Category: Research

After surviving a legal scare a little more than a year ago and then helping convince the Legislature to exempt researchers from state animal cruelty statutes, UW-Madison is taking steps to potentially begin a new series of decompression sickness studies using sheep.

“We are certainly alarmed about this development, although I can?t say we?re surprised,? says Rick Bogle, an outspoken critic of the university?s animal research projects and the co-director of the Madison-based Alliance for Animals. Eric Sandgren, who oversees animal research at UW-Madison, says that although plans to resume the studies are far from finalized, it would be ?irresponsible not to consider their resumption? due to a range of ?valuable information? past university research on this topic has produced.

It weighs 600 pounds, was built at UW-Madison, has visited space aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and is now comfortably retired on the South Side after about 535 million miles of travel. Now, the public can see this instrument, called the High Speed Photometer, at Space Place, 2300 S. Park St. in the Villager Mall. It is exhibited among other Wisconsin-built instruments and telescopes that tell a story of the university?s role in space exploration going back to the 1950s.

A: The answer is unclear, said Katherine McMahon, an associate professor of civil engineering at UW-Madison, and an expert on cyanobacteria, as the blue-green algae are known to science. “This is the bazillion dollar question,” she said. “Certain cyanobacteria simply don?t have the genes to make toxins, while others have the genes, but don?t always make the toxins.”

A: A reader wondered whether his perception that it has become windier in southern Wisconsin over the past couple of decades has anything to do with the shorter Lake Superior ice season during the same time. Though it has been demonstrated by recent research by our UW Atmospheric and Oceanic Science colleagues, Dr. Ankur Desai and Galen McKinley, that the shorter ice season on Lake Superior has led to warmer water in the summer and stronger winds locally near the lake ? which, in turn change the currents in the lake itself ? these effects are confined to the near vicinity of the lake.

If you?re concerned the heavy rains that hit some parts of the Madison area last week might put our previously mosquito-free summer in jeopardy, stop worrying. ?I?ve been asked about mosquitoes, and honestly I find that question a little silly from my standpoint,? says Phil Pellitteri, a distinguished faculty associate with UW-Madison?s Insect Diagnostic Lab. ?We?re just not holding water.?

Researchers with UW-Madison are not only adding to our understanding of the strange and ancient life form but also coming up with better ways to detect its lethal presence.

“Now, public health officials just look at the water and, if it looks blue-green, they close a beach or post a warning near a waterway,” said Katherine McMahon, a UW-Madison microbiologist and engineer. Now, however, using funding from the Sea Grant Institute at UW-Madison, McMahon has worked with Ph.D. student Lucas Beversdorf and the School of Freshwater Sciences’ Matthew Smith to build and test an automated sampler that can monitor bloom conditions around the clock.

Is your lawn crunchy? Mine is….?We?re in a serious situation right now,? says Tom Schwab, superintendent of the O.J. Noer Turfgrass Research and Education Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Schwab told me Monday that the Madison area was closing in on 50 days without significant rainfall and that turf grass can remain dormant for 60 to 75 days and recover the following growing season. At least that?s what the textbooks say.

Those white-, blue- and yellow-flowered plants popping up amid the dormant Kentucky bluegrass in parks and medians, for example, include Queen Anne?s lace, chicory and bird?s-foot trefoil, according to UW-Madison plant pathologist and turf specialist Jim Kerns and outreach specialist Eileen Nelson, who were nice enough to listen to my inexpert descriptions and play ?name that plant? with me. UW Extension turf specialist Doug Soldat said ?prairie-type plantings will remain greener longer than lawns,? but warned they require a lot of maintenance, don?t allow for the same types of human recreation, and ?should not be considered replacements for lawns.?

A: With another wave of dangerous heat upon us, it is of interest to consider how the last heat wave rates alongside other memorable heat waves. First of all, each day from July 4-6, Madison?s high temperature was more than 100 degrees with the 104 on July 5 ranking as third highest of all time. Moreover, we set record high temperatures for five consecutive days from July 2-6.

A: Depending on the ingredients, sunscreen works like a mirror or by sacrificing itself to the marauding rays of the sun. According to Yaohui “Gloria” Xu, dermatology professor at UW?Madison, the compounds in sunscreen come in two types: physical and chemical.

Two independent teams of physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland made a surprising announcement early on the morning of July 4. The announcement: They had discovered a new particle, and it might help explain why things have mass….The University of Wisconsin-Madison played an important role as two Wisconsin scientists have been right on the front lines. Professors Sau Lan Wu and Wesley Smith, both in the UW-Madison physics department, played critical roles in designing the experiments and analyzing the data that led to the July 4 announcement.

Parents can play a key role in swelling the ranks of students pursuing careers in science, math, engineering and technology (STEM) fields, according to a new UW study published in Psychological Science. Increasing interest in STEM fields is crucial to developing a strong 21st century U.S. workforce, but interest in science and math begins to wane in high school when students choose not to take advanced courses in those subjects, according to the study.

Lead author and UW-Madison psychology professor Judith Harackiewicz said the study shows schools can encourage more participation in STEM courses by directly communicating options to parents.

At a moment in science history that many are hailing as one of the most important in a century, UW-Madison researchers were front and center, playing lead roles in a discovery that takes modern physics to the very edge of human understanding. Scientists from UW-Madison were deeply involved in figuring out the physics and building and operating the $10 billion machine used to discover a particle believed to be the so-called ?God particle,? responsible for giving matter mass and shaping the very early universe.

Wesley Smith, a UW-Madison physicist, has spent much of his career doing the physics and helping design the machinery that went into the construction of the Large Hadron Collider, the giant European particle smasher that will make headlines around the world this week. Very early Wednesday morning, scientists from the collider are expected to announce that they have confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, a particle that physicists say will fill a crucial and mystifying gap in our understanding of how the world is put together.

Noted: Which is why policy makers should flag a recent study that found more than three-quarters of patents from America?s top ten patent-producing universities, including MIT, Stanford, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, were the result of breakthroughs by immigrants. Those universities produced 1,466 patents?a fraction of the total awarded?but many were in such cutting-edge fields as information technology and molecular biology.

Sangtae ?Sang? Kim, the first executive director of the Morgridge Institute for Research, is leaving the organization at the end of the month ?to pursue new career interests and opportunities,? according to this UW-Madison news release posted Thursday. Nobody seems keen to elaborate beyond that, though. The main focus of the UW-Madison news release put out Thursday was to announce that James Dahlberg, emeritus professor of biomolecular chemistry at UW?Madison and a co-founder of Third Wave Technologies, has been named interim executive director of the Morgridge Institute by its board of trustees.

The Morgridge Institute for Research at UW-Madison has a new executive director. James Dahlberg, emeritus professor of biomolecular chemistry has been named the interim executive director, taking over for Sangtae “Sang” Kim, the institute?s first executive director, who is leaving the position at the end of June.