Category: Research

MADISON, Wis. — Federal regulators are upholding a patent that covers embryonic stem cell research discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

An examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said that one of three patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) can stand. It hasn’t yet ruled on two others being challenged.

Critics had asked the patent office to throw out the patents, which cover discoveries made by UW-Madison scientist James Thomson. They argue the patents have hindered research in the U.S.
The research foundation disputes that claim.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4348729
If scientists could produce a tiny robot that could travel through your body and heal damaged tissue, eradicate disease-carrying microbes, and even wipe out a cancerous tumor, would you support their efforts?

Maybe not, especially if you are an American. Skepticism of experimental science is rampant, and scholars across the land are struggling to understand why, and what they can do to change attitudes. Studies sponsored by the National Science Foundation have found a widespread suspicion among the public that too many scientists are trying to “play God” by manipulating life, and that the government is inept when it comes to protecting its people.

“The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples’ lives,” Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication told participants at a recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “European countries have a much more secular perspective.”

The Morgridge Institute for Research on Monday named stem cell pioneer James Thomson as director of regenerative biology and principal scientist.

A star UW stem cell researcher will play a key role at a new private research center in Madison.

James Thomson is named director of regenerative biology for the Morgridge Institute for Research being built on campus.

Thomson was first to isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998. Last year, his team succeeded in turning skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells.

University leaders hope Thomson’s appointment will help recruit scientists to conduct breakthrough research.

MADISON, Wis. — A world-renowned stem cell scientist and researcher has accepted a key position with the Morgridge Institute for Research, the private, not-for-profit division of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

Jamie Thomson, the first member of the scientific team at the research facility, will be the director of regenerative biology. Thompson is currently a professor of anatomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and will retain that position in addition to his new role. The announcement was made at a news conference at the UW Health Sciences Learning Center on Monday afternoon, WISC-TV reported.

CUNA Mutual Group is planning a major mixed-use project on and around its west-side Madison campus, reopening old wounds over how some of this land was acquired.

Back in the early 1980s, relates former Mayor Paul Soglin, CUNA Mutual said it needed more land for eventual expansion. “They gave some kind of alert or signal: We may leave,” says Soglin, now working for a union representing CUNA workers.

The UW-Madison, prodded by business and civic leaders including then Mayor Joel Skornicka, agreed to sell the company 60 acres of University Research Park land.

Barack Obama’s message of hope and change is moving voters and getting them to the polls.

A new study out today also shows that he’s spending far more to get that message out.

Before Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, which he handily won, he spent five times more than Hillary Clinton on TV ads and started airing them six days before she did, according to the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.

One of the keys to Obama’s 17-point Wisconsin win? Per a University of Wisconsin Advertising Project study, he outspent Clinton nearly 5-to-1 on TV ads in the state. Overall, the four Dem and GOP candidates aired more than 8,000 spots in the state, spending a combined $2.1 million.

The folks at the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project report that Barack Obama hit the airwaves hard in that state ahead of last week’s primary — and it apparently paid off.

Obama spent five times more on television ads than Hillary Clinton, and more than twice what all the other campaigns (including the two Republicans) spent combined. The four candidates spent about $2.1 million to air more than 8,000 spots, according to the report.

WAUKESHA – Most Americans believe nanotechnology is morally unacceptable because of strong ties to faith that may skew perception about the basis of the minuscule science, a recent study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison said.

Dietram Scheufele, a UW-Madison professor of life sciences communication who helped conduct the study, said deeply-rooted religious views are dictating peoplesâ?? views on nanotechnology. The results of the study show an urgent need to better explain the scientific practice to the public, he said

MADISON â?? Barack Obama spent five times as much as Hillary Rodham Clinton on television advertising in advance of Wisconsin’s primary, a study released today showed.

Obama beat Clinton on Tuesday 58 percent to 41 percent.

Obama also beat Clinton to the Wisconsin airwaves by a full six days. His first ad aired Feb. 6, one day after Super Tuesday, while Clinton didn’t run one until Feb. 12.

Controlling the airwaves is seen as important because candidates can reach millions of people, help define the issues in a race and sway voters’ opinions.

The two Democratic presidential candidates and Republicans John McCain and Mike Huckabee spent a combined $2.1 million on television advertising in the state, according to the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. It analyzed data from the TNS Media Intelligence Campaign Media Analysis Group.

MADISON, Wis. — A building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was evacuated Friday afternoon after several gallons of chemicals were spilled.

The Madison Fire Department responded at 3:48 p.m. Friday to a report of a chemical spill on the 12th floor of the Engineering Research Building, which is located across from Engineering Hall.

“The chemists heard a ‘pop,’ and they left the room and evacuated. Nobody was injured,” said Bernadette Galvez, spokeswoman for the Madison Fire Department.

If you donâ??t have a super-fast, super-small computer in a few years, blame the moral majority. It turns out that most Americans find nanotechnology, the scientific field most likely to produce such a breakthrough, morally unacceptable.

Thatâ??s according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin who are studying peopleâ??s attitudes towards nanotechnology, an emerging scientific field that involves manipulating molecules and atoms. They found that just 29.5% of the 1,000-plus Americans surveyed said they thought nanotechnology research was morally acceptable.

As a battleground for the animal liberation movement, the University of California at Los Angeles has weathered threats, intimidation and property damage directed against several of its researchers over the past few years. Today â?? two weeks after a firebomb went off at the same professorâ??s house that in October was flooded with a garden hose â?? the university moved beyond law enforcement, the bully pulpit and security reinforcements and filed a lawsuit against three groups and five individuals.

On any given day tens of thousands of us will drive by it.

Yet few of us know it’s there.

NBC 15s Carleen Wild tells us more about University Research park- a jewel, hidden in the heart of our city.

Companies are born out of research being done at the UW. They are either on the forefront, or the cusp of some of the most positive changes being made in the world.

In the lawsuit it filed this month against Intel Corp., the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation is going after a familiar adversary.

Its volley, alleging that Intel infringed on a patent covering a circuit developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isn’t the first the foundation has aimed at the computer chipmaker or the semiconductor industry.

MADISON, Wis., Feb. 15 (UPI) — Dust storms over West Africa may play a major role in the strength and number of hurricanes over the Atlantic, U.S. scientists said Friday.

University of Wisconsin-Madison atmospheric scientists said dust storms over West Africa disturb millions of tons of dust each year. Heavy winds send dust particles into the sky over the Atlantic, which directly affects ocean temperature, the university said Friday in a release.

MADISON, Wis. — A robotic submarine that will eventually be used to explore a moon that orbits Jupiter continues to be tested in Madison’s Lake Mendota.

The saucer-shaped submersible known as ENDURANCE is cruising the icy depths of the city’s largest lake this week at part of $2-million project funded by NASA.

Around the world, the fight for affordable medical treatment is intensifying. Headline-grabbing battles are being waged in India, where the Chennai High Court recently decided a major constitutional case over access to lifesaving cancer medication. In Thailand, Abbott Laboratories, a multinational pharmaceutical giant, has withdrawn registration of all its new medicines as leverage in a prolonged battle with the government over drug prices and patent recognition.

Noted: And in Thailand, at least one of the drugs that Abbott is withholding, Zemplar (paricalcitol), is based on a patent licensed out of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

MADISON, Wis. — A robotic submarine that will eventually be used to explore a moon that orbits Jupiter continues to be tested in Madison’s Lake Mendota.

The saucer-shaped submersible known as ENDURANCE is cruising the icy depths of the city’s largest lake this week at part of $2-million project funded by NASA.

Ice covered Lake Mendota in Madison is being used as a proving ground for a robotic submarine that will eventually be used to explore the frozen oceans on Europa , the moon that orbits the planet Jupiter. Gil Halsted reports. (Audio.)

Human evolution has been gathering speed for the past 50,000 years, and today natural selection may be changing the human genome faster than ever according to John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin and author of the best paleoanthropology blog on the web (johnhawks.net/weblog). Hawks led a study that examined genetic variability around the world and found that adaptive mutations have been accumulating at an increasing pace as the world’s population grows. Hawks spoke with ARCHAEOLOGY’s Zach Zorich about race, breeding with Neanderthals, and Zach’s lousy education.

MADISON, Wis. — A diver from National Geographic took a swim Tuesday in the frigid waters of Lake Mendota as his crew documented an underwater robot being field tested in the lake.

Researchers from NASA and the University of Illinois at Chicago are heading up the week-long test in which a submersible will dive underneath the ice to map the environment and sample microbial life.

Terrorists attack a nuclear reactor on a college campus. Alarms sound. Campus security officers respondâ??completely unarmed.

NASA is making Madison home this week, hoping to test out a state-of-the-art explorer robot.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago are testing an underwater robot, called “endurance” this week beneath Madison’s Lake Mendota.

The tests will determine what changes need to be made before the bot heads to Antarctica, and ultimately to the ice-bound oceans of Jupiter’s moon, “Europa”.

If this record-setting winter has turned Madison other-worldly, that ‘s just fine with a group of scientists who were working on snowy Lake Mendota Tuesday.

The researchers, from NASA and from the University of Illinois-Chicago, are using the frigid waters of the lake this week to test an underwater robot — a robot slated to explore permanently ice-covered lakes in Antarctica later this year, and eventually to search for signs of life beneath the frozen lakes on the most famous of Jupiter ‘s moons, Europa.

Lake Mendota stands in for Antarctica and beyond, as an underwater robot dives into the Madison lake. ENDURANCE — the Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-Ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer — takes a series of test dives in the lake this week, with the types of conditions it will face when it deploys in October to a perpetually ice-covered lake in Antarctica. (Audio.)

How’s this for a travel itinerary: First stop, Lake Mendota in Wisconsin. Then a little trip under a frozen Antarctic lake, and finally a blowout finish under the icy seas of the Jovian moon Europa.

That’s roughly the plan for the Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer (ENDURANCE) probe, a NASA-funded project designed to make 3D maps of underwater environments, take microbial samples and gather other data on difficult-to-reach depths.

Think that we humans are a fait accompli, a done deal that hasn’t changed over the eons?
Think again.

Evidence is accumulating that the species is still evolving, and doing so at an unprecedented rate. A major new study led by UW-Madison anthropologist John Hawks says that in the past 5,000 years, natural selection â?? gene mutations that spread because they’re beneficial â?? has occurred 100 times faster than at any other period in human history.

Engineers at UW-Madison and colleagues at Bell Laboratories have used nanostructures to create a material that can repel almost any liquid.

Nanostructures are extremely small structures, with physical dimensions smaller than 100 nanometers. A nanometer is a metric unit of length equal to one-billionth of a meter.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s research arm has sued computer chip maker Intel claiming the company violated the university’s patents in making the popular Core 2 Duo processor.

The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday, alleges technology used in the processor to increase its speed and efficiency was created by researchers at the university and Intel should have obtained a licensing agreement to use it.

MADISON â?? A University of Wisconsin research biologist is taking a new look at Wisconsin’s black bear population, and results of his work are likely to impact bear management in the state.

“There are more bear now than there probably has been in 20 years,” said Tim VanDeelen, assistant professor of wildlife ecology, who is overseeing a two-year study that is in its final year.

Two years ago, both of Dana Nelson’s golden retrievers were diagnosed with cancer a day apart. She took them to the University of Wisconsin veterinary school in Madison for radiation and chemo, making the two-hour drive from her home in St. Charles more than 20 times. At home she made them meals of raw meat, steamed vegetables and vitamins.

MADISON, Wis. — An underwater robot will take a swim in the frigid waters of Lake Mendota on Monday as a part of a research experiment that could serve as a dry run for future planetary exploration.

Researchers from NASA and the University of Illinois at Chicago are heading up the week-long test in which a submersible will dive underneath the ice to map the environment and sample microbial life, according to a University of Wisconsin Madison news releas