Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified two genetic mutations that appear to be involved in turning a deadly bird flu virus into a deadly human one.
ASHWAUBENON ââ?¬â? After a decade as a nonsmoker, Gunnery Sgt. Andrew Wall cracked under the pressure of military service in Iraq.
The Marine, like many of his cohorts, started using tobacco ââ?¬â? in his case, smoking ââ?¬â? to alleviate the stress of war.
He eventually quit again and has been smoke-free for three years, Wall said Wednesday. It’s helped him become a healthier, better Marine.
Humans’ closest cousins, the Neanderthals, vanished 30,000 years ago after sharing turf with humans for millenniums. But why they disappeared remains a mystery.
Quoted: Sean Carroll, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Kurt Squire, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Games and Professional Practice Simulations group.
A new program aims to help veterans quit smoking. Veterans might find it easier to put down those smokes and chewing tobacco with the help of Operation Quit Tobacco. “A program designed to help Wisconsin military personnel who use tobacco and want to quit ââ?¬Â¦ to do that successfully,” says Dr. Michael Fiore. “Whether you’re active duty, reservists, National Guard, or a veteran, if you’re ready to quit we’re ready to help.”
A group of graduate student researchers from UW-Madison’s Water Resources Management Program have come up with a plan that could eventually help enhance what we love about Monona Bay and minimize the things that cause us to shake our heads.
Congress approved legislation this week aimed at stopping the harassment of researchers who use animals in experiments and the vandalism of their laboratories and equipment.
Animal-welfare groups and civil libertarians said the measure, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (S 3880), could chill legitimate expressions of free speech to oppose animal research, but lawmakers said they had reworded an earlier version of the legislation to protect that right. President Bush is expected to sign the measure.
“Today” show host Matt Lauer talks with Turkish psychologist Defne Aruoba and Sean Carroll, UW-Madison professor of genetics, about a family living in rural Turkey with five siblings who walk on their hands and feet. (Under “Monday’s Video.”)
Researchers at UW-Madison have discovered a new drug that may prevent human influenza infectionsââ?¬â?including avian influenza strains that are capable of launching a flu pandemic.
I recently chaired a committee of the National Academies – the research complex that includes the National Academy of Sciences – that was charged with gathering and analyzing the best available information on the status of women in academic science and engineering.
In October, engineering professors and students held a two-hour nanotechnology program at UW-Madison with exhibits and demonstrations to help Lego League participants better understand the concept.
When Democrats take control of the House and Senate next year, they will reintroduce legislation to expand federal funding for embryonic stem- cell research, a move that could be a boost to UW-Madison scientists.
But they’ll have an uphill battle changing the mind of President Bush, who earlier this year vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have lifted restrictions on using federal money for such studies, or generating a veto-proof majority, observers and advocates said.
Despite the ending of its partnership with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Madison-based Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals remains confident about prospects for its lead drug.
“It’s a very safe compound and it looks like it might work,” said UW-Madison Professor Hector DeLuca, who led the team that developed 2MD, a potentially revolutionary osteoporosis drug that is the first to show the ability to stimulate new bone formation, rather than just prevent bone loss.
Included in the “Short Takes” section is this brief: Is there really such a thing as “backward evolution”? Could that explain the mystery of five adult siblings in modern Turkey who seem incapable of walking upright?
Respectful but revealing, the “Nova” hour “The Family That Walks on All Fours” (7 p.m. Tuesday, Milwaukee’s Channel 10 and other PBS stations) explores the scientific controversy over these five individuals, whose condition causes them no end of grief in their rural village. Among the experts who contribute pieces to the puzzle is Sean Carroll, a University of Wisconsin-Madison geneticist.
Rick Bogle could not be more wrong with his assertion that ââ?¬Ë?nothing has been learned about HIV from studying monkeys.ââ?¬â?¢ Monkey research forms the basis for much of our current understanding of HIV.
The Democrats’ election victory on Tuesday will increase the number of lawmakers who support relaxing President Bush’s restrictions on stem-cell research, but not by enough to overcome a presidential veto.
However, the political winds may be blowing toward a modification of federal and state policies on the controversial research, most of which is conducted at universities.
As a scientist who studies evolution, Sean Carroll has trouble understanding the mindset of those who reject evolution.
“Denial is an interesting psychological feature of humans,” said Carroll, a University of Wisconsin professor of molecular biology. “The United States paces the world in biomedicine, but we’re debating evolution 150 years after Darwin, on the mountain of DNA and other evidence? Are you kidding me?”
Charles Darwin would have been impressed with Sean Carroll’s findings.
Carroll, a professor of molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin, has helped push the boundaries of what is known about evolution, taking the “what” from Darwin’s groundbreaking research 150 years ago and finding the “how.”
It’s in the genes.
In a small alleyway off of Charter Street, nestled between two large brick buildings, stands a little white warehouse.
In August 2001, I told a US Senate subcommittee that as much as half of stem cell revenue would likely end up going to patent holders because of absurd patents on the human embryo. No one seemed to care. The debate over embryonic stem cells then was whether it was ethical to do research on them.
First it was hamburger, then municipal water, apple cider, swimming in the lake, the day-care center, the petting zoo .� .� . and now, spinach. Is nothing safe?
MILWAUKEE ââ?¬â? From health care to stem cell research, education funding to tax cuts, Gov. Jim Doyle should find more support for his policies in the statehouse as he embarks on his second term in office.
He will be buoyed by a shift in power in the Senate and an increase in Democrats in the Assembly, but that doesn’t guarantee success.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor John Coleman.
Few lawmakers at the state or national level have science backgrounds, yet they make policy decisions based upon scientific discoveries and information. We trust our representatives and senators to make these decisions every day both here in Madison and in Washington, D.C. Where do the legislators find their information to make important decisions on our behalf?
Since taking office, the Bush administration has started three warsââ?¬â?the war on terror, the war in Iraq and, according to some researchers, a war on science.
Jim Doyle’s convincing victory Tuesday night also was a win for dynamic and promising embryonic stem-cell research at UW-Madison – the signature issue of the Democratic governor’s campaign.
With the finish line in sight, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican challenger Mark Green took a final lap of the state Monday – and jostled again over stem cell research.
Madison, Wis. – On a visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, former U.S. Senator Birch Bayh said the landmark patent law that bears his name is under attack from critics who don’t understand the context in which it was passed.
Since taking office, the Bush administration has started three warsââ?¬â?the war on terror, the war in Iraq and, according to some researchers, a war on science.
In the latter war, President Bush has single-handedly restricted research on embryonic stem cellsââ?¬â?making UW-Madison a casualty in the anti-science campaign.
Lawmakers and UW-Madison scientists lectured Friday on the implications of the 1980 federal legislation that granted universities financial ownership of the patents and advancements made using federal funds.
People battling the effects of age have yet another incentive to get off the couch: Exercise may protect against the most severe form of age-related macular degeneration. Writing in the current British Journal of Ophthalmology, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report that regular exercise seems to stave off the “wet” form of AMD, in which blood vessels in the eye leak fluid, eventually causing vision loss.
A Medical College of Wisconsin physiologist started wondering 15 years ago why blood vessels in the kidneys of people with high blood pressure are constricted.
Also quotes Andy Cohn, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The foundation, known as WARF, is the patenting and licensing arm for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the oldest and largest tech transfer offices in the country.
Q: Why do people have only two sets of teeth – baby and permanent?
A: Unlike reptiles and fish, which grow replacement teeth continuously to replace the ones that fall out (think of shark teeth), most mammals have but two sets of choppers. That’s largely a reflection of their complexity, says UW-Madison anthropologist John Hawks.
An independent estimate by two economics professors at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Rodolfo E. Manuelli and Ananth Seshadri, (ââ?¬Å?Human Capital and the Wealth of Nations,ââ?¬Â (http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~manuelli/research/humcapwealthnation5_05.pdf) suggests that if variations in the quality of labor across nations are taken into account, other productivity factors need differ by only 27 percent to explain differences in per capita income.
Dear Editor: The only baloney I was able to find in the statements of Bishop Morlino was his assertion that he espoused a universal truth. Bishop Morlino was quoted as asking his constituents “How would any of us like to be killed to help somebody else? You and I were embryos once.”
What Bishop Morlino fails to mention or refuses to acknowledge is that the embryos used in stem cell research are destined to be incinerated if not used in research. Not a single embryo is saved by banning stem cell research.
This stem cell editorial is part of a series of editorials analyzing the gubernatorial candidates’ positions on specific issues. The Journal Sentinel will end the series with an editorial recommending one of the candidates.
MADISON ââ?¬â? Stem cell researchers in Wisconsin say their work would be allowed to proceed if U.S. Rep. Mark Green is elected governor but worry about restrictions that could give other states an advantage.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign has pledged to keep Wisconsin the stem cell leader and claimed Green, a Green Bay Republican, would stop the promising research.
Oct 30, 2006 ââ?¬â?Ã? LONDON (Reuters) – Keeping an active lifestyle can reduce the risk of developing an eye disease that is a leading cause of blindness in the elderly, researchers said on Tuesday.
Regular exercise can prevent blindness in old age, research shows.
Those who break into a sweat during exercise at least three times a week are 70 per cent less likely to develop age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in the elderly.
Regular exercise could reduce the risk of an age-related eye disease, US research has suggested.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin followed almost 4,000 men and women over 15 years, carrying out eye tests and recording levels of exercise.
They found those with an active lifestyle were 70% less likely to develop the degenerative eye disease than those with a sedentary lifestyle.
How depressing, how utterly unjust, to be the one in your social circle who is aging least gracefully.
In a laboratory at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, Matthias is learning about time�s caprice the hard way. At 28, getting on for a rhesus monkey, Matthias is losing his hair, lugging a paunch and getting a face full of wrinkles.
As midterm election season draws near and talk of stem cells continues to heat up at the local and national level, you may find your head spinning. Stem cells, hailed a mere eight years ago as the most profound discovery of their time, have become the common circumlocution of politicians.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson endorses gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., in a new advertisement unveiled Friday that attempts to refute accusations that Green wants to stop stem-cell research.
A University of Wisconsin study of 14 students found that two energy drink ingredients, caffeine and taurine, didn’t improve short-term memory but led to slower heart rates and higher blood pressure. Since some energy drink ingredients generally speed up heart rates, the researchers could only speculate on the cause.
The last day that I spent with Paul Wellstone began on a sunny morning in the living room of his St. Paul home. I’d arrived to join him as he campaigned for re-election in what was widely seen as the most hotly contested Senate race in the nation.
….This week, as we mark the fourth anniversary of his death in a Minnesota plane crash, stem cell research is finally emerging as the sort of political issue that Wellstone thought it should be.
And Michael J. Fox, whose book the senator was reading on that sunny morning that now seems so very long ago, is at the center of the debate. This week, Fox began appearing in televised campaign commercials for Democratic supporters of embryonic stem cell research including Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle who are locked in tight races with Republicans who want to limit support for scientific inquiry.
Dear Editor: Congressman Mark Green cares about embryos more than American soldiers paralyzed while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. He likes to tell veterans he honors their sacrifice, but his opposition to stem cell research tells a different story.
We know he cares about embryos more than children with diabetes and old ladies with Alzheimer’s disease, so turning his back on paralyzed veterans must seem easy.
In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season, with up to 16 named storms and 10 full-blown hurricanes, six of them Category 3 or greater.
But with the August-through-October peak nearly over and only nine named storms to date – five of which reached hurricane status – this year’s season, which ends Nov. 30, looks pretty low-key.
Gov. Jim Doyle blasted critics like radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh today for questioning whether actor Michael J. Fox stopped taking medicine for his Parkinson’s disease for political ads he is running promoting candidates that support embryonic stem cell research.
With the race to Nov. 7 intensifying, gubernatorial candidates beefed up their TV advertisements this week with new celebrity cameos and ethics accusations.
Quoted: UW-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri.
With the election two weeks away, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle returned to the stem cell issue Tuesday, unveiling a TV ad with actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign unveiled a new TV ad today that features actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, urging voters to stick with Doyle in the Nov. 7 election.
With National Chemistry Week underway, a University of Wisconsin chemistry professor accomplished a set of firsts when she was awarded the 2005 Harrison Howe Award.
The University of Wisconsin showed its continued interest in the expansion of its research efforts Monday by taking another step toward building the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
When one of China’s top-ranked research institutions decided to compile a list of the world’s top 100 universities – to identify China’s main rivals in an emerging research-driven economy- it often landed in the American Midwest.
The Shanghai Jiao Tong University found that nearly one in five of the world’s leading universities – 19 of the top 100 – were in the Great Lakes region. The report listed the University of Chicago at No. 9; University of Wisconsin-Madison, No. 16; and University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, No. 21.
Let me confess at the outset that before the 1988 film “Rain Man” – about an autistic savant named Raymond Babbitt – I knew virtually nothing about autism.
Like most people, I’d never known anyone with the disorder or even heard anyone talk about it. Which is hardly surprising, says Maureen Durkin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison epidemiologist, because before the 1990s, autism was considered an extremely rare developmental disorder, affecting about 1 in every 2,500 children in this country.
Is there life after death? And if so, do the dead come back? Can we communicate?
Faith attempts to answer these questions. Periodically science has, too. Never mind that science would rather forget the whole thing.
The last major embrace of ghosts by sober-minded scientists is the provocative subject of a new book, “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death” (Penguin Press) by Deborah Blum, professor of journalism at UW-Madison. She’s an award-winning science writer and author of the widely praised “Love at Goon Park.”
The unique program started about 10 years ago as a collaboration between a group of Wisconsin potato growers, UW- Madison and the World Wildlife Fund.
The director of University of Wisconsin�s embryonic stem-cell research hub, WiCell Research Institute, announced her decision to pursue job opportunities in the private sector last week.
Can the “fossil genes” found in DNA be used to prove evolution? Sean B. Carroll, author of The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, argues that the DNA evidence can be used to convince people, beyond a reasonable doubt, that evolution is real.
When scientists pooled dozens of studies of sex differences last year, they found that while we’re quite different on the playground and somewhat different in the bedroom, we’re surprisingly similar in the classroom and the boardroom.
Those results showed men, on average, can throw a baseball farther, are more open to one-night stands, and masturbate more often, says University of Wisconsin psychologist Janet Hyde, who led the project.
