Category: Research

Experts have been working on the IceCube project for years now, and they say that the experience has helped them reshape the way they deal with everyday problems. The nature of the project does not allow for anything else, they add.

There?s nothing like temperatures that can reach minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit to keep you on your toes. For engineers Erik Verhagen and Camille Parisel, working in Antarctica on a project appropriately called “IceCube” is both challenging and exciting. While there are ways to get used to the harsh climate, these experts have to be very resourceful to fix technical difficulties so far away from “civilization.”

Breaking news! Nervous people smoke more than other people. More breaking news: they also find it harder to quit. Those may not be the kinds of insights that get the attention of the Nobel committee, but a new study in the journal Addiction shows how even so straightforward an idea may yield lifesaving benefits. Psychologist Megan Piper of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) wanted to determine what keeps dead-enders hooked.

Concerns raised in the race for governor about embryonic stem cell research are prompting members of the industry to speak up.  Republican candidate for governor Scott Walker says he wants the state to support adult stem cell research, instead of work using embryonic stem cells.

HealthMap.org?s new mobile phone application “Outbreaks Near Me,” which accepts and relays wildlife health reports to the WHER site. Scientists at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison created the WHER site. Users create accounts online to register sightings of sick or dead wildlife. Everyone can visit the site and view the reports.

Forget the Old Farmers? Almanac, caterpillars are expecting a mild winter. UW-Madison bug expert Phil Pellitteri has been checking out the woolly bear caterpillars, noting the size of the reddish band around their middle. ?The ones from this year ? I would say it?s approaching 60 percent ? 55 to 60 percent ? of the total body length, which is a good sign. Whereas if it?s relatively minimal ? 20 or 30 percent ? that?s not a good sign.?

Like many researchers, UW-Madison neuroscientist Ronald Kalil would not classify himself as a very political person. He doesn?t subscribe to a specific party and tries to “keep an open mind about all sides of an issue.” His primary commitment is to cutting edge research, searching for regenerative therapies for brain injuries.

Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

A team of investigators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is looking into the UW-Madison?s record of citations regarding the use of animals in research, which could lead to fines or other sanctions.

In an academic-corporate partnership that may represent the future of stem cell research, Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago has teamed up with a biotech company to begin the first human trials of a therapy derived from embryonic stem cells.

Noted: Separately on Monday, the University of Wisconsin filed with the appeals court its own 50-page amicus brief. Among its arguments: that Congress has clearly signaled its belief that current law allows funding of stem cell research, by doling out some $550 million for the research since 2002. In light of this, the university?s lawyers write, ?appellees? core claim that the [law] `unambiguously prohibits? such research borders on the frivolous.?

According to a report by the University Committee, UW-Madison researcher Michele Basso?s right to due process was violated when her primate research lab was temporarily shut down last year.

Food Fight Inc. will operate the two public restaurants and catering services at the $205 million Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, which is expected to open in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in December.

More University of Wisconsin-Madison students will get an opportunity to learn computer science from the industry?s biggest name.

For the past ten years scientists have been planning and building an ambitious experiment to explain the mystery of what produces the cosmic rays and elusive particles known as neutrinos, which constantly pepper our planet.

Dear Editor: After reviewing evidence presented to her in April of this year, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Amy Smith found probable cause to believe that several employees of the UW-Madison violated the ?Crimes Against Animals? Wisconsin statutes during experiments when sheep were killed using decompression. Those experiments took place over several years at the UW and I am concerned that these experiments are still going on.

Noted: The summit was hosted by the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative, created in 2007 by the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Girls are just as good at math as boys but still hear messages to the contrary that may keep them away from certain classes and careers, according to a new review of math skills.

Males and females have equal math skills, a new report confirms.

While social scientists agree that both genders have equal math abilities, many parents and teachers still believe boys are better at math than girls. This can lead them to guide girls away from careers in math-heavy sciences or engineering, said the study’s chief author Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The UW?s efforts to diversify its faculty can be thwarted for many reasons. Unintended bias is one of them. A study funded by the National Institute of Health will develop a video game to neutralize assumptions that keep women and minorities from the sciences.

A $2 million grant to fund the development of a video game to examine and correct implicit biases in faculty members will continue the University of Wisconsin?s focus on increasing faculty diversity for the next three years.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2007 has been training a small but highly motivated group of students to be able to work in both science and public policy.

For the first time, surgeons have injected a spinal cord injury patient with human embryonic stem cells in a federally approved experiment, a biomedical firm said Monday. Food and Drug Administration officials approved the start of the privately funded safety trial in July, allowing a long-awaited test of the cells, which were grown from a single embryo to resemble forerunners to spinal cells. The unnamed patient received the cells at the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta hospital specializing in brain, spine and related ailments.

Geron Corp. has begun testing an embryonic stem-cell treatment on a patient with spinal cord injuries, marking the first time such a medical therapy has been used on a human in a government approved study.

Science writing has really changed in the past twenty years. A new market exists now: science for the layperson. Books like Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach and The Poisoner?s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum, make forensics, chemistry, and medicine accessible to the everyday reader.