Category: Research

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

A study of more than 700 people, many with a family history of Alzheimer?s disease, has identified a genetic factor that could help determine if people in their 50s will develop the disease later in life.

The study, by researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, was presented Wednesday at the annual Alzheimer?s Association?s International Conference on Alzheimer?s Disease in Honolulu.

Monkeys in enduring relationships show a surprising correspondence in their levels of oxytocin, a key behavioral hormone, according to research published online June 28 in the journal Hormones and Behavior.

While measuring oxytocin in the urine of 14 pairs of cotton-top tamarins, Charles Snowdon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of psychology, observed a wide range of hormone levels. But he also saw a striking correspondence among the couples: When one mate had a high level of oxytocin, so did the other, and vice versa.

Beneath a mile of ice in Antarctica, technologies from Massachusetts companies are helping physicists detect ghostly particles smaller than atoms that shower down on Earth from faraway galaxies, carrying clues about the makeup of the universe.

This is “family fun?” Let?s find better ways to spend tax dollars and celebrate patriotism besides destroying a wetland, terrorizing wildlife and perpetuating the disease of militarism. The city should not renew its contract with Rhythm & Booms, writes Trish O?Kane, graduate student, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison.

A resolution that would form a citizens advisory panel to examine whether or not experimenting on monkeys is humane and ethical is on ?life support? following a meeting of the County?s Executive Committee on Thursday night.

Some floated here on boats. Others flew. Still others arrived on the sole of a dirty boot. Many were invited, but some arrived unannounced. At this point, however, no one really cares how so-called alien species like the ash borer and the zebra mussel got here. Scientists are more focused on how to get rid of these pests.

The next time the Brewers go on a road-trip skid, it might not be their fault.The “winner effect,” in which animals that win a competition win subsequent ones, occurs because of changes in their brain?s circuitry. Those changes are even stronger if the animal had a home-field advantage, according to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.

Reducing the emissions from burning fossil fuels would have health benefits besides stopping rising temperatures, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist. Jonathan Patz said he, like other scientists who participated in a Union of Concerned Scientists telephone press conference Thursday, believe global warming is happening.

Wisconsin?s cranberry growers have made significant gains in the adoption of sustainable management practices over the past two decades, a new University of Wisconsin-Madison survey indicates.

President Barack Obama has not been as good to the UW-Madison as some had hoped. The university?s request for stimulus funding to dramatically increase the size of its primate research facilities has been denied.

Noted: Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University and Dr. Richard Davidson of The University of Wisconsin-Madison are some of the neuroscientists researching stress management, and they contend that people can retrain their brains to combat stress.

The ?winner effect? is boosted by the sight, smell and spatial arrangement of familiar territory, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found.

Did you know your dog could catch the flu? Thanks to a mutated strain of horse influenza that?s surfaced in recent years, it can. Now a UW-Madison researcher has helped prove a new vaccine approved by federal regulators can help with secondary infections that may accompany the virus.

With mats of blue-green algae frequently floating right at UW-Madison?s Lake Mendota shoreline, it only makes sense that the institution?s researchers would use the latest science to study the sometimes dangerous growths.

Should the Dane County Board put together a citizens advisory panel to examine whether or not experiments on monkeys at UW-Madison are humane and ethical?

The debate will continue Thursday night, July 8. That topic is on the agenda for a meeting of the Executive Committee, which is slated to get together at 6 p.m. in room 310 of the City County Building.

For many people, plying the Internet can be a pleasant and informative experience. A few keystrokes and a vast trove of information appears on the computer screen. But if that informative website appears with flashing or flickering, it can pose a serious problem for some people with a form of epilepsy.

A team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Trace Center has created a free tool to help Web developers determine whether a site?s content flashes at a rate and intensity that might induce an epileptic seizure.

Only one gene controls brain development in humans, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In an unexpected twist, a new study casts a classical protein in a surprising new role: Pax6, a well-recognized factor in brain and eye development in mice, appears to play a very different and crucial part in the development of the human brain.

Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of anatomy and neurology at UW who led the new study, said knowledge of this special gene, called a master regulator, may allow scientists to create a large bank of early brain stem cells, “so you can create any kind of neurons or glial cells in the brain or spinal cord.” For example, the technique could allow scientists to generate large numbers of dopamine-generating neurons to replace those lost in Parkinson?s disease.

The human body makes rare antibodies effective against all flu viruses and these might be boosted to design a better universal flu treatment, researchers reported on Monday. Tests on mice suggest these immune system proteins could help most people survive a normally lethal dose of flu virus, the team at the University of Wisconsin and Seattle-based Theraclone Sciences said.

Botox users have long been mocked for their inability to show emotion on their partially paralysed faces. But new research suggests the anti-wrinkle jabs could also affect womenâ??s ability to experience feelings in the first place. The findings are backed up by a similar study by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published in the journal Psychological Science.

Since graduating from D.C. Everest Senior High School in 1957, John Wayne Kennedy has helped discover the Lost Pyramids of Rock Lake in Lake Mills, worked as an investigator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, published a novel and consulted for companies dealing with pesticides. For the past three years, he has found another focus: sending plant and human stem cells into space to see how they reproduce, and in the process creating hardier versions of the plants and perhaps even human organs. The project stemmed from a question heâ??d asked as a biology student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1960: How would plant cells reproduce in zero gravity?