Category: Research

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Genetically modified nerve ‘progenitor’ cells can be used as mini-pumps to deliver nerve growth factor to the brain, a new study in animals shows.

The results suggest such an approach could be used to treat Parkinson’s disease and other brain diseases in humans, Dr. Clive D. Svendsen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues report.

Sean Carroll, professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful, an introduction to the new science of evolutionary developmental biology written for the lay reader.

Officials at a South Korean university said Monday that they expect results next week from DNA tests meant to determine whether disgraced scientist Hwang Woo Suk made tailored stem cells, as he claims.

Q&A interview with UW-Madison researcher and author of a book on evolutionary developmental biology.

CHICAGO – To celebrate the 125th anniversary of its founding by Thomas Edison, the journal Science asked more than 100 of the world’s top scientists what they thought were the 25 most important scientific questions likely to be answered in the next 25 years.
The 25 big questions range from what is consciousness (the mysterious interplay of brain cells and neurotransmitters that conjures up awareness and the ability to ask questions) to what is the universe made of.

(MADISON) Science educators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may soon be able to broadcast their lectures and research presentations via satellite to remote villages in India. It�s part of a new collaboration linking 15 U.S. universities with EDUSAT, the Government of India�s first educational satellite. (Third item.)

Developing Clough Island could add millions to the local economy and create hundreds, even thousands, of jobs, according to an economic impact study conducted by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

American biomedical researchers were reeling on Thursday after hearing reports from South Korea that members of a top team of scientists there had admitted to fabricating at least part of a landmark study on embryonic stem cells.

The revelations, the Americans said, had the potential to undermine research on cloning human embryos and developing embryonic-stem-cell lines for treating diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes.

A UW-Madison program is quietly finding ways to bring the state’s businesses together to help them solve each other’s problems.
The E-Business Consortium, established seven years ago by industrial engineering professor Raj Veeramani, is designed to help state companies learn from one another and compete successfully in the world of electronic business.

A collaborator of South Korean scientist Hwang Woo Suk, a hero in his country for his stem cell research, says his colleague has admitted fabricating some of his test results. In May, Hwang and his team published a landmark report in the journal Science announcing that they had created 11 lines, or colonies, of cloned human embryonic stem cells. This achievement made South Korea a leader in this field of research. But a co-author of the report, Roh Sung Il, told Korean television and newspapers that Hwang told him Thursday that most of the supposedly cloned lines were fakes and the fate of the others is unclear.

BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 12 – With federal funds for basic computer science research at universities in decline, three of the industry’s leading companies are joining to help fill the void.

University of California computer scientists plan to announce on Thursday that the companies – Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems – will underwrite a $7.5 million laboratory on the Berkeley campus. The new research center, called the Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems Laboratory, will focus on the design of more dependable computing systems.

No one was required to be there, yet physicist Brian Greene filled the Union Theater to the top of its balcony for a discussion on general relativity, quantum physics and his own area of expertise, string theory.

String theory, also called superstring theory, attempts to provide an overall theory of the universe by unifying Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics and proposing that all matter can be described in terms of the vibrations of tiny “strings.”

If you are among those grumbling about having to shovel your sidewalk yet again, UW-Madison researcher Stephen Vavrus has some news for you. Without that snow, our planet would be in big trouble.
Vavrus is a climate modeling specialist at the Center for Climatic Research. With reports of melting Arctic ice becoming more frequent, Vavrus did what scientists do: He posed a question.

Children adopted from abroad often have difficulties adjusting to their new families and to life in the United States, exhibiting poor social skills, problems bonding with new family members and reticence in dealing with strangers.

Those difficulties are generally traced back to emotional deprivation in large orphanages, where infants often outnumber staff by 40 to 1, and caregivers do little more than feed and change the infants.

Wisconsin researchers have found that such deprivation can produce relatively permanent changes in a child’s brain chemistry, impairing production of hormones, such as oxytocin, that are crucial to bonding and social interaction.

A group of students and faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine are being credited for coming to the rescue during last summer’s devastating hurricane season. Campus officials say that while most people watched in horror as news details of Hurricane Katrina unfolded, a few dedicated souls traveled south to help by bringing back numerous animals that needed foster care or adoptive homes.

University of Wisconsin assistant professor Donald Moynihan recently released a report on avian flu entitled ââ?¬Å?Leveraging Collaborative Networks in Infrequent Emergency Situations.ââ?¬Â

Wisconsin scientists say agriculture dominates more than a third of the Earth’s landscape and is a major source of global environmental change.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 – Nearly half the states are doing a poor job of setting high academic standards for science in public schools, according to a new report that examined science in anticipation of 2007, when states will be required to administer tests in the subject under President Bush’s signature education law.

New questions have arisen over a human stem cell experiment that was hailed as a tremendous advance when it was announced in May.

Hwang Woo Suk, the South Korean researcher whose laboratory performed the experiment, told the journal Science yesterday that he was correcting some of the photographs that appeared as an online supplement to an article reporting a highly efficient recipe for producing human embryos through cloning, and then extracting their stem cells.

MADISON, Wis. – The Bush administration’s plan for a bank of federally approved stem cells unveiled here two months ago is being met with apathy, confusion and derision.

By military standards, $300 million a year is small change. This amount, the U.S. military budget for nanotechnology research, pales in comparison to its total budget for war or peacekeeping�both of which are possible applications for the minute technology.

Early childhood neglect has been associated with a host of behavioral maladies: Emotional and social abnormalities that researchers have investigated and observed since Harry Harlow first conducted his primate isolation experiments at the University of Wisconsin.

The Engineering Centers Building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was the site of an early morning flood today, the university reported.

…an estimated 30,000 gallons of water cascaded down the building from the top floor at about 5 a.m.

(12/2/05 Capital Times print edition)