And how the heck did it travel to Bavaria hundreds of years ago? OK, this story from the University of Wisconsin, Madison on the mysterious origins of bottom-fermenting lager yeast is a little “inside baseball” — for the anorak brigade, as the Brits might say — but it is interesting to brewers and beer lovers.
Lager drinkers can thank the birds for their favourite tipple. That is the conclusion of US scientists who say the yeast involved in making their beloved amber nectar could have been spread round the planet by migrating birds.
University of Wisconsin-Madison is now using advanced computing for quantitative research with support from the National Science Foundation, which works to connect scholars and technology, according to a Thursday release.
State economic development leaders on Thursday took 32 trade commissioners from 23 countries on a daylong bus tour designed to show Wisconsin makes more than beer and cheese. The tour included a stop at UW-Madison, for a presentation about the commercialization of university research discoveries and public-private partnerships over lunch at the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery.
A belowground experiment at the South Pole has now discovered three of the highest-energy neutrinos ever found, particles that may be created in the most violent explosions of the universe. These neutrinos all have energies at the absurdly high scale of peta?electron volts ? roughly the energy equivalent of one million times a proton?s mass. (As Albert Einstein showed in his famous E = mc2 equation, energy and mass are equivalent, and such a large amount of mass converts to an extreme level of energy.) The experiment, called IceCube, reported the discovery of the first two ? nicknamed Ernie and Bert ? last year, and announced the third Monday here at the American Physical Society meeting. ?Internally, it?s known as Big Bird,? said IceCube physicist Chris Weaver of the University of Wisconsin?Madison.
New apps help recovering alcoholics by providing instant access to support — a game-changer when it comes to recovery, according to one addiction expert.
SAVANNAH, Ga.?A belowground experiment at the South Pole has now discovered three of the highest-energy neutrinos ever found, particles that may be created in the most violent explosions of the universe. These neutrinos all have energies at the absurdly high scale of peta?electron volts?roughly the energy equivalent of one million times a proton?s mass. (As Albert Einstein showed in his famous E = mc2 equation, energy and mass are equivalent, and such a large amount of mass converts to an extreme level of energy.) The experiment, called IceCube, reported the discovery of the first two?nicknamed Ernie and Bert?last year, and announced the third Monday here at the American Physical Society meeting. ?Internally, it?s known as Big Bird,? said IceCube physicist Chris Weaver of the University of Wisconsin?Madison.
Not many people care about where the yeast that makes much of modern beer possible came from. But science cares.
Sean Carroll, a University of Wisconsin professor turned TV producer, wants more people to identify with their inner fish.
The changing landscape of academic research calls for a change in the structure of UW-Madison research and graduate school administration, says a faculty work group.
A team of researchers led by Ian Duncan, professor of neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, reported last November in the journal glia that they have found the genetic basis for canine tremor disorder. Their findings hold implications for dog owners, dog breeders, and families of individuals with certain disorders.
The creator of the “hockey stick” graph showing a sharp increase in Earth?s temperature will be speaking at UW-Madison April 17.
The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate voted unanimously Monday to accept a plan to split job duties between two top level administrators in the area of research enterprise.
Madison, Wisconsin – By studying nerve cells that originated in patients with a severe neurological disease, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has pinpointed an error in protein formation that could be the root of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
A few decades ago, inequality started rising in countries around the world. That came as a shock to many economists who originally thought inequality tended to go down overtime. They wondered how inequality could rise in so many different places at once. Well, now a new book by one of the world?s leading experts on the topic suggests an answer to that mystery. Jacob Goldstein of our Planet Money team reports. Quoted: Steven Durlaf, professor of economics.
An American forensic lab announced Monday it has independently confirmed through DNA testing that the remains recovered from a German ossuary in France are indeed U.S. Army Pfc. Lawrence S. Gordon, who was mistakenly buried with the enemy after World War II.
After playing in every game for some 14 years in baseball, Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees – “The Iron Horse” – took himself out of the lineup because his manager wouldn?t. He had been dropping balls, unable to get to routine plays, hitting in the low .100s, shuffling rather than running.
?The winter is a pretty incredible time of year,? Jonathan Pauli told me. Looking out the window of his office at Wisconsin?s stubborn crust of snow, it occurred to me that ?incredible? might not be the most popular adjective, especially this year, as a harrowing winter slowly releases its grip on the United States.
?It started over beer in a meeting in China in 1998,? said professor John Valley. In Beijing that year, Valley met with Simon Wilde, who was able to provide him and a graduate student with what they needed: ?the oldest oxygen on earth [that they] could find.?
UW coaches, like Bo Ryan, and Google Glass are helping a team of UW-Madison surgeons improve their skills.
A new study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 of every 68 children in the U.S. has autism. This is means autism is more than twice as common as it was seven years ago. A researcher explains why the increase in numbers and whether we should be concerned by them.
MADISON, Wis. ? University of Wisconsin institutions could conduct classified national security research under a bill that has passed the state Senate.
Two rival research groups set out in 1987 to answer a tantalizing question: Could a diet kept meager in calories pay off in longevity?
The results of a longitudinal study, which tested diet and aging in monkeys, shows that consuming calorie-restricted food leads to a significant reduction in mortality and age-related diseases, a discovery that is expected to help scientists develop drugs and other treatments to increase longevity and improve health among humans.
Reducing calorie intake by just 10 per cent could make people live longer, new research suggests.
Extreme calorie counting boosts lifespan in monkeys, according to new research.
For decades, a group of rhesus monkeys has been under observation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Half were randomly selected to eat as much as they desired for the rest of their lives, while the rest were stuck on nutritious, but heavily restricted diets consisting of 30 percent fewer calories. The number of monkeys has slowly dwindled over the years, with scientists taking notes on how each one died.
The state Senate is set to vote on a bill that would allow University of Wisconsin institutions to conduct classified national security research.
The state Senate is set to vote on a bill that would allow University of Wisconsin institutions to conduct classified national security research.
A group of professors from Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois and elsewhere now say they have discovered that a second NSA tool exacerbated the RSA software?s vulnerability.
The peer-reviewed study, released March 21 and published online in PLOS ONE, was led by Christopher S. Jennelle, Ph.D., and Professor Michael D. Samuel at UW.
The U.S. military could save millions of dollars in transport and logistics costs when equipment returns from Afghanistan, based on a plan developed by a center headquartered at UW-Madison.
The Milky Way Galaxy, which is 100,000 light years across and scattered with more than 300 billion stars, has been reduced to a single 360-degree image by a team of University of Wisconsin researchers.
The concept came decades ago. David Gustafson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published his first paper in 1973 after asking people with suicidal thoughts to sit down at computers and speak their minds.
Noted: It?s not just the type of screen that matters, but what is on that screen. “The best research suggests that the content children view is the best predictor of cognitive effects,” says Heather Kirkorian who studies cognitive development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Children will learn from what they watch, whether that means learning letters and numbers, slapstick humour or aggressive behaviour,” she says, adding that children who watch age-appropriate, educational TV programmes often do better on tests of school readiness.
Higher rates of exercise and moderate drinking could be be linked to better vision health later in life, new research found.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered a new method for generating muscle cells from stem cells, according to a Friday news release.
Extra sales taxes on soda may curb soda consumption, but that doesnt mean it reduces calorie intake, according to new research from health economist Jason Fletcher of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Health advocates have proposed ?sin taxes? as a way to curb behavior like smoking or snacking, but a new study suggests extra sales taxes on soda won?t decrease obesity.
Soda taxes don?t lead to lower obesity rates. That?s the finding of a study by UW Madison sociology professor Jason Fletcher. He said higher soda prices might lead to fewer purchases, but that?s not the end of the story.
A study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s La Follette School of Public Affairs found extra taxes on soda do not have a direct impact on obesity rates.
If interactive robots were able to pause during conversation and take a moment to gaze off into the distance as if pondering what the user was saying, research suggests this small change could make them seem less robotic.
As UW-Madison students packed up to go home for winter break in December, the crime analysts at the Madison Police Department?s Downtown offices knew what was coming next: A wave of burglary reports as students returned to campus in January, finding their apartments broken into and valuables stolen.
Toma is an associate professor of communication science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies how people relate to each other online, using Facebook, Twitter, OK Cupid and Match.com to analyze what we share, alter, inflate and lie about when we can?t be seen face to face.
NASA has released an interactive mosaic of infrared images of the Milky Way. It is the “clearest infrared panorama of our galactic home ever made,” according to the voiceover in the video below.
Most of us will never leave the Earth — but that doesn?t stop us dreaming of the stars. There are a few tools that let you explore, though, and NASA has just launched a killer.
Do yourself a favor. Don?t read this article just yet?first, take a moment to zoom around this incredible panorama of our galaxy and soak in the splendor:
A University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist made a significant discovery that could affect children with autism. Study author Dr. Cara Westmark says, changing an autistic child?s diet could decrease the number of seizures they have.
Noted: The remains will go next to the University of Wisconsin for an anthropologist and odontologist to inspect. The lab there will also test the DNA to confirm the French results. The family has invited J-PAC to observe the process but has opted not to give the remains to the agency to examine independently.
It sounds like an awesome wintertime trip: Snowmobile to the middle of nowhere, set up camp and fly radio-controlled airplanes for a couple of weeks. Now take that same scenario and move it to Antarctica in the austral summer. Throw in a 10-hour snowmobile ride across the hard, wind-carved snow surface.
NASA has launched an interactive map of the Milky Way galaxy, constructed over 10 years from over two million infrared Spitzer images.
A team of Wisconsin scientists has stitched together a dramatic 360-degree portrait of the Milky Way that reveals never-seen-before details of our galaxy.
Noted: Bob Aschenbrock, chief judge of the competition, said the success by Wisconsin cheesemakers goes back to the quality of the milk produced by the state?s farmers and the work of the state agriculture officials and the Center for Dairy Research at UW-Madison.
Noted: Professor John D Lee, of the University of Wisconsin, made his comments ahead of an Road Safety Authority (RSA) conference on driver distraction taking place in Dublin today.
IF A robot bleeped and squeaked with personality like R2D2 from Star Wars, would you like it better? What if it glanced into the distance when you asked it a question, as though pondering its response?
Noted: Myers was pointing to research done by the Cooperative Children?s Book Centre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has counted the number of children?s books featuring people of colour since 1985. Ten years ago, of 3,200 books received by the centre, 171 were about black people, 95 about American Indians, 78 about Asians and 63 about Latinos. Last year, these numbers had fallen, with 93 of 3,200 books about black people, 34 about American Indians, 69 about Asians and 57 about Latinos.
Quoted: The study, which appears in the current issue of Child Abuse & Neglect, was also co-authored with Lawrence Berger of the University of Wisconsin.
The Weather Channel visits the Dairy Research Center at the Arlington Agricultural Research Station to examine the science of keeping cows happy and healthy in the winter.
An article Tuesday in the Local section about fines against the University of Wisconsin-Madison for violating USDA animal care regulations mischaracterized a citation involving the death of a dog as being more serious than it really was. The dog was treated correctly by researchers, but they failed to report the incident to an appropriate manager.
University of Wisconsin-Madison is paying $35,000 in fines to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violations related to the care of research animals, the university announced Monday in a release.
