Category: Research

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is doing research that could help the Food and Drug Administration decide whether to ban menthol cigarettes.

It?s a peaceful morning on Trout Bog, just outside Boulder Junction in Vilas County. And though the sound of oars splashing into the still water provides the ambience of a typical Northwoods boat ride, the voyage Ben Crary and Matt Bodin are on is anything but average.

Here?s a good reason to help your coworkers with an upcoming project or presentation: Altruists in the office are more likely to be committed to their work and are less likely to quit their jobs, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But beyond all that, researchers found perhaps the biggest benefit of office altruism: Those who help others are happier at work than those who don?t prioritize helping others.

There?s a new tick in Wisconsin, and it?s a nasty little bugger.  “These are more aggressive than our normal ticks,” said UW Madison expert Susan Paskewitz.

SatCam is one of several smartphone apps which hope to take user submitted data to improve weather research and forecasting. However, it?s the only one so far to give something directly back to the user in return.

There?s a new, potentially troublesome tick to track in Wisconsin. It?s not a deer tick or a wood tick, and this lone star tick has nothing to do with Texas. ?Lone star actually reflects the little white spot on the back of the adult female,? said University of Wisconsin-Madison entomology professor Susan Paskewitz.

More than 50 years ago, (now-emeritus UW-Madison botany professor) Hugh Iltis crouched high in the Peruvian Andes to search for a dropped camera filter and found a patch of tiny pinkish violets no bigger than a penny growing in a spot so remote it?s possible no one had seen that type of flower before or since.

When scientists from the University of Wisconsin, Department of Natural Resources, and other agencies lowered a plastic curtain into a pristine hourglass-shaped lake in the Northern Highland American Legion State Forest in 1984, it drew national attention. The barrier blocked water and effectively split Little Rock Lake into two basins.

In a recent study, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers asked more than 1,000 people to read a blog post about nanosilver technology. Half of the participants were exposed to civilized reader comments on the post, and the other half were subjected to profanity-laden screeds and putdowns.

The new strain of H7N9 bird flu virus has traits that potentially could spark a worldwide flu outbreak, according to a new laboratory study [conducted by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin?Madison] involving virus that was found in humans, then given to animals.

Researchers tested the ability of the H7N9 virus to infect several mammal species including ferrets and monkeys. They found that as well as readily invading the lungs, it could be spread like seasonal flu by coughing and sneezing.

For years, John Powless tried cutting and watering grass in his Middleton backyard to simulate playing on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Madison ? Look at a leaf-cutter ant colony, and it?s a bustle of activity, with ants bringing pieces of leaves in, spreading them around on a honeycomb-like bed of fungus, and weeding the garden to remove waste and pests.

A blood test for the molecule CA-125 isn?t precise enough to screen for ovarian cancer, but research at UW-Madison on a related protein could yield a better test and a better way of treating the disease.

With some strains of tuberculosis resistant to many antibiotics and the only vaccine not very effective in adults, scientists around the world are trying to develop better drugs and immunizations for the disease.

 It?s thought that traumatic brain injury may play a role in whether someone develops Alzheimer?s. Scientific advances are allowing researchers to test this idea with willing Vietnam veterans. Sterling Johnson is a neuropsychologist at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health who is collaborating on the national study.

A blood test for the molecule CA-125 isn?t precise enough to screen for ovarian cancer, but research at UW-Madison on a related protein could yield a better test and a better way of treating the disease.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison says you may see a few new faces next time you visit the ag research stations at Hancock, Marshfield, West Madison and Lancaster. In the past six months the university has hired or promoted five individuals to leadership roles at those facilities to fill vacancies created by retirements and transfers.

University of Wisconsin researchers have undertaken a genomic study involving patients with cystic fibrosis, aiming to uncover data that explain variation in symptoms among those afflicted with the genetic lung disease. And researchers believe that bioinformatics and other new resources give them an “edge” in the fight to improve treatments, according to the university?s release.

Quoted: ?There are years when we get so much rain that we literally flush them out of their typical breeding sites,? University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri told the newspaper. ?You need 10 to 12 days of standing water to push mosquitoes in the summer. If you get excess amount of rain, you flush them out and they never get going.?

Aztalan State Park is deceptively bucolic. On a sunny day, it?s a field of green grass on sculpted mounds of earth. The sweltering silence carries whispers of wind and the nearby Crawfish River. Occasionally, a cry of a peacock from a nearby farm pierces the air.

For a few hundred years beginning more than 1,000 years ago, Aztalan was a community of about 500 people of mainly the Mississippian culture.

New research co-authored by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor suggests that students admitted to elite universities or colleges under affirmative action policies are not necessarily harmed by the fact they may lack the same academic preparation as their peers, as critics contend.

To an outsider, Wisconsin might seem a state divided by differences. We have a proud agricultural heritage, yet manufacturing provides our financial base. Our diverse and varied landscape includes urban architecture, old growth forests, prairies and dairy farms, all serving vital and important roles. We have intense political ideologies, with passionate points of view on both the left and right. Even our climate reflects a state filled with contradictions ? as it has not been changing in a uniform fashion.

A new study concludes that students who benefit from affirmative action programs do just as well as other students, at least at the University of California?s most competitive schools.

Are poor people actually biologically dumber than the rich? Do MRI scans of brains suggest that poor children (many of them minorities) lack the gray matter for long-term memory, complex learning, and the moderation of emotional behavior?

Children are often the collateral damage of the U.S. incarceration system. Approximately one in 28 have a mom or dad who?s behind bars, a rate that?s up from just a couple years ago. But thanks to research at UW-Madison and programs in Dane County, kids are getting more help.

Enjoy a nice crisp apple recently? Chances are you can thank a honeybee for that. Like to snack on almonds or perhaps sip a glass of orange juice in the morning? Those foods were also made possible by bees.