Henry Lardy, a highly regarded emeritus professor of biochemistry at UW-Madison, died of complications due to cancer on Wednesday. He was 92.
“He was really one of the most outstanding people to ever work in our department,” says Hector DeLuca, a longtime UW-Madison biochemistry professor who is a former student of Lardy?s. “He was a very in-demand researcher and yet was so down-to-earth.”
Until just a few months ago, Henry Lardy could still be found almost every day in his biochemistry lab on the UW-Madison campus, where for more than 60 years he sought solutions to vexing problems from AIDS to sudden infant death syndrome.
His work led to widespread acclaim ? membership in the National Academy of Sciences, winner of the prestigious Wolf Foundation Award in Agriculture ? and a long record of scientific insights.
Sigan Hartley, assistant professor of human development and family studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Waisman Centre, said, ?There seems to be a prolonged vulnerability for divorce in parents of children with autism?Typically, if couples can survive the early child-rearing years, parenting demands decrease and there is often less strain on the marriage?However, parents of children with autism often continue to live with and experience high parenting demands into their child?s adulthood, and thus marital strain may remain high in these later years.?
The daily casualty lists of U.S. troops killed in Iraq mention a hometown for each person – places large and small, urban and rural, where flag-draped coffins return to grieving communities. According to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologists, rural communities across America have paid a proportionately more costly price in the Iraq war with higher death rates of American military members compared with metropolitan areas.
The H1N1 swine flu virus underwent a mutation and used a new trick to spread efficiently in people, another signal to help experts predict whether a flu virus can cause a pandemic, researchers said Friday.
The H1N1 swine flu virus was first identified in people in April 2009 but genetic research later suggested it had in fact been circulating for at least a decade and probably longer in pigs. “This pandemic H1N1 (virus) has this mutation and is why it can replicate so well in humans,” wrote Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s School of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Tokyo, who co-authored the paper.
According to a study by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Waisman Center, parents of grown children with autism are more likely to divorce than couples with typically developing children, according to new data from a large longitudinal study of families of adolescents and adults with autism.
MADISON, Wis. — It sounds like science fiction: storms on the Sun?s surface having a ripple effect on Earth with far-reaching plasma interfering with all sorts of human technology. Some solar activity can be significant and cause widespread problems with satellites and other technology, but the latest activity isn?t thought to be a cause of concern. In fact, the activity was expected to produce some spectacular Northern Lights that were to be visible in Wisconsin on Wednesday night.
Quoted: UW-Madison astronomy professor Alex Lazarian
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to collaborate with Milwaukee academics to improve water-treatment technologies. EPA head Lisa Jackson is scheduled to meet with Wisconsin officials Thursday afternoon. She?s expected to sign a research agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The Human Services Board is next in line to discuss the merits of a resolution which asks the chair of the Dane County Board to appoint a citizens advisory panel to examine whether or not experimenting on monkeys at UW-Madison is humane and ethical.
This topic is listed on the agenda for Thursday?s (today’s) Human Services Board meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. in room 357 of the City-County Building, 210 MLK Blvd.
The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Georgia State University and Boston University, said they weren?t surprised that parents of ASD children were nearly twice as likely to divorce. Their results were in line with another study that found couples raising a child with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder were about twice as likely to split up compared to other couples.
The H1N1 “swine” flu virus used a biochemical trick to spread efficiently in humans, according to a new study released on Thursday.The virus caused a worldwide epidemic in 2009-10 that sickened up to 34 million Americans alone and caused up to an estimated 6,000 deaths in the U.S.
The report in the current issue of Public Library of Science Pathogens said H1N1 used a different way to jump from an animal host to humans than what was previously discovered by scientists.
Yoshihiro Kawaoka, professor of pathobiological sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and one of the world’s leading influenza experts, said the discovery of the mutation in the H1N1 virus helps explain how the virus replicated so well in humans.
Wearing hard hats, T-shirts and shorts, drillers practiced their work skills Monday afternoon with one big exception.There was no ice.Training for a trip to the South Pole, the group practiced lowering equipment into a concrete hole at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Physical Sciences Laboratory and wiped the sweat from their faces in the 85-degree heat.
Detectors buried thousands of feet under the Antarctic ice recently confirmed a mysterious cosmic lopsidedness. Though it might seem reasonable for our planet to receive energetic particles, called cosmic rays, on average from all directions equally, more cosmic rays? seem to approach Earth from certain preferred directions. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which is still under construction, confirmed these odd cosmic ray preferences, previously detected in the northern hemisphere.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison doctor who was the subject of Journal Sentinel report in November about researchers who failed to disclose conflicts of interest in published research has resigned from the university amid an investigation of a clinical trial that he headed.
Stoughton ? Wearing hard hats, T-shirts and shorts, drillers practiced their work skills Monday afternoon with one big exception. There was no ice.
Training for a trip to the South Pole, the group practiced lowering equipment into a concrete hole at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Physical Sciences Laboratory and wiped the sweat from their faces in the 85-degree heat.
Most have already spent several seasons working during the Antarctic?s austral summer and know that soon, most of their skin will be covered to prevent frostbite. They?re part of the crew installing the IceCube Neutrino Observatory scheduled to finish in December.
STOUGHTON ? Here in the cornfields, Nathan Bowker wears a blue T-shirt that reads, ?Hello from South Pole, Antarctica.?
On an 80-degree day that?s muggy enough to make straight hair curl, it doesn?t seem like Bowker could get much further from the South Pole. But he?s part of a team that spent Monday preparing for a trip there in November ? summer in Antarctica ? where he and others are expected to complete the IceCube neutrino detector. When it is finished, it will be the world?s largest such device.
A prominent UW-Madison cancer researcher has abruptly resigned after university officials began investigating a potential conflict of interest involving his outside business interests.
The case involving Dr. Minesh Mehta, an internationally recognized expert on human clinical cancer trials, comes amid heightened national scrutiny of doctors? ties to industry and the university?s own attempts to better monitor such relationships.
An inspection conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture July 17 revealed further breaches of the Animal Welfare Act by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It may be 80 degrees and muggy enough to make straight hair curl, but scientists are gathering in Stoughton today to prepare for a far different climate.They are getting ready for the annual work season in Antarctica, where the IceCube neutrino detector has been under construction since 2004. The world?s largest such detector, it is expected to be completed this winter.
Talandra Jennings and Infinity Gamble couldn?t contain their excitement as the 11-year-olds showed off the zucchini picked from the East High Youth Farm on a recent morning.
It was the first vegetable harvested from their section of the farm, which consists of a number of gardens in an area next to Kennedy Elementary School. The two girls, who will be sixth graders at O?Keeffe Middle School, are working at the East High Youth Farm, which is a hands-on science and vocational program focused on sustainable agriculture and service learning.
An internationally renowned cancer researcher at UW-Madison abruptly resigned this spring after university officials began investigating a potential conflict of interest involving his outside business interests. The State Journal looks at the case of this prominent doctor and how a 22-year career at UW-Madison came to a surprising end.
Wisconsin ranks fifth nationally in childhood exposure to secondhand smoke, according to a study published in the July Pediatrics. More than one in 10 children in the state regularly breathed in secondhand smoke, compared with about one in 100 in Utah.
In the households of smokers, 39% of children regularly breathe in secondhand smoke. Only West Virginia outranks Wisconsin on that measure. The study surveyed 2,000 households across the state in 2007.
Secondhand smoke is tied to heart disease, asthma and premature birth, said Nathan Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison statistician who analyzed the state data.
A particle observatory at the South Pole has produced a scientific result about a phenomenon the telescope was not even designed to study, researchers say. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, designed to capture evidence of elusive but scientifically important subatomic particles called neutrinos, offered up some unexpected new science about cosmic rays, a University of Wisconsin-Madison release said Tuesday.
On a Sunday afternoon last year Larry Studesville received the most important phone call of his life. A young man had died in a tragic accident; did Studesville want his kidney?
Studesville, then 62, was at UW Hospital within two hours. “It was another chance at life,” he recalls. A grieving family?s gift helped Studesville, whose own kidneys were failing due to hypertension and diabetes, beat grim odds. But other African-Americans have not been so fortunate.
U.S. troops from rural parts of the country are dying at higher rates than urban soldiers in the Iraq War, according to a study by a UW-Madison sociologist.
People from rural areas enlist in the military at higher rates, said Katherine Curtis, assistant professor of sociology, and once there, are killed in disproportionate numbers.
U.S. troops from rural parts of the country are dying at higher rates than urban soldiers in the Iraq War, according to a study by a UW-Madison sociologist. People from rural areas enlist in the military at higher rates, said Katherine Curtis, assistant professor of sociology, and once there, are killed in disproportionate numbers.
A diet rich in all the things that are known to be good for your health also can protect against vision-stealing cataracts, according to new research by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists.
Noted: Can all this be backed up by science? Professor Richard Weindruch, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, started researching the effects of CR on primates 20 years ago. Last year he published a report in Science that revealed that while 37 per cent of control-fed animals had died from old age, only 13 per cent of those fed a calorie-restricted diet had. CR seemed to slow the onset of age-associated pathologies.
Wisconsin?s unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level since February of 2009. But, the number of jobs lost last month was actually up.
The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery ? the public/private interdisciplinary research center set to open in December in the heart of the UW-Madison campus ? will be more than a warren of laboratories. Much more, says WARF programming director Laura Heisler, who spoke Tuesday at a Wisconsin Technology Council luncheon.
The findings show that altruism blossoms in cultures that divvy up child-care duties, and hint that the human instinct to help others stems from our communal child-care system, said primatologist Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, co-author of the study.
A diet rich in all the things that are known to be good for your health also can protect against vision-stealing cataracts, according to new research by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists.
Noted: To find out I speak to Professor Richard Weindruch at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who 20 years ago began to research the effects of CR on primates.In 2009 ? ?an exciting breakthrough year?, he tells me ? he published an interim report in Science that revealed that, while 37 per cent of their control-fed animals had died from old age, only 13 per cent of the ones fed a calorie-restricted diet had.
Quoted: The wind is air in motion, say Steven Ackerman and Jonathan Martin. The atmosphere is made up of gas molecules, mostly nitrogen and oxygen. These gas molecules are constantly in motion and exert a force when they strike an object, like our bodies. The force exerted by the molecules hitting you is a function of the speed, number and mass of the molecules.
Quoted: John Young has been Wisconsin?s state climatologist for eight years. He is an emeritus professor in UW-Madison?s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and stills gets excited about the weather.
Quoted: Allen Clauss, a UW-Madison chemistry lecturer who previously worked at consumer products company Procter & Gamble Co., saying the main differences are in the pH, presence or absence of bleach, and the types of surfactants – long molecules that are water-loving at one end and oil-loving at the other. “Surfactants are active ingredients we put in cleaning products that bridge the gap between water and greasy dirt and help wash it away,” he says.
Upper class parents are likelier to have children with autism, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study. The findings suggest either the genetics or the lifestyles of wealthier people predispose their children to autism.
Researchers have spent decades trying to untangle the factors that cause autism. Since the 1940s, scientists noticed wealthier and more educated families had children with the disorder, said Maureen Durkin, a UW-Madison epidemiologist and lead author of the study.
With the Gulf oil spill nearly under control, a UW professor assesses the damage.We first talked to Dr. Anders Andren in early June, not long after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank. At the time of the accident the Coast Guard and BP thought about 1,000 barrels a day was leaking into the Gulf.
The two dozen middle school students were tired and hungry at the end of a long day, but still fully engaged, raising their hands to ask such questions as, ?How do you spell cryopreservation?? and ?What, exactly, is a stem cell?? Renowned UW scientist Jeff Jones, a pioneer in stem cell research, had these kids under his spell.
One crucial lesson from the BP oil spill is that measures to speed licensing, cut corners on safety and undermine regulation can lead to tragic consequences. Yet Congress appears on the verge of repeating mistakes that led to the environmental catastrophe in the Gulf.
In February 1907, a New York physician discovered that his longtime dairy supplier had switched to pasteurized milk. He so detested the practice?not to mention the taste?that, as he wrote to the New York Times, he would rather “run the risk of typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis rather than [endure] the evils that I believe would follow the systematic and prolonged use of pasteurized milk.”
The UW Center for Nonprofits will study how nonprofits may have contributed to a dramatic decline in Dane County?s black infant mortality rate in recent years, the center announced. The center received a $50,000 grant from the UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research to look at nonprofits? influence on black babies surviving their first year. The county?s black infant mortality rate declined in 2002 to 2007, a decrease that gained national attention, but rose in 2008 and remained higher last year than the earlier years. ABC for Health, Access Community Health Centers and the South Madison Health and Family Center-Harambee are among the agencies that will be analyzed, said Jeanan Yasiri, executive director of the UW Center for Nonprofits.
For cottontop tamarin monkeys, the golden rule rules.
Though the tiny creatures look more like gremlins than humans, they do seem to share one trait with us: altruism. Tamarins give their partners a tasty treat even when it doesn?t benefit them, and even when their mate had been stingy with them in the past, according to a study published online July 14 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
For cottontop tamarin monkeys, the golden rule rules.Though the tiny creatures look more like gremlins than humans, they do seem to share one trait with us: altruism. Tamarins give their partners a tasty treat even when it doesn?t benefit them, and even when their mate had been stingy with them in the past, according to a study published online July 14 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The findings show that altruism blossoms in cultures that divvy up child-care duties, and hint that the human instinct to help others stems from our communal child-care system, said primatologist Charles Snowdon of University of Wisconsin-Madison, co-author of the study.
Frowning affects one?s ability to understand written language related to emotions, a U.S. researcher found. David Havas, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, questioned whether a person whose “frowning” forehead muscles had been deactivated via Botox injections had changed facial expression, thoughts and emotions.
Dear Editor: Those who support animal rights should not automatically be labeled troublemakers or malcontents, a point made by Amy Kerwin in her letter to the editor. They may, in fact, be correct.
Using animals in medical research, for example, deserves a great deal more consideration than it is apparently receiving at facilities such as the UW-Madison primate lab, where thousands of monkeys are kept in barren solitary confinement for their entire lifetimes. Their reactions to medicines or procedures, we?re told, eventually help save human lives.
Veterinarians are practicing ever more advanced medicine on the nation?s 77 million dogs, 90 million cats and a myriad of other animals — treatments that vie with the best of human medicine. The driving force is “the changing role of the pet in our society,” said Dr. Patty Khuly, a veterinarian at Miami?s Sunset Animal Clinic. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, a new surgical technique to repair torn knee ligaments in dogs was so successful that it?s now being used on NFL players, said Dr. William Gengler, director of Wisconsin?s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.
How the leopard got its spots and the zebra its stripes might not be just-so stories much longer. Biologists are beginning to pinpoint the molecular mechanisms animals use to deck themselves out with colorful swirls, stripes, spots and dots.
That Bluetooth device for your cell phone or laptop computer can do more than just make a connection. TrafficCast International in Madison has found a way to use the wireless devices to show the real-time flow of traffic, whether it?s on some of the nation?s busiest stretches of highway or the smallest back road. TrafficCast was founded in 1996 by Connie J. Li and her husband, Bin Ran, both traffic engineers; Ran is on the engineering faculty at UW-Madison.
Troy Runge holds what could be America?s energy future in his hands — and it looks a little like dog food. A mix of sawdust bound into pellets, it?s Runge?s latest creation in his lab on the UW-Madison campus. There, he?s been trying different combinations of plant materials, or biomass, as a fuel to replace the coal that burns in the Charter Street power plant about a half-mile away. Runge?s work is part of a broader initiative on campus to develop renewable energy sources.
Dane County?s black infant mortality rate, which spiked in 2008 after years of surprising declines, dropped last year – but remained higher than the good years that received national attention. Health officials, puzzled by the mixed picture, say they will investigate every infant death and hope to expand home visits to pregnant women. A UW-Madison study continues to examine the situation in Dane County and in Racine County, where the black infant mortality rate has remained high.
Most allergies ? especially to airborne allergens associated with runny noses and itchy eyes ? come on in the teenage years or early twenties, according to Mark Moss, UW-Madison professor of pediatrics and immunology. Late allergy emergence is a bit of a mystery, Moss said, so much so that late-developing allergies aren?t seen as late-developing at all. If you have the potential for an allergic reaction, it?s probably always been there, waiting for the right mote of dust to waft by.
Dear Editor: Thank you for your coverage of the Dane County Board meetings on forming an advisory panel to examine the ethics and efficacy of primate research. I thought it was unfair of some University of Wisconsin speakers to label everyone supporting the advisory panel as ?animal rights? people simply because one has valid concerns about primate research such as stress-inducing handling procedures and abnormal behavior.
When I worked as a primate researcher at the Harlow Lab in 1999-2004, I was well-liked and a very hard worker. I was taught that ?animal rights? people were ignorant and violent. I was instructed to ignore them.
A new poll shows Wisconsinites are not pleased with state or national politicians. The University of Wisconsin Survey Center?s Badger Poll released Friday shows President Barack Obama?s approval rating at 49 percent, down from 60 percent in November. Only 29 percent approve of the job being done by Congress while 64 percent do not approve.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle?s approval rating has hit a new low. The University of Wisconsin Survey Center?s Badger Poll released on Friday shows the two-term governor?s approval rating at just 38 percent. That is down from a high of 52 percent in June 2007.
Federal investigators once again found violations at UW-Madison?s animal research facilities during another unannounced inspection earlier this week.
The inspectors from the United States Department of Agriculture, however, didn?t find as many problems as they did during a surprise visit to campus in December.
Eric Sandgren, who is charged with overseeing animal research at UW-Madison as director of the Research Animal Resources Center, said nothing “major” was found. But, he added, “at the same time I?m sick and tired of all these nickel and dime things. There is no excuse for these violations to continue.”
Poll results released Thursday show Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold has 27 percent support and Republican challenger Ron Johnson has 21 percent in a Senate race in which more than half of those asked say they?re still undecided. About another 1 percent said they would vote for a candidate other than Feingold or Johnson. The margin of error in the University of Wisconsin Badger Poll was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
“In the scheme of things, they?re kind of pretty,” said UW-Madison entomologist Phil Pelliteri, inexplicably, of house centipedes. But then he added, pretty quickly, “It?s one of those creepy-crawlies that no one seems to like.”
A new poll shows that either major Republican candidate for governor would crush the Democrat should the election be held now. But the University of Wisconsin Badger Poll released on Thursday also shows that most people just aren?t paying attention to the race four months before the election. The poll shows that 32 percent would vote for either Republican Scott Walker or Mark Neumann. Only 15 percent say they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett.
Most people aren?t paying attention to Wisconsin?s governor?s race, but those who are overwhelmingly favor the Republican candidates, a poll released Thursday showed. The University of Wisconsin Survey Center?s Badger Poll showed that 32 percent of those who responded to the random telephone poll would vote for either Republican Scott Walker or Mark Neumann. Only 15 percent said they would vote for Democrat Tom Barrett.
