Category: Research

Glenn Beck talks about UW-Madison research on his Thursday show. (Video.)

The National Science Foundation awarded $5 million to five faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study water usage from an unusually broad perspective – examining links between human activity, commercial growth, ecosystems, algae blooms, agriculture, flooding, climate change and how all those affect what flows from the faucet.

Individual human brain cells can be savvy shoppers, tuning their behavior to precisely reflect the worth of a candy bar, finds a study published January 5 in The Journal of Neuroscience. Evaluating objects is ?something we all do on a moment-to-moment basis,? says study coauthor Rick Jenison of the University of Wisconsin?Madison, but just how the human brain tallies up value isn?t clear.

According to a recent article, UW-Madison wants to add housing space for up to 360 macaque monkeys. Donna Paulnock, associate dean for biological sciences, is quoted: “We just have many more grants and funding…. than we can bring in animals in a timely manner.” This makes me wonder if we are doing primate research just to get funding from the federal National Institutes of Health.

2010 was a relatively normal year weather-wise in Wisconsin, although there were a few stand out events — including an unusually muggy summer and a rare October cyclone.

Jonathan Martin, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor and Chair of the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, says overall it was pretty average year. But he notes that the Wisconsin summer was quite muggy, there were more tornadoes than usual, and there was a pretty remarkable cyclone- or low pressure system– in late October that scientists will be studying for quite awhile.

On the day that researchers lowered the final detector of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory into a 2.5-kilometre-deep hole, the Antarctic sun was nearly as high as it gets and the temperature a balmy ?23?°C. “It is quite warm,” reported team member Albrecht Karle, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Just a week before the 18 December event, he adds, temperatures had averaged about 10?°C colder.

Sea urchins are perhaps best known for their armor of spines. But their mouths may be even more daunting?urchin teeth can literally chew through stone without getting dull. (Related: “Eyeless Urchins ?See? With Spines.”)

U.S. researchers say the trick sea urchins use to keep their teeth razor-sharp could lead to tools for humans that never need sharpening or honing.

Sea urchins can use their teeth to eat into stone, creating pockets where they can hide from predators and protect themselves from crashing waves. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say despite constant scraping and grinding into rock, urchin teeth never get dull, a university release said Wednesday.

Married parents bankrolled 77 percent of their children?s college costs, while remarried and divorced parents footed only 53 percent and 42 percent of the bill, respectively, according to a joint study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

AN extraordinary underground observatory for subatomic particles has been completed in a huge cube of ice measuring 1km on each side deep under the South Pole, researchers said.

Here in her lab on the University of Wisconsin campus, chemist Helen Blackwell and her colleagues are eavesdropping on the chatter among single-celled organisms. For a long time they just listened. Now they actively interrupt the rumble of bacterial communication for a variety of practical purposes?such as augmenting the good works of friendly bacteria and thwarting the designs of dangerous ones.

Late last week construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory wrapped up at the National Science Foundation?s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. The team of international scientists behind the effort have come up with something truly remarkable in building the world?s largest neutrino observatory. The massive telescope, which is the size of a cubic kilometer and located 1400 meters underground, took a decade to build and cost approximately $271 million. Oh, and if you lined up the world?s three tallest skyscrapers, their collective height would be shorter than this telescope.

So I?m behind the wheel of the Ford Fusion, testing out the new UW-Madison driving simulator. Really, I could do anything I want behind the wheel of this thing. I could text my son and get the latest on our fantasy football team. I could unwrap a burrito and wolf it down while trying to find my favorite Grateful Dead song on a CD. Heck, I could take a nap. But, though I?m tempted, I don?t do any of those things.

It?s easily the most expensive Ford Fusion on the highway today.Except it?s not on the highway. It?s parked in a carpeted room in the Mechanical Engineering building on the UW-Madison campus in front of a 24-foot wrap-around screen. The vehicle is part of the university?s new $500,000 driving simulator and will allow researchers to study everything from driver distractions such as cell phones to the safety of highway exit and entrance ramps.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, built over a decade at a cost of $271 million, is buried under the South Pole… and longer than the world?s tallest skyscrapers combined.

 The Social Psychology Quarterly earlier this month published a new study, ?How Does Prayer Help Manage Emotions?? by Shane Sharp, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist.

If the skies are clear Monday night, people in the area willing to stay up very late can view a rare total lunar eclipse.And if you?re in a partying mood, UW-Madison?s Space Place will be holding an eclipse viewing party from midnight until 5 a.m.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor 100 years ago wanted to do a long-term study on the ancient building material, so numerous cylinders of the mix of cement, water, sand and stone were made. Then the study began. For 100 years.

This week, workers and researchers from UW-Madison completed what may have been the most challenging construction job in the university?s history, 8,000 feet deep in the ice under the South Pole. They buried the last of 86 strings of detectors that are the heart of a massive scientific instrument called IceCube. It is the world?s largest neutrino detector, under construction since 2004 and designed to capture data on the high-energy particles from deep space as they zip through the crystalline Antarctic ice and collide with the atomic nuclei of frozen water.

Noted: Led by Samuel Munoz, now a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin Madison, researchers found that climate and human changes seemed to happen in step. Paleo-Indians, hunter-gatherers known for elegant fluted arrowheads chipped from stone, lived in the region from about 13,500 to 11,250 years ago, when the area had a tundra-like landscape with spruce and sedges. They may have hunted caribou.

The University of Wisconsin and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the completion of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory this weekend. Located at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the world?s largest neutrino observatory has been ten years in the making. The final string of optical sensors was installed on Saturday, December 18, 2010.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have finished building an observatory at the South Pole that could help detect some of the tiniest particles in the universe.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is meeting to celebrate a lunar eclipse Monday night.

Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association pledged $500,000 to renovate and expand UW-Madison?s renowned dairy plant at Babcock Hall. The project is still in its infancy. Cheese Makers? pledge is meant to help kickstart a fundraising effort, said John Umhoefer, executive director.

In a fascinating new report, investigators found that it is not just the number of degrees or years of education that make a difference, but another factor ? class rank.The findings come from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which has been following more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957.

Why does prayer help people through hard times? To find out, a graduate student in sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison interviewed 62 women who were the victims of partner violence.

Test scores of students at independent charter schools in Milwaukee were no better in reading and math than those of Milwaukee Public School students, a study released Thursday says.

The report, released by the School Choice Demonstration Project and conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Arkansas, compared the reading and math scores of 2,295 students attending 10 of the 14 independent charter schools in grades three through eight with a carefully matched sample of 2,295 students from MPS for the 2006-?07 school year.

Richard “Jim” Brown recalls his first day on the job, in October 2005, as a veterinarian at the UW-Madison?s Research Animal Resource Center (RARC). His first assignment, he says, involved working with primates.

New research done at the UW-Madison says boosting use of satellite data could help predict when thunderstorms will hit.Some predictions about thunderstorms come surface observations or weather balloons, and while satellites are often used, UW researchers say not enough data is collected about instability of air between 15,000 and 32,000 feet.