Category: Research

A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison is documenting the hottest and coldest places in Dane County and is one of the first of its kind.

At a meeting Thursday of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), some researchers said a moratorium imposed by the U.S. government on certain risky virology studies has gone too far.

One of the most prominent laboratories conducting gain-of-function studies is run by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a flu researcher at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.

In order to catch something very small, sometimes you have to build something very big.

Neural activity maps frequently present an incomplete picture of how a brain works; you can measure electrical activity, stimulate it or visualize the anatomy, but you can?t do all three. DARPA and the University of Wisconsin might just pull off that seemingly impossible feat, however. They recently built a hybrid brain sensor that combines both electrical and optical techniques to present a vivid picture of what?s happening inside the mind. The sensor is primarily made of ultra-thin graphene (just four atoms thick) that both conducts electricity and lets light through. By putting this device on top of neural tissue, you can simultaneously create brain activity and monitor virtually every aspect of it. Graphene is safe for your body, too, so you shouldn?t face the same risks you see with metal alloys.

DARPA, known half-jokingly as the Department of Mad Scientists, has again turned its attention to the human brain, this time hoping to expand our insight into it and its structure through the use of incredibly tiny (read: atom-sized) graphene sensors. It detailed its latest effort on Monday, explaining its work in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin at Madison to create a new form of technology for peering into how the brain functions. This is done as part of President Obama?s brain initiative, says the research agency.

A national animal rights group is suing the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, demanding that it release handwritten notes taken during meetings about controversial anxiety research with baby monkeys.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say that learning compassion is like weight training, and people can learn to build up their “compassion muscle” to respond to others? suffering with care and a desire to help.

What do you do if your university is the target of an aggressive publicity campaign that distorts and misrepresents the work of one of your most highly respected scientists? What do you do if hundreds of thousands of people sign a petition calling for a research project to be cancelled, even though the petition contains numerous errors of fact? What do you do if a media campaign, backed by several of the world?s largest animal rights groups threatens to undermine academic freedom and the research evaluation process at your University?

The University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist who was the driving force behind the giant neutrino telescope at the South Pole, known as IceCube, has been named the winner of a prestigious national award conferred by Smithsonian magazine, the university announced Friday.

In 1975, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Howard Temin was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology for discoveries he made in cancer research.

Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the study, said he hoped that that the study could be extended to more participants with wider demographic representation. If still promising, then doctors could prescribe yoga as treatment for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in the future.

Small birds that once fled the snow and cold of winter are more likely to stick around thanks to warmer temperatures in northern climates, two UW-Madison researchers have found.

A team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has figured out how to measure mindfulness, which they say could add credibility to the practice of focusing on awareness of the present moment and help push it into the mainstream.

If you?ve been to Yellowstone lately, you may have noticed the forests that burned in 1988 are growing back. A team of researchers say the forests withstood the 1988 wildfires, recent beetle kills, and more. But, they may not do so well in the future.

Jeffrey Kahn has serious doubts about the ethics of the UW-Madison?s research depriving newborn rhesus monkeys from their mothers.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources have found that grass-and-wildflower-dominated fields supported more than three times as many bird species as cornfields, including 10 imperiled species found only in the grasslands. Thee grassland fields can also produce ample biomass for renewable fuels.

Noted: The report is prepared by University of Wisconsin-Madison students who have been guided by Tom Eggert, executive director of the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council and a lecturer on sustainability.

Noted: The last statewide project to map land cover, the Wisconsin Initiative for Statewide Cooperation on Landscape Analysis and Data or WISCLAND, used 1992 satellite imagery. The project has been inactive since the late 1990s. But work is underway to update the state?s land cover map. Called WISCLAND 2, the project is a cooperative effort of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Department of Natural Resources.

Noted: Greiner, 83, is an emeritus professor of electrical engineering at UW-Madison. He?s also the eldest of a group of four Madison-area amateur astronomers who take photographs and hunt asteroids, not from Madison ? that pesky light issue ? but from telescopes in New Mexico they can each operate with computers from their living rooms in Wisconsin.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been awarded up to $3.3 million for a project that would produce chemicals from biomass.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison influenza researcher has been recognized as a 2014 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award recipient for his efforts to understand and prevent pandemic influenza.

“I think if we?re all honest about it, we all suffer from attention deficit disorder, and it?s in part attributable to the kid of exposure we have to digital devices,” Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Huffington, the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. “The kind of feedback that we get from them is immediate feedback and it?s highly reinforcing, so it becomes like a drug. And in fact, it co-opts the same brain systems that are indicated in addiction.”

An uproar over the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s plan to perform maternal deprivation experiments on baby monkeys. More than 300,000 people have signed a petition demanding the tax-payer funded experiment be stopped.

Remember Randall, the sassy narrator from the “Honey Badger Don?t Care” video? Well, he?s back as the narrator of a new video, put out by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, that calls for an end to controversial baby monkey experiments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Off the top of my head, I can list dozens of websites that offer readers science news. But in 1996, there were very few websites devoted exclusively to sharing high-quality science writing. One of the first sites to step into that niche was The Why Files, and it?s still cranking out stories almost two decades later.