Category: Research

As climate change continues to tick the Earths temperature upward, we can learn what to expect of a hotter planet by looking at the past. In his research, Jack Williams, director of the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research, studies the impact climate change had at the end of the last ice age–around 15,000 years ago–when global temperatures rose by 9°F. By analyzing ancient materials trapped in lake beds, he and his colleagues in the field have come to some startling conclusions. For one, small fluctuations in global temperature can cause large-scale biological changes across the planet, including mass migrations and extinctions. 

Scientists seeking to fight future pandemics have created a variety of ?bird flu? potentially so dangerous that a federal advisory panel has for the first time asked two science journals to hold back on publishing details of research.

Scientists agreed not to publish certain details of research showing how lethal bird flu can be made contagious after a U.S. biosecurity panel asked that it be kept secret for security reasons.

Two top scientific journals say they are deciding whether to publish details of a man-made mutant flu virus that could kill billions, after a US government?s science advisory committee advised them to withhold key details.

It is a nightmare scenario: a human pandemic caused by the accidental release of a man-made form of the lethal avian influenza virus H5N1.

A committee that advises the government says that details of two controversial experiments on bird flu virus should not be made public, because of fears that the work could provide a recipe for a bioweapon.

A U.S. scientific advisory board has asked two scientific journals ? Nature and Science ? to publish redacted versions of two controversial studies on bird flu virus because of fears of bioterrorism.

US authorities have asked the authors of two controversial bird flu studies to redact key details after a government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists.

The U.S. government paid scientists to figure out how the deadly bird flu virus might mutate to become a bigger threat to people ? and two labs succeeded in creating new strains that are easier to spread.

For the first time ever, a government advisory board is asking scientific journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses and touch off epidemics.

Starting with the virus that causes bird flu, two scientists have created a highly contagious version in the laboratory that one calls “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.”

A University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist who is an expert on the avian flu virus is under scrutiny because of concerns his new research may fall into the wrong hands.

The scientist is Yoshihiro Kawaoka, an eminent professor of virology in the School of Veterinary Medicine who has done research on H5N1, also known as the avian bird flu. His work and similar research independently done by a Dutch scientist have raised concerns in science journals and on an NBC News report that aired Thursday night that touched on such controversial issues as bioterrorism and scientific freedom.

In September, an amiable Dutchman stepped up to the podium at a scientific meeting convened on the island of Malta and announced that he had created a form of influenza that could well be the deadliest contagious disease humanity has ever faced. The bombshell announcement, by virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center, sparked weeks of vigorous debate among the world?s experts on bioterrorism, influenza, virology, and national security over whether the research should have been performed or announced and whether it should ever be published.

Back in 2005, then-Harvard president Lawrence Summers proclaimed that boys were simply better at math because, well, because they were boys. It was a statement once-removed from sending the little ladies back into the kitchen with aprons tied around their waists and frankly, the backlash that quickly followed and pulverized Summers was well-deserved.

Many believe that fossils represent organisms that died millions of years ago. Scientific literature, however, contains dozens of well-described original soft tissues in fossils. Since laboratory tests have shown that organic tissues decay in only thousands of years, these fossils have been at the center of much heated controversy.

Many explanations for the gender gap in math skills don?t hold up, suggests new research on math skills and gender in 86 countries.

Scientists have previously believed that the relatively low numbers of women in high-level mathematics could be due to biological differences between men and women. But a new, international study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has cast doubt on the idea that the differences are biological at all.

Discover’s Carl Zimmer on cutting-edge flu research and the way it’s portrayed by news media.

Antarctica may be the bottom of the world, but the coldest, driest, highest continent is the best place for looking up at the heavens from Earth.

It?s a rare kind of research that incites a frenzied panic before it?s even published. But it?s flu season, and influenza science has a way of causing a stir this time of year.

In honor of the centennial of Roald Amundsen?s South Pole expedition, the IceCube Research Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus has scheduled a celebration next week.

A $112 million biochemistry complex on Henry Mall will be substantially completed this month and occupants are expected to move in over winter break. The complicated project involved gutting several historic buildings, the restoration of 1940s-era murals and a new, six-story research tower.

UW-Madison?s Bassam Z. Shakhashiri is canceling his long-standing and popular holiday chemistry show this year for the first time since 1994 due to a family medical issue. “It was a hard decision. We?re very sorry to do it,” said Cayce Osborne, outreach specialist for the Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy.

Differences seen in the structure and function of psychopaths? brains could help explain their often callous and impulsive anti-social behavior, U.S. researchers report.

Inside a Dutch medical facility is a potentially devastating weapon that could kill millions: A genetically modified version of the H5N1 bird flu, engineered to be easily transmitted among ferrets. And the researchers who figured out how to do it would like to share their work with the world.

At some point, engineering professor Brianno Coller realized he didn?t like slogging through dry math problems as an instructor any more than he had as a student. So he thought about what could liven things up ? animation! interactivity! ? and it hit him: video games.

Psychopaths are usually diagnosed by their behavioral patterns: an eccentric personality, including lack of empathy and remorse, deceptiveness, and abusive actions. Now, researchers have shown that psychopaths also have differences in particular brain regions, with fewer connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a brain region involved in feelings of empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety, according to a study published in the November 30 issue of Journal of Neuroscience.

If your neighbors say it is raining more in Milwaukee now than in their youth, they are correct.

Milwaukee?s climate has been getting wetter over the last 60 years. Future generations here might be telling each other that the city is getting even more rain than today, with more intense storms, said Steve Vavrus, a senior scientist with the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.