What would the world do without potatoes?
The Irish found out during a famine, and it was not a pretty picture.
But the U.S. Potato Genebank in rural Wisconsin is playing a major role in preventing a repeat of that tragedy.
Q. Why do cats walk in a circle before they lie down?
– Submitted by Larry Haynes, grade 6, Whitehorse Middle School
A. Circling behavior seems to be more ingrained in dogs than cats. Cats tend to knead with their claws when they are happy and settling down on a favorite person’s lap or to nap.
MADISON, Wis. â?? The University of Wisconsin-Madison wants to build a 10,000-square-foot vivarium to possibly hold more than 33,000 mice and rats.
â??Researchers in almost every case like having their laboratory and their animal research as close together as possible,â? said Alan Fish, UW-Madison associate vice chancellor for facility planning and management. â??This is pretty standard operating procedure for any biomedical facility that includes animals in its plan. â??
Researchers at the future Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery would have easy access to thousands of lab rats and mice under a proposal to build a 10,000-square-foot vivarium at the Institutes ‘ West Side site, UW Madison officials said Tuesday.
Quad-Citians got a heaping helping of 12,371 political ads on television leading up to the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, a new study shows.
Republicans, Democrats and a handful of private groups spent an estimated $13.8 million on ads that aired in the Quad-City market since last year, part of a $43 million spending splurge at stations statewide.
The spending amounted to far more than what has been spent on advertising thus far in the nearly two dozen states holding primary and caucus contests on Super Tuesday.
The study was done by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project. It analyzed data from the TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group. The report was released Friday.
Working groups of scientists from the UW System and state agencies have joined together in a project designed to assess the potential consequences of climate change in Wisconsin.
People suffering from a diet restricting disease will soon have an alternative to the foul-tasting concoction that replaces protein in their diets, thanks to researchers at University of Wisconsin.
A large underground facility for thousands of rats and mice used for research is planned as part of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
A $20 million plan that includes a receiving dock and an 8,500-square-foot “vivarium” — a holding facility for live animals for observation and research — was proposed to the UW System Board of Regents for action Thursday, but the vote is now set for March to allow more discussion.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is requesting permission to add the vivarium to the $150 million first phase of the biomedical research institutes in the 1300 block of University Avenue at Randall Avenue and Orchard Street.
Recently, scientists at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine used transcranial magnetic stimulation on sleeping patients so that they produced slow waves.
This plays a role in strengthening memories during sleep, although how it works is still debated. Slow waves also indicate deep sleep. “This could be a way of helping people recover from insomnia,” says one of the scientists, Marcello Massimini.
A report released Friday by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project offers a snapshot of the early air wars on both sides. The numbers help illustrate what advertising can and can’t accomplish in a crowded field of candidates.
Presidential contenders from both major parties spent a record $107 million through last Sunday to air more than 151,000 television ads — but hardly any of the media dollars were used to buy air time in the more than 20 states holding nominating contests Tuesday.
Reflecting the extraordinary focus placed on early primary and caucus states this election cycle, three times as much money was spent at New Hampshire television station WMUR — about $10 million — than had been spent in all of California. As of Sunday, ad buys in California totaled about $3 million, though that increased this week as some of the major candidates launched new TV spots in the state.
At a similar point before the Iowa caucuses, $36 million had been spent there, said Kenneth Goldstein, director of the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, which conducted the study. By the time the Jan. 3 caucuses were over, the candidates had spent $43 million on television ads in Iowa, or about $121 for every person who cast a ballot.
Aldo Leopold, Wisconsin ‘s most famed conservationist, urged his students to simply “pay attention. ‘ ‘
He was talking, of course, about more than just the wandering attention spans of students in the classroom. He was explaining an approach to understanding how the natural world works. It was this approach that motivated Leopold to rise before dawn, take his cup of coffee and a notebook to the stoop of his old shack near the Wisconsin River, and wait to hear the morning ‘s first bird songs.
For UW-Madison botanist Don Waller, Leopold ‘s instruction to be attentive to the changes on the landscape around us has been a driving force behind his teaching and his research.
Up until the eve of the Florida primary, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) had spent nearly eight million dollars more on television advertising than the rest of the Republican presidential field combined, according to a new study.
Romney spent $29 million on 34,821 ads, more than three and a half times as much as Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who spent $8 million on 10,830 ads, according to an analysis of data through Jan. 27 by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Remember the old story about modern science: knowing more and more about less and less? It’s not true any more. We are living in the age of the great biological synthesis. Both Neil Shubin and Sean B Carroll thrillingly show us how, in the last 10 years, work on fossils, on DNA sequencing and on embryological development have combined to piece together the story of how we got here.
MADISON, Wis. — On Thursday, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists and business leaders introduced local and national solutions for climate change to students and members of the Madison community at UW-Madison.
Despite all the jokes about slash-and-burn political ads, television commercials in the presidential campaign have been overwhelmingly positive, according to a study to be released today by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.
Ninety percent of commercials aired so far in the presidential campaign were judged â??positive,â? which the research team defined as speaking solely about the candidate or their policies. Just 10 percent were judged to have any negative content at all, according to the study, conducted by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project and funded by the non-partisan Joyce Foundation based in Chicago.
Democrat John Edwards, who dropped out of the race this week, was the rare exception. The study found 81% of Edwardsâ?? ads were contrast ads and in virtually all he criticized Obama and Clinton. â??So, while most attention in free media went to flare-ups between Clinton and Obama,â? said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and primary author of the study, â??Edwards was most likely to focus on his competitors in paid media.”
Researchers report there are important differences between people with severe and non-severe asthma, something that could help explain why those with severe asthma don’t respond well to treatment.
The study, from the Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP), looked at 287 people with severe asthma and 382 people with mild or moderate asthma. It found that people with severe asthma are more likely to show signs of “air trapping” in the lungs, a condition that prevents full exhalation. In addition, those with severe asthma are more likely to have airway obstruction even after maximal treatment. These findings suggest that severe asthma may be a different form of the disease, the researchers said.
“This tells us that something entirely different is going on in people classified as having severe asthma, either physiologically or in the airways that are affected,” study author Ronald Sorkness, a physiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said in a prepared statement.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison geologists said the shaking some University of Wisconsin-Madison staffers and others felt Thursday afternoon near Lake Mendota was most likely an ice quake caused by ice shifting on Lake Mendota.
UW-Madison geologists said they recorded a tremor at 12:50 p.m. that lasted a few seconds.
Ice quakes are usually accompanied by loud cracking noises, and the university said a number of people called UW police and facilities staff to inquire about the rumbling disturbance.
Brad Bolden was fishing on Lake Mendota during the incident.
Eric Beyer was in his foreign language class at Van Hise Hall, one of the tallest buildings near the shore of Lake Mendota, when all of a sudden.
“Our entire class felt a lurch in the entire building,” Beyer says.
Seismologist Cliff Thurber says the tremor was due to an ice quake.
“It’s a big chunk of ice that thrusts upon himself,” Thurber says.
Q. We know that the length of days changes as the axis of the Earth points either toward or away from the sun. But as days get longer, is the “extra” daylight added equally in morning and evening, or otherwise?
A. In our winter, the North Pole tips away from the sun compared to the South Pole, which places the sun lower in the noontime sky and makes the day shorter than it is in summer, said Jim Lattis, director of UW Space Place, an outreach program of the UW-Madison astronomy department.
MADISON, Wis., Jan. 30 (UPI) — U.S. and British researchers found a physiological difference between severe and non-severe forms of asthma.
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, compared lung function measurements from 287 people with severe asthma and 382 people with mild and moderate — non-severe — forms of the disease.
President George W. Bush gave his annual State of the Union address Monday, and his remarks on stem-cell research will likely reverberate in Wisconsin for the last year of his term.
Bush said he was in favor of funding the medical breakthrough by UW-Madison and Japanese researchers that reprogram skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells.
An anonymous $25 million gift from the family of a Marquette University alumnus takes the school’s vision of a transformed College of Engineering facility beyond the financial halfway mark, university President Father Robert Wild said Tuesday.
Madison Area Technical College and UW-Madison are among about 1,600 institutions nationwide participating in Focus the Nation, a teach-in on global warming solutions. The Thursday event will aim to prepare students to lead responses to the challenges of a changing climate.
Both local programs will feature UW Professor Jon Foley, director of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.
Not satisfied with the decision by the Medical College of Wisconsin to stop using dogs as live teaching tools, an animal rights group is now calling on the school to stop using pigs.
A multi-centre research project to investigate severe asthma has found a key physiological difference between severe and non-severe forms of the disease, a finding that could help explain why those with severe asthma do not respond well to treatment.
Ronald Sorkness, a physiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison is the lead author of the study.
Researchers who study the brain know that itâ??s far from an immutable object. â??Itâ??s much more plastic than most people think,â? said Giulio Tononi, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin. â??Itâ??s changing all the time.â?
One area of change is the synapses, the connections between neurons, which are altered as the brain receives stimuli. â??What happens when youâ??re awake is you produce an overall strengthening of synapses,â? Dr. Tononi said. â??Thatâ??s good, because thatâ??s how you learn.â?
Washington, D.C. – In his final State of the Union address, President Bush praised a recent discovery that produces cells that act as human embryonic stem cells without destroying human embryos, and indicated his support for expanded federal funding for such research.
While Bush stopped short of making a specific funding proposal, he urged assembled members of Congress to expand funding for stem cell research that does not destroy embryos.
A UW study reveals low rates of vaccination for the nation’s puppies and kittens. They may be cute and cuddly, but the study by UW’s School of Veterinary Medicine reveals fewer than half of all puppies and kittens are being vaccinated. UW’s Dr. Ron Schultz says the low vaccination rate can be a real problem at animal shelters, and he’d like to see new efforts.
Social conservatives used to scowl at the work of UW-Madison stem cell scientist James Thomson, whom Doyle introduced during his speech. But Thomson has quickly become a pro-life hero for reverting human skin cells back to their embryonic state. The technique should eventually allow researchers to develop better drugs and even cures for disease without destroying — or even using — embryos.
MADISON, Wis. — Doctors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine performed a first-of-its-kind surgery on an exotic yellow-footed tortoise.
The tortoise, named Baskin Robbins, lives at the Milwaukee County Zoo. His caretakers noticed that Baskin Robbins wasn’t walking and appeared to be in pain, so they sent him to Madison for a checkup.
“Baskin Robbins is here because he is lame, meaning he’s not bearing weight on his front left leg, and we think it’s because he had a problem with his humerus, which is the arm bone. Part of it has broken off, and that part needs to be removed so that he’s not lame and in pain,” said Dr. Gretchen Cole, a veterinarian at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
Classes are now in session at UW-Madison, which means that students are once again dozing through lectures, flirting at the library and drinking heavily at their favorite downtown taps. But I issue this plea to Badger undergraduates: Make good use of your time here.
The University of Wisconsin is a world-class institution. You’ll likely never have a better chance to read great books and talk about them with thoughtful people. And you’ll likely never again be amid such a concentration of brilliant lectures, concerts, exhibits, films and other provocative events. As ever, there is a lot going on, all over campus.
There are two things the state of Wisconsin is known for: the dairy industry and stem-cell research. Today, the state of California has a higher-producing dairy industry and currently has more money to fund stem- cell research. If Wisconsin wants to keep up, it must pony up.
I kept thinking that at some point during the long, laborious process to elect our next president it was bound to happen. But now, after more than 20 debates and with the election just 10 months away, it has dawned on me that none of the candidates — or any of the media — is going to bring up what the late Gaylord Nelson, the former Wisconsin senator and governor and the father of Earth Day, felt was the most urgent issue that humanity faces: overpopulation.
Quoted: Botany professor Don Waller
Q. Will the sun ever burn up the Earth and, if so, when?
— Submitted by Noelle Yeazel, Grade 6, Whitehorse Middle School
A. Like all stars, the sun changes over time, and some day — when it has consumed all of its hydrogen fuel and becomes what astronomers call a “red giant star ” — its outer layers could reach as far as the Earth and swallow our planet.
A biochemist at UW Madison is hoping his genetic research on algae may someday help the computer industry make thinner silicon chips. Gil Halsted reports.â?¦(Audio.)
Nationwide, fewer than half of all puppies and kittens are vaccinated, according to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison veterinarians, suggesting that dangerous diseases like distemper and parvovirus will continue to flourish.
“A population must reach a certain threshold of immunity — called ‘herd immunity’ — in order to protect the whole group,” said Ronald Schultz, a vaccinologist who heads a department in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. “If not enough individuals in a population are protected, disease can always find a new foothold, or even worse, remain active in the population.”
On Jan. 15, the FDA announced the meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs and goats to be as safe as the food products from their natural counterparts, and would be permitted to enter the U.S. food supply unlabeled.
After a leading UW-Madison stem-cell researcher said Wisconsin needs to take serious steps to maintain leadership in the stem-cell field, many state dignitaries said the state funding is likely not feasible.
University of Wisconsin researchers announced this week that they have created a strand of the Ebola virus unable to replicate in normal cells, eliminating risks of contamination and allowing more labs to be able to study the virus.
The key to the next big computer chip breakthrough could be tiny algae that encase themselves in intricately patterned, glass-like shells.
The unicellular algae, called diatoms, exist in oceans, lakes and even wet soil and build their hard cell walls by laying down microscopic lines of silica, a compound related to the key material of the semiconductor-industry silicon.
“If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the nanofabrication used to make computer chips,” Michael Sussman, a UW-Madison biochemistry professor and director of the UW-Madison’s Biotechnology Center, said in a UW press release.
Mentions that field studies in 2004, 2005 and 2006 by the University of Wisconsin-Madison concluded that cormorants did not affect yellow perch populations, a key sport fish in Lake Michigan waters.
WAUKESHA – A new study released by the University of Wisconsin-Madison says fewer than half of all people in the country are getting their puppies and kittens vaccinated, which could have disastrous results in the future. (Subscription required.)
In his speech, Doyle also praised University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researcher James Thomson, who was in attendance, and UW research teams for embarking on the next frontier of stem cell research – using skin cells to create new stem cells for use in medical research. He also noted the forthcoming groundbreaking on the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a new research center that will foster collaboration between biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology.
WISCONSIN DELLS — Of all of the birds that spend part of their lives in Wisconsin, the group that needs the most help are grassland birds. Their populations, along with their habitat, are in decline.
That is one of the reasons why the Department of Natural Resources held a statewide Grassland Bird Symposium last week, bringing together state and federal wildlife managers and researchers, and land managers from (non-governmental conservation organizations.
UW-Madison wildlife ecology research associate Kevin Ellison and the UW Arboretum are mentioned.)
UW-Madison stem cell research leader James Thomson said Tuesday that Wisconsin would have to invest $50 million a year in stem cell research to compete with California’s $3 billion investment.
The result would be high-paying jobs for the state and continued recruitment of top scientific minds to the University of Wisconsin, he predicted.
MADISON, Wis., Jan. 22 (UPI) — U.S. scientists say the study of diatoms — algae that encase themselves in patterned, glass-like shells — might lead to an advance in computer chips.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers said the tiny unicellular phytoplankton build their hard cell walls by depositing submicron-sized lines of silica, a compound related to silicon.
Madison, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who first isolated human embryonic stem cells said Tuesday that Wisconsin would have to spend $50 million annually on stem cell research to keep pace with California on a per capita basis.
James Thomson, who spoke on the past and future of stem cell research at the monthly luncheon of the Madison chapter of the Wisconsin Innovation Network, said Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco, alone, receive on the order of $15 million a year a piece.
New stem cell breakthroughs hold great potential for human medicine, UW-Madison researcher Jamie Thomson said today, but any therapies coming from them may be a decade or two off.
â??This will revolutionize human medicine, but mostly it is about the basic science and biology and having access to things we did not have access to before,â? he said, noting that transplantation of stem cells to the central nervous system will be particularly difficult.
The public hates negative ads. At least thatâ??s what the media and pundits offer up every election year.
But UW-Madison political science professor Ken Goldstein argues theyâ??re usually more accurate, more likely to focus on substance and policy, and more likely to spark votersâ?? interest and participation. In short, they work.
Goldstein said past claims that negative ads are detrimental to democracy are false and based on faulty assumptions. He builds his case in a new book â??Campaign Advertising and American Democracy.â?
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation entered a licensing agreement in early January with a biotech company to commercialize stem cell technology created at the University of Wisconsin.
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has safely isolated a strain from the lethal Ebola virus that may break down some research safety restrictions and foster the development of a vaccine.
The discovery genetically disarms the virus and confines it to a set of specialized cells, making it easier and safer for study.
“We wanted to make biologically contained Ebola virus,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, the team’s research leader, said in a statement. “This is a great system.”
The public hates negative ads. At least thatâ??s what the media and pundits offer up every election year.
But UW-Madison political science professor Ken Goldstein argues theyâ??re usually more accurate, more likely to focus on substance and policy, and more likely to spark votersâ?? interest and participation. In short, they work.
When it comes to drug development, Jon Thorson studies sweet spots.
The UW-Madison pharmacy professor works with sugar molecules that enable natural compounds to fight cancer or infections – or avoid unwanted side effects.
A UW-Madison scientist who had to stop doing some Ebola virus research on campus because of biosafety concerns has plucked a vital gene from the deadly virus to create a version he and others say is safe to use in most labs.
Yoshihiro Kawaoka created the altered live Ebola virus more than a year ago in a high-level biosafety lab in Canada. He has been working with the altered virus at UW-Madison for about a year in a lab with basic biosafety standards, he said.
Scientists disarmed the Ebola virus by removing a single gene, providing a new laboratory tool that will help the development of drugs and vaccines against the lethal tropical disease.
Efforts to find ways of treating Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever that kills between 50-90 per cent of the people it infects, have so far been greatly held up by its extreme virulence. The extreme health hazard posed by the virus means that it can be studied only in highly specialised laboratories equipped to biosafety level four (BSL 4), the highest category of containment facility.
Scientists have made the lethal virus Ebola harmless in the lab, potentially aiding research into a vaccine or cure.
Taking a single gene from the virus stops it replicating, US scientists wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
Ebola, currently handled in highly secure labs, kills up to 80% of those it infects.
SCIENTISTS have disarmed the Ebola virus by removing a single gene, providing a new laboratory tool that will help the development of drugs and vaccines against the lethal tropical disease.
Efforts to find ways of treating Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever that kills between 50 and 90 per cent of the people it infects, have so far been greatly held up by its extreme virulence.
Chicago – US researchers have devised a way to genetically disarm the deadly Ebola virus in a development that could speed research into a vaccine against the bug or drugs to treat people who have been infected with it, a study released Monday said.
The investigators discovered removing a single gene from the virus prevents it from replicating or multiplying, effectively neutralizing the bug and making it much safer to study.
MADISON, Wis., Jan. 21 (UPI) — Contrary to the popular belief, the brain is busy consolidating information during sleep, the brain is actually shutting down, a U.S. study found.
Animal studies, published in Nature Neuroscience, found molecular and electro-physiological measures taken on rats showed the neurochemical processes underlying learning — synapses — actually weaken during sleeping hours.
The findings support the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis proposed by the study ‘s lead researchers Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. They said that during sleep the synapses actually “downsize” in preparation for a new round of learning during waking hours.
