MADISON — High in a laboratory overlooking Lake Mendota, University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist Gail Robertson is looking for the next breakthrough in medical science. If Republican lawmakers will let her, that is.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’s optimistic the chamber will vote on a bill outlawing research on tissue taken from aborted fetuses.
Age is nothing but a number when it comes to unravelling the relationships of species from our past. We do not know the actual geological age of the Dinaledi fossils, the single largest fossil hominin find in Africa, but the discovery of Homo naledi still provides insight into how our ancestors evolved.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is optimistic he’ll be able to muster the votes needed to pass a bill banning research on tissue from aborted fetuses. Opponents of the measure – including some Republicans and the state’s largest business lobby – have expressed concerns that the bill will harm biomedical research in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin legislators are set to hold another public hearing on a bill that would outlaw research on tissue taken from aborted fetuses.
The Senate’s health committee was scheduled to hold a hearing on the Republican-authored measure Tuesday morning in the state Capitol. The Assembly’s criminal justice already has held a hearing and approved the bill, clearing the way for a full vote that chamber but it’s unclear how much support the proposal has among Senate Republicans, who are concerned the measure’s effect on research.
The authors of a bill that would outlaw research on tissue from fetuses aborted are trying to persuade the state Senate’s health committee to approve the proposal.
Sen. Duey Stroebel and Rep. Andre Jacque, both Republicans, told the committee during a public hearing Tuesday that the bill will stop atrocities and aborted children should be treated like humans, not specimens.
Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and leader of the giant neutrino telescope known as IceCube, has won the 2015 Balzan Prize, an award worth about $775,000.
Award-winning University of Wisconsin-Madison Physicist Francis Halzen will discuss The IceCube Project and the hunt for neutrinos at Marquette University’s annual George V. Coyne, S.J. Lecture at 4 p.m. on Oct. 1.
A bill banning certain types of research using fetal tissue from abortions and allowing others likely lacks the votes needed to pass the state Assembly, Speaker Robin Vos said Tuesday.
Associated Press synopsis of the bill forwarded by Wisconsin Republicans that would outlaw research on tissue from aborted fetuses. A public hearing on the measure was held Tuesday.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation added its voice Tuesday to those opposing legislation that would criminalize the use of fetal tissue in biomedical research.
The top Republican in the state Assembly says a controversial proposal that would ban researchers from using most tissue from aborted fetuses likely does not have the votes needed to pass out of his chamber right now.
A bill that would make it a felony to use or sell aborted fetal tissue in Wisconsin had its first state Senate hearing Tuesday, with public comments becoming heated at times.
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.
