Category: Research

At the University of Wisconsin, a breakthrough on the common cold front. Researchers construct a model of rhinovirus C and show how it differs from rhinoviruses A and B. ?We previously assumed all rhinoviruses would be the same as each other, and it turns out that they?re not,? said biochemistry professor Ann Palmenberg. That discovery goes a long way towards explaining why drug trials targeting rhinoviruses haven?t been very successful. ?We now understand why the rhinovirus C is different than the A and B, and why the previous drug trials did?t work.?

The first time Demar Garrison was in the Racine County Jail he was about 8 or 9. He was there visiting his mom.

Two acclaimed authors discuss how the language we use shapes the planet we live on. A conversation between William Cronon and Michael Pollan.

Squats can safeguard your sniffer: Regular exercise protects your sense of smell as you age, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison study that Popular Science cited, for instance, was focussed on whether comments themselves, anonymous or otherwise, made people less civil. The authors found that the nastier the comments, the more polarized readers became about the contents of the article, a phenomenon they dubbed the ?nasty effect.?

A new study of the full genetic code of a common human virus by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison dramatically confirms of the ?out-of-Africa? pattern of human migration previously documented by anthropologists, and studies of the human genome.

In a humid room at the University of Wisconsin?Madison (UW), large Tupperware boxes hold thick beds of gray fungi, pockmarked with holes and crawling with leafcutter ants. The boxes are home to colonies of two leafcutter species, Atta cephalotes and Acromyrmex echinatior, brought back from the tropical forests of Panama and Costa Rica by bacteriologist Cameron Currie and his colleagues, who study these insect agriculturalists and the fungus gardens they tend.  

A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin used a genomic analysis of strains of the Herpes Simplex Virus type-1 (generally associated with cold sores) from around the world to see if they tracked with general theories of human migration. HSV-1 works particularly well for this kind of study because it is easily spread by physical contact as well as easy to collect.

To confirm the theory that humans spread out from Africa tens of thousands of years ago, all you have to do is follow the cold sores. Or, to be more precise, follow the mutation patterns encoded in the genome of the virus that causes those cold sores.

After examining Herpes virus? genome, scientists confirmed that early humans first emerged on the African continent before spreading out in disparate groups across the globe.

The ice and snow of early spring in northern Wisconsin had come and gone. Also departing with the frigid weather were the adult northern pike our team had been tracking as the fish migrated inland from Green Bay to spawn. Now we were looking for evidence of the next generation to find out if they could successfully navigate the many challenges on their migration to the safer waters of Green Bay.

You might think you don?t have much in common with a fruit fly. But studying them could tell us more about human conditions such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) ? from, for example, a motorbike accident or a blunt hit on the head ? which can in some lead many years later to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, an Alzheimer?s-like form of neurodegeneration.

Using a robo-call and a video, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemned experiments on cats that are done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an effort to improve hearing in humans.

This week, leaders from around the world will gather in Des Moines, Iowa, to honor the recipients of the World Food Prize. University of Minnesota alumnus Norman E. Borlaug, the celebrated crop breeder and Nobel Prize Laureate for Peace in 1970, envisioned the prize as a way to recognize creative individuals who have advanced the availability of safe and nutritious food for the world?s people. Since 1987, the prize has paid tribute to scientists, humanitarians, and leaders in politics, business and nongovernmental organizations.

Epidemiologist Tony Goldberg was working with primates in Kibale National Park in Uganda. But, when he returned to his lab at the University of Wisconsin, he began feeling some pain in his nose.

Popular Science magazine?s decision to kill online commenting should be the start of a wider discussion, says the social media researcher whose findings were one of the reasons for the magazine?s move

How rare was that early blizzard in South Dakota?

Could a spring-loaded fly swatter save NFL football players and Iraq war veterans from the effects of concussions and traumatic brain injuries?

Patricia McConnell, an expert on animal behavior, is not against hunting and even raises lamb for food. But the University of Wisconsin-Madison zoologist and author is appalled by what she regards as blatant cruelty to animals sanctioned and abetted by the state.

Multiple studies have revealed that the life expectancy of women in the United States has declined in recent decades, leaving experts searching for the cause. Research published in March by University of Wisconsin researchers David Kindig and Erika Cheng found that female mortality rates went up in nearly half of U.S. counties between 1992 and 2006. For men, only 3% of counties witnessed increases in male mortality over the same period.

After returning from an African research expedition, pathobiology professor Tony Goldberg found an unexpected stowaway: a tick hiding up his right nostril. ?When you first realize you have a tick up your nose, it takes a lot of willpower not to claw your face off,” Goldberg, a University of Wisconsin?Madison researcher, says in a statement. But Goldberg managed to retrieve the tick from his nostril and send it off for analysis, leading him to not just discover a potentially new species of tick, but what could also be a new explanation for how diseases spread between chimps and humans.

Most climate projection models show Wisconsin winters becoming warmer and shorter with more rain and less snow, with the exception of some big snowstorms. Michael Notaro, the associate director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, predicts that winter will be warmer by several degrees by mid-century, reducing the severity of the season.

Move over, Lucy: Researchers say Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus may also be in the sky, with diamonds. The atmospheres of these gas-ball planets have the perfect temperature and pressure conditions to host carbon in the form of diamond, say Mona Delitsky of California Specialty Engineering in Pasadena, California, and Kevin Baines of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Researchers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have been studying insects that affect cranberries for years, and have found that the flea beetle is becoming more and more problematic.

Just because the government shutdown is pressing on in Washington, doesn?t mean there aren?t other important issues out there to focus on ? like cats.That?s Bill Maher?s focus as the HBO ?Real Time? host is partnering up with PETA to campaign against ?cruel cat experiments.?

Move over, Lucy: Researchers say Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus may also be in the sky, with diamonds.The atmospheres of these gas-ball planets have the perfect temperature and pressure conditions to host carbon in the form of diamond, say Mona Delitsky of California Specialty Engineering in Pasadena, California, and Kevin Baines of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tony Goldberg had been back from Uganda for only about a day when he felt a distressingly familiar itch in his nose. A veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he had just spent a few weeks in Kibale National Park studying chimpanzees and how the diseases they carry might make the jump to humans. Now, he realized, he might have brought one of their parasites home with him.

By the end of the work day, an estimated 100,000 phone numbers in Madison will be auto-dialed with a recorded message from comedian Bill Maher, talking about “the terrible things done to cats” during medical experiments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been cleared to continue a research study involving cats after complaints that the animals were mistreated.

Unlike a clinic or hospital setting, school nurses aren?t surrounded by their peers. In addition, some may not have had a lot of course work on kids with chronic health conditions, said Lori S. Anderson, assistant professor at the UW-Madison School of Nursing.

Tony Goldberg, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, found that he had an unwelcome stowaway from his trip to a national park in Uganda: a tick up his nose. Being a professional, Goldberg extracted the tick, and found that it doesnt match any other kind of tick on record. It looks as though hes found an entirely new species, next to his boogers.

I really don?t want to make a bad joke here about it being right under his nose this whole time!, but the fact remains that Tony Goldberg, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is pretty sure that the tick he picked out of his nostril after a trip to Uganda is an entirely new species.

Noted: To justify its ban, Popular Science turned to science, citing a recent study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggesting that people?s perceptions of the riskiness of a scientific advance can become more entrenched and polarized after reading comments written in an uncivil tone.

A tick that hitched a ride in a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher?s nostril when he returned from Uganda last year may be a disease-carrying species that someday could pose a threat in the U.S.

The first two times Tony Goldberg found a tick in his nose, he was in rural Uganda and responded like the rest of us. ?I was grossed out enough that I wanted them away from me,? he said. The third time, the symptoms were the same ? slight irritation and pain as if he?d blown the schnoz a few too many times ? but the scene shifted to his laboratory at UW-Madison.

This is the third post in our gender gap symposium (see here and here for the first two.) We are delighted to welcome Daniel Maliniak, a PhD candidate in Political Science at University of California, San Diego, and Ryan Powers, a graduate student in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Daniel and Ryan are co-authors of the citations paper.

A tick that hitched a ride in the nose of a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher when he returned from Uganda last year may be a disease-carrying species that someday could pose a threat in the U.S.

A new book debuting Tuesday aims to  help parents navigate the dangers and benefits of the Internet and social media, based on research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.

Well, this stinks: Some scents could screw up your mood, says a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

We?re living in the epoch some scientists call the ?Anthropocene??an age in which human influence touches nearly everything on the planet. Forty years after the signing of the Endangered Species Act, and nearly 50 years after the Wilderness Act, do we need to rethink how we protect nature? Environmental historian William Cronon and environmental geographer Paul Robbins discuss protecting wild places in the age of climate change.