UW-Madison biomedical engineering professor Pamela Kreeger received a prestigious prize awarded to cutting-edge scientists whose research, if fruitful, has the potential to be incredibly impactful.
In light of controversy revolving around using animals for research purposes, UW-Madison?s Department of Medical History and Bioethics will host a discussion centered on bioethics Thursday, according to a university news release.
The trend is worrisome for leaders in some of Wisconsin?s leading research institutions, which starts with UW-Madison. In 2012, according to the NSF, UW-Madison ranked third among all U.S. universities in total academic R&D spending at $1.17 billion. Half of that investment ($581 million) came from federal sources … ?Federal research dollars are an investment in our nation?s economic future,? UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank wrote recently. ?Cutting these dollars in the short-run may seem easy, but the long-term effects are large and negative. ? If federal support for basic research declines, our opportunities for economic growth through innovation will decline.?
A physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has released an app that transforms that ordinary smartphone in your pocket into a device that detects elusive cosmic rays. And it wasn?t even that hard: “It was just one of those hobbies that happened to work out,” said assistant professor Justin Vandenbroucke in a news release.
“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.”
They have been stepped on and ignored for millennia, but at the Wisconsin State Herbarium, lichens are loved. So well-liked, in fact, when herbarium director Ken Cameron had a chance to acquire a rare and valuable collection of 60,000 lichen specimens from a German collector recently, he snapped them up.
An effort is underway to update the land cover map for the State of Wisconsin. The Department of Natural Resources and cartographers at UW-Madison are teaming up to create the new map. Another goal is to help create better management of the deer population throughout the state.
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.
Physicist Justin Vandenbroucke of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has created a new app that uses a smartphone?s image sensor to detect cosmic rays — something that has in the past required multi-million pound observatory equipment to achieve.
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.
The UW-Madison Applied Population Laboratory released data on Wednesday showing that the Latino population increased by 74 percent from 2000 to 2010, with 336,000 Latinos living in the state 10 years into the 21st century, compared to 193,000 living in Wisconsin in 2000.
With breast cancer awareness month just getting into full swing — one UW Madison researcher is working on a groundbreaking new study to treat some cancers in days — not weeks.
Over the past decade or so, massive tree-eating armies of mountain pine beetles have chewed through tens of millions of acres of pine forests throughout the West.
It?s no secret that yoga can aid mental well-being. What is more, it can help soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to new research.
Scientists increasingly understand that children?s brain growth can be stunted by a lack of stimulation and by childhood traumas, such as violence and sexual abuse, said Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a pediatrician and expert on child development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Jake Walsh, PhD student at the UW Madison Center for Limnology, says the finding is significant because there aren?t many northern lakes that have the invasive.
Alfonso Morales has a long relationship with food. He grew up on a farm in New Mexico, then went on to study sociology in school, running a booth at the Maxwell Street Market in Chicago as part of his dissertation.
An experiment on newborn monkeys at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has ignited a debate, including a national petition drive, a federal review and a proposed local resolution seeking to halt the research.
Universities have been expecting the rules since last year, and depending on how much research they do, evaluating what meets the criteria “can be a lot more work,” said Rebecca Moritz, manager of select-agent research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A bigger question, she said, is whether the policy expands beyond the current 15 targeted agents.
Research conducted by University of Wisconsin professors is showing a stronger connection between global health and the environment, highlighting the multi-faceted nature of climate change.
Noted: Separately, University of Wisconsin-Madison research released this week is projecting that the number of extremely hot days in the Midwest and eastern U.S. cities is likely to grow sharply by the middle of the century.
Climate change isn?t just worrisome for the Earth.It could also be a problem for your health, according to a new 20-year study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The Obama administration is tightening oversight of high-stakes scientific research involving dangerous germs that could raise biosecurity concerns, imposing new safety rules on universities and other institutions where such work is done. Universities have been expecting the rules since last year, and depending on how much research they do, evaluating what meets the criteria “can be a lot more work,” said Rebecca Moritz, manager of select-agent research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Stem cell pioneer Jamie Thomson and others at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research will receive about $7 million in grant money over the next three years to grow brain tissue that could provide a faster, more affordable way to screen for neural toxins.
Heat stroke, cardiac arrest and other heat-related illnesses are expected to increase as the number of extremely hot days rises, said lead author Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Farmers? markets practically glow with wholesome virtue: Shop here, they promise, and you can help build a sustainable, healthy food system! But without the data to buttress those claims, it?s hard to know whether farmers? markets are actually meeting those goals or how they can adapt to better meet their communities? needs. Alfonso Morales, a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wants to help change that.
Noted: ?It?s getting hotter,? said Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and lead author of the new study. ?And it?s the extremes that matter most to public health.?
Noted: A research team led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison recruited 29 women in their early 20s from France. The participants viewed 24 photos of two infants with happy, sad, angry or neutral expressions. Three photos were taken of each expression, one showing the full face and two with a pacifier or white square obscuring the mouth.
Climate change poses risks to human health just as pollution and lack of sanitation did a century ago, says a medical journal editorial that details the potential harmful health effects and the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Evidence over the past 20 years indicates that climate change can be associated with adverse health outcomes,” Dr. Jonathan Patz of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his colleagues concluded.
Monarchs have begun their annual migration. “They?ll ultimately end up in part of a mountain range in south-central Mexico, where they end up spending the winter, then head north again in the spring,” explained P.J. Liesch, manager of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.
A University of Wisconsin study has found that the number of extremely hot summer days in some cities may triple by mid-century unless more is done to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
There has been increasing awareness and concern about monarch butterflies, but acording to entomologist Phil Pellitteri, there is cause for guarded optimism — at least in Wisconsin.
MADISON?P.J. Liesch takes a vial or two with him when he goes for a walk outdoors.
Anxiety and depression are serious. I?m well aware of the despair it can cause. I don?t believe harming monkeys will lead to a treatment so novel it will have a major impact on humanity.
Noted: What?s particularly striking, says University of Wisconsin climate scientist Galen A. McKinley, is that China is now emitting more on a per capita basis than the European Union, for the first time in history.
Wisconsin?s agriculture industry continues to grow and create more jobs, according to a report released on Friday.
Noted: At least one recent experiment, carried out over 12 weeks, offers hope that lasting change is possible. By alerting a group of psychology students to their prejudice?90 percent of them showed antiblack bias at the beginning of the intervention?and teaching them a range of de-biasing strategies they could employ on their own time, University of Wisconsin-Madison psychologist Patricia Devine and her team showed that prejudicial attitudes could, with sustained effort, go down and stay down for at least two months. In a 2012 paper published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Devine concluded that unconscious prejudice could be unlearned, like a bad habit, through ?the power of the conscious mind.?
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers conducted a study, which revealed additional knowledge about the relationship between Down syndrome and Alzheimer?s disease, according to a university press release.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Helen Blackwell has been studying quorum-sensing, a molecular signaling system that enables bacteria to function as communicative organisms, for more than ten years, according to a Thursday university press release.
University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank spoke highly of the university?s long-running research partnership with GE Healthcare during her first visit with the company?s top Milwaukee-area executives.
As the world becomes more complex in this age of technology and scientific discovery, academic powerhouses like UW?Madison are nurturing a new breed of basic research scientists who could change the way we treat, and maybe even cure, the diseases of our time. But basic research has a branding problem?it?s done quietly in labs on campus and without much attention or fanfare. Funding has slowed to a trickle in the last decade, and without it, the future doesn?t look as bright.
Aaron Olver, the new director of University Research Park, nearly had his promising career cut short, but for a little luck and his new wife?s unwavering support.
Despite being from Kansas, Dr. John Hawks had never seen storms like he experienced in South Africa.
?Bush meat?? I asked. The food in front of me smelled delicious, but the mention of bush meat in the stew evoked a twinge of fear. Could it be fruit bat? Chimpanzee? Both can harbor Ebola virus.
Researchers at UW-Madison are preparing to use maternal deprivation to create a primate model of adversity-induced anxious and depressive disorders in human children. Led by Ned Kalin, they hope to discover new therapies by dissecting and analyzing the brains of baby monkeys who have been intentionally traumatized.
?We want to enrich the public discourse around what science is and why it matters,? says Laura Heisler, director of programming for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. WARF produces the festival, now in its fourth year, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research.
DIY Science is just one of an array of programs at UW-Madison designed to inform the public about scientific research on campus. Roughly 375 academic staff members work in science outreach, which helps fulfill the Wisconsin Idea, UW-Madison?s guiding principle to share the university?s resources to improve the lives of state citizens.
If you have lived in Portage all your life, you are wanted.
Many U.S. scientists had hoped to ride out the steady decline in federal funding for biomedical research, but it?s continuing on a downward trend with no end in sight. So leaders of the science establishment are now trying to figure out how to fix this broken system.
Starting next fall, researchers at UW-Madison will have access to a bigger and deeper pool of data about people?s jobs, salaries, educational levels and other factors.
Two years after Wisconsin?s first recreational wolf hunting season began, controversy over the subsequent mortality rates has led to independent population studies from researchers at University of Wisconsin.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified a potential new treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder: a breathing practice commonly used in yoga or meditation.
Noted: A 2013 study by the University of Wisconsin?s Waisman Center found hormones released when girls are abused could trigger early puberty. Rather than triggering the fight-or-flight hormone cortisol ? which is what happened when boys were abused ? researchers found that, after regular abuse, girls released oxytocin, a hormone we associate with post-coital and post-natal bonding. But too much cortisol can be just as damaging. Eventually, a body learns to become inured to the stressful situations that trigger its release.
Yoga could be the best way to tackle stress, say two new studies.
Post-traumatic stress disorder continues to wreak havoc on the lives of veterans, but a new study suggests yoga could provide relief.
Several UW-Madison researchers are studying ALS, including four whose work has been supported by the ALS Association in recent years: pharmacist Jeffrey Johnson, comparative bioscientist Masatoshi Suzuki, microbiologist Randal Tibbetts and neuroscientist Su-Chun Zhang.
The importance of a second research hub for Wisconsin was part of a message delivered last week in Milwaukee by UW-Madison Chancellor Becky Blank, who spoke to a meeting of the Wisconsin Innovation Network.
In light of new research that indicates kids who spend a lot of time playing video games may have more trouble identifying emotions, we talk with two video games experts about why the games are a positive force. Interviewed: Constance Steinkuehler & Kurt Squire
A California biotech consulting firm that pledged to create at least 103 local jobs by 2017 will get a $1 million low-interest loan from the state to help it buy an under-used pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in University Research Park where it plans to make cancer-fighting and other types of drugs for other companies.
