Richard J. Davidson, author of the new book “The Emotional Life of Your Brain,” is a neuroscientist and director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published more than 275 articles and edited 13 books. He also is the founder and chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds.
UW-Madison students will be reading ?Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout? next fall as part of the university?s common reading program, Go Big Read, according to a UW-Madison news release Monday. The illustrated biography by Lauren Redniss, a National Book Award finalist, was chosen by interim UW-Madison Chancellor David Ward.
You’ve got an idea for a new business, but what steps do you need to take to bring that idea to fruition? “It is always a good idea to do some research about the industry and the market to determine if there are barriers to entering the industry, if there is a need for the business and to explore what it really means to become a business owner,” says Michelle Somes-Booher, business coach at the UW-Madison Small Business Development Center.
Talking to yourself might not mean you are crazy ? it can actually benefit thinking and perception, researchers say.
Three UW-Madison scholars have been selected for induction into the 2012 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation?s most prestigious honorary societies.
A. The recent tornado outbreak in the Plains States was predicted by forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., as far as seven days in advance. This kind of forecast undoubtedly contributed to a vigilance that resulted in only six lives being lost in this first major outbreak of the year.
A. “There?s been a considerable amount of debate over the cause of the extinction of the Ice Age giants ? the so-called megafauna ? with disagreement over whether human hunters or climate change were the cause of their demise,” said Jacquelyn Gill, a UW-Madison graduate student and Ice Age expert.
The failure of ghostly subatomic messengers called neutrinos to show up at an Antarctic telescope has knocked down a major astrophysical theory involving some of the most dramatic explosions in the universe.
The U.S. government will support publication of two controversial research papers, officials said Thursday. The studies report details of experiments in which the deadly H5N1 influenza virus was engineered to pass between mammals, officials said Thursday.
About 600 million years ago, life on Earth was pretty much just a homogeneous bunch of simple, soft-bodied species. But in an evolutionary blink of an eye, that all changed. A longstanding geological mystery could explain why our distant ancestors suddenly developed skeletons.
Cosmic rays generate the most energetic particles in the universe, utterly dwarfing anything we can generate in particle accelerators. Astrophysicists thought these cosmic rays were created in powerful gamma-ray bursts. Turns out they were completely, utterly wrong. So now what?
David Gagnon is talking to a group of educators about how to use mobile devices for learning. In his work as an instructional designer with the University of Wisconsin?s ENGAGE program, Gagnon has given this workshop many times. But these days, he says, things are starting to change.
Clinicians at the Chicago Zoological Society?s Brookfield Zoo in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s School of Veterinary Medicine are conducting an epizootiological study of malignant nasal tumors in Mexican grey wolves.
A former National Science Foundation director is set to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about links between the weather and disease.
The mystery of the origin of the strongest cosmic rays has deepened as new clues into key suspects, the most powerful explosions in the universe, suggest they are likely not potential culprits, researchers say.
A former National Science Foundation director is set to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about links between the weather and disease.
Chris Calvey calls it “a little bit of a crazy idea.” He?s a graduate student at UW-Madison, and along with some of his fellow students he?s organizing a major three-day conference in Madison starting Friday, April 27, for atheists, humanists and agnostics.
SolRayo, a Madison technology startup company, is getting a $500,000 Phase 2 Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Science Foundation to bring to market the coatings it has developed to make batteries last longer.
#UWRightNow: UW-Madison?s University Communications office will host a multimedia project to chronicle 24 hours on campus on Wednesday. A special website for the day will feature reporting, photography and video about students, faculty and research. The university community can contribute by using the Twitter hashtag #UWRightNow.
Wireless prize: Nearly 30 UW-Madison students are to compete Wednesday for more than $17,000 in prizes in the second Qualcomm Wireless Innovation Prize contest at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Students plan to show off their smartphone apps and other wireless technology products.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is pleased to announce a special Agriculture Education Town Hall meeting featuring Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education, and Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, on Wednesday, April 18, at 12:15 p.m. at the Pioneer Farm.
Publication of the controversial mutant avian flu papers have hit yet another roadblock. In March, a US advisory panel reversed its prior decision to take out experimental details from two reports about research that seemed to turn the H5N1 bird flu virus into a more virulent and deadly form. Under the original decision, some redacted information would have been available only to accredited researchers.
The U.S. biosecurity panel that recently lifted its objections to the publication of controversial bird flu studies has raised additional concerns about one of the papers, work conducted by a Dutch research team.
Businesses and organizations that would like to become more sustainable are being offered a golden opportunity by an online degree program offered through a partnership of University of Wisconsin System institutions.
Imbed Biosciences has been working on an antibacterial coating that would prevent wounds from becoming infected as they heal, and a phase one Small Business Innovation Research grant will help push the project ahead, said Ankit Agarwal, president and chief executive officer. Imbed?s technology has been developed at the UW-Madison over the last four years by a group of chemists, veterinarians and surgeons. Agarwal, currently Imbed?s sole employee, said the grant will let him hire a second employee and contract with the UW for further studies.
The United States may be one of the richest nations on the planet, but we aren?t the happiest. Neither are Britain, Japan, Germany or many other wealthy countries, according to a new “World Happiness Report” commissioned by the United Nations. The United States ranks 11th in the report. Not surprisingly, the world?s poorest countries are far less happy than their well-to-do counterparts.
(Gregg Mitman is interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.)
University of Wisconsin-Madison professors received four awards in chemistry from the American Chemical Society.
“I’ve seen a lot of science museums, and I think this could be a model for the country, maybe the world,” said Jonathan Martin, chairman of the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. “I was just struck by how inspiring this is going to be to someone who is thinking about the science of the environment instead of the politics of the environment.”
A: There were northerly winds over North Atlantic in the months before the RMS Titanic left port. These winds likely played a role in pushing icebergs farther south than normal and into the Titanic?s path. When the Titanic left port in Queenstown, Ireland, on Thursday, April 11, 1912, it sailed under brisk winds from the north-northwest at 15-20 knots and a temperature of about 50 degrees.
Noted: There are plenty of familiar non-Newtonian fluids, says Michael Graham, a chemical engineer not involved in the project who studies non-Newtonian fluid behavior at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Mayonnaise, ketchup, silly putty, and even blood are examples. Although these substances seem very different, Graham points out that they all contain some sort of particle?and the interaction of those particles explains their behavior.
Britain?s first glimpse of Nicholas Hitchon in Seven Up! was as a tiny boy in Wellington boots, striding confidently along a Yorkshire country lane. When we meet him again next month, in the eighth instalment of what has become a TV landmark, he?ll be 56 and back in the Dales. During that time Mr Hitchon has gone from his one-room Yorkshire village school, where he was keen to “find out about the moon and all that”, to Oxford University and a successful academic career in America. The last time we saw him in 49 Up, he was in the US working as a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s electrical and computer engineering department and being interviewed with his second wife, Chryss.
A member of the U.S. biosecurity panel that recently lifted its objections to the publication of two controversial bird flu studies has slammed the way the decision was reached, saying the meeting held to reconsider the issue was “one-sided” and designed to produce the eventual outcome.
Can?t afford a celebrity endorsement? Consider buying rights to a fraction of a famous face and morphing it, imperceptibly, with a stock photo. That face, too, can be potent. Working?in this instance?before the Tiger Woods scandal broke, two marketing researchers at the University of Wisconsin blended the superstar golfer?s face with that of another male, with Woods? face constituting 35% of the final image.
A closed meeting, convened last month by the US Government to decide the fate of two controversial unpublished papers on the H5N1 avian influenza virus was stacked in favour of their full publication, a participant now says.
The American Chemical Society?s president was justifiably proud when four UW-Madison chemistry professors won awards during the ACS spring meeting in San Diego in March. The ACS president is Bassam Shakhashiri, a UW-Madison chemistry professor. “The selections are done by anonymous peer review,” Shakhashiri said in a UW-Madison news release on Thursday. “I had nothing to do with it except to sign the awards.”
This is a series of Q&As with young and up-and-coming science, health and environmental writers and reporters. They have recently hatched in the Incubators (science writing programs at schools of journalism), have even more recently fledged (graduated), and are now making their mark as wonderful new voices explaining science to the public.
Following a recent hiatus of further discussion, a committee of scientists that advises the federal government decided to allow researchers to publish two controversial scientific papers that explain how to modify the H5N1 virus, known as the avian flu, to be transmissible through the air.
This is a series of Q&As with young and up-and-coming science, health and environmental writers and reporters. They have recently hatched in the Incubators (science writing programs at schools of journalism), have even more recently fledged (graduated), and are now making their mark as wonderful new voices explaining science to the public.
Birders hear more than they see, but songs can be hard to identify. If there?s a killer birding app on the horizon, it may be one that identifies a species based on the song. University of Wisconsin ornithologist Mark Berres is applying for a patent for an app he calls WeBird, which could be available next year. You?d record a snatch of bird song on your iPhone and use the app to compare the snippet with thousands of recordings in a database.
Why some species died out and others didn?t during the Earth?s second largest mass extinction has been revealed in a new study. The work – performed by scientists at Caltech and the University of Wisconsin, Madison – is described in a paper currently online in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Gaining legitimacy on an international level, three University of Wisconsin institutions received accreditation status in the area of animal research programs following controversial ratings at a check-in last year.
Most people are familiar with the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene because of its routine but important work testing everything from well water for contaminants to blood samples for alcohol levels. But tucked away in various corners of the laboratory on Madison?s Far East Side are hints of a lesser-known and stranger science. Ice cores from the Greenland ice cap, for example. Scrapings from the walls of the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. Air samples from the refectory of Santa Maria Delle Grazie Church in Milan, Italy, home to Da Vinci?s “The Last Supper.” Though they may seem connected, these collections have ended up in Madison because of unique and sought-after research skills for which the state laboratory is internationally known.
Animal research programs at UW-Madison will be fully accredited for the next three years after two site visits from the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, according to a university news release Tuesday. The accrediting organization conducted an intensive, four-day inspection in October 2011, giving the program 18 commendations but finding areas for improvement.
As a kid, Ahna Skop ruled the science fair. ?Every year I was in at least the top three, and I know I won grand prize once or twice,? she says. Not that her experiments always yielded the predicted results. ?One time I was trying to figure out whether mice would go in a particular direction based on color,? says Skop.
Public meetings and consensus conferences seem to be the tool du jour for many government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Agriculture. Designed to give the public a voice in policy decisions, they can, in some cases, provide valuable insights into the local public?s views and opinions on certain issues. But they can also have disastrous consequences when used as a policy-making tool designed to tap public opinion more broadly. And the likelihood of failure is particularly high when debates emerge in a community about if and where to build controversial facilities for storing nuclear waste or conducting research on potentially deadly biological pathogens.
Animal research programs at UW-Madison will be fully accredited for the next three years after two site visits from the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, according to a university news release Tuesday.
A story about cutting-edge medicine for pets includes Lisa Forrest, a professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin?Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and UW Veterinary Care’s use of TomoTherapy for cancer treatment.
James P. Hurley has been named director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Aquatic Sciences Center.
….My mother?s ordeal reminded me again that more health care does not necessarily mean better health. ?It may in fact lead to worse outcomes in that an ever-expanding supply of specialists and tertiary services can lead to excessive testing and procedures that are not necessary, are duplicative, and are costly,? said Donna Friedsam, the health policy programs director at the UW Population Health Institute. It?s that last unintended side effect that bothers me most ? the extent to which the human body has become a sort of raw material for economic development.
From Rick Santorum?s assertion that global warming is a “hoax” to Rick Perry?s support for intelligent design, the current Republican presidential primary season has sometimes seemed like a science-free zone.
Publish and be damned. That, in a nutshell, was the prevailing mood at a meeting held on April 3rd-4th at the Royal Society in London to discuss the controversy over two papers which lay out how deadly H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, can be made deadlier still by engineering it to pass directly from ferret to ferret. The gaggle of virologists, ethicists, security wonks, government types and representatives of funding agencies from around the world gathered at Britain?s pre-eminent scientific academy was more split when it came to the broader question about where research into dangerous pathogens was headed.
This week on our program, we have music from Drake. We also look at the history of the world?s best-known American word. But first we tell you about some terms in American English that not even all Americans would know.
For two centuries, public research universities such as Indiana University have helped shape the fortunes of the United States. They are economic and intellectual growth engines that give back far beyond what they receive in taxpayer support and knit together the residents of a state in a way that is uniquely American.
The University of Wisconsin reached and surpassed $1 billion in research expenditures in a fiscal year, according to a study from the National Science Foundation.
A: The next generation of weather radars, which are currently being installed throughout the United States, will improve observations of the interior of storm systems. These radars are called dual-polarization radars. Radar, an acronym for Radio Detection And Ranging, consists of a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter emits pulses of radio waves outward in a circular pattern.
The end of an impassioned and often strident global debate over the proper balance between scientific openness and security began with 2 hours of mandatory, studious silence in a room protected by an armed guard.
Scoot across the floor in a device similar to a hovercraft. Drill a hole in ice using hot water. Learn how to photograph the transit of Venus in June, when the planet will appear to glide across the sun. UW-Madison?s Science Expeditions on Saturday will feature five major open houses, six science spectaculars, more than 20 venues and 60 hands-on exploration stations ? the largest collection of activities ever for the 10th annual event.
Speaking at a meeting of the Royal Society in London on Tuesday (April 3), one of the scientists whose research resulted in an H5N1 virus that could spread easily between ferrets has revealed the details of how he did it. University of Wisconsin, Madison, virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka told about 150 attendees of the 2-day meeting that 4 mutations and genes from the H1N1 virus appeared to make the bird flu virus strain readily transmissible between ferrets in his lab.
He?s a Springsteen guy, not an Adele fan. So John Lee had no choice but to scroll through the song list to get past his wife?s pop favorites. Oops. Forgot about that driving thing. ?I took my eyes away from the road much, much too long. Three, four, five seconds,? Lee said with regret. We?ve all been there. But here?s the thing: Lee?s a mechanical engineer. A PhD. Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Co-editor of ?Driver Distraction: Theory, Effect and Mitigation.?
After 50 years, the Dictionary of Regional American English is finally complete. The University of Wisconsin-Madison project has been called “one of the glories of contemporary American scholarship” by The New York Times.
The end of an impassioned and often strident global debate over the proper balance between scientific openness and security began with 2 hours of mandatory, studious silence in a room protected by an armed guard.
