“It is very exciting!” exclaims Dr. John Fleming, “It’s the first time in the world that it’s been tried in a systematic way with Multiple Sclerosis patients. So in Wisconsin, we will be ground zero.”
Dr. Fleming is the lead researcher on a new study to determine whether drinking a worm potion can reduce the symptoms of MS.
“It’s a clear drink, kind of like Gatorade,” Fleming explains, “There are 2500 eggs in here that the patient will drink every two weeks.”
Q. Which saves more gas: driving with the windows closed and the air-conditioning on, or AC off and windows open?
A. That depends on conditions.
“Today’s cars are designed to be very aerodynamic,” said Glenn Bower, a senior scientist at the Engine Research Center at UW-Madison. “They ‘cut’ through the air at moderate speeds. At lower speed, stopping and starting dominate the vehicle’s energy consumption, while at highway speed (45 to 65 mph), most of the power is lost to the air we drive through.”
MADISON, Wis. – Animal rights activists’ plans to build a first-of-its-kind museum protesting animal research between two University of Wisconsin primate labs received a major blow Thursday from a Wisconsin appeals court.
The 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that business owner Roger Charly was free to revoke an offer for activists who run the Primate Freedom Project to purchase his property and dismissed the breach of contract lawsuit against him.
The decision overturns a November 2006 lower court ruling ordering Charly to sell the property for $675,000 to Richard McLellan, a retired California doctor who wanted to bankroll a National Primate Research Center Exhibition Hall.
MADISON, Wis. — If Gov. Jim Doyle ever has a tough science question, he doesn’t have to go far for the answer.
Doyle has named University of Wisconsin professor James Dahlberg as his science adviser.
Doyle signed an executive order Wednesday creating the unpaid position.
The position is designed to keep the governor and administration informed on ongoing scientific research and to serve as a liaison to the scientific research community.
People with certain common genetic variations that affect their nicotine receptors seem to be at higher risk for becoming life-long nicotine addicts if they begin smoking before they turn 17, a new study says.
The study was published in the July 11 issue ofPLoS Geneticsand, in addition to researchers at the University of Utah, involved investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Madison, Wis. â?? Using a $1.6 million federal grant, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is adding to its collection of large scientific instruments a device that will help it search for new antibiotics and drugs and perform other research.
The device will live at the National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison and consists of a mass spectrometer, a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and a liquid-chromatography system, integrated into a single instrument. The facility will be the first to have a device combining all three technologies, according to a university news release.
UW-Madison scientists will soon be getting new cutting-edge research tools to allow the university to stay in the forefront of medical and biological research.
The National Center for Research Resources announced Thursday that UW will get a $1.6 million grant to allow the university to purchase a new instrument that combines a mass spectrometer, a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and a liquid-chromatography system to be used in a variety of research projects, including projects developing new antibiotics and drugs for a range of diseases including cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes.
Dirt is finally getting its due with an exhibit opening this weekend at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Several Madison scientists are spearheading “Dig It! The Secrets of Soil,” and the Soil Science Society of America, based here in Madison, is a founding sponsor.
It’s about time for this “misunderstood” science to get its own exhibit, according to Arboretum director and soil scientist Kevin McSweeney. Even the common name for soils, dirt, has a “contemptuous meaning.”
Menomonie, Wis. – James Dahlberg, a professor of biomolecular chemistry in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, has been appointed as the first scientific advisor to Governor Jim Doyle.
Doyle announced the appointment during an address at the Wisconsin Science and Technology Symposium at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
By the time high school seniors start filling out their college applications, much of what admissions officers will use to give a thumbs up or down is set. No wonder there’s such angst over the college admissions essay.
A slew of recent reports have warned that talented women are continuing to leave research because academia is overpoweringly ‘masculine’.
Writing in this issue of Chemistry World, Annette Williams, director of the Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC), points out that although 47 per cent of chemistry graduates are female, only 6 per cent of chemistry professors are women.
Jo Handelsman is professor of bacteriology and co-founder of the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) at the University of Wisconsin, US. She agrees that a brutally competitive culture is off-putting to many women. ‘Chemistry seems to be much more cut-throat than biology in terms of competition. It’s more about getting to the finish line first than how you get there, and I think competition, in its fiercest form, is more appealing to men.’
A new map produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s WisconsinView program shows just how much the water from flooding last month had a widespread and devastating impact across southern and central Wisconsin.
To view the map, visit http://www.news.wisc.edu/15388.
Fairbanks, Alaska – A 150-meter ice core pulled from the McCall Glacier in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer may offer researchers their first quantitative look at up to two centuries of climate change in the region.
A team using a drill from the Ice Core Drilling Service at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pulled the cores from the glacier, one meter at a time, for nearly two weeks straight, despite storms strong enough to break and blow away some of their tents. About midway down, drillers hit an aquifer in the ice, which filled the borehole with water and complicated the drilling effort.
With spurring local economic development central to its mission, the two-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Research Foundation is making headway, especially through assistance from area groups like the Helen Bader Foundation and local businesses.
Dear Editor:
I had to chuckle at Phil Haslanger’s understatement that the Dalai Lama’s beliefs can’t be stuffed into tidy boxes.
While the Dalai Lama’s position on Tibet and China appears confused, even more so does his position on compassion for all sentient beings, a hallmark of Buddhism. After his visit here in 2007, he went to Milwaukee and dined on veal.
Madison celebrity Richard Davidson often cites the Dalai Lama’s support for animal experimentation — such as Davidson’s own invasive brain experiments on monkeys — when asked about these experiments during his own public lectures.
In 2004, the nation took notice as California and Wisconsin independently announced major investments in stem cell and biotechnology research. In California, voters approved Proposition 71, a massive $3 billion commitment over ten years to fund stem cell research. In Wisconsin, Governor Jim Doyle announced a $750 million state investment in biotechnology in order to help the state maintain a leadership position in the life sciences. Four years later, let’s take a look at what is going on inside Wisconsin and around the country to gauge just how well Wisconsin’s biotech leadership is holding up.
UW-Madison scientist David Mladenoff has been warning for years that some trees common to northern Wisconsin — balsam fir, spruce and jack pine — could disappear from the state as the climate warms.
But now Mladenoff and fellow UW forest ecologist Robert Scheller are adding that it will be difficult for southern Wisconsin species — oaks and hickories for instance — to move northward to replace them.
It takes Mother Nature millions of years, but an hour is all Eric Apfelbach needs.
Apfelbach is president and chief executive officer of Virent Energy Systems, a Madison-based company founded in 2002 by UW-Madison scientists Randy Cortright and Jim Dumesic.
Building upon technology invented and patented at the university, Virent uses solid-state catalysts to trump Mother Nature in the conversion of plant sugars into “biogasoline” and other hydrocarbon biofuels.
Doctors prescribe Ritalin to hyperactive kids to calm them down and increase their attention span. And college kids have taken to using Ritalin to concentrate when they hit the books. But it hasnâ??t been clear how the drug boosts focus. Now a paper in the journal Biological Psychiatry suggests how it might work. (Audio.)
Youâ??d think that a drug prescribed to 10 million Americans would be well understood. But until now, scientists havenâ??t firmly grasped why Ritalin helps the scatterbrained. In a University of Wisconsin-Madison study published recently in Biological Psychiatry, researchers found that the stimulant works by optimizing brain signals in the prefrontal cortex.
Genetic research teams in Salt Lake City and Madison, Wis., announced last week that they have found more evidence why some people who start smoking can’t seem to quit, no matter what.
Two years ago, the same teams from the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin found out that some people just have a taste for smoking: Those who like bitter or are more tolerant to bitterness tend to like the flavor of burning tobacco.
The latest and perhaps the most important reason teenagers should steer clear of using tobacco has been discovered by genetic researchers at the University of Utah.
Common genetic variations affecting nicotine receptors of the human nervous system can seriously increase the chance that those who begin using tobacco daily before age 17 will be severely nicotine-dependent their whole lives, according to findings published today in the journal PloS Genetics.
The variations don’t predispose teens to smoke or use tobacco, but those who have the variance and pick up a tobacco habit are much more likely to smoke more and only 5 percent will likely be able to quit as adults, according to findings in the joint study conduct by the U. and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MILWAUKEE, July 10 (UPI) — A U.S. medical team has found a way of spotting genes that help spread the bird flu, the subject of global concern as a potential pandemic threat.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison team, led by virology Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka, says it hopes its work will help researchers quickly develop effective new drugs to combat the fast-evolving flu and other viruses that threaten to cause widespread sickness and economic devastation.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has asked several dozen colleges to report in detail on their measures to protect toxic chemicals on their campuses from being stolen or released by terrorists. The reports could lead the agency to ask for additional precautions but not necessarily for colleges to turn their laboratory buildings into fortresses.
Q: Someone told me you should be sure to eat enough salt when you’re visiting a hot climate. Is this true?
A: “True enough, but most people consume more than enough salt (sodium chloride) in a normal diet, and hence do not need supplementation,” said Dr. Richard Reich, a clinical associate professor and infectious disease specialist at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Biofuels, by recycling atmospheric carbon, are a potential boon to the world’s ailing climate. But efforts in the tropics to significantly expand biofuel production by replacing tropical forests with oil palm, sugarcane and other agricultural biofuels could speed climate change, a new study warns.
In Wednesday’s issue of the journal Environmental Research Letters, a team of researchers from the UW-Madison and other universities cautions that expanding biofuel crop production in natural tropical ecosystems will lead to a significant increase in carbon emissions for decades and possibly hundreds of years.
The average gasoline price in Madison set a daily high this week, topping $4.02 a gallon on Tuesday.
On the same day a federal forecast warned that gas prices nationwide are likely to remain above $4 a gallon for the rest of the year and into 2009.
The higher cost of gas is a costly problem that underscores the importance of proceeding full speed ahead with efforts to develop biofuels as an alternative to gasoline.
Forget dogs. The lowly fruit fly is really man’s best friend. At least when it comes to helping researchers fight the threat of the world’s next flu pandemic.
The top flu researchers in the world depend on fruit flies for their experiments, and this week several of them at the UW-Madison have announced a breakthrough that will help drug companies target new therapies.
By injecting fly cells with a modified flu virus, a team of researchers led by UW virologists Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Paul Ahlquist were able to pinpoint which of the fly cells’ 13,000 genes were most vulnerable.
The latest buzz about the flu comes from a fly.
By infecting fruit fly cells with influenza, UW-Madison scientists have identified more than 100 genes the virus needs to flourish inside its host. The finding reveals a treasure trove of targets for anti-flu drugs.
A new analysis suggests that biofuels grown in the tropics are not a much greener source of energy than drilling for oil–at least in the short term. The research paints an even gloomier picture of biofuels than previous studies, which have begun to cast doubts on the greenhouse gas benefits that these alternatives to petroleum might provide.
Proponents see plant-based biofuels as a carbon-friendly alternative to fossil fuels. That’s because plants that produce, say, palm oil or corn ethanol recycle carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. In contrast, petroleum production introduces new carbon into the air that was previously sequestered deep within Earth.
A team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is one step ahead of a quickly evolving influenza virus thatâ??s been threatening the planet with pandemic disease for the past five years.
The team, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, is leading the charge to find new drugs and weapons to fight a virus that has evolved to resist the only drugs known to beat it.
If you’re somebody who just can’t relax, quit stressing over it. All the herbal teas and yoga curls in the world probably won’t change your basic nature. A new University of Wisconsin study suggests that your jittery brain has probably been wired that way since childhood.
The recent UW study, published last week in the Public Library of Science Web site, is the latest addition to a mounting trove of evidence that the brains of individuals who suffer from anxiety and extreme shyness are wired differently than those of their calmer peers. Even in situations most people would find relaxing, the brains of these keenly sensitive people appear to be stuck in a constant state of high alert.
“The brain machinery underlying the stress response seems to be always on in these individuals,” said Dr. Ned Kalin, the study’s author. Kalin is chair of the UW-Madison Department of Psychiatry and director of the HealthEmotions Institute.
A UW-Madison scientist discovered an edible antifreeze that preserves ice cream’s smooth, silky texture.
Despite its dubious name, the discovery is good news for ice cream enthusiasts.
The brains of people who suffer from anxiety and severe shyness may respond more strongly to stress and show signs of being anxious even in situations considered safe by others, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
They studied brain activity, anxious behavior and stress hormones in adolescent rhesus monkeys. Those with the most anxious temperaments showed higher activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala, which regulates emotion and triggers reactions to anxiety.
The quality of drinking water in Brown County is good, but the air quality is not, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Central Wisconsin residents are exposed to some of the worst environmental hazards in the state, according to a new study.
Lincoln, Marathon, Portage and Wood counties generally were ranked toward the bottom of the stateâ??s 72 counties for air and water quality measures, according to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s Department of Population Health Sciences.
(MADISON) A Wisconsin study helps explain why shy, nervous children tend to stay that way. According to University of Wisconsin researchers in Madison, some people are tense for no reason. They say they can’t help it, because that’s the way they are; their brains are hardwired early in life. Researchers now have a better understanding of what goes wrong with the brain that can cause anxiety to escalate or turn into depression later in life. (Sixth item.)
Stimulant drugs like Ritalin work by “fine-tuning” neuron activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for filtering out distractions and helping people to focus on tasks, new research in rats suggests.
Little is known about how Ritalin and related drugs actually work, researchers point out in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
To investigate, Dr. Craig Berridge of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleague David Devilbiss attached tiny electrodes to individual neurons in the brains of normal rats and watched how different doses of the drug affected neuron activity.
Dear Editor: I have been writing to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, requesting information on a rhesus macaque being held there in the Primate Research Center. After my second request, I received a response from the associate director. I was basically told “no,” and received no answers to my questions.
The Madison lakes appeared to be gleaming over the Fourth of July weekend, beckoning beneath a mostly blue sky and home again to anglers, skiers, boaters and even swimmers on some beaches.
But anyone fishing or boating on Lake Mendota ‘s University Bay or even sitting on the Memorial Union Terrace over the holiday weekend could see the lingering effects in area waters of recent flooding.
Q. Why is it that gasoline (and many other fuels, I think) are priced with a dollar and cents amount, plus 9/10ths of a cent. I know this practice has been around almost forever, but when and why did it start? Who do they think they are fooling?
A. The reason those who tax use the .9 pricing is the same reason those who sell do: So it looks like a better deal, says Tom O’Guinn, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management.
A gigantic meteorite may have killed off the dinosaurs, but most big wipeouts probably originated from under the sea rather than from outer space.
New research from University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist Shanan Peters indicates that fluxes in ancient sea levels and sediments were the primary cause of the worldâ??s periodic extinctions, which could have important implications for life in our oceans today.
Stimulant drugs like Ritalin work by “fine-tuning” neuron activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for filtering out distractions and helping people to focus on tasks, new UW-Madison research in rats suggests.
Carbon dioxide and lactic acid are released whenever we breathe or sweat, but the emission rates vary by person. Larger people and pregnant woman, for example, have higher levels and are more likely targets. According to Susan Peskewitz, a mosquito researcher and entomology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the scents of these compounds coupled with body heat are the biggest attractors.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor Bassam Shakhashiri.
Companies like Virent that spin off research at the university are magnets for biocapitalism, pumping money into the Capital Region economy via property taxes, purchases and payroll.
A UW-Madison scientist has discovered an edible antifreeze that can keep ice crystals from forming inside ice cream containers, a real turnoff to late night snackers who just want their fix of Rocky Road without digging through a layer of frost.
To test how different preparation and cooking methods affected thiosulfinates, plant geneticist Philipp Simon, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a group of researchers at Cuyo University in Argentina gathered four pounds of garlic and crushed half with a garlic press. They let all the garlic sit at room temperature for 10 minutes and then cooked batches of each sample in a 400-degree oven, in a microwave, or in boiling water for up to 20 minutes. Next, they tested whether each batch of garlic could alter how well blood platelets clumped. Garlic cooked whole had no anti-clumping ability, but crushed, lightly cooked garlic had a significant effect in reducing platelet clumping.
The reason: Thiosulfinates don’t form until the clove is crushed or cut.
Mentions that researchers in Richard Davidson’s lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have demonstrated that support from a loved one during a stressful task not only feels good, but also calms the brain circuits that produce stress hormones.
Even states without California’s mega-bucks are hoping to become stem-cell havens. Last month Wisconsin’s governor announced that a combination of state and private funds would be dedicated to build a $375 million “Wisconsin Institute for Discovery,” to be housed at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, where pioneering biologist James Thomson first isolated human embryonic stem cells in 1998.
People in the U.S. eat more ice cream than any other country in the world. The average American consumes about 24 quarts of ice cream a year. But, if you buy a lot of ice cream, you know that freezer burn or ice crystals can ruin the flavor and creaminess of your favorite treat
Whichever flavor you like best, ice cream is a favorite for kids of all ages. But when it comes to ice cream, ice isn’t such a good thing, especially when it forms on the inside of the container. “Ice crystals when they grow they change the texture of ice cream, it gives you some gritty sensation in your mouth, and that is not very desirable,” Srinivasan Damodaran, food scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Ivanhoe.
The most popular vendor at today’s Rhythm & Booms event at Warner Park may well be the one selling bug spray.
“You could probably name your price,” said Patrick Irwin, a UW-Madison doctoral student who has been tracking the local mosquito population and is astounded by what he’s seen following the recent soggy weather.
Francis Halzen has an unusual job. This scientist studies itsy bitsy, teeny tiny objects zipping through the universe. Theyâ??re called neutrinos.
His job should be easy because neutrinos are all around us, all the time. They pass from the depths of outer space to the depths of your sock drawer â?? and then just keep going. And donâ??t even think about trying to count these super-tiny particles. The neutrinos flying around our universe outnumber all of the people, animals, plants, satellites, planets, stars, galaxies, black holes and asteroids combined.
Theyâ??re also fast, traveling at almost the speed of light. In the time it took you to read the previous paragraph, more than a trillion neutrinos zoomed through you.
They always travel in straight lines. Some fly from your eyes to your ears, others from your feet to your head. They fly from the left, from the right and from everywhere in between. Although you canâ??t see them, theyâ??re also flying through everything you can see.
So you would think Halzenâ??s job at the University of Wisconsin-Madison should be a snap. All he has to do is catch a few of the gazillions passing through his university every day.
The number of job openings in Wisconsin requiring so-called STEM â?? Science, Technology, Engineering, Math â?? expertise will increase by 18.3% through 2014, compared with an 11.5% increase for all occupations, according to the Center on Education and Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
A new study suggests the epic ebbing and flowing of sea and sediment for eons upon eons account for world’s periodic mass extinctions over the past 500 million years.
“Impacts, for the most part, aren’t associated with most extinctions,” said Shanan Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of geology and geophysics and leader of the study. “There have also been studies of volcanism, and some eruptions correspond to extinction, but many do not.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have built super-proteins with stronger backbones, an act of chemical chiropractic that could pave the way for more resilient drugs.
Every week thousands of academic articles heralding discoveries in medicine and science are vetted and validated before being published in no-nonsense journals with names such as “Acta Crystallographica,” “Methods in Enzymology,” or “Macromolecules”.
Like works of art, these building blocks of human knowledge vary in quality and importance. Some are trivial, or just plain wrong.
But a few will usher in major change in our lives or a seismic shift in perspective, whether the possibility of growing a new heart or liver from a tiny patch of skin, or a unified theory of the cosmos. Among those quoted: Shanan Peters, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
To ensure that Wisconsin’s dairy industry will not be left without professional veterinary care in the future, a group of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine has partnered with the school’s Office of Academic Affairs and dean’s office to introduce youngsters to the positive side of a career in agriculture, including that of large-animal veterinarian. The group calls itself Veterinary Medicine Outreach, Recruitment and Education (VetMORE) and has already organized numerous outreach events.
Francis Halzen has an unusual job. This scientist studies itsy bitsy, teeny tiny objects zipping through the universe. Theyâ??re called neutrinos.
Wisconsin just received four reminders of where the state ‘s economy is heading: toward growth generated by innovations in science and technology and away from the old foundation of traditional manufacturing.
Policymakers — from the Doyle administration to Thrive, the economic development arm for the Madison region — ought to pay close attention.
