Category: Research

MADISON, Wis. — Solving the issue of mold in homes and other buildings is one reason a large federal grant has been awarded to a national research lab based in Madison.

Nearly $50 million in federal money is slated for the nation’s leading wood research institute — the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory near the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison.

The money will be used to help expand lab research into mold and other issues related to wood, including turning forest waste into fuel.

Ready to buy your nano-Mac? You might have to wait a few years, and you might want only one if you fly into space or go to war.

(MADISON) A month ago, the University of Wisconsin-Madison got word it was no longer being considered as a site for a national bio- and agro-defense facility. University officials now know why, and say the information may help them adjust strategies to secure future research contracts.

The adage that one person ‘s trash is another person ‘s treasure is being put into practice at the Recycled Materials Resource Center at UW-Madison. The center, which has experts both at UW-Madison and the University of New Hampshire, aims to find uses for a range of materials that often get tossed into landfills by industries.

ST. LOUIS â?? When Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment last November protecting human embryonic stem cell research, it was viewed as a key endorsement of the research even in states with deep religious roots and strong antiabortion forces like this one.

But the expected expansion of stem cell research in Missouri has since run into political and financial roadblocks, putting the future of the research in doubt.

State lawmakers who opposed the constitutional amendment continue to fight it, introducing new bills that would bar some types of the research and suggesting that a ballot initiative to that end may lie ahead.

Experience has shown that even a few short discussions with a health professional can help a problem drinker. Now, a new study has found that counseling by telephone can be equally effective in curbing excessive drinking.

Writing in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers suggested such counseling could be good for hard-to-reach patients. It also uses fewer resources than face-to-face meetings.

The researchers, led by Dr. Richard Brown of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, worked with almost 900 patients at 18 Wisconsin clinics, half of whom were given just pamphlets and the remainder receiving counseling.

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin is known mostly for its cheese, but now state officials want to raise grapes to the same level.

The state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has put up a $22,500 grant to find a variety of seedless, munch-able table grapes that can weather the harsh Wisconsin winters.

Some local growers have been growing grapes, but they have taken second to other fruits, WISC-TV reported.

“‘Oh, you do have grapes!’ Yeah, there’s a comment or two once in a while like that. ‘Oh, you have grapes too?'” said Lavern Forest, owner of Eplegaarden.

MADISON, Wis. â?? After scientist Jamie Thomson isolated human embryonic stem cells in 1998, colleagues said he had opened the door to novel medical treatments that would transform science.

A leading journal called it one of the most important scientific achievements ever. The University of Wisconsin-Madison biologist appeared on Time Magazineâ??s cover under the headline: â??The man who brought you stem cells.â?

Wisconsin agriculture officials hope to find a sweet success with a new grant aimed at the grape industry.

State agriculture officials are expected to announce a $22,500 grant on Monday to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop a seedless table grape fit for Wisconsin’s cool climate.

Wisconsin already supports 30 wineries and interest in grape production is climbing, according to the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Sometimes the inspiration for scientific research comes from the most unexpected places.

Consider Jeff Kaufman’s bedroom.

For much of the past 18 years, he has resided there, gradually losing the ability to move, speak or breathe on his own, as nearly all of his nerve cells that control movement have died off as the result of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

For some CIOs, it’s been a struggle to comply with new e-discovery provisions in federal law. Thus far, there is very little established case law to use for guidance, and the need to manage and organize e-mail documents may not be the top information technology priority for most business organizations.

They’ve seen it all, from the “happy days” of the 1950s to the war on terror. Along the way, they launched their own careers, married, raised children, dealt with prosperity and heartbreak, with growing older and death.

Their story is the story of millions of Americans, but there’s something different here.

When Jennifer Jackowski thinks about Madison’s lakes, she sees both a problem and an opportunity.

The problem — algae — is not new.

“I grew up in rural Wisconsin, and swimming was one my favorite things about summer,” said Jackowski, a UW-Madison botany student from Green Lake. “Then I came to Madison, where you are surrounded by water, and half the time you can’t swim.”

“Mom, would you really have shipped me off to Denver?” I asked my mother recently.

“Absolutely,” she said.

“But imagine,” I said, “what it would have been like for a 5-year-old living in an institution, surrounded by doctors and a bunch of asthmatic kids?”

“You were very, very sick,” she explained. “Nothing helped.”

As interest in interdisciplinary research continues to increase, colleges still donâ??t have answers to critical questions about the best ways to support and encourage collaboration across the disciplines. How can a department fairly evaluate interdisciplinary research in promotion and tenure decisions, for example? How can an institution raise money for interdisciplinary endeavors within a system designed to fund raise for individual schools and colleges? â??We donâ??t yet have the solutions,â? said Gail Dubrow, vice provost and dean of the graduate school at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. â??But we know what the problems are.â?

A few phone conversations with a counselor might help patients, who abuse or who are dependent on alcohol, cut back on their drinking, at least in the short term, a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study suggests.

Researchers found that after just six telephone sessions with a counselor, men and women with alcohol problems were able to reduce their drinking.

“The study shows that we shouldn’t just give up on those alcohol-dependent patients who cannot or choose not to get treatment,” lead study author Dr. Richard L. Brown said in a statement.

Mentions that Karen Dion and Ellen Berschied, from the University of Wisconsin, published a paper showing that children aged 4 to 6 asked to judge classmatesâ?? desirability assessed it on appearance.

They’ve seen it all, from the “happy days” of the 1950s to the war on terror. Along the way, they launched their own careers, married, raised children, dealt with prosperity and heartbreak, with growing older and death.

Their story is the story of millions of Americans, but there’s something different here.

For half a century now, they have been followed by scientists at the University of Wisconsin, who have compiled a unique record of the lives of about 10,000 people who graduated from that state’s high schools in 1957.

Two of the scientists questioning the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s key embryonic stem cell patents tried to patent similar discoveries themselves, the foundation said Wednesday.

Their patent applications were made after the foundation filed patent applications on the work of James Thomson, the first person to isolate human embryonic stem cells.

Neither of the scientists disclosed their patent applications when they filed declarations in April in support of two foundations on the coasts that are trying to have the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office overturn WARF’s patents, the Madison-based foundation said.

James Thomson has added a part-time position at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to his current position at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The new post is raising eyebrows because of recent strains between his home institution and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in San Francisco.

Fears that teenagers using the social networking website MySpace are exposing themselves to sexual predators by disclosing too many personal details are probably overblown, researchers say.

Criminologist Assistant Professor Sameer Hinduja of Florida Atlantic University and Justin Patchin, a political science researcher at the University of Wisconsin, randomly selected 9282 profiles out of the 100 million purportedly available on MySpace.

The energy-efficient nano computer is inspired by ideas about computing first put forward nearly 200 years ago.

Writing in the New Journal of Physics, the scientists say the machine would be built from nanometre sized components, just billionths of a metre across.

Chips based on the design could be used in places, such as car engines, where silicon can be too delicate, they said.

“What we are proposing is a new type of computing architecture that is only based on nano mechanical elements,” said Professor Robert Blick of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the paper.

Many researchers use software such as RasMol to visualize three-dimensional structures of proteins. But what if a researcher is blind? What’s the best way to navigate those same proteins?

Timothy Cordes, a blind medical scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, faces this challenge every day in his X-ray crystallography research. In the past, he had to go through several steps to figure out the spatial relationships of atoms and amino acid residues in a protein. “For everything I wanted to look at, I’d have to go into one program and write a file and then read it in another,” he says. “I realized I needed a tool to help me streamline the process.”

The more exposure middle school students have to anti-smoking ads, the more likely they are to smoke, according to a new University of Georgia study.

Hye-Jin Paek, an assistant professor at UGA, found that many anti-smoking ad campaigns have the opposite effect on teenagers, backfiring because they actually encourage the rebellious nature of youth.

Paek and co-author Albert Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined surveys from 1,700 middle school students about their exposure to anti-smoking ads and their intention to smoke

MADISON, Wis. — A new science camp in Madison is giving some students exposure to careers in stem cell research.

This week some high school seniors, most from rural areas, were granted special access at the world-renowned stem cell research institute WiCell.

Inside some lab rooms at University Research Park on Rosa Road a first-ever program is teaming University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and WiCell with curious high school students who have a passion for science.

A new study suggests that lawmakersâ?? chosen way of dealing with the issue â?? trying through public embarrassment and other means to stop colleges from raising their tuitions by excessive rates â?? will do little to change the behavior of the most expensive institutions.

In a policy paper released by the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison analyzed how public and private, non-religious four year colleges and universities would have been affected by a system that imposed sanctions on institutions that raised their tuition by more than twice the rate of inflation over a three-year period, based on their tuition rates from 2004 to 2006.

Most kids go to summer camp for swimming, hiking and crafts. One group of Wisconsin students is in camp for nanotechnology, stem cells and bioethics.

The WiCell Institute on the UW-Madison campus, is holding its first ever science camp. Eighteen high school students took a quiz to get there and are attending along with their teachers.

WiCell’s Director of Operations Sue Carlson says the campers are incoming seniors who have an interest in biology related careers.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has won approval to go it alone when it comes to patenting, licensing and spinning off companies from campus inventions and discoveries.

Armed with a huge desire to increase its relatively small research effort, and strong support from UW System President Kevin Reilly, the school asked the UW System Board of Regents for permission to break away from a systemwide tech transfer program and manage its own intellectual property.

Richard Gourse, a professor of bacteriology at UW-Madison and an expert on the early stages of gene expression, has received a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health.