A helium-based imaging technique may help doctors detect smoking-related lung damage in healthy smokers sooner and more accurately than existing imaging methods, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Should commercial airplanes be equipped to deflect shoulder-launched rockets? What would be the financial fallout of a radioactive attack on Southern California ports? Which bridges deserve the most money to bolster protections against Al Qaeda assaults?
MADISON, Wis. — From the back patio of his official residence here, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle can look across Lake Mendota to the campus of the University of Wisconsin and see a forest of construction cranes at the medical research complex and the new Institute of Discovery. Doyle calls the facilities “the epicenter of the world’s work on embryonic stem cells.”
The patenting foundation of the University of Wisconsin at Madison filed a patent-infringement lawsuit last month against a company that sells dietary supplements used for toning muscles and reducing body fat.
An FBI official told 27 News a break-in and theft at UW-Madison’s Harlowe Primate Research Laboratory was the work of one suspect and not connected to any animal rights group
Q: Why are vitamins needed to maintain human health?
A: Proof that food is about function as much as flavor, vitamins are essential compounds that for the most part can only be obtained through diet — the body can’t make them. They drive chemical reactions, unlock stored energy, build structures and prevent damage.
Most of the more than 600 dogs used each year by the UW-Madison in various experiments are at some point put to death.
It�s no secret that the Vatican is not exactly the world�s biggest booster of embryonic stem cell research, but recent headlines about comments made by the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family nonetheless created a stir late last week by suggesting that Roman Catholic stem cell researchers face excommunication.
A group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have applied for a patent for their new method of creating a chemical intermediate called HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural) from fructose, the sugar found in fruit.
A UW official disputes claims of animal neglect, and praises his research facility. Joe Kemnitz, Director of the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, hopes that someday animal research would no longer be needed, but he says, for now, this type of research is necessary to discover new techniques to ward off and to cure diseases that affect many people.
Madison, Wis. – The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has finalized a commercial licensing agreement with BD Biosciences to develop new research tools for embryonic stem cell researchers and life scientists.
USDA study: It can be leaner than chicken.
Mentioned: UW-Madison.
It’s not exactly a canine version of a health club but a new doggy treadmill at the UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine is proving a popular option for helping patients get back on four legs after surgery.
The treadmill is unique because it is underwater, which allows dogs to get a head start on exercise after surgery because the water helps support their weight.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to actually hold DNA or use some of the tools that UW-Madison researchers work with every day?
At this week’s Wednesday Nite @ The Lab, 7 p.m. at the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center, the public is invited to connect with the university at a hands-on workshop in an exploration of DNA through models and experiments.
Three studies released yesterday indicate that the newly approved drug varenicline is more effective than bupropion or a placebo in helping smokers overcome nicotine addiction. One was done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Clowns and party-goers suck helium from balloons to make their voices squeaky, but soon seemingly healthy smokers could inhale it to explore such conditions as emphysema and asthma.
A new test devised by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists starts with smokers breathing in a liter of the harmless gas, mixed with nitrogen, through a straw and finishes with an MRI that can detect how far the gas has penetrated into the tiny air cavities of the lungs.
Human embryonic stem cells are isolated and cultured by researchers at the University of Wisconsin.
Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, was born 10 years ago today, a birth met with elation by scientists who see cloning as a potential cure for illnesses and alarm by those who are fearful of a future populated by less-than-human clones.But Ian Wilmut, the scientist whose team at Scotland’s Roslin Institute cloned Dolly ââ?¬â? born July 5, 1996, and euthanized in 2003 because of lung disease ââ?¬â? says the most interesting thing about the past decade is what has not happened.
Will a warming Earth mean more extreme Wisconsin weather?
A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences verified that the Earth is the warmest it has been for at least 400 years, and several analyses say it will continue heating up.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has finalized a commercial licensing agreement with BD Biosciences to develop new research tools for embryonic stem cell researchers and life scientists.
Q: Why does the sky turn green before a tornado?
A: Scott Bachmeier, a research meteorologist at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at UW-Madison, says that particles in the air scatter light. In the day, the particles scatter more violet and blue light, but our eyes are more sensitive to blue light – that’s why the sky appears blue.
Researchers from a wide range of disciplines, universities, and companies such as 3M, Amgen and GE Healthcare have submitted 220 applications for $3 million in seed money from the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a more economical way to use fructose, the sugar in fruit, as an alternative to petroleum in the development of raw materials used to build plastics, fuels and pharmaceuticals.
Researchers from industry and academia have submitted more than 220 initial proposals for $3 million in seed grants offered by John and Tashia Morgridge.
The offering drew responses from 10 University of Wisconsin-Madison schools and colleges, 44 industry partners, and 42 colleges and universities around the world. Successful applicants will be invited to submit full proposals, which will be due by Oct. 1, and the seed grants will be awarded in December.
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060626/full/060626-8.html
Apple juice and corn, rather than petroleum, could be the raw materials for some of the plastics and pharmaceuticals of the future, thanks to a new chemical process devised by researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Even before they get their names on the ballot, legislative candidates – even those who don’t have a prayer of getting elected – are being thrust into the heated debate on one of the most emotionally charged issues: Embryonic stem cell research.
A trio of business groups is so eager to stay at the front of the issue that it’s firing off letters to every statehouse candidate urging support for the controversial research.
“At a time when Wisconsin is seeking to succeed in the new, knowledge-based economy, it is irresponsible for us to turn our backs on this life-saving research,” wrote Mark Bugher, director of the University Research Park, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce President James Haney, and Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
A new report claims the UW research lab is among the top nationally-known labs to torture animals. The advocacy group SAEN — Stop Animal Exploitation Now — says the University of Wisconsin National Primate Research Center is among the “Top 20” worst US research facilities for violations of federal law, which can often invalidate the research itself.
FOND DU LAC — An abandoned railroad bed cuts through the rural, wooded acreage that Dr. Darold Treffert calls home. The tracks were to connect the area with the Mississippi River in the 1860s, but resources were exhausted before the project got that far.
A more complex and global web of connections has long thrived indoors, where the psychiatrist’s lifetime study of one rare condition has brought together patients, caregivers, researchers, media and filmmakers from as far away as Indonesia and Israel.
Treffert, clinical professor in the UW psychiatry department and a former Wisconsin Medical Society president, is trying to decide which institute of higher education should house the materials of his home office work. He also would like a center for excellence established, to encourage multidisciplinary research and be a clearinghouse for public information.
DES MOINES, Iowa – The pork industry says hogs have been on a “diet” for more than a decade, and new government research shows that Americans are getting a much leaner product because of it.
The National Pork Board announced Monday that feeding and breeding techniques over the past 15 years have led to cuts of pork that rival skinless chicken breasts – often revered as the leanest of meats.
WARF is a nonprofit foundation affiliated with UW-Madison that manages inventions made by the university’s professors. You cannot do anything with human embryonic stem cells in the United States unless the foundation gives approval. It controls three patents. One on all primate embryonic stem cells, which includes humans, was issued in 1998. A second, specifically on human cells, was granted in 2001. And a third on human cells was issued in April.
For David Watkins, the search for an HIV vaccine has as much to do with Darwin as disease.
Watkins heads up UW- Madison’s HIV vaccine research team. With a new lab, expanded research funding and encouraging new results from a study in monkeys, the team is gaining prominence in the field.
Madison, Wis. – A collaborative project between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa has shown that while it might be best to let sleeping dogs lie, thousands of sleeping computers can unravel the twisted code of genetic diseases.
University of Wisconsin researchers have linked high levels of cadmium in the body to a higher risk of breast cancer.
The findings show that the toxic heavy metal may be a factor, but more study is necessary, said Jane McElroy, Ph.D., lead author of the study at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The study did not prove that cadmium causes breast cancer, she said, but it did show that women with the top 25 percent of cadmium levels had twice the breast cancer risk of women in the lowest 25 percent of cadmium levels.
John Morgridge spent 18 years guiding the expansion of one of this country’s fastest-growing technology companies.
The chairman of Cisco Systems Inc. and his wife, Tashia, hope to be doing the same in their home state, only on a much broader scale. The Morgridges in April donated $50 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the biggest single gift ever made to the school.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist is now the university’s highest-paid professor.
Yoshihiro Kawaoka, whose research is focused on avian influenza, saw his salary more than triple after the university successfully worked to stave off an attempt to lure him away.
Q: Is there any validity to the so-called five-second rule?
A: If your piece of toast fell on the floor, would you pick it up and eat it? You probably would if you believe in the five-second rule, which suggests that your spilled breakfast stays germ-free as long as you snatch it up within five seconds.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women with the highest levels of cadmium in their urine have more than a two-fold higher risk of breast cancer than women with the lowest levels, according to a new study. However, further studies are needed to determine if these elevated levels are a cause or effect of breast cancer.
More food for less money sounds like a great deal. But Wisconsin researchers say there’s a hidden cost. They calculated the real cost of upsizing your next meal.
….For years, farmers have implicated poor power quality (dirty electricity) as a source of their problems, some of it carried by utility lines and some generated on-site. The supposed experts at the university and the Public Service Commission have refused to study it (preferring to study “stray voltage”), even though industry spends billions every year correcting the problem in industrial settings lest it damage equipment.
Levels of dirty electricity are often very high in urban environments. The utilities, government agencies and the university have adamantly refused to assess how these phenomena affect human health.
A tobacco research center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be testing an experimental vaccine aimed at treating tobacco addiction.
The vaccine is designed to reduce the amount of nicotine that gets into the brain, which researchers suggest can make cigarettes less addictive.
The Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention is recruiting about 40 volunteers for the study. The volunteers should be current smokers who are at least 18 years old and in good health.
Taking a ‘statin’ cholesterol-lowering drug may be good for the eyes as well as the heart.
People who take statins such as Zocor or Lipitor, for example, have a 45 percent reduced risk of developing a cataract, a clouding of the lens of the eye, according to a report in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs can reduce the incidence of the most common type of cataract by 45 percent, according to a five-year study of nearly 1,300 people.
Researchers were surprised at the findings because several potential cholesterol-lowering drugs never made it to market because studies showed that they caused cloudiness and other eye problems.
Madison, Wis. – Between the “leetspeak” of chat rooms and instant messaging, the jargon of programmers, and an infinite library of obscure game-related terms and rules, it’s readily apparent that devotees of computer games speak their own language.
Quoted: Dr. Eric Berg, a dermatologist for UW Health; Jonathan Martin, UW- Madison associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences; Ellen Doyle of the UW Food Research Institute; and Phillip Pellitteri, an entomologist at UW-Madison.
Talk to any economic development expert and they’ll tell you taxes are rarely the deciding factor in whether to start or move a business.
Business owners usually look for other things, such as a skilled workforce, a solid transportation system or a good quality of life. Generally speaking, low taxes are just icing on the cake after other issues are taken into account.
….Warning to Wisconsin: don’t put all your economic development eggs in the stem cell basket.
Ronald Laessig, the longtime director of the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, is retiring.
In an interview this morning, Laessig said he told University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley in September that he would retire when his replacement takes over. Laessig said a search committee began looking for a new director three or four months ago. The university announced three finalists on Monday.
For Nina Craig, lifting two 50 pound bales at a time isn’t easy.
And it was a lot harder when she was still smoking cigarettes.
New technology could help doctors detect lung damage in smokers who seem healthy, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A showdown over stem cells is taking shape between Wisconsin and California, and the weapons the players are wielding are patents, lawsuits and billions of dollars.
The impact of the outcome isn’t limited to the two states, parties involved say. The confrontation could greatly influence the global development of stem-cell therapies, which might someday benefit millions of patients.
Madison, Wis. – The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and its Norway-based licensee, Natural ASA, accused a nutritional supplement manufacturer today with willful and deliberate patent infringement in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
Madison, Wis. – Between the “leetspeak” of chat rooms and instant messaging, the jargon of programmers, and an infinite library of obscure game-related terms and rules, it’s readily apparent that devotees of computer games speak their own language.
What’s less apparent is the possibility that this language may be vital to the future of education.
Forget about making your kids wait to play video games until after their homework is done – researchers at the UW say video games could soon be your student’s homework.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and licensee Natural ASA have filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Arkopharma, a French maker of nutritional supplements, and its U.S. subsidiary, Health from the Sun.
The lawsuit alleges infringement upon patents related to the uses of conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, for purposes of creating “a sculpted, athletic looking body.”
If aÃ? publisher’s fall catalog is to be believed, a UW-Madison professor is on the verge of ending, once and for all, the lengthy, highly charged debate over the theory of evolution.
In October, W.W. Norton will bring out “The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution,” by UW-Madison genetics Professor Sean B. Carroll.
(Also mentioned in today’s column is 1975 UW grad John Schiller, one of the National Cancer Institute researchers credited with inventing the vaccine for HPV infections that was approved by the FDA last week.)
Dietary supplements marketed as reducing body fat and increasing muscle tone infringe upon patents obtained by University of Wisconsin researchers, a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court alleges.
Gov. Jim Doyle called on Congress to lift the ban on federal funding for research on new stem-cell lines.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060609/GPG0101/606090720/1207/GPGnews
As diabetes patient David Strom shares his story and his support for stem-cell research, he becomes part of an issue that Democrats in various states nationwide are claiming as their own this election year because of its ability to resonate with families yet divide Republicans on moral grounds.
To emphasize his commitment to such research, Gov. Jim Doyle has arranged for the mother of a diabetic child to introduce him before his keynote address at the convention tonight.
The debate over stem cell research could define November’s Governor’s race.
Jim Doyle is making stem cell research a major part of his re-election campaign. One Verona family says it will be a pivotal factor when they take to the polls.
The infamous Pail and Shovel Party’s flamingo prank on Bascom Hill, several UW-Madison alumni, and genetics professor David Schwartz are mentioned in this Doug Moe column.
A fledgling biotech company based on UW-Madison research is the grand prize winner of the 2006 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest.
MatriLab, which is developing a new method to reduce infection and improve healing in the treatment of wounds, will collect prizes of at least $50,000 for winning the contest, which drew about 200 entries.
