Category: Research

Two animal rights groups are asking Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to investigate whether UW-Madison researchers broke the law by conducting lab experiments in which mice fight. In a letter to Ozanne, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Madison-based Alliance for Animals allege UW-Madison scientists violated a law that says “no person may intentionally instigate” a fight between animals.

Experts are trying a new approach to eliminate the invasive Emerald Ash Borers by creating a battle with another insect.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 into newly affected trees.

Town of Saukville – Tiny parasitic wasps, Wisconsin?s newest weapon in the war against the emerald ash borer, took flight Wednesday in a forest that is under siege from the invasive tree killer. Two species of stingless Asian wasps that feast on the larvae of the emerald ash borer were released by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the Riveredge Nature Center.

After months of friction that culminated in his openly questioning the reproducibility of data published by his supervisor, a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin?Madison?s zoology department was presented with three options. The department?s chairman said he could wait to be fired, resign voluntarily or accept a “gracious exit strategy” that would give him time to prepare a paper for publication, if he dropped his “scientific misconduct issues”.

Scientists working on a remote Wisconsin lake have identified early signals that warn when an ecosystem is on the verge of a regime shift ? a radical and rapid change from one type of ecosystem to another. They hope that understanding this kind of signal will improve our ability to protect and manage ecosystems in the future. The research findings were published in the journal Science on May 27, 2011.

Some 12,000 people turned out at Willow Island in Madison Saturday for the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure. The event helps raise money for breast cancer research and services, like the UW-Madison CareWear project. CareWear gives wigs, clothes and other items to patients undergoing chemotherapy

Young children of divorce are not only more likely to suffer from anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness, they experience long-lasting setbacks in interpersonal skills and math test scores, new research from the University o0f Wisconsin-Madison suggests.

As Wisconsin?s wolf population has grown, so have conflicts with humans. But where will the future problems occur? And if we know those locations, how might landowners and others be able to respond?

To help pinpoint future problem areas, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Department of Natural Resources have created a new tool to manage wolf-human conflicts.

The teacher thought it was attention deficit disorder. But David Ihrig had a different theory on why his 6-year-old son was falling behind at school.

Children of divorced parents often fall behind their classmates in math and social skills and are more likely to suffer anxiety, stress and low self-esteem, according to a new study.

Children of divorce have poorer math and interpersonal social skills than their peers, and they battle anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness, according to new research published Thursday in the American Sociological Review.

Young kids whose parents divorce struggle with math, social skills and emotions such as anxiety and depression for at least two years after the split, a new study finds.

Young children of divorce are not only more likely to suffer from anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness, they experience long-lasting setbacks in interpersonal skills and math test scores, new research suggests.

Children of divorce tend to fall behind in their math and social skills and may not catch up with their peers, a study shows.

But when parents split up it appears to have no impact on a child?s reading ability relative to his or her peers, concluded American research.

New research shows wolf attacks on livestock in Wisconsin are highly localized, and may be predictable. Adrian Treves of UW Madison has worked with UW and Department of Natural Resources researchers on ways to reduce the wolf threat to both people and animals.

Attacks on livestock, a major facet of conflict between wolves and people, are localized and may be predictable, researchers in Wisconsin say.

“It?s just hard to live alongside large carnivores. They damage crops, they kill livestock and pets, they threaten people?s safety,” University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Adrian Treves said.

Young kids whose parents divorce struggle with math, social skills and emotions such as anxiety and depression for at least two years after the split, a new study finds.

The research is the first long-term study to break down the effects of divorce by the predivorce, during-divorce and postdivorce phases. Surprisingly, said study researcher Hyun Sik Kim, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, parents? predivorce marital problems didn?t influence their kids? social and school success. But once divorce proceedings began, children fell behind and failed to catch up for at least two years.

Children of divorced parents often fall behind their classmates in math and social skills and are more likely to suffer anxiety, stress and low self-esteem, according to a new study. Researcher Hyun Sik Kim, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the study showed that the detrimental effects on the children do not start until after the parents begin divorce proceedings.

This was one more miserable and misguided decision that further proves that UW animal research is above the law.

A University of Toronto professor has been awarded with a prestigious prize for his work in the sciences.

American environmental scientist Stephen Carpenter won the 2011 Stockholm Water Prize ? given to someone who?s worked to improve the state of the world?s water resources. Carpenter?s focus ? freshwater lakes.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison is notable among research universities: It lands in the top 10 for institutions that constructed the most space and spent the most money in 2008 and 2009, as well as in the top 10 of institutions that are planning major expansions in 2010 and 2011. Alan Fish, associate vice chancellor for facilities at Madison, said that the university is consistently in the top five in federal research grants and that the university has made it a strategic priority to stay there through building.

A special prosecutor in Wisconsin has declined to charge University of Wisconsin researchers who animal rights groups accused of breaking the law when sheep died undergoing experiments in a hyperbaric chamber.

SOLON, Ohio — Take dozens of hard-working students, combine with two committed coaches, and add in a few involved parent-volunteers.

The most common brain cell, called the astrocyte, is often overlooked in the face of its cousin, the neuron. Researchers are finally realizing their importance and have, for the first time, been able to grow them in the lab.

LONDON: A novel method for producing large amounts of astrocyte cells – which assist in regulating the extracellular composition of brain fluid – from human stem cells has been achieved by scientists in the U.S.

Scientists have developed the chemically defined conditions necessary to prompt human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to differentiate into immature astrocytes. The University of Wisconsin-Madison team claims the immature astrocytes readily develop into mature astrocytes when implanted in the mouse brain, by forming connections with blood vessels. Writing in Nature Biotechnology, Su-Chung Zhang, Ph.D., and colleagues, report on their achievement in a paper titled ?Specification of transplantable astroglial subtypes from human pluripotent stem cells.?

It takes something special to bring the community together. This week, it was compassion. Not the practice of it, exactly, but the concept. It gave everyone something to think about.

This week, catapults will storm the walls of UW-Madison buildings. Robots will wrestle at the Field House. Rubber-band helicopters and bottle rockets will zoom into the university?s airspace. And there will be about 6,000 extra people on campus.

Starting Wednesday, students, parents, and teachers will stream into Madison from all over the country for the Science Olympiad National Tournament, the Olympic Games of middle and high school science.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison administrator has been named to lead the University of Florida?s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. UF officials announced this week that Teresa Balser, director of UW-Madison?s Institute for Biology Education, has been hired as the UF college?s new dean. She starts July 1.

The National Science Olympiad Tournament runs Wednesday through Saturday and will bring more than 6,000 middle and high school students, educators and parents from all over the country to the UW-Madison campus for a variety of science and engineering competitions.