Category: Research

We?ve been told that social networking can make us depressed, envious, and filled with self-doubt, not to mention mess with our marriages.

Whether our laptops, tablets and smartphones have made us smarter or dumber is a matter of endless debate and of scant but growing research. A new study grabs hold of an important corner of that question, finding that we have adapted the way we remember things to a world in which virtually everything is available on the Web.

Information has never been easier to find or record. Within seconds, the Internet lets us find answers to questions that would have remained elusive just a few decades ago. We don?t even have to remember the answers ? we can just look them up again.

The fungus causing late blight on potato crops has been found on farms in New York and Washington but not Wisconsin, according to Superintendent and Researcher Bryon Bowen of University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Agricultural Research Center in Rhinelander. 

Search engines may be changing the way our brains remember information, researchers said Thursday.

FAIRBANKS – Author and Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Deborah Blum grew up in a science-filled home and went to college wanting to be a chemist. She loved studying chemistry ? until one day she caught her hair on fire right after she?d spilled chemicals near a Bunsen burner, nearly causing an explosion potentially killing her fellow lab mates.

The widespread use of search engines and online databases has affected the way people remember information, researchers are reporting.

The ocean?s capacity to take up the carbon humans put in the atmosphere is waning, according to a new study reported in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Previous studies, with often contradictory results, show that the amount of atmospheric carbon absorbed by the oceans varies from year to year. University of Wisconsin oceanic sciences Professor Galen McKinley says her work – in collaboration with colleagues at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris – examines extended data analysis over time.

The ability of oceans to soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide is being hampered by climate change, according to a new scientific study.

A fresh analysis of existing observational data taken from locations across the North Atlantic Ocean recorded over a period of almost three decades (1981-2009) has revealed that global warming is having a negative impact on one of nature?s most important carbon sinks.

“Warming in the past four to five years has started to reduce the amount of carbon that large areas of the (North Atlantic) Ocean is picking up,” said Galen McKinley, lead author and assistant professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers say indoor air pollution is linked to increased blood pressure among older women.

MADISON– As the shuttle shot into space for the final time Friday, some called it the end of an era. ” The space shuttle has not only been the mainstay of putting humans into orbit, but also has defined the type of things that we can put into orbit,” said Jim Lattis, the director of the U-W Space Place.

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.

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.

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.

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.

GLENDALE, Wis. ? Gov. Scott Walker and several University of Wisconsin officials are expected to announce a research partnership involving energy storage.

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.

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.

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.

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.