Category: Research

For two years, the Southwest Florida air crackled with hurricanes.

Their names still ring with familiarity: Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Wilma. It was a kind of family reunion here, and everyone was invited.

The top executive at WiCell Research Institute – the hub for Wisconsin’s embryonic stem cell efforts – has left the organization.

Elizabeth L.R. Donley left her job as WiCell’s executive director last week to “pursue opportunities in the growing high-tech and biotech industries in the Madison area,” according to a news release issued by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF.

Q: What causes waves?
A: The energy in waves comes from wind, which gets its power from the sun, says James Kitchell, professor of limnology at UW-Madison. Higher wind speed and a longer “fetch” (distance that the wind blows across the water) increase the energy transfer from air to water.

News Hits pretty much gave up watching local TV news long ago. With so much emphasis on mayhem and fluff, tuning in to the nightly broadcasts seemed increasingly pointless.

Turns out we weren�t missing much. Or, put another way, viewers who do rely on the nightly news programs from local stations are missing out on way too much political coverage.

That�s the lesson to be gleaned from a study just conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison�s NewsLab, which looked at the nightly news broadcasts of stations located in nine leading Midwestern markets, including Detroit.

It’s simple strategy for candidates running the upcoming elections on November 7. For instance, in the Wisconsin governor’s race, Mark Green introduced himself with positive advertisements, showing him playing basketball and cutting his lawn.

Then in the past two weeks, Green and incumbent Jim Doyle began trading barbs at other on issues like immigration.

Some call them attack ads, or negative ads. Joel Rivlin with the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project said whatever you call them, these types of ads benefit democracy. “Negative ads, or those that we say talk about your opponent, are more likely to talk about policy issues,” said Rivlin.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) — A new study suggests that a sweet-tasting compound called 2DG has great potential as a treatment for epilepsy.

2DG (2-deoxy-glucose) has long been used in radio labeling, medical scanning and cancer imaging studies in humans. But now researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found the substance also blocks the onset of epileptic seizures in laboratory rats.

An August ribbon cutting ceremony highlighted a year-long Wisconsin project to design, build, operate and study a biodiesel reactor. A collaborative effort between the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) and the Madison Area Technical College (MATC), the project is part of a comprehensive renewable energy technology program at MATC, called the Consortium for Education in Renewable Energy Technologies (CERET).

All aboard! The Badger Trolley Bus is leaving the station for tours of fall color in the prairie and woodlands of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.

Naturalist Kathy Miner narrated one of Sunday’s free, 45-minute tours and said guides see a smorgasbord of participants.

As part of its ongoing effort to improve math and science education, the National Science Foundation awarded the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire a $500,000 grant last month.

MADISON � Wisconsin broadcasters took issue last week with a study that spotlighted election coverage by Midwest television stations, suggesting newscasters are shirking their responsibilities to serve the public interest.

After many years of studying links between hurricanes and warming ocean currents, scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison have come up with a surprising new correlation.

We take very seriously the discussion of stem cell research in this fall’s election campaigns. Candidates in a number of races have seized on the issue as a way to distinguish themselves and in some cases the debates can be quite substantive. But in every instance there is the threat of substantial harm to some of the most promising science of our time. And too often it is the result of a confusion of politics with policy.

A University of Wisconsin survey of election coverage on local television news in nine Midwest markets found that stations in Springfield-Decatur-Champaign devoted an average of 21 seconds for each 30-minute newscast to election coverage.

An Illinois government watchdog group says that’s not enough.

An average of 36 seconds per broadcast is all that election coverage has warranted on local evening news in nine top Midwestern markets since Labor Day, a study released Thursday found.The five-state analysis by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s NewsLab looked at 30-minute evening news broadcasts on 36 stations in nine top Midwestern television markets.

Madison: How much election coverage do you want to see in your evening newscast? A new study by the University of Wisconsin says you’re not getting enough.

The study was conducted by the University of Wisconsin’s Newslab. Researchers looked at all the primetime newscasts in the month after Labor Day in 9 cities throughout the Midwest.

Q: Why does baby babble sound the same in any language?

A. Actually, that isn’t necessarily the case, says Jenny Saffran, who studies infant and child language at UW-Madison’s Waisman Center.

Free stem cells for all? Possibly, now that the US Patent and Trademark Office is re-examining key patents on human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) that some say have been stifling stem cell research.

A study from the University of Wisconsin’s NewsLab to be released later today found that Midwest TV stations in nine markets aired an average of 36 seconds of election coverage in a typical 30-minute’s worth of news broadcast, with only foreign policy and “unintentional injury” stories getting less airplay.

Quoted: Charles Czuprynski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.

The recent out-of-state challenges, including one from California, to stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) lack merit and underscore the need for serious patent reform in the United States.

WASHINGTON – Dust storms swirling out of Africa’s Sahara Desert may help reduce hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean, a new study suggests.

A new start-up business gives hope to those who need blood transfusions. UW-Madison researcher James Thomson and two other scientists started the Stem Cell Products, Incorporated.

Stem cell research pioneer James Thomson says he’s started a company to create blood products from human embryonic stem cells. Ã? Governor Jim Doyle appeared with Thomson at a news conference to announce the state was awarding a 250-thousand dollar grant and 750-thousand dollar loan to the company, Stem Cell Products, Incorporated.

For all of the appropriate and necessary attention given the University of Wisconsin for its role in the research and development of the science driving the biotechnology sector of our state’s economy, one of the great under appreciated stories is the growing number of businesses producing the drugs and devices that research is spawning.

Researchers at UW-Madison have discovered a genetic switch that may prove useful in controlling the formation of blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis.

An international meeting in Madison of environmental health scientists has given birth to a new association that will likely play a key role in addressing such worldwide issues as avian flu, industrial agriculture and climate change-related diseases.
The new group is called The International Association for Ecology and Health.

Madison, Wis. – When scientists look back at this early period in human embryonic stem cell discovery, they might regret the hype surrounding this controversial research, but they won’t be able to accuse the man who derived stem cells from embryos of contributing to it.

An experimental vaccine being tested at UW Madison could soon make the sneezy, runny-eyed misery of hay fever a thing of the past.

The vaccine involves injections of the allergen itself-ragweed. Traditional allergy treatments can take years to show full benefit. But the experimental treatment takes just six weeks.

A marketable vaccine is still far off. The UW still has to complete testing, along with several other universities, and the drug would need to be approved by the FDA.

In the summer of 2005, 67-year-old cancer surgeon John Niederhuber was ready for a new chapter in a career spent hopscotching across the country in academic medicine. His wife had died of breast cancer a few years earlier, and his son would soon head off to college. So when Andrew von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), asked him to join his staff as a deputy director, Niederhuber left his job as a surgery and oncology professor at the University of Wisconsin, sold his house in Madison, and headed to Washington, D.C.

Q: Why do veins appear blue?

A: “Veins are actually not blue, they are red, just like arteries,” says T. Michael Nork, an associate professor in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. “They are a somewhat darker red because the oxygenated form of hemoglobin found (in) the arterial red blood cells is brighter than the de- oxygenated form in veins.”

(MADISON) The University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist who first grew human embryonic stem cells predicts they will change medicine for the better. However, James Thomson says growing replacement tissue or curing diabetes is, in his words, a ââ?¬Å?long way off.ââ?¬Â

In a speech to the downtown Madison Rotary Club, Thomson said the quickest and most widespread use of embryonic stem cells is likely to be the testing of drugs: making particular human tissues on which pharmaceuticals, like heart drugs, can be tried. He says ultimately there will be safer drugs that get to the market quicker. (5th item.)