From experiments involving potatoes and sea urchin eggs to elements of the Hubble Telescope and tweeting, NASA space shuttles have carried and had connections to many UW-Madison scientists and Wisconsin residents during its 30-year history. Here are some of the highlights.
A first-of-its-kind study found that financial aid may be most helpful to the Wisconsin college students who are the least likely to otherwise succeed. For the last three years, UW-Madison professors Sara Goldrick-Rab and Douglas Harris followed a group of students who received grant money from the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars program. The program was created through a $175 million donation by John and Tashia Morgridge, providing a $3,500-a-year grant to some first-time, full-time students enrolled in the University of Wisconsin System. Goldrick-Rab and Harris tracked data from the 600 students who received Morgridge grants, plus 900 eligible non-recipients. In initial results, they found that the most disadvantaged group of students were more likely to stay in college if they received the Morgridge grant, compared to those who did not.
Orthopedic surgeon Eugene Carragee spent four months in Iraq in 2005, as a doctor with the U.S. Army Reserves.
The physician returned to Iraq in late 2007, but his deployment was cut short by an attempted suicide bomb attack in January 2008. He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his injuries and heroic actions.
Now Carragee?s military record is being used in an attempt to discredit his research indicating that the Medtronic spine surgery product known as Infuse may increase the risk of a complication that causes sterility in men. That research countered earlier papers by doctors with financial ties to Medtronic – including University of Wisconsin-Madison orthopedic surgeon Thomas Zdeblick – that failed to link Infuse to the male sterility complication.
Cellular Dynamics International, Madison, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, have received a five-year, $6.26 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.The funds will be used to study the causes of a heart condition called left ventricular hypertrophy. CDI is the company founded in 2005 by UW-Madison stem cell pioneer James Thomson.
When Jordan Wachs enrolled at UW-Madison he planned to study aerospace engineering.But the Eau Claire native hardly suspected he?d have the chance to hang out with NASA astronauts inside a space tent he helped design.
GLENDALE, Wis. — Johnson Controls Inc. is providing research support to two University of Wisconsin campuses toward the study of batteries and other forms of energy storage.
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison students has won a NASA challenge to design habitable areas for the next generation of space explorers.
Have an idea for a new way to fly? AeroInnovate is looking for early-stage inventions to show off at the AeroInnovate Technology Showcase. The new event will be held at the Experimental Aircraft Association?s annual AirVenture gathering, July 25-31, in Oshkosh.
The journal was critical of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for lack of oversight and of editors and reviewers of medical journals for not insisting on fuller disclosure. We agree. And we think institutions that employ doctors – including the University of Wisconsin – need stricter rules about when, or if ever, doctors should accept payment from medical device makers.
Mentions that a study from the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center released earlier this year found municipalities that enacted municipal smoke-free ordinances ahead of the statewide ban showed no adverse economic effects.
Those who follow Wisconsin?s economic development scene know the state suffers from a lack of investment dollars to help new companies get off the ground. One figure often cited is that Wisconsin is home to 1.84 percent of the U.S. population and receives 2.15 percent of the nation?s academic research spending but attracts just 0.11 percent of the available venture capital.
For more than 25 years, John Neis has been working to change that.
Quoted: James Harold Maynard of the department of chemistry at UW-Madison.
A skin patch of natural estrogen can improve memory in women with Alzheimer?s disease, according to a UW-Madison study of an alternative to the synthetic estrogen pill other research said increases the risk of dementia.
How do you build a tent fit for life on an asteroid? A group of UW-Madison students answered that question to win a NASA competition to design and build the best space habitat. The Badger X-Loft team beat teams from two other universities ? Oklahoma State and Maryland ? to win $10,000 and an opportunity to test the tent as part of a simulated astronaut mission.
The goal making Wisconsin on a world leader in energy. That?s why Johnson Controls is partnering with state?s two largest university campuses. At the Johnson Control Headquarters, Governor Scott Walker praised the battery supplier as well as the University of Wisconsin system for a new partnership to advance research in energy storage.
A wide-ranging partnership between Johnson Controls and the University of Wisconsin will create three energy storage research laboratories in Milwaukee and Madison, in a bid to put the state on the map as a center for development of next-generation batteries.
Scientists at Johnson Controls Power Solutions business will work side by side in the labs with engineering students pursuing doctorates at both University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and University of Wisconsin-Madison, the company and state officials announced.
Johnson Controls Inc. is providing research support to two University of Wisconsin campuses toward the study of batteries and other forms of energy storage. The Milwaukee-based company said Thursday it will provide faculty and laboratory space at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee. Company officials say the move will help educate more energy researchers and also ensure that Wisconsin remains a center of energy expertise.
GLENDALE, Wis. — Johnson Controls Inc. is providing research support to two University of Wisconsin campuses toward the study of batteries and other forms of energy storage. The Milwaukee-based company said Thursday it will provide faculty and laboratory space at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee. Company officials said the move will help educate more energy researchers and also ensure that Wisconsin remains a center of energy expertise.
A group of orthopedic surgeons is challenging research by UW-Madison spine specialist Thomas Zdeblick, saying he failed to disclose risks of a bone-growth substance made by a company that has paid him at least $21 million in royalties. The criticism, made Tuesday in a special edition of The Spine Journal, comes after the U.S. Senate Finance Committee sent a letter last week to the company, Minneapolis-based Medtronic. The letter asked for financial records and communications with doctors such as Zdeblick. Zdeblick and UW-Madison officials defended his actions. They said he reported risks of the substance when appropriate and followed rules on disclosing his royalties, which are for Medtronic devices other than the product under scrutiny.
Noted: Previously, researchers have linked such burning to the extinctions of some species of Australian megafauna, including several species of kangaroos, wombats, and other marsupials, thousands of years ago. But whether these burns affected the region?s climate was unclear. The fact that previous climate simulations were limited to the core months of the rainy season may have limited their scope, says Michael Notaro, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
OMAHA, Neb. — Kurt Shafer is walking stronger and more confidently than he has in years, and he credits an experimental electronic device he uses five times a day.
GLENDALE, Wis. ? Gov. Scott Walker and several University of Wisconsin officials are expected to announce a research partnership involving energy storage.
Doctors who received millions of dollars from device maker Medtronic repeatedly failed to reveal serious complications linked to the company?s lucrative back surgery product in 13 papers they co-authored for medical journals over the course of nearly a decade, according to a scathing new review.
For people suffering from debilitating autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, there is growing evidence that help may be at hand from an unusual source: parasitic worms.
John Fleming, a professor of neurology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, led a recent study suggesting a pig parasite is effective in treating MS symptoms.
Like human teenagers, busy fruit flies with an active social life need extra sleep, scientists have found.
I ADMIT it was with some trepidation that I began to read Chris Stringer?s new book, The Origin of Our Species, on a long train journey. I mention the train because I wondered if I was fit to survive hours spent captive with the Darwinian prose suggested by the title. I needn?t have worried. Stringer has a crisp style that helps lighten what might have been heavy material.
Dear Editor: There are over 100,000 homeless veterans in this country today. But here in Madison we are debating whether it is legal or right for scientists to incite mice to fight. It?s good to know that we live in a country that has its priorities straight.
For every 2 degrees the mercury in your thermometer rises over 85 Fahrenheit, hospital admissions for conditions such as diabetes and kidney disorders are predicted to rise by 13 percent, according to a study conducted by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Purdue University and the National Center for Climatic Research.
When Doug Bartow learned he had a genetic heart condition that can cause sudden death, he had mixed emotions: fear, blame and relief. Knowing the family has Long QT Syndrome ? a cause of sudden death in children and young adults, especially athletes ? also brought comfort. Some in the Bartow family are taking medications and avoiding strenuous activities to ward off dangerously irregular heartbeats, and all are being treated at UW Health?s Inherited Arrhythmias Clinic. The clinic, which started in 2004, treats more than 100 families with hereditary heart diseases. Doctors and genetic counselors help the families navigate the expanding world of genetic medicine, where knowledge of diseases can bring fear and hope, often at the same time.
It?s nice to see that Gov. Scott Walker?s ?open for business? mantra extends beyond the traditional sectors of Wisconsin?s economy ? agriculture, tourism and manufacturing ? to the biosciences and biotechnology. The Republican governor plans to tout Wisconsin as a great place for scientific businesses to thrive next week at the 2011 BIO International Convention in Washington, D.C. This is no small thing for Madison and Dane County, which are home to UW-Madison, its more than $1 billion in annual research, and a growing number of private companies making breakthroughs and developing products in the life sciences.
A skin sample from Helen Eckert, transformed into a colony of heart cells in a UW-Madison lab, could give scientists clues to what causes Long QT Syndrome, a genetic heart disease. Researchers reprogrammed her skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, containing the genetic mutation she carries that causes Long QT Syndrome. The iPS cells were coaxed into heart cells, also with the mutation. The process involved an iPS cell method developed by UW-Madison stem cell pioneer James Thomson.
A provision in the state budget would give more legal protection to researchers performing animal testing in the state.
Some animal rights activists say this will let researchers off the hook for animal cruelty, while researchers say it is necessary to close a loophole to ensure scientific studies continue. The amendment would exempt animal researchers in Wisconsin from any state criminal penalties for animal cruelty. Researchers would still be liable under federal law if they violate the protocol of their research institution.
The growing controversy involves Medtronic?s spine surgery product Infuse, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002. Over the last year, Journal Sentinel reports have revealed large payments made to prominent surgeons around the country, including a University of Wisconsin-Madison orthopedic surgeon, who were involved in the clinical testing of Infuse or who wrote positive medical journal articles that failed to link the product to serious complications.
Cigarette labels have not been updated in the US for more than 25 years. Dr. Michael Fiore is the director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. He says the new graphic warnings will send a clear message to smokers about debilitating and fatal diseases caused by tobacco use.
Computers inch ever closer to behaving like intelligent human beings?witness the ability of IBM?s Watson to beat the all-time champs of the television quiz show Jeopardy.
Dear Editor: The Rat/Her signs along Dane County highways present a false choice. Medical experiments are not done on children. These billboards are the product of the research industry front group, Foundation for Biomedical Research. They are running scared from the expose of cruel, unnecessary and ineffectual experiments on animals. This foundation and its extended network of companies and researchers that feed off animal research are not concerned about cute little girls. They are worried about their huge lucrative grants drying up from the National Institutes of Health that fuel this outdated, costly research.
A new traumatic brain injury research project at UW-Madison could benefit service members
Noted: State budget analysis by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Andrew Reschovsky.
According to a new study, the entertainment we consume can influence our emotions and behavior. Joanne Cantor, a psychologist and professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains that this may be because what we?ve just been thinking about is, “at a higher level in your consciousness, so your brain is kind of predisposed in that direction.”
Researchers at the new Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have released the biomedical research organization?s first digital learning game created through collaborations among scientists and education researchers.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Quoted: Scott Craven, a UW-Madison professor of wildlife and forest ecology.
GPS can help a tourist find the way around a strange city, tell trucking companies where their vehicles are, and guide farmers in planting their crops efficiently. Now, a young Madison company is out with a GPS-equipped product to treat asthma. Asthmapolis has developed an inhaler fitted with a GPS device and a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone. David Van Sickle, an asthma epidemiologist and honorary associate fellow at UW-Madison, came up with the idea of tracking when, where and how often asthma patients reach for the medication device.
The Republican-controlled state Assembly passed Gov. Scott Walker?s state budget early Thursday over objections from Democrats who derided it as an assault on the middle class that will hurt public education, weaken programs for the poor and make it harder to get health care services. A Republican amendment keeps alive the University of Wisconsin?s WiscNet program, a non-profit cooperative that brings high-speed Internet services to about 75 percent of public schools in Wisconsin and nearly all public libraries. Originally, it would have had to return about $40 million in federal money under the budget. UW spokesman David Giroux called the deal, which requires any new financial commitments to be approved by the Legislature?s budget committee, a reasonable compromise.
The state Assembly passed Gov. Scott Walker?s state budget about 3 a.m. Thursday, sending it to the state Senate, which planned to take it up about 10 a.m. Republican leaders worked feverishly in closed-door meetings on budget details most of the day on Wednesday, delaying the start of the floor session by more than five hours. Several provisions were removed at the last minute, including a plan to give back about $37 million in federal grant money awarded to the UW System. That proposal would end UW-Madison?s support of WiscNet, a statewide Internet provider. Vos called the decision to back away from returning the federal money a compromise that should lead to a better approach. The amendment, released after 7 p.m., would allow those who now have WiscNet to keep it. The deal adds a requirement that the state?s Legislative Audit Bureau do an audit of the program by January 2013.
UW-Madison has snuck a non-financial motion into the budget bill that the Joint Finance Committee passed. If it becomes law, researchers will be exempt from all sections of the state?s crimes against animals law.
I watched the video of fighting mice posted on the Madison-based Alliance for Animals website as part of the complaint it and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed against UW-Madison, which apparently has been pitting mice against one another in laboratory studies of aggression..It?s hard for me to see much blood lust in a pair of mice that are fighting, which in the short video looked more like a kind of bloodless wrestling. So it?s hard for me to see why it should be illegal.
Wisconsin should strive to do more to grow a renewable energy economy that creates jobs in the state, the author of a new sustainability report says. The report was published by the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business and the state Department of Natural Resources? green tier program.
Noted: “What was a surprise was when the congenitally blind people were capable, just operating with 400 pressure points on the back, they could recognize human faces. There was big noise about this in the beginning of the ?70s. Hundreds of publications around the globe wrote about Paul Bachy-Rita and his device, about how people can see from skin. That was great proof and great success,” says Yuri Danilov from the University of Wisconsin?s Tactile Communication and Neurorehabilitation Lab.
Animal rights activists are up-in-arms about a state budget measure to exempt U-W Madison researchers from crimes against animals.
Dear Editor: Shame on the UW-Madison for slipping an item into the state budget bill to exempt animal researchers from Wisconsin anti-cruelty laws.
Should scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison be exempt from state statutes pertaining to crimes against animals as long as the investigators are “engaged in bona fide scientific research?”
Scientists at colleges and universities across the state were granted these protections June 3 by the Joint Finance Committee in a measure tucked into an omnibus motion see item No. 27 in this document which mostly deals with UW System budget issues — including the new freedoms and flexibilities state campuses were awarded from state oversight.
On Wednesday officials with the Department of Natural Resources along with Entomology professors from UW-Madison started an experiment to eliminate the bug by releasing cups full of wasps onto newly affected trees.
Two animal rights groups are asking Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to look into whether researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison broke the law in their studies of aggressive behavior.
What do Americans love more than French fries and potato chips? Not much-but perhaps we love them more than we ought to. Fat and calories aside, both foods contain high levels of a compound called acrylamide, a potential carcinogen.
Two animal rights groups have asked the Dane County district attorney to investigate whether University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers broke the law in their studies of aggressive behavior.
Following a seven-month national search, UW-Madison on Friday announced the names of four finalists for the position of vice chancellor for research and dean of the Graduate School. The job is the university?s top research post. The finalists were identified by Bill Tracy, a UW-Madison professor of agronomy who headed a 16-member search-and-screen committee.
TOWN OF SAUKVILLE ? Wisconsin researchers released tiny parasitic wasps into the wild as part of an effort to slow the population growth of a destructive beetle species that has destroyed millions of trees. UW-Madison entomologists released 800 stingless Asian wasps from four plastic cups Wednesday at the Riveredge Nature Center in Newburg, so they can feast on the larvae of the emerald ash borer.
Quoted: Ken Raffa, a professor of entomology with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The University of Wisconsin would have to return nearly $40 million in federal funds – money intended to pay for community networks and improve broadband service for public entities – if a state budget provision aimed at protecting rural telecommunications providers becomes law. UW officials say the proposal also would prevent research universities in the state from participating in a high-speed system that connects them with research universities nationwide. “The consequences would be catastrophic,” said Paul DeLuca, provost at UW-Madison.
