Category: Research

I’ve always been fascinated with words, even have a few favorites that I think create an image as they are uttered. “Moonlight” may mean taking a second job, not an unusual occurrence these days. But to me, it has always conjured up that time of night when all is still and not even the neighbor’s dogs dare to break the silence.

“Bittersweet” is another word that immediately brings to mind that something is both a boon and a bane. Love can be bittersweet and so can victory. But there is no mistaking that if something is termed bittersweet, it is a universal concept that everyone understands.

My love of words extends to familiar sayings and wondering about their origins. That’s one reason I’m pert near in a swivet that the Dictionary of American Regional English is almost complete.

A decline in sun-dimming airborne dust has caused a fast warming of the tropical North Atlantic in recent decades, according to a study that might help predict hurricanes on the other side of the ocean.

About 70 percent of the warming of the Atlantic since the early 1980s was caused by less dust, blown from Saharan sandstorms or caused by volcanic eruptions, U.S.-based scientists wrote in the journal Science.

A decrease in airborne dust and volcanic emissions has contributed to warming the North Atlantic Ocean in the past three decades, a study showed.

About 70 percent of the Atlantic’s warming since 1980, at an average per-decade rate of a half-degree Fahrenheit (a quarter-degree Celsius), was due to less dust blown from African dust storms or to volcanic eruptions, scientists wrote in the journal Science.

“Volcanoes and dust storms are really important if you want to understand (climatic) changes over long periods of time,” said the study’s lead author Amato Evan, a researcher with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Under Milwaukeeâ??s Parental Choice Program, abbreviated MPCP, thousands of low income families can use taxpayer money to send their children to private and even religious schools. The money is subtracted from the budget of the Milwaukee Public School system. Proponents want parents to have a choice as to where their children are educated, believing student achievement will follow.

John Witte of UW-Madison is one of the researchers examining the programâ??s impact. He delivered the bottom line.

On a bone-chilling night in late January, a capacity crowd of roughly 400 people packed the main auditorium at First Unitarian Society on Madisonâ??s west side.

The man everyone came to see was selected by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the worldâ??s 100 most influential people. Heâ??s in regular contact with the Dalai Lama. His work has made him a veritable rock star in the world of neuroscience.

Yet UW-Madison researcher Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., known simply as “Richie” to friends and colleagues, seemed to genuinely enjoy taking questions from the public just as much as he might from scientific colleagues.

The UW-Madison scientists who created a new kind of stem cells two years ago have removed a major obstacle to using the cells to develop treatments: genetic mutations that could cause cancer.

To make the cells â?? called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells â?? scientists put key genes into skin cells to reprogram the cells back to their embryonic states.

A study shows few performance differences between voucher students and those in Milwaukee Public Schools. UW-Madison’s Dr. John Witte says the study shows no significant differences between students in Milwaukee Choice schools and Milwaukee Public Schools.

Joshua M. Hare, a cardiac specialist at the University of Miami, certainly counts himself among the many stem-cell researchers who are eager and excited by President Obama’s expansion of federal support for studies using cells from human embryos.

He’s just not sure that embryos will actually work any better than the more common and less controversial source of stem cells that he’s already using.

Although Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos is talking up the idea of converting almost the entire public school system to a year-round schedule, a new study of MPS schools finds mixed evidence, at best, that it increases academic success.

The study, conducted by Bradley R. Carl, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher, finds little difference in the annual improvement between students on year-round schedules and those on the traditional September to June calendar.

After 120 years, the end is finally near.

“There is nothing like it anywhere else,” said Joan Houston Hall.

In 1889, the American Dialect Society began to write the Dictionary of American Regional English. For 80 years, the project moved along without much direction. Until UW Madison professor Frederick Cassidy took it over.

Cassidy created questionnaires and sent them out to 1002 communities all around America asking questions to discover regional dialects. For example, if you were playing hopscotch in Missouri what would you be doing? You’d be playing ‘hop-skit’. In New York you would run outside to play ‘potsy’. And in Indiana you’d be playing ‘hippity-hop’.

As university research projects go, compiling the Dictionary of American Regional English was a challenging and sometimes hazardous one: It took more than four decades, and thousands of interviews, conducted by researchers who were sometimes chased out of rural communities by suspicious locals.

Finally, though, their monumental effort to chart the idiosyncrasies of regional speech in the US is, as they might say in the south, fixin’ to be done.

The final volume, covering the letters S to Z – and revealing, at long last, the meaning of the Maine word “whiffle-minded” (vacillating) – has received a government grant that should see it being published by the end of next year, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who have been working on the dictionary since 1965.

Interviewed: Tracy Perkins is the Administrative Director for the University of Wisconsin Eye Research Institute in Madison. The UW Eye Research Institute brings together researchers from seemingly divergent disciplines to look for answers to eye-specific diseases and conditions. She tells us how the multi-disciplinary approach works.

Andrea Mason is an assistant professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her research into sensory feedback is part of the work being done at the UW Eye Research Institute. Mason explains how her research relates to the study of vision. (Audio.)

Teeth from exhumed skeletons of crew members Christopher Columbus left on the island of Hispaniola more than 500 years ago reveal the presence of at least one African in the New World as a contemporary of the explorer, it was announced.

A team of researchers is extracting the chemical details of life history from the remains found in shallow graves at the site of La Isabela, the first European town in America, said T. Douglas Price, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of anthropology and leader of the team conducting an analysis of the tooth enamel of three individuals from a larger group excavated almost 20 years ago there.

Noted: A recent study debunks the idea that our immigrant ancestors quickly learned English and the American ways. Researchers Joseph Salmons, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Miranda Wilkerson, now an assistant visiting professor at Western Illinois University, discovered that many immigrants ignored English and relied solely on German schools, churches and business for decades and two or three generations.

“After 50 or more years of living in the United States, many speakers in some communities remained monolingual (in German),” the authors wrote. In one town, the Irish immigrants new to America learned German to fit in.

Scourge. Epidemic. Pest.

All are words often used to describe the pine beetles currently wreaking havoc across large tracts of North America’s forests.

Yet nature is too complex for good-versus-evil characterizations, says Cameron Currie, an Edmonton-born UW-Madison scientist whose recent work has discovered a potential upside to the notorious bugs.

There are no signs that point to the 10,000-year-old mastodon skull; no guided tours that take you past the giant sea turtle skeleton.

The specimens sit behind closed doors on the top floor of a nondescript UW-Madison building, locked in rooms next to mountain lion skins, tapir skeletons and the preserved carcasses of extinct passenger pigeons.

Hardly anyone knows about the zoological museum on the fourth floor of Noland Hall, and thatâ??s the problem.

If you don’t know a stone toter from Adam’s off ox, or aren’t sure what a grinder shop sells, the Dictionary of American Regional English is for you.

The collection of regional words and phrases is beloved by linguists and authors and used as a reference in professions as diverse as acting and police work. And now, after five decades of wide-ranging research that sometimes got word-gatherers run out of suspicious small towns, the job is almost finished.

Joshua M. Hare, a cardiac specialist at the University of Miami, certainly counts himself among the many stem-cell researchers who are eager and excited by President Obama’s expansion of federal support for studies using cells from human embryos.

He’s just not sure that embryos will actually work any better than the more common and less controversial source of stem cells that he’s already using.

From their graves on the swampy coast of the Dominican Republic, the skeletons of men who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the New World are giving up secrets to researchers from UW-Madison and the Autonomous University of the Yucatan.

T. Douglas Price, a UW-Madison anthropologist, and James Burton, who manages the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry, are using techniques they created and perfected to learn more about the crew members, including where they came from, what they ate and possibly even their long-lost identities.

Noted: That would be another step on the way to growing new livers for people. With colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Bhatia is trying to coax hepatocytes from so-called induced pluripotent stem cells–adult cells that can be reprogrammed into stem cells. Meanwhile, she’s working on a three-dimensional structure to hold and grow the nascent liver and trying to figure out how to attract blood vessels to it.

For all the past week’s headlines about embryonic stem cells’ medical promise there is a sobering reality: The science to prove that promise will take years, probably too long for many of today’s seriously ill.

On his desk at Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard stem cell researcher Dr. George Daley keeps a file about 3 inches thick of e-mails and letters from patients and families who hope his work could help them. They are both inspiration and caution.

As governments get ready to spend federal stimulus dollars, a scientific panel recommends planning ahead for a warmer and wetter climate.

Most climate scientists predict that global temperatures will continue to go up, and that in some locations, including parts of Wisconsin, there will be more rainfall and flooding problems. A panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences and other agencies recommends that government and civic leaders pay attention to the climate forecasts. Panel member Jonathan Patz, a professor of environmental studies at the UW-Madison, says for example, sewage treatment plants may need to be bigger. He says if changes arenâ??t made, more contaminants could get into surface water. (Fifth item.)

Jon Blais and Jeff Kaufman are two men who refused to fade away and die quietly.

Blais inspired an army of athletes by finishing the 2005 Ironman Hawaii in a heroic effort, the only athlete diagnosed with ALS to complete the grueling endurance race.

Kaufman has survived with the fatal disease for 20 years, breathing with a ventilator and utilizing his still-sharp mind to coordinate a gala that generates more than $250,000 annually to support research being done at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is certain to set off a scramble among scientists throughout the country – including those at the state’s two medical schools and other universities – with promising projects in need of funding.

The emergency spending bill includes $8.2 billion for research and $1.8 billion for construction projects and equipment.

That could mean tens of millions of dollars for the Medical College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health.

President Obama yesterday signed an executive order to once again permit the use of federal taxpayer money to fund research on *new* embryonic stem cell lines. Opposed to that move is the group “Wisconsin Right to Life”, Executive Director Barbara Lyons joined WPRâ??s Terry Bell for moreâ?¦(8th item, audio.)

We welcome President Obamaâ??s decision to lift the Bush administrationâ??s restrictions on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research. His move ends a long, bleak period in which the moral objections of religious conservatives were allowed to constrain the progress of a medically important science.

President Barack Obama is ending former President George W. Bush’s limits on using federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research, a move that could bring Wisconsin even more into the forefront in the area.

Obama was to sign an executive order on stem cells and memo on science Monday in an East Room ceremony.

The president’s executive order will open up hundreds of stem cell lines for research. It is the right decision.

Pledging that his administration will â??make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology,â? President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush administrationâ??s strict limits on human embryonic stem cell research.

At a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, before an audience that included lawmakers, scientists and patients, several of them in wheelchairs, Mr. Obama announced that he was issuing an executive order intended to advance the research. He said he hoped Congress would follow with bipartisan legislation that would ease the existing restrictions even more.

Perhaps nowhere else in the nation was President Barack Obamaâ??s decision to reversal on the governmentâ??s stem cell research policy more celebrated than at the University of Wisconsin.

The university is where the field of embryonic stem cell research got its start and continues.

UWâ??s Dr. Jamie Thompson was the first to isolate embryonic cells more than a decade ago and a new hub of research, the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery is rising up in the heart of the campus.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and other local scientists were praising President Barack Obama’s ceremony lifting restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research on Monday.

The president signed an executive order removing restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

“After much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear majority of Americans across the political spectrum. And from all backgrounds and beliefs have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research,” said Obama during Monday’s ceremony.

President Obama reversed a 2001 executive order today that will have a major impact on stem cell research in Madison.

The executive order signed today allows federal taxpayer dollars to fund broader research. In 2001 President George W. Bush limited the use of taxpayer money to just 21 stem cell lines. Researchers say the increased research funding will provide the possiblility of cures for ailments from diabetes to paralysis.

A room full of UW scientists clapped and cheered on Monday morning as they watched President Barack Obama signed a new order significantly loosening restrictions on stem cell research.

The Waisman Center on UW’s campus setup a large projection screen with the presidential news conference.

“It’s very exciting. It feels like a cloud has been lifted,” said Allison Ebert, an associate scientist in one of the center’s many labs.

When President Barack Obama this morning announced an executive order lifting some restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, UW-Madison scientist James Thomson was there.

Thomson’s presence, along with several others in the state working in the field, illustrates how Wisconsin has had an impact on this still emerging field, and the promise of what could come as a result of the order.

Thomson, who pioneered embryonic stem cell research at his UW-Madison lab 11 years ago, called the action a â??welcome milestone.â?

President Barack Obama’s order lifting restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research was cheered Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the birthplace of the field.

UW-Madison scientists said the order will mean more cells and funding for studies, fewer bureaucratic hurdles for scientists and greater student interest in entering the field.

UW-Madison scientist James Thomson was the first to isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998. He called Obama’s action “a welcome milestone.”

Wisconsin had a sizable contingent present for the White House signing ceremony marking the end of restrictions on stem cell research funding.

President Obama signed the executive order this morning, which allows increased federal money for the controversial research.

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, and UW-Madison Professor James Thomson, who pioneered the isolation of human embryonic stem cells more than 10 years ago, attended the East Room ceremony.

To the cheers of scientists packed inside the White House and watching intently nationwide, President Obama signed an order on Monday reversing an eight-year-old federal restriction on experimentation with human embryonic stem cells.

Mr. Obama, overturning one of the most far-reaching obstacles to scientific exploration imposed by the Bush administration, said he recognized the ethnical concerns raised by research involving an embryo, which is the cluster of cells that grows immediately after conception.

President Obama will announce Monday that he is reversing Bush administration limits on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research as part of a pledge to separate science and politics, White House officials said Friday.