A second study found that the amygdala, the brain’s fear hub, likely becomes abnormally small in severely socially impaired males with autism.Teens and young men who were slowest at distinguishing expressions had a smaller than normal amygdala, Richard Davidson, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin found when they made magnetic resonance imaging studies of their brains.
As second-year medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin, we speak on behalf of many other medical students in support of the college’s circulatory control laboratory using dogs. An opinion column by three medical students.
OTTAWA — Preschool is better preparation for kindergarten than the attention of a stay-at-home mom, new research shows.
The national study in the United States found children who attend preschool — centre-based care — enter public schools with higher levels of academic skills than their peers who experienced other types of child care, including stay-at-home parent, relative care and babysitters.
And the preschool advantage in reading and math persists through Grade 3 unless children are placed in small classes with high levels of reading instruction.
“The key is, you really have to look at what happens at home versus what happens at preschool or centre-based care,” lead author Katherine Magnuson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said in an interview.
Dear Editor: A recent letter to the editor expressed concern about the possibility of a new federal agricultural support laboratory, the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility, being located at the UW Kegonsa Research Facility.
It is important to note that the safe conduct of research on infectious diseases, and employment of the related precautions to ensure that safety, is not new. The UW-Madison has for decades been a leader in such research, and the findings and applications of that research have led to the elimination of such diseases as tuberculosis and brucellosis from our livestock population….
Sometimes, researchers slave away for years without making significant inroads to their topic of interest. Other times, a serendipitous event can provide the spark needed to quickly advance a study. Sometimes these events can come in the form of a surprising experimental result caused by setting up the test just slightly differently.
Once the lid of the cannula was removed, I could smell the bacteria inside doing the digesting. A uniquely awful smell. As I reached my arm into the rumen, the feed the cow just ate was still in good-sized particles, yet to be fully digested. As my arm reached farther into the rumen, I began to feel the particles turned to liquid. The cowââ?¬â?¢s rumen was churning, digesting around my rubber glove. The cow leaned toward me; this means she likes it. They told me she was feeling a ââ?¬Å?good sensation.ââ?¬Â
Another election season has come and gone. In Wisconsin, there was little intelligent discussion about our environment and how we should protect, manage and use our incredible natural resources to maintain the quality of life and recreational opportunities most Wisconsinites cherish.
….Gov. Jim Doyle and his agencies, along with a new Legislature and new local leadership, now have a responsibility to lay out their vision for Wisconsin’s environment, including what actions they plan and what resources they propose to commit.
(Born is a UW-Madison emeritus professor of planning and environmental studies)
WASHINGTON – Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner will seek the top Republican spot on the House Science Committee, after GOP leaders told him term limits would prevent him from taking that spot on the Judiciary Committee.
….(Sensenbrenner spokesman Jeff) Lungren said that if Sensenbrenner gets the top GOP spot on the Science Committee, he would focus on oversight as well as issues such as climate change and NASA.
ââ?¬Å?Once upon a Christmas Cheery in the Lab of Shakashiriââ?¬Â wowed audiences once again over the past weekend.
So much to skewer, so little space:
Animal rights activists last week won a court battle moving them closer to opening a “cruelty museum” next to UW-Madison’s primate lab.
It’s a free country. If the activists want to spend a rich California man’s money on a museum virtually no one will go to, so be it. As long as taxpayers aren’t footing a penny of the bill, let the museum fail on its own.
Animal diseases such as bird flu, hoof and mouth, and mad cow could find a home near Lake Kegonsa under a plan by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison may soon be home to a nationally funded lab jointly operated by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Homeland Security.
The lab would be ââ?¬Å?the nationââ?¬â?¢s preeminent laboratory for studies of foreign animal diseases and measures to prevent, contain and treat them,ââ?¬Â according to a University Communications statement.
UW-Madison representatives answered questions concerning the proposed federal lab in a public meeting at the Dunn Town Hall. Some opponents say building this laboratory could be hazardous to local residents.
Animal diseases such as bird flu, hoof and mouth, and mad cow could find a home near Lake Kegonsa under a plan by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
If the University of Wisconsin wanted to know if its proposal to house a federal, foreign animal-disease laboratory in a small town outside of Madison would be met with resistance, local residents gave Provost Patrick Farrell and more than a half-dozen university representatives their answer Thursday night: Yes, it would.
Q: Are winters getting less snowy?
A: “That depends on how long your memory is,” says Scott Bachmeier, a research meteorologist with the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at UW-Madison. “If you were here through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, those were some pretty snowy decades, and if we compare these years to those years, yes, we are in a snow drought.”
One of its primary goals, says Prof. William Cronon, is “getting people to fall in love with the place.” The environmental historian and geographer is touting the interactive online map of UW-Madison’s Lakeshore Nature Preserve, launched the Sunday before last as part of the preserve’s vast new Web site.
Continuing a series of informative conventions and lectures for World AIDS Week, the Student Global AIDS Campaign sponsored a lecture by University of Wisconsin experts in AIDS-related pharmacy and law Wednesday evening.
By LAURIE KELLMAN, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The same embryonic stem cell bill that prompted President Bush’s only veto is headed to his desk again, this time from Democrats who have it atop their agenda when they take control of Congress in January.
It’s uncertain whether supporters of the measure can muster enough votes to override another veto.
Five University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty have been awarded fellowships from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest scientific society in the world, founded in 1848, the year before classes began at the UW. (11/29/06 print edition of the Capital Times)
The University of Wisconsin-Madison hopes to land a new high-security federal lab where scientists would help lead the nation’s research on deadly animal diseases. The lab would be operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Scientists at the new lab would study foreign animal diseases that could harm agriculture if spread in the United States. They would also study bird flu, anthrax, SARS and other pathogens that can spread from animals to people and that have become bioterrorism concerns.
President Bush is expected to sign legislation updating the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, now renamed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The name change alone is evidence the act is unnecessary and victimizes the rights of protestors by deeming their actions ââ?¬Å?terrorism.ââ?¬Â
Dane County Circuit Judge Sarah O’Brien made it clear earlier this week that the University of Wisconsin cannot just throw its weight and money around to get its way.
ome residents around the bay were optimistic the SolarBees could help eliminate smelly, and sometimes toxic, blue-green algae blooms, as well as reduce weeds and improve water clarity.
But the state Department of Natural Resources and UW- Madison faculty warned they could actually create algae blooms by stirring up nutrients in the water.
Scientists would help lead the nation’s research on deadly animal diseases at a high- security building near Stoughton if UW-Madison is picked as the site of a new federal lab.
But the proposal, at the university’s Kegonsa Research Campus in the town of Dunn, faces significant competition: 14 applicants are vying for the new National Bio and Agro- Defense Facility.
A Dane County circuit court judge ruled in favor of animal rights activists who wish to build a museum between two primate testing facilities on the UW-Madison campus.
Judge Sarah O�Brien ruled that Richard McLellan, who supports the Primate Freedom Project, had a legitimate commitment from landowner Roger Charly to sell some land in Madison for $675,000. The parcel in question is between the Harry F. Harlow Primate Psychology building and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. Organizers with the Primate Freedom Project want to use the land for a museum, which they say would expose the cruelty of primate research.
It’s not every day that Wisconsin has a chance to attract a major federal laboratory. It has been more than 30 years since the National Wildlife Health Center was established in Madison, and nearly 100 years since the University of Wisconsin was selected over the University of Michigan as the site for the National Forest Products Laboratory. Both labs have contributed immensely to the world’s knowledge of wildlife diseases and forests – as well as the state’s economy.
A panel of scientists Tuesday called for more scrutiny of ââ?¬Å?high-impactââ?¬Â studies published by science journals, a reaction to the bogus stem cell findings trumpeted last year in the journal Science.
Backers of a research animal cruelty museum have a valid contract to purchase a building located between two University of Wisconsin-Madison primate research labs, a Dane County judge ruled Monday.
Although Circuit Judge Sarah O’Brien said it “seems like a quintessential Madison case,” in which animal rights protesters square off against the university, O’Brien said she was deciding the case between Budget Bicycle Center owner Roger Charly and the Primate Freedom Project as a contract matter.
A building in between two primate research centers is the rightful property of an animal rights group, a Dane County circuit court judge ruled Monday.
Sonyââ?¬â?¢s new PlayStation 3 may be more than just a gaming system and powerful computer ââ?¬â? according to researchers at Stanford University, it may be able to help cure cancer.
The University of Wisconsin campus may become home to the nation�s first-ever animal rights exhibition hall, as a judge ruled Monday in favor of a Madison-based animal rights group in a longstanding property dispute.
Q: Paper or plastic: Which supermarket choice is better for the environment?
A: Tuncer Edil, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UW-Madison, came back with a surprise answer: C, “Neither of the above.”
MADISON, Wis. — A Dane County judge ruled on Monday in favor of animal rights activists who want to build a museum protesting animal research between two primate labs.
Judge Sarah O’Brien ruled that a contract between the activists and a business owner for the purchase of property near the University of Wisconsin research labs is valid and enforceable. O’Brien ordered business owner Roger Charly to sell the land for $675,000 as specified in the contract.
Rick Bogle, the leader and founder of the Primate Freedom Project, which is the organization behind the proposed museum, started hugging his wife in court after the judge announced her
WHITEWATER, Wis. – In an art studio, not an engineering lab, Dan McGuire has come up with a new twist on an ancient metal-casting process that could help save U.S. foundries.
By using an additive similar to a floor-sweeping compound, foundries could make metal castings five times faster. That change could lower their costs and attract customers who need metal parts right away, rather than waiting for cheaper parts from overseas.
He worked with Eric Hellstrom, a University of Wisconsin-Madison materials science and engineering professor, to modify it.
Animal rights activists for the Primate Research Group celebrated last year when they had an agreement with Madison business man Robert Charly to buy his building. The group planned on putting a museum in that building detailing what they call the horrors of primate research. That building was the perfect location for them…in-between the two labs where University of Wisconsin researchers conduct tests on primates.
From his office at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, Dr. Joseph Kemnitz has watched people dig through the center’s trash cans, apparently searching for documents they think could be incriminating.
When Franklin Roosevelt and the first New Deal Congress faced the question of how best to organize broadcasting on the public airwaves, they enacted the federal Communications Act of 1934. That law brought into the modern age the principle that had underpinned the “freedom of the press” protection in the first amendment to the Constitution: that a competitive and responsible media was essential to the healthy functioning of a democracy.
Federal regulators are clamping down on the use of microscopic particles of silver in consumer products because of potential harmful effects on the environment, but scientists are working on testing standards as the new nanotechnology industries develop, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations this week on the use of nanosilver, tiny particles of silver a few ten-thousandths the diameter of a human hair thick, that have been infused into products such as food containers, shoe liners and bandages to kill bacteria.
Dear Editor: The University of Wisconsin is one of 14 competitors for the new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, intended to replace the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Plum Island Animal Disease Center.
….The proper place for such a dangerous lab is an island or similarly isolated location, not Dane County.
In my life so far, I’ve been what University of Wisconsin researcher Scott Baum might call a pretty lucky monkey. Baum works at the university’s National Primate Research Center, in Madison, on a project monitoring the effects of a full-nutrition, extremely low-calorie diet on rhesus macaques.
A year ago, bird flu was in the news nearly every day. The drumbeat of a pandemic threat was growing louder. Health officials hurried preparation plans.
Today, bird flu seems more like the punchline of a joke.
But experts say it remains just as dangerous ââ?¬â? and just as able to cause a worldwide outbreak of flu like none seen since 1918, when as many as 50 million people died.
ââ?¬Å?The reality is this virus is continuing to spread,ââ?¬Â said Christopher Olsen, a virologist at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. ââ?¬Å?Itââ?¬â?¢s continuing to infect birds. Itââ?¬â?¢s continuing to kill human beings.ââ?¬Â
There’s one thing that Terry Devitt, a spokesperson for the UW-Madison, wants to emphasize: “We’re one of 14 places. It’s speculative.”
Let’s speculate.
Already, the UW’s Kegonsa Research Facility near Stoughton has made the cut from 29 sites initially proposed for a new high-security biodefense lab devoted to deadly animal pathogens.
The proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility would study deadly foreign animal diseases like hoof and mouth and swine fever. Devitt says these are diseases that farmers “fret about all the time” because “they would devastate the ag economy.”
In the final month of the fall election, Cleveland and Columbus television stations let paid political advertisements – not news stories – do their talking.
During a typical 30-minute evening news broadcast, Cleveland’s top four stations each aired more than five minutes of political ads, but devoted about 1 minute and 20 seconds to election news, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study of political coverage released Tuesday shows.
WASHINGTON – Television viewers in the Midwest got an eyeful of politics during local newscasts last month, but most of it was in the ads, not the news.
A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s NewsLab found that in the month before the Nov. 7 elections, television stations in seven Midwest markets aired an average of 4 minutes and 24 seconds of political ads and 1 minute and 43 seconds of election news during a typical 30-minute broadcast.
A University of Wisconsin study unveiled today finds TV viewers in the Midwest saw more campaign ads, than campaign coverage, on their local news.
Jessica Hodges, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, was another first-timer on the flight to Antartica headed by a team from McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma.
For three weeks, Hodges will work at the South Pole, testing sensors encased in large glass balls that will be buried in 9,000-foot holes drilled into the ice.A group of universities and the National Science Foundation are conducting the $272 million IceCube project to detect subatomic particles as they pass through the Earth from deep in space.
Sitting on Lih-Shend Turng�s desk are a non-descript, whitish-gray plastic plate and bowl set. Almost artistically opaque, foamy swirls curl around the bowl�s curves. Upon closer examination, this plasticware has heft and rigidity that could definitely stand up to Aunt Linda�s baked beans.
Unlike traditional picnic paraphernalia, this particular plateware is made from plants.
Specific violent acts and threats directed at Wisconsin farmers and the UW-Madison research centers have ignited national concerns, prompting Washington to pass a bill to increase protection for scientists and farmers against animal activists.
From a lonely and curious headstone for a dog named Grennie to strangely twisted catalpa trees standing in sentinel-like rows, the UW-Madison Lakeshore Nature Preserve offers tantalizing mysteries to anyone who ventures into its depths.
Josh Zalasky should be the kind of college applicant with little to worry about. The high school senior is taking three Advanced Placement courses. Outside the classroom, he is involved in mock trial and two Jewish youth groups and has a job with a restaurant chain. He is a National Merit semifinalist and scored in the top 3 percent of all students who take the ACT.
(Broadcasting & Cable) _ The University of Wisconsin’s News Lab is issuing another study of Midwest TV station newscasts, this one covering the 30 days before the election, that will likely show that ads for politicians got more airtime in those newscasts than coverage of the races.
(MADISON) Wildfires account for a lot of property damage every year in the U.S., and forestry officials are constantly assessing how to predict when and where they will occur. A UW-Madison researcher says one largely overlooked predictor is the human factor.
Generally, vegetation and terrain are examined to figure out fire-prone areas. But Alexandra Syphard, a post-doctoral fellow for UW-Madison�s Department of Forest Ecology and Management, says most blazes happen along developments or roads, where forestland borders urban areas.
On the eve of Wisconsin�s official deer season for gun hunters, the Legislative Audit Bureau released a report citing an ineffective attempt to curb Chronic Wasting Disease in the state�s deer population.
The H5N1 virus, better known as bird flu, may have a way of becoming more dangerous to people. Researchers have identified two mutations in a surface protein of the virus that enable it to bind more easily to human cells. Watching for these mutations in viruses isolated from people could provide early warning of the emergence of a virus with pandemic potential.
“Know thy enemy” ââ?¬â? many would consider that one of the most crucial rules of engagement in any war.
Now those waging war against the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus have come one step closer to knowing their enemy, or at least understanding how this crafty bug makes the leap from birds to humans.
In a letter published in the current issue of Nature, lead researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka and his colleagues have identified two key changes that took place in some versions of the viral strain that allowed the virus to infect not only chickens and ducks but humans as well.
(MADISON) Anti-smoking forces are teaming up with the military to do battle against tobacco in Wisconsin. They want to reduce the number of soldiers who light up.
The rate of smoking among soldiers past and present is ten percent higher than the general population, and so anti-tobacco forces have decided it�s time to aggressively fight a product they consider an enemy of public health.
Dr. Michael Fiore kicked off the new anti-smoking effort. Its military-like moniker is ââ?¬Å?Operation Quit Tobaccoââ?¬Â and is run by the UW Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. It will offer all military personnel –active and otherwise — counseling through the Wisconsin Tobacco Quite Line, along with free nicotine patches and/or gum as long as the supply lasts.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is part of a team that has identified changes in two viral building blocks called amino acids that allow the bird flu virus to recognize human flu virus receptors in people’s cells.
The two amino acid changes “can be used as a genetic marker for predicting a potential dangerous virus,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a flu researcher at UW’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said of their study published in today’s edition of the journal Nature.
Q: Is every snowflake unique?
A: One fact we know from childhood: Every snowflake is unique.
Isn’t it?
UW-Madison’s snowflake expert, meteorology professor Pao Wang, gently delivered the grim news: “Not really. I think the saying is more or less a picturesque way of saying that there are so many varieties of snowflakes, thousands of different kinds.”
A UW-Madison researcher has identified a molecular warning sign that might enable the bird flu virus to become more problematic in people.
