Senate Democrats have unveiled a package of tax credits they say are designed to create jobs. Their plan includes 15 health and bioscience positions at the the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Institutes for Discovery. The package has little chance of becoming law.
ALBANY — The career paths of the three stem cell scientists awarded the Albany Medical Center Prize on Friday shifted in directions they never expected.
Two University of Wisconsin ? Madison researchers, Scott Peckham and Stith Tom Gower, have been combing data to figure out the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest?s role in the carbon cycle.
The city of Madison is considering an ambitious blueprint on how to spread the green movement deeper into the community and broaden its goals.The draft, 73-page Madison Sustainability Plan offers dozens of ideas. They range from the easily-embraced ? implementing clean-up plans to remove all city beaches from the state?s impaired waters list ? to the controversial ? exploring electronically monitored Downtown toll zones with the goal of reducing traffic and emissions. The effort has involved developers, architects, engineers, utilities, the Madison schools, UW-Madison, city officials and others.
(This story first appeared in the Sunday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal.)
With the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the verge of removing the gray wolf from endangered status, more calls are being heard in Wisconsin for a hunting season on the once rare animal.
Adrian Treves, a researcher with UW-Madison who surveys public opinion on wolves, said his work shows growing concern about the number of wolves and their presence in populated areas.
“There is a dramatic increase in the number of people who have heard or seen wolves on their lands,” Treves said. “That’s feeding their fears.”
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Ken Raffa.
STEVENS POINT ? Imagine living in a country where parents don?t take their sick kids to the doctor because it costs too much. Turns out, we do ? even if parents have health insurance coverage. Call it America?s working-class lament.
A research team from the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health told us this in a recent report.
Researchers led by Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison measured the electrical activity in the brains of 11 rats, which they kept awake past their bedtimes by continuously introducing new objects into their cages. They found that the activity in some brain areas in the rats showed brief descents into “slow wave” sleep patterns. That?s the type of sleep we experience for 80% of the night, the kind that mostly doesn?t involve dreaming.
Its plan calls for scientists, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Ken Raffa, to release two species of the wasps later this month and a third species by early fall.
As an emeritus professor at the UW-Madison Medical School, I have published papers on the potential beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption, such as two glasses of red wine, and the harmful effects of excessive consumption.
I thought it would be interesting to take my blood alcohol analyzer to the block party. As I tested myself by blowing into it, a group of young people gathered and wanted to be tested, too. So I randomly tested six men and six women, and showed them the results. I was amazed at how eager most of the subjects were to be tested, and they all wanted to have the highest level like it was a contest.
In Wisconsin, the plan calls for scientists led by entomologist Ken Raffa of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to release two species of the wasps in May and a third species in late summer or early fall.
A University of Wisconsin professor was elected Wednesday to a highly acclaimed national academy that honors schools working in scientific and engineering fields in honor of his research on campus.
Letter by Michael Corradini, professor, UW-Madison.
By now pretty much everyone admits that global warming is an inconvenient truth, but a new book argues it?s a deadly one, too—and not just for critters stranded by melting ice in far away places. “This is not just about polar bears and penguins, this is about us,” says Dan Ferber, co-author with Harvard doctor and researcher Paul R. Epstein of a fascinating new book called “Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can do About It.”
In an era where environmental concerns are one of the major issues in citizens? minds, one University of Wisconsin professor will help coordinate a national group dedicated to studying humans? past and future relationships with the environment.
As the state?s economic climate continues to put pressure on families, a University of Wisconsin researcher found young parents face educational and financial burdens.
Government programs designed to help the poor and unemployed helped cushion Wisconsin?s poorest residents from the worst effects of the Great Recession in 2009, according to the third Wisconsin Poverty Report.
Expanded tax credits and food assistance were key drivers to holding down poverty in the state, according to the report issued Wednesday by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty.
The high cost of health care is hurting everyone, with parents forgoing taking their sick kids to the doctor even if they have health insurance and make enough money to cover the cost, according to a new study from researchers at UW-Madison.
Fifty years ago, a group of scientists at the University of Wisconsin formed what would eventually become the Cellular and Molecular Biology graduate program.
The abstract, written by University of Wisconsin?Madison researchers who have not answered e-mails, says that the ATLAS experiment has found more pairs of photons at an energy of 115 billion electron-volts (GeV) than expected.
The director of the University of Wisconsin Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center calls it the best news researchers could have hoped for.
New results from a drilling project in Greenland suggest that the ice sheet there may be more stable?and Antarctica?s may be less stable?than previously thought. The findings, which come from the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project, were presented on Thursday at a symposium on Antarctic science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Another state agricultural college will be working with Case IH and its dealers to provide students with access to the newest farm equipment and precision technologies available on the market. The company announced it is partnering with the University of Wisconsin-Madisons Agricultural Research Stations to deliver around 150 pieces of equipment to the schools 12 research stations for a nominal fee. The dealers are in the process of delivering tractors as well as equipment for tillage, spraying, planting and harvesting, and skid steer loaders. They will also assist with normal scheduled maintenance.
….the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area — which includes Dane, Iowa and Columbia counties — added just 400 jobs in the past 12 months for a 0.1 percent increase, 76th out of the 100 largest metro areas. The jobs report received little coverage in the Madison media, not surprising given that job creation has been flat here.
Noel Radomski, who heads a UW-Madison think tank, says the region hasn?t had to aggressively pursue a pro-growth strategy because of all the public-sector jobs here. That has allowed policymakers to focus on other issues like social safety nets and environmental regulations, he says.
Professors from UW-Madison and around the country hosted a public panel on the connection between religion and neuroscience Thursday, focusing around the idea that meditation has the power to make dramatic changes to physical and psychological health.
UW-Madison animal researchers claim medical progress depends on animal models, and that animal research is valuable and transparent. Yet they didn?t want further public discussion, and they managed to silence further “sifting and winnowing” by promising to hold their own public forums.
An experiment in a US lake suggests that ecosystem collapses could be predicted, given the right monitoring.
When you are sleep deprived some of your neurones actually fall asleep and can lead you to make mistakes, new research has found. Professor Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, and colleagues, report their study on rats in the journal Nature.
A team of researchers in Wisconsin and Italy has found that in rats kept awake past their bed times, their brains begin to turn themselves off, neuron by neuron, though the rat is still awake. Not only that, but the neurons that we use the most during the day are the ones that appear most likely to go offline. “It?s very worrisome. It means that even before we have obvious global signs of sleepiness, there are more local signs of tiredness and they have consequences on performance,” says Chiara Cirelli, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and one of the researchers.
The closed eyes, the unresponsiveness, the drool ? sleep is an easily recognizable, all-encompassing state. But the divide between sleep and wakefulness may not be as clearcut as we thought.
Researchers know that sleep deprivation makes people and animals less functional. Now a team of researchers in Wisconsin and Italy has found that in rats kept awake past their bed times, their brains begin to turn themselves off, neuron by neuron, though the rat is still awake.
OTTAWA ? Older people call them “senior moments” ? you put the milk in the cupboard; you can?t remember why you walked into a room; you lose your train of thought in the middle of . . .
When you are sleep deprived some of your neurones actually fall asleep and can lead you to make mistakes, new research has found.
While the results of climate change might not be noticeable in the short run, a recent report is attempting to show how climate change could potentially have negative effects on the economies of every state in America.Â
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Faced with the increasing price of medical care, more pet owners are pulling out insurance cards when visiting the veterinary?s office. Pet health insurance has been available in the United States for almost 30 years, but expanded veterinary treatments and changing attitudes toward the family pet have bolstered the number of policies over the past decade, even during the economic downturn. Available to Wisconsin pets for several years, insurance probably covers about 1 percent of the animals seen at the UW-Madison Veterinary Hospital, estimated Steve Wall, assistant hospital director. The hospital logged 21,406 ?patient visits? in 2010.
Wisconsin families may wonder how the state can afford to create programs to boost business growth when the governor and lawmakers argue it is imperative to cut back on almost everything else. The answer is because we can?t afford not to invest in business growth, not only to create the jobs we need but also to bring in the tax revenue to support the government services we want. Wisconsin has come far in creating hotbeds for new-business formation. Atop the list is Dane County, where UW-Madison is spinning off the talent and ideas that are creating one of the Midwest?s largest collections of young biomedical businesses and other technology-related companies.
While opposition to the use of animals in research has gained momentum in Madison in recent years, there has been little change involving the use of monkeys and other animals in scientific studies.The efforts of local animal rights activists have been buoyed by high-profile cases at UW-Madison, where two federal agencies found violations of animal care requirements and a researcher was suspended over her treatment of monkeys in 2009. Last year, a UW-Madison committee approved a statement essentially saying research is ethical given local and federal oversight. UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin called the use of animals in scientific research “indispensable, because of its life-saving benefits to human health,” saying, “Wisconsin would not be the leader in the stem-cell universe without animal research, nor would stem cell research anywhere hold the promise it now does.”
A novel way to produce hydrogen from plant sugars in agricultural waste was worth $50,000 to four UW-Madison undergraduates who won an annual competition for new methods to fight climate change.
ALAMOGORDO, N.M. – During Lennie?s life under the microscope, science changed.
….Researchers say advances in laboratory techniques mean that knowledge once gained only by examining a live animal now can be learned in a petri dish. And an expanding body of evidence shows that chimps don’t work as the human fill-in that researchers once hoped they would.
The ethics of animal research also have evolved. What once was commonplace is now controversial, and there’s a growing feeling that chimps should be spared the physical and mental pain of research.
Q. Why do some vegetables get sweeter in the winter?
A. “This is a phenomenon called cold-sweetening,” says UW-Madison horticulture professor Irwin Goldman.
Rising temperatures could have a devastating impact on Wisconsin?s economy over the next decades, from a shrinkage in agricultural production to a meltdown of the American Birkebeiner ski marathon, according to a national report pegged to Earth Week.
Quoted: Don Waller, UW-Madison professor of botany
The system of awarding science Ph.D.s needs to be either reformed or shut down, a provocative series of pieces in one of the world?s pre-eminent scientific journals says this week. According to the multipart series in the journal Nature, the world is awash in Ph.D.s, most of them being awarded after years of study and tens of thousands of dollars to scholars who will never find work in academia, the traditional goal for Doctors of Philosophy.
Everything you ever wanted to know about fungi, energy conservation, DNA and other far-reaching quests will be given the scholarly touch by UW-Madison scientists at your local library.
“Discover!Thursdays” is a new partnership between Madison Public Library, UW-Extension, UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Association that aims to educate residents about the research going on at UW-Madison.
Douglas N. Harris, an associate professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is among the legion of economists who have provided some of the most interesting takes on the national school debate. I like his stuff because it often challenges prevailing wisdom, and is usually free of jargon.
A study of deer mice on islands off the coast of California has provided new information on the rodent-borne infectious disease Hantavirus, researchers say.
Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied wild deer mouse populations on the Channel Islands off the southern coast of California that carry a variant of Hantavirus called Sin Nombre virus.
If you ask for a business card from Masood Akhtar, be prepared to get a handful. Akhtar wears many hats.
A national committee looking at cancer risks near nuclear power plants will hold a public meeting in the Midwest today. UW-Madison provost and medical physicist Paul DeLuca is on the study committee. He says cancer rates vary across the U.S. and the scientists are looking into whether having a nuclear power plant close by might raise local cancer rates or lower them.
Members of the University of Wisconsin community weighed bioethical issues in a wrap-up event for the campus-wide Go Big Read program during a panel titled ?Who Owns My Body and Where is It Now??
Q Is anything harder than diamond?
A People have made that claim, but the verdict is not in, says Don Stone, a professor of materials science and engineering at UW-Madison. ?Scientists even debate how best to measure extreme hardness,? Stone says.
Construction cranes towering over the massive UW Hospital complex signal a big step in positioning Madison for a new era of medical research, officials say. Work started this month on the second tower of the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, a $600 million, three-tower hub going up next to the hospital.
The institutes will eventually house some 1,700 researchers and lab workers from a variety of fields to study cancer, heart disease, brain disorders and other conditions. Most are moving from aging buildings on the central UW-Madison campus.
After years of waiting, the world?s biggest and best neutrino detector has started its search for the source of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays that constantly bombard the Earth?s atmosphere. And it?s seen exactly zilch.
Only a tiny fraction of the research done in universities gets covered by newspapers. So I feel an unbridled sense of satisfaction if I get a research story mentioned in the mainstream media. I?ll admit to punching the air when listening to the Today programme and hearing one of our academics talk about their research. But there are increasingly new techniques for sourcing, and promoting, stories using social and digital media.
A Milwaukee County judge has dismissed a citation against former talk show host Montel Williams for possessing drug paraphernalia. Sheriff?s deputies found a pipe commonly used for marijuana on Williams during a security check at the Milwaukee airport in January. Williams says he uses marijuana legally to relieve the chronic pain caused by multiple sclerosis. He visits Wisconsin to participate in experimental treatment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study aimed at a better understanding of the ways to successfully develop sustainable local and regional food systems received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As the world watched a nuclear crisis slowly unfold in Japan, UW-Madison scientists continued working on technology that could someday produce nuclear power without radioactive waste. “It?s the holy grail of alternative energy research,” said Robert Wilcox, a graduate student working on one of several UW-Madison fusion projects. In a fusion reaction, superheated atoms are joined to give off energy, as opposed to fission, in which the energy is released when atoms are broken apart. At UW-Madison, dozens of researchers are studying fusion to better understand and control the superhot substances in which the reactions take place.
The first episode of the new year kicks off with an interview with Mark Bugher, the director of University Research Park, Tom Still?s commentary on hopes for 2011 and a new stock report.
A $5-million federal study is ramping up, looking into what may be a lack of low-priced, high-quality food in poverty-stricken urban areas like Milwaukee.
Warning labels on junk food would be more effective than a “fat” tax for deterring overweight people from making unhealthy food buys, Canadian researchers say.
