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.
Juan Zalapa, a child of Texas and Guadalajara, now studies the genetics of cranberries at UW-Madison. The horticulture professor credits a federally funded grant program he was admitted to as an undergrad at Texas Tech University for setting him on his unlikely journey north. “I had no concept of more education beyond a bachelor?s degree,” he said of his mindset before entering the Ronald E. McNair Scholars program, designed to smooth the path to graduate school in the sciences for minority and low-income students. “It really changed my perspective.”
The same program, named for a black astronaut and physicist who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion, has helped more than 1,370 undergraduates throughout the University of Wisconsin System over the past two decades ? but it could end or be significantly reduced in the coming school year.
Phil Pellitteri, a UW-Extension insect specialist, said he has been surprised at how quickly the ash borer has seemed to spread just this summer. In recent weeks, it has shown up for the first time in the city of Janesville as well as in Milwaukee. “It?s just kind of popped,” said Pellitteri of the insect?s recent spread. “That?s what it has felt like . . . So would it surprise me if it comes here this year? No, it would not.”
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.?
Both the UW-System and high-tech manufacturing companies in Southern Wisconsin need to do a better job at promoting themselves. That was a common theme at recent panel at a UW-Madison conference on university-business partnerships.
The number of Wisconsin residents older than 65 will double within 30 years, suggesting a host of challenges that future employers, leaders and taxpayers will face, a new state study shows. Released Thursday by the state Department of Administration, the report by UW-Madison?s Applied Population Laboratory predicts the state?s overall population will grow by about 800,000 people by 2040, bringing the total to about 6.5 million.
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.
The University of Wisconsin used time lapse cameras to capture amazing video of Wednesdays storm as it rolled into campus from the west.
There are music camps and soccer camps and computer camps. Why not a stem cell camp?
People who are prone to colds and flu can find relief with a regular program of exercise or meditation, a new study suggests. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers looked at 149 active and sedentary middle-aged adults to compare the preventive effects of moderate exercise and mindful meditation on the severity of colds and flu during winter.
Federal research dollars coming into Wisconsin flow overwhelmingly into academia rather than industry, a National Science Foundation report shows.Just 8% of the $882.6 million of federal research funding that came into Wisconsin in fiscal 2009 went to industry, the report says. A whopping 79% – or $700.8 million – of Wisconsin?s federal research funding went to academic institutions, the report says.
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.
In an ongoing study in Costa Rica, wildlife biologists are exploring the ecology of two species of sloths in a rapidly changing environment.
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.
Ankit Agarwal is a two-time finalist in the Wisconsin Governor?s Business Plan Contest and a biochemical engineer whose work promises to help doctors treat patients with slow-to-heal skin wounds. He?s even started a Madison-based company, Imbed Biosciences, to commercialize his discoveries.
Too bad Wisconsin – and the United States – nearly lost him over a protracted and largely senseless immigration problem.
Massive storms like the one that pounded Superior in June bring chaos and destruction to Great Lakes coastal communities. Using a three-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) Coastal Storms Program, the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute hopes to bring some order to fight that chaos ? in a form of an outreach coordinate to integrate the resources from across NOAA to help communities better prepare for dangerous storms and recover from them after they hit.
A small study of 149 active and sedentary adults aged 50 years and older compared the preventive effects of moderate exercise and mindful meditation on the severity of respiratory infections, such as cold and flu, during a full winter season in Wisconsin.
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.
A study released today is the first to dispute a warning by the American Academy of Pediatrics that exposure to Facebook could lead to depression.
Meditation and exercise can reduce the incidence, duration and severity of colds and the flu by about 30 percent to 60 percent, according to a UW-Madison study. A larger version of the study will start at the university this fall. If the benefits of meditation and exercise are confirmed, “this could be more powerful than flu shots,” said Dr. Bruce Barrett, a UW Health family physician heading up the research.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study may provide evidence to refute a supposed link between depression and the amount of time spent on Facebook and other social-media sites.
A study of UW-Madison students found no link between Facebook use and depression, calling into question a warning by a national doctor group last year that the popular social media site could cause depression. “We?re not really sure ?Facebook depression? is something parents or patients really need to be advised about yet,” said Lauren Jelenchick, a UW School of Medicine and Public Health researcher who led the study.
A new study at UW-Madison gives new evidence to refute the supposed link between depression and the amount of time spent on Facebook and other social-media sites.
If physicists have found the ?God particle,? does it lessen the need to find God? This was basically the question an anthropology professor friend of mine posed after news broke Wednesday that evidence of the elusive particle, also known as the Higgs boson, apparently has turned up in experiments at the renowned European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. As someone for whom high school physics was one big misunderstanding, I?m not qualified to adequately explain what a Higgs boson is.
Real-time data that will be used in everything from weather forecasts to disaster response is now being beamed down to Earth from a cone-shaped appendage aboard the nation?s newest Earth-observing satellite.
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.
Two teams of researchers say they have found a new, fundamental subatomic particle with a handful of traits that are consistent with those predicted for a long-sought Higgs boson — a particle linked to the mechanism that gives mass to other fundamental particles.
Noted: Yet, another study done by ecologists at the University of Wisconsin found that a beetle-damaged stand of trees will probably not burn any more intensely than a green stand under intermediate weather conditions. Their modeling showed insects and fire are linked, but that one doesn?t cause the other.
When you get all choked up watching Fourth of July fireworks, save a little of that ooh-ahh emotion for chemistry and other scientific disciplines. Bassam Z. Shakhashiri knows all about this: He?s a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and is the president of the American Chemical Society. Shakhashiri is also an entertainer by choice, giving lectures and programs around the world that help better connect people with the often obtuse world of science.
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.
More than one-quarter of Texas teens have sent naked photos of themselves through text or email, according to the latest study on so-called “sexting.”
At a dinner last week in Madison celebrating new developments at the University of Wisconsin Eye Research Institute, former Gov. Jim Doyle surveyed the room at the Maple Bluff Country Club and turned to his old friend David Walsh. ?This is what you?re going to do, isn?t it?? Guessing Walsh?s next move might be a popular parlor game for Wisconsin?s movers and shakers and the people who watch them, now that word is getting out that the longtime Foley & Lardner attorney is retiring from the firm.
Walsh is on the UW Hospital board and helped raise considerable sums for retina research at UW-Madison. He?s become involved outside Wisconsin, serving on the board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, and one hard reality is there is always more to do. ?I?m retiring,? he said, ?because of these other obligations.?
Teams of UW-Madison students won big in Las Vegas last week ? not at a casino, but at two national food science competitions. UW students had one first-place finish and two second-place finishes in separate contests sponsored by Disney and the Mars company, at the Institute for Food Technologists? annual meeting, according to a UW-Madison news release.
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.
Noted: Rounding out the top 20 are Burlington, Vermont (home to the University of Vermont); Tucson, Arizona (University of Arizona); Provo, Utah (Brigham Young University); Corvallis, Oregon (home to Oregon State University, a major Hewlett Packard printer prototyping facility and numerous bio tech companies); Huntsville, Alabama (NASA?s Marshall Space Flight Center and the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command as well as numerous high-tech electronics companies); Poughkeepsie, New York (home to IBM); Minneapolis?St. Paul (University of Minnesota); Madison, Wisconsin (with a budding tech hub around the University of Wisconsin); Oxnard?Thousand Oaks, California; and Manchester, New Hampshire (near Boston?s Route 128).
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.
Mary Kay Baum, former Madison School Board member, former mayoral candidate and steady campaigner across the decades for economic and social justice, always has a cause. And she always has something to teach us. Now, she?s teaching us new ways to think about and respond to Alzheimer?s.
A new grant will help researchers at UW-Madison test a new class of diesel biofuels for nautical use. The Engine Research Center in UW?s College of Engineering received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to help develop a method of testing hydro-treated vegetable oil for ship and submarine engines. Rolf Reitz, director of the Engine Research Center, said the center?s six professors and a group of graduate students will work to develop a computer model that can accurately predict how certain blends of these fuels will perform in maritime engines.
On May 20, a 10-year-old girl in rural Cambodia got a fever. Five days later, she was admitted to a hospital, and after two days of intensive care she was dead.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created cells with the qualities of those that form the protective barrier between the blood and brain.
UW?Madison paleoanthropologist John Hawks says we definitely evolved to eat meat, but ? in context with our modern diets and lifestyles ? that doesn’t mean it’s entirely good for us.
A. Limestone is abundant in Wisconsin, and it?s the material of choice for the surface of gravel roads, and the base for roads paved with asphalt or concrete. Limestone contains calcium carbonate, often with a mixture of magnesium carbonate. When chunks of limestone abrade against each other, small particles called “fines” are created, said Craig Benson, chair of the departments of civil and environmental engineering and of geological engineering at UW-Madison.
A. A flood occurs when water flows into a region faster than it can be absorbed into the soil, stored in a lake or reservoir or removed in runoff or a waterway into a drainage basin. A flash flood is a sudden local flood characterized by a great volume of water and a short duration. It occurs within minutes or hours of heavy rainfall or because of a sudden release of water from the breakup of an ice dam or constructed dam.
There is a private island for sale off the west coast of Florida between Sarasota and Naples ? yes, the asking price is $29.5 million ? that was originally inhabited by an Oshkosh native who made his fortune in Madison….The scientist referenced by the (Wall Street) Journal was Charles Burgess, who graduated from UW-Madison in 1895 and taught chemical engineering there from graduation to 1913, when he resigned to devote his energies to a private laboratory he’d started in Madison in 1910. Early on, Burgess’ lab produced batteries for Madison’s French Battery Co., soon to be renamed Rayovac.
Some said Ron Fouchier?s work would help fend off a pandemic. Others called it a terrorist?s cookbook. Authorities on either side of the Atlantic spent months examining the research. Now the rest of the world can read it, too. In a paper just published in Science, Dr Fouchier explains how bird flu might adapt to spread easily from person to person. The publication caps a long fight over whether the paper?s benefits outweighed its risks. But this controversy will not be the last.
Five genetic tweaks made a deadly strain of bird flu that can infect humans spread more easily, according to a study that the U.S. government had first sought to censor on concerns it could be used by bioterrorists.
The world has yet to see a form of the deadly bird flu virus that could spread easily between people and cause a global outbreak – but that doesn?t mean it won?t happen, scientists said on Thursday.
The more controversial of two papers describing how the lethal H5N1 bird flu could be made easier to spread was published Thursday, six months after a scientific advisory board suggested that the papers? most potentially dangerous data be censored.
Sleep apnea ? repeated pauses in breathing during sleep ? is much more common than previously thought. The condition increases the risk of high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, cancer and death. Losing weight and exercising can offset it. People who sleep too little or too much, regardless of whether they have sleep apnea, are more likely to be overweight. Those and other findings about sleep are common knowledge among scientists today thanks to Don Chisholm, Mary Ellen Havel-Lang, Paul Minkus and more than 1,540 other participants in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study.
In “The Emotional Life of Your Brain,” psychologist, psychiatrist and brain researcher Dr. Richard Davidson looks at how our brains emotionally respond to events in our lives. He and science writer Sharon Begley explain how your brain chemistry controls your emotions and, ultimately, your personality.
Noted: More recently, University of Wisconsin-Madison, communications scholars have warned that Google?s search recommendations (the list of suggested searches that pop up when you start typing a word using the popular search engine) actually bend people?s perception. Looking at nanotechnology, for example, the study showed that top search suggestions over a few years turned away from business to health concerns. The search recommendations were actually steering more people to look into less-reliable nanotechnology health-issue websites, they found. “Google is shaping the reality we experience in the suggestions it makes, pointing us away from the most accurate information and towards the most popular,” study lead author Dietram Scheufele told USA TODAY in 2010.
A: The summer solstice (in Latin, sol, ?sun,? and stice, ?come to a stop?) is the day of the year with the most daylight. The first day of the astronomical Northern Hemisphere summer is the day of the year when the sun is farthest north (on June 20 or 21). In 2012, this occurs on June 20 at 6:09 pm CDT. As Earth orbits the sun, its axis of rotation is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees from its orbital plane. Because Earth?s axis of spin always points in the same direction ? toward the North Star ? the orientation of Earth?s axis to the sun is always changing.
Noted: Matthew Fuxjager and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison let male mice chalk up three rigged “wins” against other mice and then after a fourth win, studied how many “androgen receptors” there were in key parts of their brains. Androgen receptors are receiving stations for testosterone, and the more there are of them, the more powerfully any single spurt of testosterone will affect the brain.
By sticking to one big “Idea”, project leaders for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery were able to make a number of new laboratory design concepts work.
At coffee shops, truck stops and around backyard grills, many people are asking the same question: As the climate changes, can we expect more of this? The answer: Yes. There is a strong probability that climate change is influencing certain extreme weather events. Along with other leading scientists at Big Ten universities, that?s what we know. We?re not alone. Insurance industry leaders think so, too, and they have been meeting with U.S. senators to call for action.
Donald J. Wuebbles is a professor of atmospheric sciences as well as electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois. Jack Williams is director of the Center for Climatic Research Geography at UW-Madison.
