In what researchers hail as promising news in the quest to slow the deadly progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, popularly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been able to prolong the lives of afflicted mice by equipping them with an extra gene that prompts production of a substance that temporarily blocks the disease.
It’s 40 degrees F below zero (with the wind chill) at the South Pole today. Yet a research team from the University of Delaware is taking it all in stride.
The physicists, engineers and technicians from the University of Delaware’s Bartol Research Institute are part of an international team working to build the world’s largest neutrino telescope in the Antarctic ice, far beneath the continent’s snow-covered surface.
Dubbed â??IceCube,â? the telescope will occupy a cubic kilometer of Antarctica when it is completed in 2011, opening super-sensitive new eyes into the heavens.
Direct climate data from the past is not readily available. We cannot measure the humidity on June 14th, 267 AD; in order to get around this, a variety of indirect techniques are used.
….In these tough times, maybe we’re ready to listen more closely to advocates of a system called “steady state economy.” It is described as “a transdisciplinary field of study that addresses the relationships between ecosystems and economic systems in the broadest sense.” In short, it incorporates ecological principles into economic theory and focuses on sustainability.
One of its foremost spokespersons is Brian Czech, a conservation biologist who grew up in the Green Bay area. He got his undergraduate training at UW-Madison and his Ph.D. in renewable natural resources from the University of Arizona. He is a conservation biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech.
Virent, established in 2002 based on patented UW-Madison research, is off to such a strong start that it has lured an executive from BP, the world’s third-largest oil company, to become the new chief executive officer.
Joseph Salmons, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has done a study that indicates that many German immigrants who arrived in the 1800s didn’t learn English and that their children and grandchildren often didn’t learn English, either. The findings probably apply to other waves of immigrant groups of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Salmons said.
Religious beliefs are important to public support of nanotechnology, as well. Dietram Scheufele from the University of Wisconsin-Madison led a research team that found a correlation between the strength of religious beliefs and the acceptance of nanotechnology across Western nations.
As Wisconsin observed the 10-year anniversary of James Thomson’s embryonic stem (ES) cell discovery, some wonder whether the ensuing controversy over the destruction of human embryos has been worthwhile. In those 10 years, no therapies have come from the discovery, so were opponents correct that this research was not only unethical, but also irrelevant?
For the past four years, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a primate sanctuary for retired research monkeys has been trying to raise awareness and money for its cause.
On Sunday, Primates Incorporated held a pancake breakfast at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center on Jenifer Street. Complete with vegan pancakes and tofu scramblers, and with entertainment provided by the Trinity Irish Dancers, those in attendance were asked to donate to the cause. Amy Kerwin, the group’s board president, said events like Sunday’s breakfast are held more to keep the community engaged and aware of the group’s cause, not necessarily to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars necessary to build a primate sanctuary.
Attitudes to nanotechnology may be determined by religious and cultural beliefs, suggest researchers writing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Professor Dietram Scheufele from the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin, who led the research, said religious belief exerted a strong influence on how people viewed nanotechnology.
Geologists say a discovery in a cave near Jerusalem suggests climate change may have caused the fall of the Roman and Byzantine Empires.
Geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve reveals increasingly dry weather from A.D. 100 to A.D. 700 that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said Friday.
A scientific team led by UW-Madison researchers says that the decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by extreme climate change.
Based on chemical information in calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, the American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area’s climate from about 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D.
Wisconsin’s famous milk and cows now might provide a wonderful new health benefit. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers will be looking into whether milk produced by genetically engineered cows can prevent the rejection of transplanted kidneys.
A number of state and local dignitaries stood in line Wednesday night to sing the praises of Google as the Internet giant held an official unveiling of its Madison office.
Gov. Jim Doyle, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin all spoke at the open house, held at Google’s Madison office at 301 S. Blount St., about a half-mile east of the Capitol.
Mentor has 19 employees in Madison occupying a new, two-story building at University Research Park, built by Vogel Bros. Building Co.
The $24 million project houses a factory for PurTox, a botulinum toxin product based on UW-Madison research, designed to erase frown lines and compete with the popular Botox, Mentor has said.
With President-elect Obama poised to lift the ban on federal funding for new embryonic stem cell research… Wisconsin scientists could be among those to benefit. But Jamie Thompson — the U-W Madison researcher who pioneered the field — says the immediate gains could be limited at first.
President Bush signed an executive order back in August of 2001 banning federal funding from being used on researching embryonic stem cell lines created after that date. Federal funding was still provided for stem cell lines created before the ban. (Second item.)
When they signed up for a one-credit astronomy class at the University of Wisconsin, six students had no idea the class could be one of the most memorable experiences of their lives.
Wisconsin-based start-up Resilient Technologies LLC is working on a four-year, US $18 million project with the U.S. DoD (Department of Defense) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to research and develop a non-pneumatic tire for use on heavy-grade military vehicles such as Humvees.
Mentor Corp. announced Wednesday that a drug it is developing in Madison to compete with the well-known and hugely successful Botox has successfully completed the first of three Phase 3 clinical trials.
Phase 3 is the final level of trials before a drug is submitted for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval — assuming the trials produce successful results.
The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company’s “PurTox” drug, which is derived from purified botulinum Type A neurotoxin, is designed to reduce frown lines.
….The development of PurTox stems from Mentor’s 2003 deal for an exclusive license from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for botulinum toxin technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
European patent regulators have upheld an earlier rejection of a 13-year-old stem-cell patent filed by a UW-Madison affiliate, saying that inventions that exploit human embryos can’t be patented.
The board of appeals for the European Patent Office upheld the earlier decision on the patent request by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which helps commercialize the university’s research. The rejection was based on a rule that forbids patenting of inventions that use or destroy human embryos for commercial purposes.
Health care products company Johnson & Johnson said Monday it will buy cosmetic-product and breast-implant maker Mentor Corp. for $1.07 billion in a move to boost its presence in cosmetic and reconstructive medicine.
Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Mentor has a unit in University Research Park in Madison that is developing a drug to compete with the well-known and hugely successful Botox.
European regulators on Thursday ruled against allowing a patent on developing human embryonic stem cells, a decision that could stifle research by stem cell companies for commercial purposes.
NEW YORKâ??European patent regulators have confirmed an earlier decision that inventions that use or destroy human embryos can’t be patented, turning down a patent application by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s research arm.
The board of appeals for the European Patent Office upheld an earlier rejection of a patent filed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The rejection was based on a rule that forbids patenting of inventions that use human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes.
A college research project gives a Chippewa Falls native an out of this world experience.
Luke Hunt is a senior at UW-Madison majoring in astronomy and math. During a research class, using the world’s largest radio telescope, he and his classmates stumbled upon what could be an unknown galaxy. More research is needed, but so far, the data has everyone looking up.
A Wisconsin stem cell pioneer expects the next president to help reduce some of the problems facing federal research funding.
Stem cell research has faced tight funding restrictions under the Bush administration. Dr. James Thomson expects that to change under President-elect Barack Obama.
It didn’t capture banner headlines, but a news story that broke in mid-November suggests why private equity investors may finally be paying attention to companies working with human stems cells.
The beat builds slowly after Spud Davis puts on the headphones. Eminem fills his ears, even though he’s not that much of a hip-hop fan.
The lyrics to “Till I Collapse” start to come in, first with the enigmatic rapper narrating about how you can feel tired and feel like you want to give up, but how you have to find inner strength and not be a quitter.
With the state facing an economic crisis, the University of Wisconsin System it taking steps to tighten its proverbial belt.
On Wednesday, UW System President Kevin Reilly asked academic leaders systemwide to examine ways to streamline and enhance educational offerings. He also announced that system institutions would start to scrutinize more closely out-of-state travel.
MADISON â?? For people who suffer from epilepsy, current drugs donâ??t always control seizures. A startup company with ties to UW-Madison technology, NeuroGenomex Inc., is trying to provide a breakthrough medication.
Epilepsy affects more than 3 million Americans every year, with most new cases developing in children and elderly. Epilepsy is a central nervous system disorder whose main symptom is seizure caused by electric activity in the brain.
Cellular Dynamics International, founded by world-renowned UW-Madison stem-cell researcher James Thomson, announced a merger Monday with sister companies Stem Cell Products Inc. and iPS Cells Inc.
One of the stateâ??s largest stem cell research companies, founded in part by stem cell pioneer James Thomson, announced a merger with two other Madison-based corporations, finalizing $18 million in funding.
Too much television, low self-esteem, disappointing grades and poor family relationships can be a formula that adds up to early teenage sex, according to a new study.
“If you add up all the factors, you get a much more powerful predictor of who has sex and who doesn’t,” said Dr. Janet Hyde, of the University of Wisconsin, who headed the research team.
U.S. scientists have revealed the genes that lead to an antitumor antibiotic. The team, led by Ben Shen at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the research could provide the tools to create new anticancer drugs.
Cellular Dynamics International, the Madison-based research company founded by stem cell pioneer Dr. James Thomson and three fellow UW-Madison professors, has merged with two sister companies and is getting $18 million in new financing.
The two companies merging with CDI are Stem Cell Products Inc. and iPS Cells, Inc.
Three companies founded by star University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researcher James Thomson are merging into a single entity that aspires to be a world leader in the field.
Under a deal announced Monday, Cellular Dynamics International is joining forces with Stem Cell Products Inc. and iPS Cells Inc. Backed by $18 million in private venture capital, the new company is keeping CDI (nyse: CDI – news – people )’s name and its headquarters in Madison.
Cellular Dynamics International Inc., a firm co-founded by stem cell pioneer and University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher James Thomson, has absorbed a pair of sister companies and raised $18 million in financing, the firm said Monday.
CDIâ??s sister companies, Stem Cell Products Inc. and iPS Cells Inc., merged into the company, placing the intellectual property and commercial, research, and production capabilities of the predecessor companies under a unified management team.
Three Wisconsin companies focused on stem cell research are merging.
The companies are joining under the banner of Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), based in Madison. Stem Cell pioneer, Dr. James Thomson, says they’re looking at the commercial use of stem cell technology.
David DeWitt’s journey to becoming one of the world’s leading academic experts on databases started off almost by accident. “I had taken one database class in graduate school,” DeWitt recalled. “That was enough that when I showed up as a new faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (in the mid-1970s), the chairman said, ‘You’re the new database guy.'”
While some Wisconsinites spent Saturday seeking white-tailed deer, researchers were hunting for another organism: the deer tick.
Teams from University of Wisconsin System schools and the Wisconsin Division of Health fanned out to more than a dozen deer registration stations in the eastern half of the state Saturday, gathering ticks from the deer brought in by hunters.
Black Earth (WKOW) — Scientists from the University of Wisconsin spent their opening day of the gun deer season focusing on a disease carried by deer.
In this case, the effort wasn’t on Chronic Wasting Disease, but on Lyme Disease.
The UW researchers were at deer registration stations Saturday collecting ticks, the insects that carry Lyme Disease.
Could the tongue help a paraplegic pick up a slippery glass or a soft, squishy kitten? Justin Williams and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin are testing electrical stimulation of the tongue as an adjunct to visual feedback for brain-controlled computer interfaces, such as those used to control prosthetic arms.
This could be the next tool in the battle against alcoholism.
” I don’t think it’s limited to alcoholism or even addiction.”
For five years Andrew Isham and his team of researchers at the UW have been developing Innovations for Recovery.
” What we are trying to do here is facilitate timely connections between the patient and people who they have determined to be in their support system.”
Also sponsoring MGE’s new green energy Web site are UW-Madison’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, and 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, an environmental group.
The surgical removal of small colon polyps found during computed tomography imaging of the colon, or CT colonography, is costly and unnecessary, according to a new study.
“We shouldn’t aggressively pursue sub-centimeter lesions, since the costs, risks, and inconvenience of the subsequent colonoscopy outweighs the clinical importance of these small polyps,” Dr. Perry J. Pickhardt from University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison told Reuters Health. “Over time, the few small polyps that matter will declare themselves by showing interval growth,” the researcher added.
Q. How do birds migrate?
A. The essential skills of bird migration are orientation — knowing north from south, and east from west — and navigation, having some sort of “map” to establish the location you’re aiming for, says Stanley Temple, emeritus professor of conservation at UW-Madison.
A University of Wisconsin research team will be joining the annual deer hunt — to look for ticks that spread Lyme disease.
More than a dozen scientists led by UW-Madison entomologist Susan Paskewitz will head to selected Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources deer registration stations Saturday to collect deer ticks from carcasses brought in by hunters.
It’s part of a fight against Lyme disease, which is caused by a bacterium that can be carried by deer ticks that bite people.
MADISON, Wis. – Local governments across Wisconsin denied, ignored or did not properly fill three out of every 10 requests for basic public documents, according to an audit released Wednesday.
The audit was conducted by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It involved 318 public records requests filed primarily by newspaper reporters in 65 counties in September and October.
Local governments across Wisconsin denied, ignored or did not properly fill three out of every 10 requests for basic public documents, according to an audit released Wednesday.
The audit was conducted by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It involved 318 public records requests filed primarily by newspaper reporters in 65 counties in September and October.
A statewide public records audit found that one in 10 requests for basic documents were denied or ignored by local governments.
Another two in 10 requests were fulfilled only after records custodians required the requesters to identify themselves or explain why they wanted the documents, in violation of state law.
The audit, conducted by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, of which I am president, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, involved 318 public records requests filed in 65 counties.
WAUSAU â?? Southeast Wisconsin is home to some of the state’s healthiest â?? and least healthy â?? people, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study released today.
“RoboCop” and “I, Robot” may not be as far-fetched as you think, and IBM and five universities including Stanford are teaming up to prove it.
IBM is teamed with five colleges – Stanford, UC Merced, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell and Columbia – and for now they are all aiming to draw up plans for a chip that can imitate the actions of 1 million neurons.
University officials celebrated the past 10 years of breakthrough discoveries in the area of stem-cell research by James Thomson at the Overture Center for the Arts Tuesday.
James Thomson, an anatomy professor at the University of Wisconsin, spoke at the Overture Center for the Arts Tuesday night as part of the 10-year anniversary of his achievements in human embryonic stem cell research.
With President-elect Barack Obama poised to lift the ban on federal funding of research on new embryonic stem-cell lines, UW-Madison and Dane County could strengthen their position as a leader in the pioneering research, officials say.
They warn, however, it will take new federal dollars in addition to a change in policy to have a strong impact here.
Barack Obama’s transition team has announced the officials who will review personnel and policies at federal agencies for the new Administration, including dozens who will begin visits to examine the work of science agencies this week.
One is R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, whose support for research using human embryonic stem cells reflects Obama’s position on the controversial work.
WASHINGTON â?? Sleep not only refreshes the body, it may also push the reset button on the brain, helping the brain stay flexible and ready to learn, new research shows.
Whether it is slow-wave sleep or rapid eye movement (REM), sleep changes the biochemistry of the brain, and the change is necessary to continue learning new things, suggests research presented November 18 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
Hundreds of genes behave differently when an animal is asleep rather than awake, says Chiara Cirelli of the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison. Cirelli and her colleagues are trying to settle a long-standing debate about why sleep is necessary. One theory is that sleep helps solidify memories by replaying information learned during the day. Another idea holds that sleep is for energy restoration.
Tuesday night at the Overture Center, stem cell supporters celebrated a decade’s worth of bio-science breakthroughs. They’re not only talking about what they’ve done in the past — but what they hope to do in the future.
Ten years after his discovery, UW professor James Thomson recalled the infancy of stem cells and how they can transform themselves in the human body.
Say what? You’re going to take Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s word on where the best places for you to go to school are?
I had vaguely heard that the Shanghai university made an annual list of the best research university’s in the world but didn’t pay it much heed. After all, those kinds of lists often strike me as arbitrary.
I got up this morning still thinking about the matter. After Googling the list, I quickly found that places like the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Minnesota proudly note that they are fairly high on Jiao Tong’s list.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Wausau, Wis., company have come up with a 37-inch, bullet and bomb-proof Humvee tire based on a polymeric web so cool looking there’s no need for hub caps.
Resilient Technologies and Wisconsin-Madison’s Polymer Engineering Center are creating a “non-pneumatic tire” (no air required) that will support the weight of add-on armor, survive an IED attack, and still make a 50 mph getaway. It’s basically a round honeycomb wrapped with a thick, black tread.
Overwhelming cloudbursts and flooding similar to those that struck Sauk County communities and southern Wisconsin in June could be more frequent as global warming trends continue, a climate researcher told county officials Monday.
Steve Vavrus of the Center for Climate Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison spoke before the Intercounty Coordinating Committee as the group met in Baraboo. The audience included emergency management leaders, government officials and interested citizens from Sauk, Columbia, Dodge, Green Lake and Jefferson counties
