A ‘safe’ version of Ebola has been developed by researchers hoping to broaden opportunities to study the deadly virus. If approved by national regulatory authorities, the non-infectious virus could be studied in a broader variety of labs, removing a major roadblock to finding a cure.
A type of algae found in oceans, lakes and wet soil could be used to create a new, faster generation of computer chips, U.S. researchers suggest in a study released Monday.
Marine diatoms, a unicellular algae, build their hard, patterned cell walls with microscopic lines of silica â?? a compound related to silicon, which is a key material for constructing computer chips and semiconductors.
“If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the nanofabrication used to make computer chips,” lead researcher Michael Sussman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry professor, said in a release.
CHICAGO (Thomson Financial) – 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 that by removing a single gene from the virus, they can prevent it from replicating or multiplying, effectively neutralizing the virus and making it much safer to study.
Most people know it from experience: After so many hours of being awake, your brain feels unable to absorb any moreâ??and several hours of sleep will refresh it.
Now new research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health clarifies this phenomenon, supporting the idea that sleep plays a critical role in the brainâ??s ability to change in response to its environment. This ability, called plasticity, is at the heart of learning.
Reporting in the Jan. 20, 2008, online version of Nature Neuroscience, the UW-Madison scientists showed by several measures that synapses â?? nerve cell connections central to brain plasticity â?? were very strong when rodents had been awake and weak when they had been asleep.
The deadly Ebola virus, an emerging public health concern in Africa and a potential biological weapon, ranks among the most feared of exotic pathogens.
Due to its virulent nature, and because no vaccines or treatments are available, scientists studying the agent have had to work under the most stringent bio-containment protocols, limiting research to a few highly specialized labs and hampering the ability of scientists to develop countermeasures.
Q. How can a tornado occur in January?
– Submitted by Carrie Jeschke’s seventh-grade class at Waunakee Middle School
A. Tornadoes can happen whenever atmospheric conditions are suitable, said Steve Ackerman, professor of atmospheric science at UW-Madison. Wisconsin has had at least one tornado in every month except February.
A few sharp ice crystals ruin ice cream’s silky texture, as all connoisseurs know. An edible, tasteless antifreeze may soon come to the rescue.
The non-toxic antifreeze, made from a gelatin protein, could be added to any frozen food to prevent unappetizing ice crystals from forming, without otherwise affecting the food itself.
“This has been a major problem in frozen foods,” said food scientist Srinivasan Damodaran of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who conducted the research. “Ice crystal growth can change properties of frozen food like texture. We live in Wisconsin â?? dairy country. We produce a lot of ice cream.”
Area parents eager to understand what’s behind their baby’s coos, their toddler’s meltdowns or their preschooler’s grasp of language are in luck.
The Appleton Education Foundation is hosting four leading “brain investigators” from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center who will speak about brain development in young children in a series of free lectures beginning next month.
Far from resolving an epic moral quandary, last yearâ??s groundbreaking discovery that ordinary skin cells eventually could replace the use of human embryos in stem-cell research actually stoked the fiery debate over the cutting-edge science.
Religious opponents hailed the skin-cell breakthrough as proof that research involving the destruction of embryos is unnecessary and must end. Scientists countered that studies on stem cells harvested from human embryos must continue for at least several more years while the new technique is perfected. And the battle went on.
Guri Sohi, chairman of the Computer Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has talked candidly about the declining numbers of his department since the height of the dotcom era in 2000. At that point, the UW Computer Science Department granted about 170 bachelor’s degrees annually, and now is down below 80 per year. It also once granted 100 master’s degrees annually, but that has declined to about 50 per year.
Meanwhile, PhDs have remained stable at roughly 20 per year, but there are some ominous national trends. Roughly 75 percent of all doctorate degrees granted nationally in electrical engineering are going to non-U.S. citizens.
UW-Madison’s experience mirrors the national trends, and several efforts are underway to reverse it. One Wisconsin effort is Powered Up, a consortium of businesses and schools in Dane County working to increase awareness in information technology careers. The group was formed in 1999, and is now engaged in talks with the Information Technology Association of Wisconsin to expand statewide.
Carlos Santiago’s enterprise on Milwaukee’s east side looks a lot like a business start-up: The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has a great idea and big ambitions, but it is strapped for cash and hears plenty of people saying, “Show me.”
Trina McMahon ‘s research makes her a detective in the world of bacteria.
She investigates the who and how and why of bacterial functions. Which bacteria clean up sewage? How do they do it? Why do bacteria change in Lake Mendota?
Edible antifreeze developed by a US researcher could keep ice cream tasty and smooth, and prevent other frozen foods from being ruined. The antifreeze contains proteins similar to those that help “snow flea” insects survive winter without freezing solid.
The taste of good ice cream depends on a blend of flavour, temperature, and texture â?? what food scientists call “mouth feel”.
Food chemist Srinivasan Damodaran at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, thinks he has a better solution. He is experimenting with edible antifreeze made from gelatin, which is much more effective at preventing ice crystals from ruining ice cream, he says.
Two of the biggest experiments at the South Pole relate to astrophysics and would rank as major projects anywhere in the world. One is a $19.2 million telescope, run by the University of Chicago, that is looking into dark energy by locating the biggest structures in the universe, distant clusters of galaxies formed billions of years ago.
The other, called Ice Cube, involves freezing thousands of delicate sensors into the ancient, crystal-clear ice thousands of feet beneath the pole in a cube configuration 1 kilometer long on each side. The goal of the $280 million project, led by the University of Wisconsin, is to capture one of the smallest and most elusive things in the universe, subatomic neutrino particles.
Top administrators from 11 public research universities released a joint statement last week rebuking University President Drew G. Faust for her recent comments in BusinessWeek, where she was quoted as saying that public universities short on federal funds should leave expensive scientific research to their wealthier peers.
â??We emphatically reject that notion,â? wrote the administrators, who are provosts from schools such as the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. â??Collectively, our institutions educate more than 380,000 students, produce 1 in every 8 American PhDs, and conduct more than $4.5 billion worth of research every year.â?
Fox Valley Career Center game programming technology teacher Anna Schwein had her students focus on â??entertainmentâ? video games at the beginning of the fall semester in order for them to keep an interest in the topic.
However, there is more to the video game market than shoot ’em ups and sports games, and there is more to her class. A growing aspect of the industry falls under the â??edutainmentâ? genre, or games designed to help children learn while entertaining at the same time. Schwein plans to focus about one-third of the semester on this growing aspect of the industry, she said.
David Williamson Shaffer, assistant professor of learning science at the University of Wisconsin Madison, has devoted a significant amount of time to studying it, having written a book called â??How video games help children learn.â?
Dear Editor:
….We’re not privy to the politics that caused him to leave Madison for North Carolina. But we understand his frustration with being denied research dollars to better understand, study and possibly find a cure for this unfortunate disease. The irony is that Wisconsin has the highest rate of ALS in the country.
We hope that the UW Medical School is truly aware of what a loss this is for our community. We know that, like us, there are many other families and friends who thank him for his dedication to helping understand, diagnose and treat those afflicted with ALS, and for his efforts to boost awareness through MDA fundraising, his own physician practice, support groups and teaching.
Nancy Mayek, Beth Hamilton and Ann Duesterbeck, Verona
Q. How do we know there are other galaxies outside of our own Milky Way galaxy?
A. The Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light years across, so star clusters beyond that distance from Earth must be separate galaxies, said UW-Madison astronomy professor Matthew Bershady.
In the latest feat of stem cell wizardry, researchers have been able to create viable new lines of embryonic stem cells from human embryos that were not destroyed in the process.
The accomplishment is the newest wrinkle in a rapidly evolving effort to find ways to develop prized human embryonic stem cells without the ethical baggage that has plagued the field since its inception nearly a decade ago. Already, the new method is generating controversy.
This new method differs from a breakthrough late last year by University of Wisconsin-Madison and Japanese researchers in that it uses embryos, not genetically engineered skin cells. In the UW work, those skin cells appear to act like embryonic stem cells, but more research is needed before embryonic stem cell work could be abandoned
What exactly is happening inside the brains of people experiencing joy and happiness?
“It’s a very complicated chemical soup,” explained Dr. Richard Davidson, who has made a life’s work out of studying “happy brains.” His lab at the University of Wisconsin is devoted to understanding how much of our joy level is set at birth, and how much we can control.
In findings that some analysts described as being of more political than scientific significance, Massachusetts researchers said yesterday that they have dramatically improved a technique for producing human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos.
Quoted: R. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin.
A lot of big new art shows await you in the coming year.
They will kick off with a bang at the end of January when the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty art show opens Jan. 26 at the Chazen Museum of Art and continue with a new show of prints by Pop icon Jasper Johns, opening Feb. 8 at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
Another event worth noting is this weekend’s opening of “Paradise Lost? Climate Change in the Northwoods.”
The show, which is on tour around the state, features the work of 20 area artists commissioned to explore the specter of global warming in the Great Lakes region. Interspersed among the art, visitors will encounter a fair share of science, too.
MADISON, Wis. – A California company has signed a deal to license stem cell technology patents held by a nonprofit that supports the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The licenses cover some of the work of UW-Madison scientist James Thomson, who was the first to grow and isolate human embryonic stem cells in 1998.
Embryome Sciences Inc., hopes to use the technology to make new medical and research products. The company is a subsidiary of BioTime Inc., based in Emeryville, Calif.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has licensed 173 patents and patent applications filed internationally relating to human embryonic stem cell technology to BioTime Inc., a California company that’s entering the embryonic stem cell field.
A California company hopes to use stem cell technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to make new medical and research products.
BioTime, Inc. has signed a licensing agreement with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to use 173 patents and patent applications covering human embryonic stem cell technology.
The patents cover some of the work of UW-Madison scientist James Thomson.
TOKYO (AFP) â?? Stem cell technologies could be used to cure diseases and heal injuries within 10 years, a Japanese scientist who recently broke new ground in the field said Wednesday.
Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, whose team reported in November they reprogrammed human skin cells to be indistinguishable from stem cells taken from human embryos, said the new technology is so simple that many laboratories are competing to make further breakthroughs.
APPLETON â?? As many parents discover, the minds of young children absorb information like sponges and their brain development seems to occur at incredible speed.
Yet there is so much more for families, educators and child care providers to know about early childhood learning, from the ramifications for school success to the economic impact down the road.
That’s the driving force behind the Appleton Education Foundation’s “Brain to Five” community education series that launches Feb. 6 with a presentation by Richie Davidson, a renowned researcher on early brain development.
In Chancellor Carlos Santiago’s vision, Innovation Park would be a place where engineers from companies such as Rockwell Automation work together in the same building with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee scientists and students to generate research dollars and spin off new companies.
Describing that vision of the proposed Wauwatosa research park to the Wisconsin Technology Council board Tuesday, Santiago issued a challenge to businesses: open locations in the park and supply them with engineers and equipment.
When he was a high-ranking executive at GE Healthcare, Dr. Bill Clarke heard a lot of pitches from aspiring entrepreneurs.
It became fairly routine, and he wasn’t expecting anything extraordinary when he came to hear UW-Madison Prof. Jamey Weichert detail Cellectar, a local firm he founded to develop his cancer fighting compounds.
“I was going to give Jamey an hour and four hours later I walked out and I thought, ‘This is really good,’ ” Clarke said in a phone interview.
Cellectar’s technology, based on research done by a University of Wisconsin-Madison team led by radiology professor Jamey Weichert, uses fat-like molecules to deliver radioisotopes that can either destroy malignant cells or enable imaging equipment to locate them.
Madison, Wis. – New stem cell lines that are derived from a promising new technique should be housed and distributed by the WiCell Research Institute, says Carl Gulbrandsen, president of WiCell.
According to a report in the Appleton Post Crescent, Gulbrandsen has told the National Institutes of Health that WiCell would like to house and distribute the new cell lines. WiCell, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, already is home to the National Stem Cell Bank, which now has 17 of the 21 existing embryonic stem cell lines that receive federal funding.
Like Hamlet contemplating the skull of poor Yorick, John Hawks sees a lot more than most of us when he peers at a skull, something he does frequently. In fact, it ‘s his job.
Q. Why do our eyes expand and shrink according to the light?
Submitted by Nikki Lee, eighth grade, Cherokee Middle School
A. We encounter a huge range of light levels, from dark moonless nights to the glaring noon sun. But our eyes only work within a limited range – too much light and the light-sensitive cells in our eyes are overwhelmed; too little light and the cells are not stimulated.
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin is losing its only specialist in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Dr. Benjamin Brooks, a renowned ALS researcher, said he is leaving the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics after 25 years of work, WISC-TV reported.
He told WISC-TV he is headed to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., where he will be director of an ALS research center. He will leave University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics sometime in the middle of February.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_7874144
LOS ALAMOS, N.M.â??Aftershocks from earthquakes can happen minutes, hours or even days after the sound waves that radiate from them pass, but the cause of the delay remains a mystery, a group of researchers said.
In a letter that appeared Thursday in the science journal Nature, Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Paul Johnson and his colleagues show how energy can be stored in certain types of granular materials like those found along fault lines worldwide.
Johnson said the experiment conducted with the help of researchers at the University of California-Santa Cruz, the University of Wisconsin, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington has helped confirm that earthquakes are periodic events and that sound can disrupt them.
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Home prices could fall “considerably” over a number of years as a benchmark ratio of rents to prices slowly returns to its long-run average, according to a new study.
“If the rent-price ratio were to rise from its level at the end of 2006 up to about its historical average value of 5 percent by mid-2012, house prices might fall by 3 percent per year,” two Federal Reserve Board economists and a University of Wisconsin professor said.
The surveillance cameras and electronic locks are the only hints that a visitor has reached the border of a scientific frontier. Behind these laboratory doors a few blocks from Columbia University in Manhattan is a research enterprise quarantined by federal law because, for many people, it poses a moral hazard.
Inside, a technician adjusts a microscope and a cluster of human embryonic stem cells — with the potential to develop into the body’s many cell types — springs into view, blurred only by politics, ethics disputes and conflicting beliefs about the beginnings of life.
MADISON, Wis. — Pre-eminent ALS researcher and University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics doctor Benjamin Brooks is leaving the hospital after 25 years of work.
He told WISC-TV he is headed to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., where he will be able to concentrate on researching ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
….Past and current patients and others in the ALS field rallied behind him in 2004 after UW Medical School officials closed Brooks’ ALS research lab in early 2003, alleging bookkeeping and training problems with testing procedures.
The new year opens with one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical science since Ian Wilmut used cells from an adult sheep to clone Dolly the lamb in 1996. Human stem cells, which for all intents and purposes are identical to the highly prized but controversial ones harvested from human embryos, now can be made from adult skin, without using embryos or eggs. Separate research groups headed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin unveiled the technique in late November. A third group, from Harvard, confirmed that work barely a month later. It seems the path to curing diseases like diabetes, Parkinson’s, and many inherited disorders has a shortcut. In fact, stem cell pioneer Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., just showed that a mouse version of these cells cures mice with sickle cell anemia.
UW-Madison zoology professor Lauren Riters knows why the starling sings.
“He’s trying to attract a female. And he wants to keep contact with the group,” Riters said. “Also, it’s because there’s a convergence of appropriate environmental stimuli – the days are longer, there are no predators around, he’s feeling well fed.
Gabriela Cezar will take aim at autism in 2008.
The Brazilian stem-cell researcher, who came to UW-Madison in 2005, will study brain tissue of autistic children who have died. The study is done in hope of creating a biochemical fingerprint of autism.
Professor Arnold Alanen sees the world through different eyes.
Where most people see a grassy mall on campus, he sees the history of agriculture and science at UW-Madison.
The program, funded by a UW School of Medicine and Public Health grant, is one of at least three efforts in the Madison area to study kids’ fitness levels. The programs also teach kids that being active doesn’t have to be limited to the dodge ball and floor hockey games their parents remember from school.
For the early morning regulars at Rennebohm ‘s on University Avenue, the smell of coffee, eggs and sausage has been just a pleasant memory since 1981, when UW-Madison bought the building and turned it into offices.
Now it ‘s time for the building itself to go.
As scientists become increasingly concerned about the safety of chemicals that mimic hormones, a group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison remembers what could have been.
The best scientific minds in big business, academia and environmental advocacy were to be plucked from across the globe to join forces in a think tank. Their charge: to investigate endocrine disruptors – chemicals in everyday products – to see if these compounds were making people sick.
What happens when a rat stops dreaming? In 2004, researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison decided to find out. Their method was simple, if a bit devilish. Step 1: Strand a rat in a tub of water. In the center of this tiny sea, allot the creature its own little desert island in the form of an inverted flowerpot. The rat can swim around as much as it pleases, but come nightfall, if it wants any sleep, it has to clamber up and stretch itself across the flowerpot, its belly sagging over the drainage hole.
In this uncomfortable position, the rat is able to rest and eventually fall asleep. But as soon as the animal hits REM sleep, the muscular paralysis that accompanies this stage of vivid dreaming causes its body to slacken. The rat slips through the hole and gets dunked in the water. The surprised rat is then free to crawl back onto the pot, lick the drops off its paws, and go back to sleepâ??but it won’t get any REM sleep.
Laura Kiessling works at the forefront of a promising new movement in science. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she builds synthetic molecules that imitate those in nature and influence cell behavior in fundamental ways.
Her research has suggested new strategies for targeting tumors, fighting tuberculosis and bolstering the body’s response to infection.
Time magazine has proclaimed Vladimir Putin its Person of the Year. Which leads us to ponder, as we start a new year, who might deserve that title for Wisconsin for the year just ending.
James Thomson: Already a stem cell pioneer, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher led a team that succeeded in reprogramming human skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. A separate Japanese team did the same thing.
In a Nov. 21 article, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Fauber explained why this is significant: “If these new cells truly have all the beneficial qualities of embryonic stem cells without hidden hazards, it could pave the way to therapies that do not raise the moral concerns associated with the destruction of embryos or therapeutic cloning. At the same time, the new approach could avoid problems of immune rejection because the cells could be matched to the DNA of the patient.”
Stem Cell Researchers Win Nobel: Researchers in Japan and the U.S. in 2007 announced they had found a way to turn regular human skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells. By activating a handful of dormant genes, teams led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka at Japan’s Kyoto University and Dr. James Thompson at the University of Wisconsin were able to coax the cells back in time to a point in embryonic development before they’d committed to becoming a particular type of tissue.
The reprogrammed cells, known as “induced pluripotent stem cells,” genetically matched to the donor, could then be used to grow tissues for future use in tissue replacement therapies including a range of things from regeneration of damaged heart tissue to Parkinson’s to spinal-cord injury.
The discovery could provide a virtually unlimited supply of embryonic stem cells without the moral baggage of or need to use human embryos, cloning or human eggs. It also takes such research out of the political arena back into the realm of science, where it belongs.
“It’s a bit like learning how to turn lead into gold,” says Dr. Robert Lanza, a stem cell researcher at Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts-based research firm. For this discovery, and the cures it will lead to, it should warrant the next Nobel Prize for Medicine.
It was the kind of breakthrough scientists had dreamed of for decades and its promise to help cure disease appears to be fast on the way to being realised.
Researchers in November announced they were able to turn the clock back on skin cells and transform them into stem cells, the mutable building blocks of organs and tissues.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — If one of your New Years’ resolutions is to quit smoking, the state wants to help.
Starting today, people who call the state’s Tobacco Quit Line can get a free two-week starter kick of nicotine medicines.
The cost is being covered by the additional one-dollar-per-pack tax that went into effect today.
Dr. Michael Fiore is the Director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention in Madison. He says the best way to quit is to plan for it, follow the steps and use the treatment.
Two of the most significant science events of 2007 occurred within the space of a fortnight. The first was when scientists announced that they had been able to clone dozens of embryos from an adult monkey â?? a technical feat that had eluded researchers since the announcement on cloning Dolly the sheep back in 1997. The second breakthrough happened when researchers showed that it was possible to convert human skin cells into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, which could then be used to make beating heart-muscle and brain cells in the test tube.
Low water levels. Invasive species. Global warming.
Faced with those kinds of challenges, you’d figure the Great Lakes are in trouble, big trouble. But scientists say the lakes are actually in pretty good shape and have been improving since 1969….
(Quoted: Phil Keillor, a coastal engineer with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute)
Q. What can one person do to combat global warming?
A. The solution lies in cutting our energy consumption, especially energy from fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal, oil and natural gas, said UW-Madison climate scientist Jon Foley. That’s because the burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, a powerful “greenhouse gas.”
CHICAGO (AFP) â?? It was the kind of breakthrough scientists had dreamed of for decades and its promise to help cure disease appears to be fast on the way to being realized.
Researchers in November announced they were able to turn the clock back on skin cells and transform them into stem cells, the mutable building blocks of organs and tissues.
Then just earlier this month a different team announced it had cured sickle cell anemia in mice using stem cells derived from adult mouse skin.
The director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project predicts candidates in the 2008 election campaign will spend more on television ads than any campaign in history. This year marks the 6th campaign that UW-Madison researchers have tracked TV election spending . Gil Halsted reports. (Audio.)
Madison, Wis. – A coalition of consumer advocacy and public interest groups, including two organizations that are challenging stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), have filed legal papers in support of proposed new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rules that would curtail what they believe is abusive behavior by patent applicants.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed recently in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., the groups urged that an injunction blocking the proposed rules be lifted and that they be implemented immediately.
The white walls of Gary Shiu’s office are broken up by little but a blackboard and a calendar. But inside the plain space, the soft-spoken UW-Madison physicist is creating dramatic images of phenomena people can’t see.
In November, two teams of scientists reported success in reprogramming human skin cells to behave as embryonic stem cells, which can become any cell in the body.
Their papers appeared in two prestigious journals, Cell and Science. The Cell report was from a group led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan. The Science study was from Junying Yu and James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
About 15 percent of the air pollution in the United States comes from overseas, according to a new report by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Second item in briefs package)
