A roundup of a some interesting On Campus items includes news of a “Meeting of the Minds” in New York City for alumni and UW-Madison friends on Wednesday, Sept. 29. The event will feature four faculty members talking about what it means to live in a democracy in 2010. Also, a team of UW-Madison undergraduate students is one of three groups that won $48,000 to build an “inflatable loft” for NASA.
One day in 2007, Dr. Giulio Tononi lay on a hospital stretcher as an anesthesiologist prepared him for surgery. For Dr. Tononi, it was a moment of intellectual exhilaration. He is a distinguished chair in consciousness science at the University of Wisconsin, and for much of his life he has been developing a theory of consciousness. Lying in the hospital, Dr. Tononi finally had a chance to become his own experiment.
The University of Wisconsin will be teaming up with three of the state?s largest engineering research schools to become the fourth member of an energy research powerhouse that will combine university research and businesses.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
Noted: Work by UW-Madison researchers to estimate the state’s bear population.
The Dane County Board of Supervisors ruled against bringing the discussion of UW-Madison?s primate research onto the floor Thursday night, providing a blow to advocates on both sides of the debate.
Members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors voted down a resolution to create an advisory panel specifically focused on animal research conducted at the University of Wisconsin Thursday night.
Efforts to convince the Dane County Board to form a citizens advisory panel to examine whether experimenting on monkeys at UW-Madison is humane and ethical are dead following a vote Thursday night at the City County Building.
Noted: the 75-year-old Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, considered a leader in turning university research into products that benefit society, and using the licensing income to support further scientific investigation.
The unfolding legal dispute over human embryonic stem cells shifted to the political arena today as senators sounded off and prominent scientists pleaded their case before a Senate subcommittee hearing.
Noted: As an example, Rotenberg pointed to the technology transfer program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The 75-year-old Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation is considered a leader in turning university research into products that benefit society, and using the licensing income to support further scientific investigation. Emily Bauer, a licensing manager at the foundation who specializes in plant technology, said it generally prefers nonexclusive licensing because it wants the technology to be widely used. She said the foundation doesn?t usually award exclusive licenses for agricultural products. But in some cases, she said, exclusive licensing is the only way to get the technology into the marketplace.
In education today, data is king. It?s used to prove school effectiveness, track student achievement and even, in some cases, set teacher pay. The trick for schools is getting quality metrics and using them to assess individuals and effect positive change in the classroom.
I write in support of Resolution 35, by which Dane County would set up a citizens? panel to discuss the ethics of experimentation on monkeys. As lead sponsor, I believe it addresses justifiable citizen concerns about what a public institution in our community is doing in our name with our tax dollars.
It is appropriate for the county to deal with this issue. Many citizens have expressed concern about the monkeys held in captivity on the University of Wisconsin campus. It is natural that citizens should contact their local government officials, who are closest to them and most approachable.
If my parents thought it was hard to keep track of my major, they should try keeping tabs on the availability of embryonic stem-cell research funding.
Dear Editor: The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been a responsive partner to the Dane County Board, providing information requested on animal research programs to board members and staff.
Our commitment to open, transparent research extends to a series of public forums. The first of those forums has been scheduled for November, and has already drawn an enthusiastic response from the community. We hope members of the public join in the discussion.
Twelve University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate students will be constructing an intergalactic inflatable habitat for astronauts this year for a course offered by the Engineering Department.
Those hoping to convince the Dane County Board a citizens advisory panel should be formed to examine whether or not experimenting on monkeys at UW-Madison is humane and ethical are facing a critical vote Thursday night.
Although such a resolution was approved by the Health and Human Needs Committee on June 29 by a 5-2 margin, it stalled in the Executive Committee on July 8. So Al Matano, who is lead sponsor of the resolution, introduced a motion to withdraw from all committees, and the Dane County Board is slated to vote on this issue at Thursday?s meeting.
It is 8:30 on a crisp September morning, the start of a busy day for preschoolers at the Waisman Center?s Early Childhood Program, a nationally renowned laboratory school.
At a piano in the gym, a teacher holds a 4-year-old named Michael in her lap and helps him tap out “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” She speaks to him using both sign language and a singsong voice. Several other boys driving toy cars swerve around another teacher doing duty as traffic cop. A student teacher is coloring at a table with students.
Governor Doyle and UW officials are absolutely right to join the effort to appeal a recent federal court ruling that has stopped major stem cell research dead in its tracks. Sometimes you wonder if it?s worth the effort to devote resources to issues being decided at the federal level, but the impacts of this ruling on the state of Wisconsin, and the citizens of the state of Wisconsin are too significant to ignore.
A group of Dane County Board members Thursday night will attempt to pull a resolution from committee so that the entire board can vote on whether to form an advisory panel to study the ethics of experimenting on monkeys at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A majority of the board ought to join that effort.
Last Thursday, the Obama administration formally challenged a court order by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to suspend the federal funding of stem-cell research. Lamberth?s injunction, issued on Aug. 23, blocked President Obama?s push for public endowment on the basis that such funding violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. The amendment was a ?rider? to a 1995 bill, meaning that it would never have passed as its own legislation, and thus was added onto a distantly related proposal. Dickey-Wicker specifically bars public funding for the creation and endangerment of embryonic cells for research purposes.
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists say they want to give the public a better understanding of why they experiment on animals.
Orthopedic surgeons who were paid millions by medical device manufacturers often failed to disclose their financial ties in their published research, according to a new study that mirrors findings of an ongoing Journal Sentinel investigation. The new study found that nearly half of orthopedic surgeons who made at least $1 million from any of five orthopedic device makers in 2007 did not have that relationship published in their scientific articles in 2008.
At least one in 13 pregnant women suffers from mental health problems, and that rate jumps to one in three if women have a history of mental health issues, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study that researchers say is the first to systematically examine the issue on a national scale.
“Poor mental health during pregnancy can lead to problems during pregnancy and beyond, like having low birth weight babies or postpartum depression. So we want to try and prevent women from developing mental health problems during pregnancy,” said Whitney Witt, lead author of the study and assistant professor of population health sciences at UW-Madison.
On May 15, 1985, trainers at Hawaii Sea Life Park were stunned when a 400- pound gray female bottlenose dolphin named Punahele gave birth to a dark-skinned calf that partly resembled the 2,000-pound male false killer whale with whom she shared a pool.
More than half of the monkeys shipped by UW-Madison from the Vilas Zoo to the Wild Animal Orphanage in San Antonio back in 1998 appear to be dead, Rick Bogle writes in his Primate Freedom blog. Bogle, the co-director of the Madison-based Alliance for Animals, wrote last week that the “United States Department of Agriculture is scrambling to find homes for approximately 204 primates and an additional 114 other large animals after years of serious violations of the US Animal Welfare Act including inadequate and improper food. Twenty-two of those monkeys are the survivors of the large colony sent there by the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1998.”
Using animals for the pursuit of scientific growth has been a hotly contested topic at the University of Wisconsin, but a proposed series of community forums will attempt to shed light upon the animal research program at UW.
As Wisconsin seeks to join the legal battle over the injunction halting federal funding for stem cell research, it seems Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen will be sitting this decision out.
STEVENS POINT ? Dave Obey was on hand here a few days ago as University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point officials, faculty, students and community leaders celebrated the launching of the Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology in ceremonies on campus.
Obey?s presence was fitting. He directed about $1.4 million of federal funds to support the institute at the university, which will take an interdisciplinary approach as it creates and commercializes sustainable technologies and connects the campus to the business community.
Beneath the soil where college students trod each day, there is a chamber that creeps and crawls and writhes. Here, the humid air is sweet with the odor of rotten flesh and thousands of bugs devour once-living animals, piece by piece. This is UW-Madison?s dermestarium, or colony of dermestid beetles. Nearly half a million strong, the insects dine on the stringy muscle of carcasses, meticulously cleaning the bones of zoological specimens for museum displays and research.
Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
UW-Madison is planning a series of community forums on the use of animals in research. The forums, proposed by Provost Paul DeLuca and Graduate School Dean Martin Cadwallader, are intended to open up dialogue on the often thorny issue. The forums will be held quarterly with the first one expected to occur in November.
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists say they want to give the public a better understanding of why they experiment on animals. The school announced it is planning a series of community forums to discuss the animal research
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists said they want to give the public a better understanding of why they experiment on animals.
The federal government can continue to finance embryonic-stem-cell research, temporarily, because a federal appeals court on Thursday lifted an injunction that had blocked such work. The move added to optimism about eventual victory for university scientists who use this research in a search for cures for a range of devastating diseases.
UW-Madison is planning a series of community forums on the use of animals in research.The forums, proposed by Provost Paul DeLuca and Graduate School Dean Martin Cadwallader, are intended to open up dialogue on the often thorny issue.
Federal judges Thursday temporarily stayed a human embryonic stem cell research funding cut-off, allowing experiments to continue for now.
The government may resume funding of embryonic stem cell research for now, an appeals court said Thursday, but the short-term approval may be of little help to research scientists caught in a legal battle that has just begun.
Stem cell researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are relieved by a court ruling that will allow their federal funding to continue temporarily. Researchers had warned that studies on a range of diseases would come to a halt if a federal judge?s order blocking the funding stayed in place. An appeals court ruled Thursday the funding can proceed temporarily until the court rules on the Obama administration?s position in a lawsuit that calls the research illegal. UW-Madison?s federal lobbyist Rhonda Norsetter says the decision is terrific news.
A leading scientist at UW-Madison praised a ruling Thursday lifting a recent ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research but said an ongoing court case still calls the future of the funding into question. “It?s good news; we hope this will allow the research to go on unimpeded,” said Dr. Tim Kamp, director of the university?s Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center. “The challenge is that it?s hard to plan for the future with this on-again, off-again situation.” A federal appeals court permitted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to proceed while it considers a judge?s ruling last month that had temporarily shut off the funds.
The government may resume funding of embryonic stem cell research for now, an appeals court said Thursday, but the short-term approval may be of little help to research scientists caught in a legal battle that has just begun. It is far from certain that scientists actually will continue to get federal money as they struggle to decide what to do with research that is hard to start and stop.
Quoted: Dr. Norman Fost, director of the bioethics program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was on the National Academy of Sciences committee that wrote the first national guidelines on embryonic human stem cells.
Governor Doyle and UW officials are absolutely right to join the effort to appeal a recent federal court ruling that has stopped major stem cell research dead in its tracks. Sometimes you wonder if it?s worth the effort to devote resources to issues being decided at the federal level, but the impacts of this ruling on the state of Wisconsin, and the citizens of the state of Wisconsin are too significant to ignore.
Federal judges Thursday temporarily stayed a human embryonic stem cell research funding cut-off, allowing experiments to continue for now.
Following an outcry from the Obama administration and the scientific community, an appeals court Thursday lifted the controversial Aug. 23 injunction placed on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research by Judge Royce C. Lamberth.
Stem cell researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are relieved by a court ruling that will allow their federal funding to continue temporarily.
Former Northwestern University researcher, professor and neurophysiologist Jon Levine assumed the position of Wisconsin National Primate Research Director this month.
A researcher ready to face the challenges ahead recently stepped in to lead one of the University of Wisconsin?s most controversial research centers.
A University of Wisconsin research center received thousands in grant money from one of the world?s most famous holy figures Wednesday.
The donation of $50,000 is from the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso?s, personal trust fund, UW spokesperson Jill Sakai said, and will be used by the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds to further research.
A federal judge denied President Barack Obama?s emergency motion to overturn an injunction halting federal funding for stem cell research Tuesday, turning over the fight to individual states and legal authorities.
Dear Editor: Barbara Franz wrote that ?if you believe scientists can put animals in a sterile and stressful environment and make any conclusions about medical research, you?ve been duped.? I think if she had a better understanding of the findings of her example used to demonstrate her opinion, she might not have come to this conclusion.
Ecologists have long wondered how to tell when a population of animals is about to slide toward extinction. A new study provides a statistical alarm that does just that. “The paper is an important test of early-warning signals,” says ecologist Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the work. The result was based on a simple laboratory experiment, but if the technique works in the wild, it could help land managers know when they need to step up their conservation efforts.
The Dalai Lama is living up to his promise to support research at UW-Madison?s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds.
The Dalai Lama is putting his money where his mouth is. The Tibetan spiritual leader has given $50,000 from his personal trust to support research into the science behind kindness and compassion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The grant to the school?s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds comes after the Dalai Lama promoted its work during a visit to Madison in May.
Gov. Jim Doyle came out in support of embryonic stem cell research at the University of Wisconsin Tuesday, vowing to fight a recent injunction halting federal funding for facilities across the country that perform stem cell research.
Gov. Jim Doyle said a court ruling blocking funding for embryonic stem cell research could be detrimental to Wisconsin?s growing biotechnology industry
A judge has sentenced a former University of Wisconsin-Madison genetics researcher to two years of probation for submitting false data to federal reviewers.
Wisconsin will “move forward on every legal front we can” to overturn a court ruling that has blocked federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday.
The Tibetan spiritual leader has given $50,000 from his personal trust to support research into the science behind kindness and compassion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
One hundred years ago, following a whirlwind visit to 155 medical schools, Abraham Flexner issued a report that reshaped American medicine. His observations and recommendations led to major changes in U.S. medical education. Our nation?s medical schools subsequently provided innovations that have dramatically transformed the practice of medicine, thereby greatly improving public health.
Nevertheless, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund report, the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world and consistently underperforms other countries on most measures of performance. Thus, our medical schools, which currently lead the world in biomedical research and health professions education, are faced with a challenging mission if they are to continue their leadership in improving health.
Wisconsin will “move forward on every legal front we can” to overturn a court ruling that has blocked federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday.D oyle said the injunction entered by a federal judge in Washington last month could cripple Wisconsin?s growing bioscience industry and stop the search for cures for disease. Doyle spoke at the Waisman Center, where UW-Madison scientists using stem cells to study ways to treat eye disorders and Down syndrome expect to immediately lose grants totaling $400,000. UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said two dozen university researchers have been affected by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth?s decision, and jobs and millions of dollars are at stake.
