Category: Research

Noted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison and a private lab on the East Coast both were involved in verifying the remains as belonging to Gordon.

University of Wisconsin-Madison plant scientists intend to employ some highly sophisticated instruments to evaluate new varieties of organic vegetables: the palates of the people who produce or prepare them for discerning customers.

Quoted: The research was undertaken by University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Professor Zhengyu Liu.

Quoted: We spoke to one of the preeminent researchers in this area, Dr. Mark Berres, assistant professor of avian biology with the Department of Animal Sciences at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the Shazam-like app he?s been developing for a few years, called WeBIRD.

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently requested a figure for its annual report, to show global temperature trends over the last 10,000 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Zhengyu Liu knew that was going to be a problem. ?We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions,? says Liu, a professor in the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research. ?Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming.?

UW-Madison field crops pathologist Damon Smith has been getting calls, photos and plant samples of soybeans showing abnormal growth and leaves with varying degrees of interwoven green and yellow areas, symptoms indicative of alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV).

A multi-institutional team has resolved a long-unanswered question about how two of the world?s most common substances interact. In a paper published recently in the journal Nature Communications, Manos Mavrikakis, professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his collaborators report fundamental discoveries about how water reacts with metal oxides.

The DNA Sequencing Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Biotechnology Center analyzed the DNA, along with a private lab on the East Coast, and concluded it belonged to Gordon.

DNA research, done at the UW-Madison identified the remains of Private First Class Lawrence Gordon back in February.

Noted: The DNA Sequencing Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Biotechnology Center analyzed the DNA, along with a private lab on the east coast, and concluded it belonged to Gordon. Forensic scientists in Madison in June examined the skeletal remains of the soldier for further forensic evidence when Gordon was brought back by his family from the German ossuary in France to U.S soil.

he DNA lab at the University of Wisconsin may help bring the final member of a World War II unit home.

Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, counseled us to be expecting such proportional reporting. In his recent book ?How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking,? Ellenberg includes a chapter titled ?How Much Is That in Dead Americans?? It debunks precisely the calculation that Barnard unfurls in her New York Times article.

Hydraulic fracturing has increased seven-fold across the United States since 2007. Over that time period, scientists? knowledge of the environmental impacts of fracking has not progressed nearly this much. Startlingly little research has looked at biological effects of this process on the environment and wildlife. But what we do know is alarming enough that more research is urgently needed, according to a new study, and the lack of knowledge quite stunning.

Barley research is being conducted by UW-Madison in collaboration with UW Extension and the University of Minnesota at the Peninsular Agriculture Research Station just north of Sturgeon Bay. Work there has been ongoing for 10 years, but this year?s crop of more than 30 varieties on three acres was wiped out, along with other crops, during a July 14 hail storm.

?The reason we proposed the concept of dark matter is because we cannot explain the total mass of the universe,? says Swagato Banerjee, a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin. ?And the only way we know how fundamental particles acquire mass is through the Higgs mechanism. So if dark matter is fundamental, it has to interact with the Higgs to acquire mass, at least in our known framework.?

It?s about a whole lot more than free pizza, casual Fridays and the boss?s open-door policy. That?s the main message of Engaging Government Employees, a book by Robert Lavigna, and it?s one that leaders of government organizations large and small should pay attention to.

Amid new concerns about lab safety lapses and in a counterpoint to recent calls for restrictions on research that may render pathogens more dangerous, 36 scientists from several countries have issued a formal statement asserting that research on potentially dangerous pathogens can be done safely and is necessary for a full understanding of infectious diseases.

Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair of Urban Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison, discussed racial disparity in school suspensions with HuffPost Live?s Marc Lamont-Hill on Tuesday.

A new University of Wisconsin-Madison report shows the number of divorces among couples with different levels of education is falling.

The Trout Lake Research Station is inviting the public to step inside a limnologist?s world for an afternoon.

Raising teens can be a challenge, and a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and graduate student are recruiting participants for a study exploring the role of wisdom in parenting and raising teens.

Imbed Biosciences Inc. has received a federal research grant of $1.5 million to continue developing biologic dressings that could be used to prevent wound infections and promote cell growth and healing.

Stephen Small, University of Wisconsin-Extension human development and family relations specialist and professor of Human Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has studied the process of wisdom to better understand how people can make wiser decisions in their everyday lives. The research has involved dozens of interviews and builds on the recent work of scientists, as well as sages and philosophers across the ages.

Good news for women interested in #havingitall: New research shows that women who are more highly educated than their husbands are not at higher risk for divorce, reversing a decades-old trend. The paper, published online last week in American Sociological Review, takes a look at (heterosexual) couples who married in the 1950s through the first decade of the new millennium, and found that the tendency for couples in which the wife had more education to split up actually disappeared in the 1990s.

University of Wisconsin Madison grad student Rachel Mallinger is in the Northwoods Monday talking about the value of the state?s native bees. WXPR?s Natalie Jablonski spoke with Mallinger about wild bees and the online identification guide she developed to help people appreciate wild bee diversity.

There?s little objectively sexy about math. With its flummoxing sine curves and its formulae written as if in ancient cuneiform, the subject has driven countless people to such frivolous pursuits as writing and journalism. Even the stand-up comedian Louis C.K. recently took to Twitter to rail at the way public schools were dryly meting the subject out: ?My kids used to love math,? he wrote. ?Now it makes them cry.? But Jordan Ellenberg, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, has positioned himself as math?s Malcolm Gladwell with this crystalline, eminently digestible book. (It doesn?t hurt that the drawings therein are charmingly amateurish, as if scribbled on a napkin during animated repartee over cocktails.)

Noted: The FAA has a process for academic researchers to obtain special authorisation to use drones, but only if they are affiliated with public colleges or universities, not private schools like Smith. Researchers from Harvard and Stanford universities, both private institutions, also signed the letter. But so did researchers from large public universities like the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin.

US virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka has form when it comes to sparking controversy. Last month, his team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published a paper that described engineering an entirely new flu virus that causes severe illness when transmitted between ferrets in sneezed, airborne droplets.

When Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, most of lower Manhattan went dark, and it was almost two weeks before most of the power was restored. But in one building in Greenwich Village, the lights stayed on and the heat kept working (and the building?s population doubled). That?s because, as University of Wisconsin engineering professor Thomas Jahns explained, that building had ?its own miniature version of a utility grid?: a microgrid.

A 19-year-old Chicago teen may one day hold the key to curing colon cancer.

Dwight Mueller, director of the 11 UW-Madison Agricultural Research Centers throughout the state, said the work being done by researchers highlighted at Potato Field Day is intended to help growers avoid having to deal with issues such as disease.

Smallpox. Anthrax. An especially lethal form of bird flu. The list of diseases caused by pathogens that appear to have been handled carelessly by federal laboratories is chill-inducing.

Noted: IceCube is designed to detect neutrinos ? ghostly subatomic particles with no electric charge and minuscule mass. Wisconsin universities are heavily involved in the experiment ? the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a lead institution on the project, and UW-River Falls has played a key role in the research as well.

Research into why families with firstborn daughters are slightly more likely to divorce than those with firstborn sons has disproved the long-held reasoning that men simply prefer sons.

MADISON – There?s a new invasive species in Wisconsin: the Asian crazy worm. It?s called the crazy worm because it?s very active.

MADISON, Wis. ? A foreign worm with a big appetite has burrowed into the soil of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, officials said Tuesday.

An isolated hail storm late Monday and early Tuesday forced snow plows onto the roads of Door County and caused significant crop damage.

Matt Stasiak, superintendent of the [UW-Madison] Peninsular Agriculture Research Station three miles north of Sturgeon Bay, said the hail storm destroyed virtually every crop at the facility and likely caused over $1 million in damage.

The UW-Madison dean discusses research findings that suggest financial concerns for young adults.

Cranberries are blooming this month in Wisconsin ? each delicate blossom awaiting a visit from a bee to pollinate it before the plants can produce their famously tart, red berries.