a more diverse student body than ever before. Over the last 30 years, the number of Hispanic students has risen five-fold, Asian and Pacific Islander enrollment has tripled, black enrollment has risen 150 percent and Native American enrollment has doubled.But the graduation rate for minority students falls far below the nationwide average. Our colleges and universities are not succeeding at educating students with diverse backgrounds. In an increasingly competitive global economy, our country cannot afford this waste of time, money and talent.
DULUTH, Minn. — Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have confirmed the phenomenon of rogue waves on Lake Superior — waves double the size of others at the same time and which have been named as a potential cause of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Meditation has long been used to induce calm and physical relaxation. But research on its potential uses for treating medical problems “is still in its very early stages,” and designing trials can be challenging, said Richard J. Davidson, a neuroscientist who founded the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So it’s not surprising the scientific literature is filled with mixed findings at this point in time.”
John Hawks is the Vilas-Borghesi Distinguished Achievement Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. He talks about his role in the recent discovery of Homo Naledi in the caves of South Africa!
Radiolab, an award-winning radio show and podcast based in New York City, has an unexpectedly strong tie to Madison.
Noted: Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month.
Soren Wheeler, the senior editor at Radiolab, will be on campus all week to work as UW-Madison’s Science Writer in Residence in an effort to help students improve their science writing in a new age of journalism.
Noted: Since 2014, the UW-Madison chemistry department has been conducting crystal growing contests among high school students in the state of Wisconsin. In 2016, the contest will be for both middle and high school students.
Craig Schuff’s heart and academic journey carried on more than four years after he was paralyzed in a Lake Monona diving accident that damaged his spinal cord. Schuff, 30, a quadriplegic since 2011, died Oct. 24.His advisers at UW-Madison said he was less than a year from finishing his doctorate in engineering, focusing on innovative nuclear research that deserves to be continued.
Karin Swanson found a group of UW scientists willing to go to the ends of the Earth to find clues into the planet’s past, present and future.
Noted: The Portage Daily Register reported that Amy Kerwin founded Primates Inc. after seeing the need for monkey sanctuaries more than a decade ago in her work in the primate lab at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She got to know 97 research monkeys and learned there were no plans to retire them.
Science seems obsessed with creating tiny objects that can do big things. Like a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison which has created a new microlens with a 170-degree field of vision.
(Video) Karin Swanson found a group of UW scientists willing to go to the ends of the Earth to find clues into the planet’s past, present and future. Quoted: Jay Johnson, Drill Operations Engineer for IDDO.
There are sounds reasons to believe Exact Sciences’ non-invasive test for colon cancer will one day be a widely-recommended preventive procedure. But there is no doubt the announcement last month that a federal health task force gave the test an initial designation of “alternative test,” just as company officials were wrapping up plans for an ambitious expansion at Judge Doyle Square was about the worst timing possible. Very simply the implications for the company’s financial performance, short term as they might be, made the move downtown too risky. It’s too bad, but company CEO Kevin Conroy’s decision to grow the company at its current UW Research Park location is the right thing to do.
Quoted: “We need to evolve as well and create an environment where companies can interact easily and where they can spill over into these third spaces and have casual encounters and lunch meetings and coffee meetings,” Research Park Managing Director Aaron Olver said.
Research Park has already brought in food carts to the heart of its campus on a daily basis, but Olver said they hope to bring in restaurants and coffee shops to help facilitate a more collaborative atmosphere, which is an idea Exact Sciences is on board with.
