Experiments with mice have shown that mental stimulation and drug treatment may help people with Alzheimer’s disease regain memories.
(Quoted: Sanjay Asthana, a UW-Madison geriatric research expert)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials will visit Dane County today to review a possible site in the town of Dunn for a federal animal disease research facility.
It would seem there are few connections between the glow of a computer screen and the rough-and-tumble flow of a river down its course.
But The Nature Conservancy and business giant IBM are collaborating on a computer-driven project — using science from UW-Madison — that may help protect the world’s great rivers.
Don Hedberg, retired co-owner of Lab Safety Supply Co., has made a $2 million gift that will name UW-Madison’s new HealthEmotions Research Institute building.
TOWN OF DUNN, Wis. — Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were in Dane County on Monday to scout out a home for a new $400 million human and animal disease research lab.
If the University of Wisconsin gets its way, the national lab will be located at its Kegonsa Research Campus just off Highway 51 in the Town of Dunn.
However, some nearby residents said that is no place for such an enormous and high-security facility. They continued their effort on Monday to take the UW site out of contention. Some critics of what would be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S. staged a small protest at the site near Stoughton on Monday, WISC-TV reported.
The protestors said that they hope the show of community concern will mean the UW site won’t make the federal government’s final list of three to seven sites, which is due out next month.
A California group that is challenging three key stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation wants the director of the University of Wisconsin patent licensing arm to resign from a U.S Patent Office board while the patents are being reconsidered.
The flip of a switch could become all it takes to get a good night’s sleep, according to a study released on Monday.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a way to stimulate the slow waves typical of deep sleep by sending a harmless magnetic signal through the skulls of sleeping volunteers.
Scientists may have discovered a way of triggering deep sleep in people suffering from chronic insomnia.
A study has found a way of stimulating the brain so that sleep-deprived people can feel the full restorative powers of an eight-hour period of slumber.
The researchers have developed an electronic device that stimulates the brain with harmless magnetic pulses which cross into the nerves that control a type of deep sleep called “slow-wave activity”.
Dear Editor: I find it abhorrent that during an era of stressed budgets at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it is felt that it is worthwhile to spend $1 million to stifle free speech.
A University of Wisconsin chemist and her team have discovered a method for identifying new useful compounds for developing antibiotics, and a national science journal recognized the groupâ??s findings Friday.
For sheer drama, there have been few more memorable Professional Golf Association Tour matches in recent years than Tiger Woods’ sudden-death playoff victory over John Daly in the October 2005 American Express Championship at San Francisco’s Harding Park.
But for many environmentalists and golf course superintendents across the country, the event — which abruptly ended when the volatile Daly jerked a 3-foot putt on the second playoff hole — was notable for one other reason: Harding Park, which is a public course, has been hailed as an environmental model because, in addition to its jaw-dropping beauty, it uses far fewer pesticides than any PGA course in the country.
(Quoted: UW-Madison associate professor of horticulture John Stier. Zoology professor Warren Porter is also mentioned.)
The medical research company hired by the federal government four years ago to update its list of carcinogens moved quickly to add a virus to the list while two of its clients were developing vaccines to combat that same virus.
Researchers reported Friday they have found four promising antibiotics in chemical families never used before against germs through a novel testing tool that can screen dozens of compounds at once.
The four compounds appear to kill bacteria, at least in a lab dish. Because they probably attack bacteria in different ways, germs should take some time to develop resistant strains.
“These represent whole new classes of antibiotic agents,” said Helen Blackwell, lead author of a University of Wisconsin-Madison report on the discoveries published in the journal Chemistry and Biology.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials will visit the town of Dunn today to look at a possible site for a federal animal disease research facility. Some town of Dunn residents and officials will post protest signs on their vehicles and park them along Schneider Drive and Dyreson Road during the visit.
MADISON, Wis. — Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said they are excited about an inflection-fighting breakthrough that shows promise in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
Dr. Helen Blackwell, assistant professor of chemistry at UW-Madison, and her graduate students have been working to find a new way to fight bacteria that are becoming increasingly resistant to drugs.
“There is an urgent need to develop new anti-bacterial agents,” Blackwell said.
A disturbing trend that could affect health care for farm animals in the state.
There’s a shortage of veterinarians to care for cows and horses. Dr. Gary Oetzel with the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine says they’re having a difficult time recruiting students for the field.
A prominent retired Wisconsin businessman donated $2 million toward a new research facility, the University of Wisconsin announced Wednesday.
Q: How do fish gills work?
Matthew Burns
Grade 7
Sennett Middle School
A: Gills are the equivalent of a mammal’s lungs, says Jeffrey Malison, director of the aquaculture program at UW-Madison. “Their primary purpose is to exchange gases, take oxygen in and release carbon dioxide out of the fish.”
A Dane County Board of Supervisors committee voted Tuesday against a University of Wisconsin proposal to build a Department of Homeland Security animal disease research facility just south of Madison in the town of Dunn.
Madison, Wis. – Wisconsin ranks in the lower half of states in federal contracting dollars, but a new consortium is ready to help researchers and companies land more federal security contracts.
The Wisconsin Security Research Consortium, funded by a grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration, has staked out potentially lucrative territory – sensitive, classified research.
Madison, Wis. – If manufacturers are interested in new products and markets in the biomedical device field, there is a conference that provides a learning and technology transfer opportunity.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Biomedical Engineering Center already puts on an annual design event at the end of each spring semester, but this year it has expanded the program with the intention of opening doors to business and industry. Those doors will be opened on Friday, May 5 at the annual BME Translational Research and Design Conference and Expo.
Our sun powers itself with burning plasma, radiating enough energy to warm the planets and light up the solar system.
For 50 years, scientists have been trying to harness the process and create self-sustaining fusion reactions. Thanks to UW-Madison researchers at the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX), they are now one step closer.
While critics continue to attack ethanol and other biofuels, Wisconsin should be thankful Gov. Jim Doyle is proceeding full speed ahead to make the state a leader in biofuel development.
The latest advancement was last week’s announcement that Wisconsin is joining 11 states to form an alliance to promote growth in the biofuels industry.
A Wisconsin reception will be held at the Boston Harbor Hotel, and the state will give away a Trek bicycle to a lucky visitor to the pavilion. Gov. Jim Doyle and UW-Madison bird flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka will be among the speakers.
In the late thirteenth century, drought ravaged the American Southwest, withering the corn, squash, and beans upon which ancient inhabitants relied for survival. Across the region people abandoned their homes in a desperate search for arable land. Some were lucky enough to find a moist Arizona valley where they built a settlement now known as Grasshopper Pueblo.
At its peak, the pueblo consisted of 500 rooms housing hundreds of families. Archaeologists were puzzled by the differing architecture, pottery styles, and burial traditions within the pueblo, leading them to speculate that the drought must have been so severe that people from several different cultures were forced to live together in one of the few places where food would still grow. While the pottery strongly hinted at the disparate origins of the population, there was no way to test that idea.
Enter archaeologist T. Douglas Price, geochemist Jim Burton, and their colleagues from the Laboratory of Archaeological Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In the late 1980s, Price and Burton learned of a new technique that measured the ratio of strontium isotopes in human bone, revealing how an individual had migrated. One of Price’s students, Joseph Ezzo, had worked at Grasshopper Pueblo and was eager to try the new technique there.
Members of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines rallied Friday afternoon on Library Mall, informing students about the need for universities to increase availability of university-innovated drugs for developing countries, namely those directly controlled by the University of Wisconsin.
Drinking alcoholic beverages at any time during the day would increase the risk of breathing problems during sleep. The effect was seen in men, but not in women, according to a new study.
It has been known that sleep disordered breathing is associated with high blood pressure and blood vessel disease, and drinking alcohol before bedtime increases the odds of abnormally shallow breathing, according to Dr. Paul E. Peppard and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Q: Why do our stomachs growl?
Joey Feuling
Grade 7
Sennett Middle School
A: “Our insides are alive and working all the time, digesting food with digestive juices,” says Susan Toth, clinical assistant professor of surgery at UW-Madison.
Kurt Svoboda knew from day one that science meant sacrifices: pulling long hours, sweating over the data, and starving his personal life for professional success. What the young assistant professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge didn’t realize was that time spent on grant proposals, not groundbreaking experiments, would be the big stressor.
Madison, Wis. – In a criminal trial, as any fan of TV cop-and-court shows knows, the prosecution states its case first and the defense goes second. The accused can appear in deep trouble, at first blush, but the weight of evidence submitted by the defense often carries the day.
Not only does that make for appealing television drama, but it’s pretty much how the legal system works in real life. Those who file the charges speak first, the accused then get a chance to rebut.
A coalition of UW-Madison faculty, staff, labor groups, graduate students and others is fighting a new policy for research and project assistants that moves the burden of $8,000 annual tuition waivers to research grants or department funds.
Adult stem cell research has produced some dividends, but since many researchers still think embryonic cells offer far more potential, why continue to shackle and shortchange U.S. researchers?
A contingent of a dozen UW-Madison engineering faculty and students is safe after visiting the Virginia Tech campus on the same day of what’s being called the worst shooting spree in U.S. history.
From his room at a conference facility on the Virgina Tech campus, UW-Madison Electrical Engineering professor Tom Lipo told 27 News the contingent included three faculty members and nine students. Lipo said at the time of the campus shootings, the students were in a building close to Norris Hall, where the majority of the fatal victims were shot. “He (the gunman) could have wandered in there. But our students are safe.”
Stem cells get the publicity, but the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s cash cow continues to be vitamin D.
The bone-enhancing nutrient used in fortified milk and several drugs brings in about two- thirds of the money at WARF, UW-Madison’s tech transfer arm.
A report meant to shine the spotlight on Dane County’s high-tech economy shows that technology jobs increased in the Madison area by 5.5 percent from 2005 to 2006.
The 2007 Greater Madison Wisconsin Area Directory of High-Tech Companies, released this week, lists about 500 technology firms with combined revenues of $5.5 billion.
Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his colleagues infected seven close relatives of the rhesus with a reconstructed version of the flu virus that killed more than 50 million people in the infamous 1918 epidemic; three other monkeys were infected with a modern human flu virus.
Efforts by universities to turn inventions into quick cash has bogged down innovation, a new study concludes.
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The study, unveiled Thursday at the Innovation Policy and Economy Summit in Washington, contends that universitiesâ?? â??home run mentalityâ? creates a focus on technologies that offer the â??biggest, fastest payback,â? but keeps much intellectual property buried on campus and away from the ma
Q: How many animals have gone extinct due to human causes?
Adikan Wiering
Grade 6
Sennett Middle School
A: Stanley Temple, a professor of wildlife ecology at UW-Madison, says 83 mammals, 151 birds, 22 reptiles, 35 amphibians and 93 fish have definitely gone extinct since 1500.
President Bush is again promising to veto a bipartisan bill easing limits on promising embryonic stem-cell research.
Bush contended this week the bill “crosses a moral line.” But an increasing majority of Americans — including virtually two-thirds of the U.S. Senate — strongly disagrees.
A look at the facts in the dispute over three important University of Wisconsin stem cell patents – and the history behind similar disputes – shows a strong likelihood that the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation will retain all of its patent rights, even if some of its claims are changed or cancelled.
Gov. Jim Doyle, along with nine other governors, sent a letter to the U.S. Senate Wednesday, urging them to vote to alleviate President Bushâ??s limitations on embryonic stem cell research.
Despite a threatened second veto, the U.S. Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would end President George W. Bushâ??s federal funding ban on embryonic stem-cell research.
Concern apparently has been voiced across the state that the recent U.S. Patent Office decisions rejecting three patents held by the patenting and licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin could be a devastating blow to the state’s acknowledged leadership in stem cell research.
As one of the parties who lodged the thus-far successful challenge against the overreaching patents on human embryonic stem cells held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, let me reassure you that is simply not the case. And despite what WARF officials say, that’s not at all because appeals will be successful. A column by John Simpson.
In a largely symbolic act, the Senate voted Wednesday to lift restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush has vowed to veto the measure, as he did last year, and backers acknowledged they don’t have the votes to override him. Still, proponents of the bill say they wanted to send the president a message: This issue isn’t going away.
Concern apparently has been voiced across the state that the recent U.S. Patent Office decisions rejecting three patents held by the patenting and licensing arm of the University of Wisconsin could be a devastating blow to the state’s acknowledged leadership in stem cell research.
As one of the parties who lodged the thus-far successful challenge against the overreaching patents on human embryonic stem cells held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, let me reassure you that is simply not the case. And despite what WARF officials say, that’s not at all because appeals will be successful.
On an overcast, chilly day in late March, scraggly rows of experimental crops line the test plots here at Iowa State University’s research farm.
Corn is king in Iowa, both as a food grain and now as a focus of efforts to rev up the biofuel industry. But these plants bear less-familiar names: switch grass, miscanthus, and kenaf.
The brown and black stalks are not much to look at, having weathered Iowa’s winter snows. But Iowa State researchers see these crops as seeds of change in alternative fuels. By summer, the grasses will be lush, tall, and green.
After President Bush vetoed legislation that would have eased restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research last year, supporters of the bill from both parties vowed to try again. That was even before the Democrats gained majorities in both houses of Congress.
Quoted: Terry Devitt, a spokesman at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Is Fair Trade Coffee fair? Not always, says Jeremy Weber, a University of Wisconsin researcher who spent 10 months studying the prospects and challenges of small coffee-growers in the hills of northeastern Peru.
While the second candidate for Vice President for Research didn’t see UK’s top-20 goal as unrealistic, he said it might not be reached as soon as the university would like.
James Tracy, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said UK’s research goals for the Top 20 Business Plan’s 2020 deadline are a “steep climb.”
“I don’t know if you’ll get there,” Tracy said. “It might be 2020 or 2030.”
The Top 20 Business Plan isn’t unreasonable, he said, but it will be a challenge to implement.
Thousands of miles from Wisconsin, a Senegalese female climbed up a savannah tree and prepared herself for a hunt. Swiftly, she chose her weaponâ??transforming a nearby tree branch into a sturdy spear. With great force, she jabbed the wooden spear into the hollow spaces of the tree, hoping to immobilize potential prey. While the huntress failed to land many successful kills, her actions have captured the attention of scientists around the worldâ??the Senegalese huntress is not a woman, but rather one of our close cousins, the female chimpanzee.
The premier patent management group for the University of Wisconsin announced last Monday it would fight the U.S. Patent and Trademark Officeâ??s decision to investigate and possibly eliminate three valuable stem-cell patents.
Climate change is on the agenda at UW-Madison this month.
Members of the state Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources will participate in a panel discussion on “Climate Change and Wisconsin’s Future: Issues and Opportunities” from 2:30 to 4 p.m. Tuesday in Room 180 of Science Hall, 550 N. Park St.
Undergraduate research is exactly what UK needs, the second candidate to visit campus for the vice president of research position said Friday.
“Research changes the way we think about the world,” said Jim Tracy. “Undergraduates should be as involved as possible.”
Tracy, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is one of four candidates for the new vice president of research position. He will visit campus today and participate in a public forum from 4 to 5 p.m. on the 18th floor of the Patterson Office Tower.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office summarily rejected three of five stem cell patents last week that the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has held since 1998, after two watchdog groups accused WARF of patenting â??elementaryâ? stem cell propagation techniques.
More women could someday decide whether to learn even more about their genetic risk for breast cancer, thanks to new research at UW-Madison.
More women could someday decide whether to learn even more about their genetic risk for breast cancer, thanks to new research at UW-Madison.
WASHINGTON — University of Wisconsin scientists are strongly backing a measure set for Senate debate next week that would override President Bush’s restrictions on stem cell research funding.
It would allow researchers to use embryos that would otherwise be discarded from fertility clinics.
“We feel that (the bill) will open up new avenues of this research,” said Andy Cohn, spokesman for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
Gov. Jim Doyle continued to push his bioenergy policy Thursday as he launched initiatives to stimulate growth in the state’s renewable fuels industry while addressing the problems of global warming.
In front of a crowd that filled the UW-Madison Engineering Center atrium, the governor signed orders to create the Office of Energy Independence and the Task Force on Global Warming. Doyle also said the state will participate in the Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System in cooperation with Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and the Canadian province of Manitoba.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has officially dedicated its new Cereal Crops Research Unit. The facility, which will be operated by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, will serve as a testing venue for scientists to improve barley, oats and other cereal crops.
MADISON, Wis. — A new research facility on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will improve inspections of barley and oats for foods and beverages that are shipped across the nation.
Researchers and politicians helped dedicate the $11 million USDA-ARS Cereal Crops Research Unit at 502 Walnut Street on Thursday morning.
They said that barley and oat inspections have been made in Madison for 75 years and that the new building will only continue that tradition.
