Using a Jell-O-like substance and stem cells to create a structure that mimics human brain tissue, scientists in Wisconsin have offered a glimpse at how we may one day test the safety of both pharmaceutical drugs and commercial compounds.
Three-dimensional “tissue chips,” grown from stem cells on tiny scaffolds, could become a new way to screen drugs and chemicals for toxicity, UW-Madison researchers said Monday.
Perhaps its stem cell advances are one reason Reuters News Service lists the UW System among the top 10 in its first Top 100 ranking of the most innovative universities in the world. UW came in at No. 8. Stanford University was No. 1.
University of Wisconsin College of Engineering announced Thursday, Sept. 17, a $22 million commitment from the Grainger Foundation for engineering undergraduates.
Noted: “If I’m seeing a patient in the clinic and I know that influenza is hitting in the schools around, I’m much more likely to be thinking of it and treating the patient appropriately,” said Dr. Jon Temte, a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Temte directed the $1.5 million study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study is looking at students in the Oregon School District and working to accurately diagnose influenza cases among students.
Aggressive state efforts to ban the use of fetal tissue in research are alarming some scientists who say such measures will set back efforts to cure the world’s deadliest diseases, including cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
A new study says that more first or second homes are being built in rural areas, raising concerns about fire and loss of animal habitat.
A conflict is escalating over U.S. researchers’ use of human fetal tissue. Legislators in Wisconsin last week advanced a bill that would make it a felony for scientists working in the state to conduct studies using tissue or cells obtained from recently aborted fetuses. The measure, approved by a committee of the Wisconsin State Assembly, has drawn opposition from universities and research groups, who say it will stifle important disease studies. The bill is likely just the first of many similar state-level efforts, science policy observers predict.
UW-Madison and the City of Madison will join more than 20 other city-university partnerships as beneficiaries of a $1 million grant to launch a program coordinating efforts of research and funding between academic institutions and their communities.
The White House announced the MetroLab Network, funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in a statement Monday along with other “Smart Cities” initiatives.
VIDEO: Sarah Bolser with Joggin for the Noggin talks about their event this weekend in Madison that will benefit the UW Carbone Cancer Center’s Brain Cancer Research Program.
Noted: BioForward honored two of the state’s successful life sciences leaders: Hector F. DeLuca, a University of Wisconsin-Madison vitamin D researcher who has received more than 1,000 patents and developed 12 pharmaceutical products, received the inaugural Hector F. DeLuca Scientific Achievement Award. Through his work, DeLuca has touched the lives of virtually everyone at UW-Madison, and of millions of people around the world, said Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which does patenting and licensing for UW-Madison.
The slang term “gaydar” is the alleged ability to discern if someone is straight or gay. But a new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and published in the Journal of Sex Research shows gaydar is fueled by stereotypes, and not a sixth sense.
UW Biological Anthropologist Carolina Vansickle talks to News 3 This Morning avout the UW’s involvement in the discovery of a new species of human ancestor in South Africa.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that despite that opposition, his goal remains to pass a fetal tissue ban bill this year. “I don’t know what form it will take,” Fitzgerald said. “The tricky thing is probably the research piece.”
It may not look like much at first glance, but a map created by University of Wisconsin computer science professor Paul Barford and about a dozen colleagues took around four years to produce. He believes it could make the Internet more resilient to accidents, disasters, or intentional attacks.
The Republican leader of the Wisconsin Senate said Tuesday that he wants to pass a bill banning the sale of tissue obtained from aborted fetuses, but he doesn’t know yet how it would apply to research.
Wisconsin scientists are reporting a cheaper way to create hydrogen to be used in fuel.
Sherlock Holmes’s creator might have called it “The Case of the Precocious Pinheads.”
The Republican leader of the Wisconsin Senate said Tuesday that he wants to pass a bill banning the sale of tissue obtained from aborted fetuses, but he doesn’t know yet how it would apply to research.
It may not look like much at first glance, but a map created by University of Wisconsin computer science professor Paul Barford and about a dozen colleagues took around four years to produce. He believes it could make the Internet more resilient to accidents, disasters, or intentional attacks.
When it comes to determining the sexual orientation of someone we don’t know, many people subscribe to the idea of ‘gaydar’ – that supposed intuitive ability to identify gay people by sight and sight alone. But a UW scientist says the idea of gaydar is a myth, and contributes to the stereotyping of LGBT people. He explains his latest research into the subject.
Proposed legislation banning research using tissue from aborted fetuses would have a devastating impact on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. That was the warning of Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Friday, who told the UW System Board of Regents that the restriction currently being considered by the Legislature could have potential impacts on the university that are “greater than anything we have discussed around budget cuts.”
The scurrilous attacks on Planned Parenthood — based on hidden-camera videos falsely purporting to show that it illegally sells fetal issue — have turned into attacks on fetal tissue research in Congress and in several state legislatures.
The UW Board of Regents will not yet make a formal statement about a fetal tissue research ban circulating in the Legislature. Members of the board said Friday that they do have concerns about the measure that would make it a felony to do research on fetal tissue derived after January 1, 2015.
Noted: Unlike many states that are angling to be bioscience centers, Wisconsin has a good foundation. Between the University of Wisconsin-Madison — the state’s life sciences research juggernaut — and a consortium of schools in the Milwaukee area, universities here generate a strong talent pool and attract nearly $1 billion of research funding, Ernst & Young’s report says.
The scurrilous attacks on Planned Parenthood — based on hidden-camera videos falsely purporting to show that it illegally sells fetal issue — have turned into attacks on fetal tissue research in Congress and in several state legislatures.Various bills now threaten to curtail or eliminate research that has already benefited millions of Americans and is poised to benefit many more.
The state’s largest business lobbying group on Thursday came out against a bill banning research on tissue from aborted fetuses, further clouding the future of legislation key Republicans hope to pass this fall.
Quoted: While the results still need to published, it is clear that it is a landmark study that will change medical practice, said James Stein, a professor of cardiology and director of the preventive cardiology and advanced hypertension program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison Hospital and Clinics.
If you’re reading today’s Journal Sentinel story on the major discovery in South Africa of Homo naledi, and find yourself wanting to learn more about the newest member of our family tree, check out the documentary put together by NOVA and National Geographic.
(UW–Madison) Professor John Hawks described the creature’s features and explained where the Homo naledi species fitted into the Homo family tree.
John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “Overall, Homo naledi looks like one of the most primitive members of our genus, but it also has some surprisingly human-like features, enough to warrant placing it in the genus Homo.”
Ian Sample speaks to Professor Lee Berger, who led the Wits University expeditions which discovered and recovered the fossils; to Professor John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a senior author on the paper describing the new species; and to Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London to assess how significant Homo naledi might be in shedding light on our origins and on the diversity our the human genus.
John Hawks (UW–Madison anthropology professor), a researcher on the team, said that despite some of its modern features, Homo naledi probably belonged at the origins of our genus, Homo. “It’s telling us that evolutionary history was probably different to what we had imagined,” he said.
“Homo naledi had a tiny brain, about the size of an average orange, perched atop a very slender body,” said John Hawks, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a senior author on the academic paper detailing the new species.
Professor John Hawks said the biology of the fossils showed signs of very early man and simultaneously were close to modern humans. “It looks like no other hominid we have ever found before,” said Hawks.
There was no damage to the bones, no predator bite marks or broken bones and there are no other fossils other than those from a few mice and bird remains. “Such a situation is unprecedented in the fossil hominin record,” said Prof John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a senior author.
trio of cavers squeezed through a tiny chute in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa two years ago, emerged into a chamber, and spied a skull that appeared to be very, very old. Based on that discovery, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and a team of scientists on Thursday introduced the world to Homo naledi, a strange new hominid species.
In groundbreaking new research published on Thursday, a new species of human relative has been discovered in South Africa. The findings, published in the journal eLife and reported in the October issue of National Geographic, detail the new species, known as Homo naledi, which was found in a remote cave chamber that also contains many other bones yet to be investigated.
You’ve probably heard that our family tree got a new member on Thursday. Homo naledi, a primitive, small-brained member of our genus, made itself known in a big way when cavers stumbled upon a mass grave left by the species.
Scientists in South Africa welcomed a new species into the human family tree this morning. Its name: Homo naledi. It’s slim and stands at under five feet tall with feet and hands similar to humans and a brain a third the size of ours, according to researchers.
Noted: The GWS Department will be reflecting on its 40-year history and contemplating its future at a campus-wide conference Oct. 23 and 24, when students will be able to hear lectures and join discussions with prominent educators in the field.
A Wisconsin state Assembly committee has passed a Republican-backed bill opposed by the University of Wisconsin that would prohibit research using tissue obtained from aborted fetuses.
Wednesday’s vote makes the bill available for a vote by the full Assembly as soon as later this month. It’s unclear whether the measure has enough support to pass the Senate, where Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has not commented on its chances.
Buried deep inside a cave in South Africa, researchers have discovered the remains of what scientists are calling mankind’s closest ‘cousin.’ University of Wisconsin researchers are part of an international team investigating the discovery of homo naledi fossils.
“We have a new species of Homo, with all of its interesting characteristics,” John Hawks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison paleoanthropologist said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison officials wasted no time in responding to legislation advanced by a state Assembly committee Wednesday making it a felony to receive or use fetal tissue acquired from an abortion that took place after Jan. 1, saying it “sends a chilling message to our scientists, to the biotechnology industry, and to our fellow citizens.”
What the scientists found was a species of human ancestor that had never been identified before: Homo naledi, an upright-walking hominid believed to be like a cousin on our family tree.
Two Republicans dissented Wednesday on parts of a bill allowing certain types of research using fetal tissue and banning certain other types, falling short of blocking the proposal but provoking a surprised reaction from the committee’s GOP chairman.
The excitement had been building for weeks, first as Alia Gurtov responded to a Facebook post seeking skilled and “skinny” paleontologists, then as she learned she was one of six women chosen, and finally now, as she crept through a South African cave, approaching a new chamber believed to hold clues to our earliest history.
“Dear colleagues — I need the help of the whole community,” palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger posted on social media on 6 October 2013.
Prominent bioethicist, R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin, notes the campaign of distorted videos mounted against Planned Parenthood by the inaptly named Center for Medical Progress aims to depict fetal tissue research as the unholy beneficiary of induced abortions. It’s a convenient target, for there’s no question that fetal tissue research exists, and that some of the tissue comes from abortions. But that’s where the reality ends and the sophistry begins.
A Wisconsin bill that would limit the research use of fetal tissue from abortions is gaining momentum, over the protest of scientists who say the measure would stifle progress in disease research. The bill, approved today by a committee in the state assembly and expected to win the support of the full assembly this fall, is the first in what many predict will be a series of battles waged at the state level against the distribution and use of fetal tissue.
Lee Berger put his ad up on Facebook on October 7th, 2013. He needed diggers for an exciting expedition. They had to have experience in palaeontology or archaeology, and they had to be willing to drop everything and fly to South Africa within the month. “The catch is this—the person must be skinny and preferably small,” he wrote. “They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor John Hawks was recently one of the leaders of an expedition to South Africa that uncovered a new species of hominin called Homo naledi.
For University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Alia Gurtov, a very pivotal morning in her life started like any other: Wake up, check Facebook.
When an amateur caver and university geologist arrived at Lee Berger’s house one night in late 2013 with a fragment of a fossil jawbone in hand, they broke out the beers and called National Geographic.
A newly discovered early human ancestor could have used tools and may have even figured out how to bury its dead, scientists said Thursday — a find they said was “unlike anything that we have seen” in the fossil record.
Researchers in South Africa discovered extensive remains of a previously unknown humanlike species in a subterranean boneyard, highlighting an early offshoot of humankind and raising questions about the origins of ritual burial and self-awareness, the scientists announced on Thursday.
Acting on a tip from spelunkers two years ago, scientists in South Africa discovered what the cavers had only dimly glimpsed through a crack in a limestone wall deep in the Rising Star cave: lots and lots of old bones.
A trove of bones hidden deep within a South African cave represents a new species of human ancestor, scientists announced Thursday in the journal eLife. Homo naledi, as they call it, appears very primitive in some respects—it had a tiny brain, for instance, and apelike shoulders for climbing. But in other ways it looks remarkably like modern humans. When did it live? Where does it fit in the human family tree? And how did its bones get into the deepest hidden chamber of the cave—could such a primitive creature have been disposing of its dead intentionally?
The two amateur cavers had to feel their way along the cave’s winding passages, crawl on their stomachs through an opening less than 10 inches high, ascend a jagged wall, cross a narrow ledge dubbed the “Dragon’s Back,” and make a 400-foot descent, sideways, through a vertical crack before finally arriving at the prize: a 30-foot-long chamber probably between 2 million and 3 million years old.
Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of an unusual human-like creature that lived long ago. Exactly how long ago is still a mystery — and that’s not the only mystery surrounding this newfound species.
