Category: Research

Our experiences in life dont just affect how we learn and behave, they can also mark our genes and influence our children, a growing body of research suggests. “We want to know how experiences really influence the brain,” says Marilyn Essex, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin’s school of medicine and public health in Madison. “What are some of the underlying biological mechanisms that can help us understand how we get from the early stress to the later health outcomes?”

Its accents and vocabulary are as different as its vast and varied landscapes.And the diversity of dialects in the U.S. are showcased in all their glory in the Dictionary of American Regional English (Dare).

If you?ve never put your lips to a bubbler, you?re probably not from Wisconsin. Ask for a pickle in Nebraska and you might get a lottery ticket. And what you call a carbonated soft drink, whether soda, pop or coke, provides a clue about where you grew up.

At the end of his second year of Harvard graduate school, neuroscientist and bestselling author Richard Davidson did something his colleagues suspected would mark the end of his academic career: He skipped town and went to India and Sri Lanka for three months to ?study meditation.?

Joan Houston Hall, chief editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English, still remembers the day back in the late 1990s when she typed ?scrid? into Google.

Last year, researchers examined Facebook profiles of 200 students at the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some 30 percent posted updates that met the American Psychiatric Association?s criteria for a symptom of depression, reporting feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, insomnia or sleeping too much, and difficulty concentrating.

That we can identify these words today is largely a testament to the vision of one man: Frederic Cassidy, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who conceived the Dictionary of American Regional English known as DARE in a 1962 speech to the American Dialect Society.

Bitters helped establish the women?s studies program at UW-Madison while a graduate student from 1972 to 1975. That led to a job at DPI helping the state figure out the implications of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that prohibits gender discrimination in schools. In December, the White House honored Bitters as one of 12 “Champions of Change” for leading the effort to recruit and retain girls and women in what are referred to as the STEM fields.

Battles continue over whether or not to publish research in which H5N1 bird flu transmitted readily among mammals.

Legislation outlining a proposed state wolf hunt is likely to hurt wolf populations while failing to resolve existing conflicts with humans, says a University of Wisconsin-Madison wolf expert.

After weeks of debate, two controversial papers describing forms of the H5N1 avian influenza virus capable of transmitting between mammals should be published in full. That was the unexpected outcome of a meeting convened last week in Geneva, Switzerland, by the World Health Organization (WHO), which also promised to create a more rigorous oversight system for such research.

GENEVA ? Two studies showing how scientists mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic will be published only after experts fully assess the risks, the World Health Organization said Friday.

This June in Brazil, delegates will mark the twentieth anniversary of what is commonly known as the Earth Summit. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development took place in Rio de Janeiro in nineteen ninety-two. One of the issues that the delegates plan to discuss in June at Rio+20 is the role of agriculture in climate change. VOA interviewed UW’s Molly Jahn on the subject.

Mother of pearl — produced by molluscs — is largely used in jewellery and art. However, a new report suggests that it could be used to reveal both the temperature and the ocean depth at which the material formed.

The National Security Council is moving to exert greater federal control over scientific studies of highly lethal diseases and toxins in the face of mounting fears that the research could be used by terrorists and rogue states, according to people with knowledge of the process.

There may be ways, however, to spot a liar before you find yourself across from him or her at a candlelit table. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison compared the actual heights, weights, and ages of 78 online daters to their dating profiles on four matchmaking websites.

Last year, labs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Erasmus MC in Rotterdam independently created mutant forms of avian influenza, known as H5N1, that can be transmitted directly among mammals. The natural strain can be caught only through close contact with infected birds.

One immediate question is what level of safety should be required for that research.

In a new report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison show that nacre can also be deployed in the interest of science as a hard-wired thermometer and pressure sensor, revealing both the temperature and ocean depth at which the material formed.

Most of us are horrible lie detectors in face-to-face interaction, and we?re even worse when it comes to knowing if someone is lying online.  New research suggests, however, that there are certain linguistic signals we can look for to determine if someone is trying to hoodwink us.

Online daters who lie about their personal information such as height, weight and age leave a series of clues that identify them as liars in the language they use.

How do you really know if the person at the other end of that online profile you?re browsing is genuine or some lying creep? There?s no easy ruleset (there never is), but a new study found there are several fascinating word-watching ways you can better predict whether someone?s telling the truth or just feeding you a line.

It was with a profound sense of personal validation that I opened Volume V of the Dictionary of American Regional English to discover an entry for the term my family back in Kentucky used for the chamber pot: thunder mug. 

Simple meditation techniques, backed up with modern scientific knowledge of the brain, are helping kids hardwire themselves to become kinder and pay better attention, says neuroscientist Richard Davidson.

Lovelorn users are so desperate to believe people who describe themselves as tall, dark and handsome that they fail to notice clues which suggest all is not what it seems, it was claimed.

Science knows how to identify a liar (big hint: someone who keeps harping on his or her own honesty). So it makes sense, in our online-dating-filled modern lifestyle, that science would also figure out how to identify an online dater who is not being completely above board.

Watching a plant grow and develop roots can be as tedious as … watching a plant grow. But seeing plant development as it unfolds can expose just what happens to a genetically modified organism, and how certain gene expressions can make plants do certain things. Robotic cameras and machine-vision algorithms are making the process easier.Plant physiologist Edgar Spalding at the University of Wisconsin-Madison creates time-lapse movies of plant root growth in action

Eighty per cent of online daters lie on their profiles, a new study reveals – but liars give themselves away.

At a time of trillion-dollar budget deficits, why do we need a new ?Video Game Czar? in the White House? That Czar?or, Czarina, more precisely?is Constance Steinkuehler,  a professor from University of Wisconsin whose appointment as ?Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology? constitutes, in the admiring words of USA Today, ?one of the most unconventional White House hires in recent memory.?

A simple math problem lies at the heart of a heated debate over whether scientists should be allowed to publish provocative research into the transmissibility of H5N1 flu. Assuming the avian virus could spread easily among people, just how deadly would an H5N1 pandemic be for humans?

The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced three finalists to become the next director of its Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and none of them currently work on campus.

Half of American adults know someone who found love online, and while the internet plays a more important role than before in starting relationships it is also a forum for cheating and lies that ends them, according to a survey released on Monday.

Last month, scientists around the world agreed to temporarily halt certain genetic experiments with bird flu viruses. More than three weeks of that 60-day moratorium have already passed. And the scientific community is in the midst of a fierce debate about what needs to happen next.

Contrary to the belief that people who burn a lot of calories are less vulnerable to gaining weight, a new study finds they and slow burners alike tend to put on pounds during the sweets-filled holiday season. “This idea of regulating body weight by being a very active individual that exercises a lot is not being supported by our study,” said Dale Schoeller, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and the senior author of the study.