Category: Research

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Acts of scientific fraud, such as fabricating or manipulating data, appear to be surprisingly common but are underreported to university officials, says a report published today in the journal Nature. And the institutions may have investigated them far too seldom, the report’s authors write.

The authors are Sandra L. Titus, an official in the research-integrity office, Lawrence J. Rhoades, the emeritus director of its education division, and James A. Wells, director of research policy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Mr. Wells previously worked for Gallup, where he directed the survey on research misconduct.

A survey suggests that many research misconduct incidents in the United States go unreported to the Office of Research Integrity. Sandra L. Titus, James A. Wells and Lawrence J. Rhoades say it’s time to change that.

Kristin Roovers didn’t mention her problems with U.S. authorities when she walked into the Ottawa Health Research Institute as a post-doctoral fellow in 2005 and landed a job exploring how cancer cells turn bad.

She walked out this week when her record of “extensive” data falsification and manipulation caught up with her.

“We don’t have any reason to believe scientists are any different in Canada than the U.S., unfortunately, with regards to scientific misconduct,” said Dr. James Wells, director of the office of research policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who co-authored the study. Only a handful of cases a year ever come to the attention of Canada’s research agencies, which have been under pressure to be more proactive.

About 1,000 potential incidents of fabrication, falsification or plagiarism in scientific research go unreported every year, according to a survey that suggests such misconduct is far more prevalent than suspected.

On average, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity receives only 24 reports of suspected misconduct from academic and other research institutions yearly, according to a report in the journal Nature. The authors called for scientists and institutions to implement more safeguards against research fraud.

Research fraud happens even though the scientific community uses measures such as replicating original research, and evaluating it through a peer review system, said James Wells, a study author and director of research policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

MADISON, Wis., June 17 (UPI) — U.S. scientists studying minerals called zircons say a harsh climate might have scoured or even destroyed the surface of the Earth’s earliest continents.

University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist Professor John Valley said Zircons, the oldest known materials on Earth, offer a window in time back as far as 4.4 billion years ago. Because the crystals are exceptionally resistant to chemical changes, Valley said they are now used to determine the age of ancient rocks.

PARIS (AFP) â?? Mass extinctions that wiped out up to 90 percent of Earth’s flora and fauna were driven in large part by shifting ocean levels, according to a study published in Nature.

Understanding what made many of the planet’s living organism rapidly die out at least five times over the last half billion years remains one of the great challenges in paleontology and biology.

“The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty profound effects on life on Earth,” said Shanan Peters, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and sole author of the study.

It’s been some eighty years since primate research began at UW–Madison, bringing with it a hornet’s nest of ethical debate. For the most part, the public ignores the vitriol, viewing the rhetoric on both sides as extreme and out of touch with our normal, everyday concerns. Meanwhile the monkeys–in Madison, thousands of them–continue to live and die in captivity. Is it high time humankind decided what we think about it? (Story excerpt. Full story unavailable online.)

Men fighting over women? Nothing new there, based on the findings of a prehistoric mass grave in southwest Germany.

Durham University-led researchers say that genetic evidence from 34 skeletons dating back to around 5000 B.C. shows the deaths were the result of a tribal war over the need for female companionship.

The team, which included researchers from University College London, University of Wisconsin and a German government body, made the conclusions based on the strontium, carbon and oxygen isotopes signatures of the skeletons’ teeth. These give vital information about the skeletons’ geological origin and diet.

Reid Bryson, a pioneer in the field of climatology and a founder of the UW-Madison’s meteorology department and Center for Climatic Research, died Wednesday, June 11, at his home in Madison at the age of 88.

Bryson was among the first to explore the influence of climate on humans and human culture and, in turn, human impacts on climate.

He was an early developer of simple computer models to study the causes of past climate change, comparing those simulations with records of paleo-climate and human culture.

Madison’s Community Development Authority voted Thursday night to limit the fee it would charge to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for the use of CDA bonds in building WARF’s Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery.

The authority decided it would charge one-third of a 1 percent fee on up to $175 million worth of the bonds used to build the Institutes of Discovery, a dual public and private research center funded by three $50 million donations from the state, WARF and private donors John and Tashia Morgridge. The CDA authorized bonds for up to $185 million, making $33,000 the maximum discount WARF received on the project. If the total amount of bonds needed runs over $185 million, the CDA must hold another public meeting, restarting the process of issuing bonds.

WTMJ’s John Jagler chats with University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri about how the big floods we’ve seen could lessen the effect of mosquitoes this summer.

At least twice as many black bears probably are roaming the forests of Wisconsin as previously thought, according to a UW-Madison study.

The state Department of Natural Resources estimates the state’s bear population at 13,000. The study concludes there are at least twice that many, although that doesn’t mean people should be afraid to go into the woods, said Timothy Van Deleen, a UW-Madison wildlife ecology professor who conducted the study with student Dave MacFarland.

MADISON, Wis., June 9 (UPI) — When forming attitudes on embryonic stem cell research, people are influenced by a number of factors, but science is not one of them, U.S. researchers say.

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison communications researchers say that scientific knowledge — for many citizens — has an almost negligible effect on how people regard the field.

Obama’s ads tended to focus on themes of change and renewal, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin’s Advertising Project. Obama personally narrated 70 percent of his TV spots. His ads used the word “change” 39 percent of the time, more than any other candidate.

In a recent study, researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin found that the U.S. government’s goal to produce 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, with a maximum of 15 billion from corn, would most likely increase the nitrogen flow to the Gulf by 10 to 20 percent.

Madison, Wis. – In a finding that researchers found surprising, the public’s attitudes about embryonic stem cell research appear to be shaped more by things other than an understanding of science.

Writing in a recent issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion, a team of three communications researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that for many people, scientific knowledge has an â??almost negligibleâ? impact on how people view stem cell research.

Kikkoman Foods Inc. said Friday it plans to open a research lab in Madison, expanding the Wisconsin presence of the maker of soy sauce and soy milk.

The Madison facility is expected to open in September staffed by a senior scientist from Japan and several other employees to be locally hired, chief executive Yuzaburo Mogi said.

Researchers from California say they have improved a groundbreaking technique that reprograms skin cells back to the embryonic state, making the procedure safer by relying less on the use of viruses and genetic modification.

The technique, first used last year by teams led by James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, turned back a cell’s developmental clock by inserting four genes into the cell using a virus.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will vote Friday on whether to establish a graduate-level School of Freshwater Sciences at UW-Milwaukee – a unique program that aims to anchor the Milwaukee region as a global center of freshwater research.

A group of scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison says there is a new reason to toast to the benefits of red wine.

Scientists have long thought a natural compound called resveratrol, which is found in some red wines, could help slow the aging process by helping to protect tissues inside the body. The question has been whether just a glass or two of wine could really make a difference.

Anti-aging enthusiasts have been in a lather in recent years about the chemical resveratrol, present in red wine. For one thing, low levels of heart disease among French people (despite all the cheese and butter they eat) could be due to the red wine they also enjoy in liberal quantities, scientists say — maybe because of the resveratrol. Resveratrol may also mimic the life extension seen when animals are fed diets low in calories.

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A natural compound found in red wine may protect the heart against the effects of the aging process, researchers said on Tuesday.

In their study, mice were given a diet supplemented with the compound known as resveratrol starting at their equivalent of middle age until old age.