Category: Research

It seems too simple to be true: Expose most of your body to about 15 minutes of sunlight a day during the summer and take large doses of inexpensive vitamin D pills during the winter and maybe, just maybe, you will substantially reduce the risk of getting various cancers, the flu, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases and neurological disorders.

(MADISON) A campus research center, which wonâ??t open for another three years at UW-Madison, is laying the groundwork for what kind of studies might take place there.

The Institutes of Discovery is providing start-up money for different areas of research. One of them has to do with drugs used to treat hyperactivity in children. UW psychology professor Craig Berridge will lead a team looking at medications like Ritalin to examine why or how these drugs act to improve higher cognitive function, calm behavioral activity and reduce impulsivity. He says given that these drugs are prescribed by the millions annually in this country for both children and adults, very little is known about the biology behind those behavioral actions.

Researchers at UW-Madison are zeroing in on a protein that may hold some of the secrets to the devastating damage that Alzheimer’s disease can do to the human brain.
The protein is more commonly connected to an inherited mental retardation disorder known as fragile X syndrome. That disorder is caused by absence of the protein, called the fragile X mental retardation protein.

The eight winners of a campuswide competition for $3 million in seed grants for research offer an early look at the scope and range of the new Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at UW-Madison.
UW-Madison official Marsha Mailick Seltzer said the Discovery Seed Grants show off the diversity of the future Institutes for Discovery, twin public- private centers for cutting-edge research that will span different academic disciplines.

MADISON, Wis. – The University of Wisconsin-Madison awarded seed money to eight major research projects Wednesday as part of a program to build interest in its new research institutes.

The proposals will receive a total of $3 million to tackle problems including detecting disease, producing human embryonic stem cells and improving reading among black children.

The research projects, selected from a pool that originally included 220 ideas, are designed to illustrate the interdisciplinary approach embodied by the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Too much zinc supplementation may not be a good thing for the urinary system of older adults, according to a new report.

The finding comes from a secondary analysis of a trial involving 3,640 adults between age 55 and 80 years of age with the retinal disease, macular degeneration. As treatment for their eye condition, the subjects were assigned to various treatments: daily antioxidant therapy with vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene; zinc, 80 milligrams daily; antioxidants and zinc in combination; or inactive ‘placebo’ supplements.

In the Journal of Urology, Dr. Aaron R. Johnson and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, report that there was a “significant increase in hospital admissions due to genitourinary causes in patients on zinc vs. non-zinc formulations (11.1 percent vs. 7.6 percent)” during the 6 years of the study.

Nobody ever accused computer games of being too educational. The most that most players learn from hours in front of the gamepad is the best way to defeat a Strogg alien army or find the blue key that unlocks Level 17.

But professors at the UW are on the vanguard of research into the idea that computer game technology can be a powerful learning tool, one that could transform education as we know it.

MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers released information from a study that shows some promising links between activity and breast cancer risk.Researchers found a reduced risk of breast cancer in women who exercised vigorously for six or more hours each week.

A recent shortage in a widely used cancer treatment drug points to the importance of research going on at the UW-Madison Paul Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Dan Mulkerin is working on an oral form of chemotherapy. When you take it as a pill it gets converted in the body to the same drug used in the intravenous method.

(MADISON) Researchers at the University of Wisconsin- Madison say theyâ??ve found a substance thatâ??s stiffer than a diamond. The compound doesnâ??t really have a name, but Roderic Lakes calls it â??extra liberalâ? because of its unique positive-negative balance.

Lakes is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering Physics and Biomedical Engineering. He and some colleagues recently published an article in Science Magazine describing the new compound, made of bariumtitanate and tin, which he says looks like tin with grains of sand in it.

The government was premature in deregulating production of alfalfa that is genetically engineered to resist a weed-killing herbicide, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

In an unassuming building on the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison campus, scientists are attempting to perfect techniques that could allow them to mold embryonic stem cells into cells that emulate the functions of the cells that our own bodies produce. Like a blank page waiting to be written on, these cells have the potential to change the way we look at the world of medicine.

Madison, Wis. – Molly Jahn is a realist, and she’s telling anyone within ear shot that Wisconsin has a realistic chance to lead the drive toward energy independence.

Molly JahnThe new dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jahn believes Wisconsin can leverage existing economies and industries to grow an emerging one – biofuels.

New findings, reported in the journal Nature, help to explain why so many of the 50m people killed by Spanish flu were healthy men and women in the prime of life.

Quoted: Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

MADISON, Wis. – Leaders of national embryonic stem cell banks in the United States and the United Kingdom pledged Monday to work together to promote research, create international standards and more efficiently distribute each other’s cells.The officials told reporters they hoped the efforts were the beginning of a long partnership between the banks, the National Stem Cell Bank in Madison and the U.K. Stem Cell Bank near London.

MADISON, Wis. — The governor announced Monday the formal collaboration between Wisconsin and the United Kingdom on stem cell research.

Though there is still a lot of controversy over the research the governor and others said that they couldnâ??t stand in the way of science.

Fusion is not being envisioned solely as an energy source anymore.

A major problem right now is it takes much more power to fuse certain hydrogen elements than what is produced.

Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are developing the technology for medical purposes and detection of nuclear explosives.

For more than 30 years, UW-Madison engineering professor Gerald Kulcinski has been one of a number of researchers at universities and federal laboratories working to find an economically feasible way to use fusion to make electricity.

Imagine a window opening onto the universe, a window affording views unparalleled in history and offering glimpses of thousands of spinning galaxies and luminous, exploding stars.
For a brief time, UW-Madison astronomer Jay Gallagher had such a view, the equivalent of a courtside seat for an eye-boggling cosmic show.

World-renowned chemist and UW-Madison graduate Alan G. MacDiarmid, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry in 2000 for his work on plastics conducting electricity, has died after suffering a fall at his home near Philadelphia Wednesday. He was 79.

At first blush it seemed like a UW version of “greenwashing,” the term applied to corporate PR efforts to mask their polluting ways.

But researchers organizing the “Citizens’ Coalition on Nanotechnology” claim their effort is nothing of the sort.

(This column appeared in the Feb. 6 Capital Times.)

LAKE DELTON, Wis. — A leading Wisconsin stem cell researcher said that major roadblocks remain before human embryonic stem cells will turn into cures for diseases.

University of Wisconsin scientist James Thomson said in a speech to the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Thursday night that transplantation therapies should work but it could take decades.

He said obstacles include learning how to turn embryonic stem cells into all types of organs and tissues in the body and then making sure cancer and other defects aren’t introduced during the transplant.

Most are betting on biology to convert carbohydrates into biofuels. Jim Dumesic thinks catalysis is the key

The United States is counting on biofuels to reduce reliance on imported petroleum and to cut carbon emissions from vehicles. But most cars won’t run on corn oil, so scientists must find ways to convert plant matter into practical fuels. Much hope–and hype–centers on harnessing microbes and enzymes to convert biomass to ethanol. But James Dumesic, a chemical engineer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is blazing another trail.

An expert in catalysis, Dumesic is searching for a philosopher’s stone to turn sugar water into fuels and higher value chemicals.

Missouri lawmakers cut $113 million in university building projects from a $335 million higher education bill Wednesday, as The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. Their reason? As the Post-Dispatch puts it, â??The committee chairman, Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, said the projects that had been cut had been identified as possibly housing stem cell research in the future.â?

Engineers help drive innovation throughout the U.S. economy and often play leading roles in helping good ideas become commercial products. That’s why major efforts to bolster the education of engineers at Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are welcome developments for southeastern Wisconsin.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. That’s how you could describe the past year when it came to the state’s farm economy in 2006.

According to the latest Status of Wisconsin Agriculture Summary from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, total net farm income in the Badger State dropped by more than 40 percent during the past 12 months–which was the lowest level since 2002.

WESTCHESTER, Ill., Feb. 2 (UPI) — A U.S. study found that the “quality” and “intensity” of wakefulness can affect slow-wave activity, or SWA, during subsequent sleep.

Dr. Chiara Cirelli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says the paper demonstrates that the crucial factor linking physiological waking activity to sleep SWA is synaptic plasticity, notably synaptic potentiation, mediated by brain-derived neurotrophic factor signaling, or BNDF.

Q: Why do things take longer to bake at high altitude?

A: The behavior of water – especially its boiling point – is as critical to baking as to boiling on the stovetop, said Srinivasan Damodaran, professor of food science at UW-Madison. Air pressure inhibits the boiling of water, and air pressure and boiling point both fall as altitude increases.

The average person realizes it takes a huge, sophisticated telescope � like the Hubble Space Telescope � to begin mapping the universe.

What might take more explaining is being told by UW-River Falls Physics Professor Jim Madsen that another telescope of universal exploration isn�t in orbit or even aimed at the heavens. It�s buried deep in South Pole ice.

Madsen belongs to an extended team of scientists that labor for the IceCube Project, spearheaded by UW-Madison. Most funding � $275 million � comes from the National Science Foundation, an independent U.S. government agency.

The energy giant BP has chosen the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as recipients of a $500-million grant for research on the development of alternative energy sources.

The grant will create the Energy Biosciences Institute, which California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, said would be the largest institute in the world dedicated to creating energy from biological sources. The governor has proposed adding $40-million in state financing to the institute, along with $30-million for another sustainable-energy project at the national laboratory, which is a federal facility managed by the University of California.

The University of Illinois, as part of a research partnership, is set to announce Thursday that it has won a portion of a $500 million renewable-energy project financed by oil giant BP PLC. The research will focus on developing biofuels that use organic matter besides corn.

Academic research on what scientists call cellulosic biomass is going on around the world, but BP is one of the first corporations to make a significant investment in the field.