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.
The Wisconsin foundation that holds several key embryonic stem cell patents said Thursday that it has received certificates signaling the end of a long-fought challenge to the patents.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, known as WARF, received the so-called re-examination certificates from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week, WARF spokeswoman Janet Kelly said. The certificates confirm the patent officeâ??s ruling in March to strike down a challenge to the patents that started in October 2006.
Madison, Wis. – In a step that official concludes the re-examination of two important embryonic stem cell patents, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued reexamination certificates for the two patents, which are held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Re-examination Certificates for the two most important base embryonic stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).
This ruling is not appealable, which means that the claims of these patents stand confirmed and enforceable.
This action officially concludes a re-examination process for these patents that began in October of 2006, and was decided in WARF’s favor in March of this year. This final process was little more than a formality.
Q. Are earthquakes becoming more frequent?
A. Not really, says Clifford Thurber, a professor of geophysics at UW-Madison, although this decade is shaping up to be extremely active. Three of the 10 largest earthquakes since 1900 occurred in the 1950s, three more in the 1960s, and three more since 2000.
Mentions that ssing air monitors, a 2005 study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher James J. Schauer showed that 64% of reactive mercury in Milwaukee came from regional sources – Milwaukee, Chicago and Gary, Ind.
Stimulant medications such as Ritalin have been prescribed for decades to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and their popularity as “cognition enhancers” has recently surged among the healthy, as well.
What’s now starting to catch up is knowledge of what these drugs actually do in the brain. In a paper publishing online this week in Biological Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology researchers David Devilbiss and Craig Berridge report that Ritalin fine-tunes the functioning of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) – a brain region involved in attention, decision-making and impulse control – while having few effects outside it.
From semester to semester, Josh Bousquette doesn’t know if he’ll get a bill for $12,000 or a monthly paycheck in the mail.
It all depends on whether the UW-Madison graduate student manages to find funding as a teaching assistant or research assistant. If he gets funding, his out-of-state tuition of about $25,000 a year is covered, and he’s got a job that pays for most of his living expenses.
….Increasingly, graduate students at UW-Madison are scrambling to get their hands on scarce and meager funding, especially those studying humanities. Even students lucky enough to come in with guaranteed teaching or research positions must work for some of the lowest salaries within the UW’s peer institutions.
The science of the very small could pose some very big problems for state and local agencies, according to a new report by Wisconsin researchers.
Data gaps in our understanding of the burgeoning field of nanotechnology are forcing unprepared state and local governments to bear the brunt of regulating the new technology’s potentially hazardous risks, the authors conclude.
University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemist Doug Weibel has won the prestigious Searle Scholar Award, a prize recognizing academic excellence of young faculty in medicine, chemistry and the biological sciences.
The award nets Weibel $300,000 over the next three years in research funding, one of the top monetary prizes available in the biomedical sciences.
There are many miles (and, more literally, possibly several months) to go before the federal budgeting process for the 2009 fiscal year is complete, and therefore much could change. But based on the initial signs, the latest of which came Tuesday when a Senate appropriations subcommittee drafted a spending bill for education, health and labor programs, the National Institutes of Health appears to be in line for the sort of hefty increase that biomedical research advocates have been begging for. Most student aid programs, however, would receive no new funds.
The climate of early Earth was no day at the beach, with stinging acid rains and an intensely warm surface, a new study suggests.
These harsh conditions could explain why geologists today have found no rocks more than 4 billion years old: They were all weathered away.
The fate of all those rocks from the first 500 million years after Earth formed has been a longstanding question in geology.
Geologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined zircon crystals, the oldest known materials on Earth, to shed light on the fate of rocks from the early Earth.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, who late last year announced he would leave his position in September, has been named interim director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the public portion of a public-private, $150 million research center expected to be completed on the university’s campus in 2010.
The climate of early Earth was no day at the beach, with stinging acid rains and an intensely warm surface, a new study suggests. These harsh conditions could explain why geologists today have found no rocks more than 4 billion years old: They were all weathered away.
Geologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined zircon crystals, the oldest known materials on Earth, to shed light on the fate of rocks from the early Earth. Zircons, which are smaller than a speck of sand, can offer a window back in time to about 4.4 billion years ago, when the Earth was a mere 150 million years old because they are extremely resistant to chemical changes.
Fraud, fakery, or larceny is what ordinary people would call it. But in the sciencesâ?? refined venues the proper term is â??misconduct,â? and thereâ??s a lot more of it than official figures show, according to a report in Nature (19 June), â??Repairing research integrity.â?
Perhaps itâ??s nostalgia for my journalistic apprenticeship as a police reporter that draws me to such publications. But as much as I relish a crackdown on miscreants in lab coats, Iâ??m wary of this report, though it has impressive authorship: a University of Wisconsin official responsible for research policy, and a current and a retired official of the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which monitors scientific purity for the National Institutes of Health and other parts of the Department of Health and Human Services.
NASHVILLE, June 23 (UPI) — A U.S.-funded study finds binary stars might not be identical, and that might cause the world’s astronomers to re-examine some of their theories.
“The easiest way to explain the observed differences is if one star was fully formed about 500,000 years before its twin,” said Keivan Stassun, an associate professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University.
The discovery by Stassun and Robert Mathieu from the University of Wisconsin-Madison appears in the journal Nature.
Outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley has been named interim director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the public half of the now-under-construction research center that will include private collaboration and interdisciplinary science.
….Wiley will also be a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and the LaFollette School of Public Affairs, according to a news release from the university. He also plans to continue research on policy-related matters, including the finance and economics of higher education.
People who stop breathing during sleep are more likely to lose their expected â?? and beneficial â?? drop in nighttime blood pressure, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin researchers.
Identical twin stars born of the same cosmic dust are not always exactly the same, astronomers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Vanderbilt University have found.
Outgoing University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John D. Wiley has a new job.
He has been named the new interim director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, which focuses on stem-cell and other technology.
He will also become a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and at the Robert M. LaFollette School of Public Affairs.
JANESVILLE â?? The loss of General Motors in Janesville could result in the loss of nearly 9,000 jobs and nearly half a billion dollars in labor income in Rock County, according to an economic impact analysis by a UW-Madison/Extension professor.
Steven Deller, a professor and community development economist, used a popular modeling technique to calculate the impact of GMâ??s recent decision to close its Janesville assembly plant by the end of 2010 at the latest.
Q. Is there any real way to make gas last longer in your car?
A. The car’s size plays a major role in fuel economy, because larger cars face more air resistance, and heavier cars use more energy accelerating.
Research misconduct at U.S. institutions may be more common than previously suspected, with 9 percent of scientists saying in a new survey that they personally had seen fabrication, falsification or plagiarism.
The survey of 2,212 mainly biomedical scientists at 605 universities and other research institutions, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, also showed that researchers are very reluctant to report bad conduct.
