Category: Research

The Legislature on Wednesday sent Gov. Jim Doyle a bill that would make Wisconsin the eighth state to ban human cloning, but the governor insisted that the real target is stem cell research and promised to veto the measure.

Several scientists at the UW- Madison’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies believe there is a significant story about Hurricane Katrina that has been left untold by the mainstream media. These hurricane researchers are convinced that accurate storm forecasting in the days leading up to Katrina’s landfall kept the death toll from being in the millions.

University of Wisconsin scientists tracking a strain of influenza which has jumped from horses to dogs say it could potentially infect humans, though it is unlikely.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pomegranate juice, a deep red juice becoming popular as a health drink, works against prostate cancer cells in lab dishes and in mice, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Prostate tumors shrank in mice infected with human prostate tumors who drank pomegranate juice, the researchers report in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Veterinary health officials are worried that a new strain of influenza that infects dogs could pose serious health problems for dogs, but so far it appears unlikely to make humans sick.

Dr. Christopher Olsen, a professor of public health at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said the strain of influenza virus appears to be most closely related to a form of influenza that infects horse

A UW-Madison center for nanotechnology has snagged millions in federal dollars to pursue research toward stem-cell medical breakthroughs and computer displays that one day might be rolled up like a poster.
Juan de Pablo, director of UW-Madison’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, said he learned Monday that the National Science Foundation is awarding his center $14.8 million to continue its work over the next six years. The federal agency is funding a select few centers around the country that do research into materials and nanotechnology, the science of working at incredibly small scales.

A different kind of flu bug – the canine flu – has come early for some, and as a surprise to others.

Dog Owner Anne Khodadad says, “our vet hasn’t said anything about canine flu.”

Dr. Christopher Olsen explains, “it’s a new entity, we haven’t thought about dogs as being hosts for influenza infections in the past.”

The London terror attacks rekindled discussion about domestic homeland security. A year-old federal project at the University of Southern California and University of Wisconsin Madison is helping the United States prioritize possible terror targets and develop effective risk-reduction and resource-allocation strategies.

MADISON � The University of Wisconsin-Madison continues to lead state institutions in research spending, according to figures released by the National Science Foundation.

Research spending – the catalyst for creating high-paying knowledge economy jobs – is rising in the state, but the University of Wisconsin continues to be the dominant research school, with 82 cents of every research dollar in the state spent on the Madison campus.

As Hurricane Rita approaches the Texas-Louisiana border, forecasters are relying heavily on research done in Madison.

The United States spends nearly $95 billion a year on medical research, twice what was spent a decade ago, a study finds. Whether the money is being well spent needs much better scrutiny, researchers say.

The University of Wisconsin ranks No. 1 in research, according to the Washington Monthly Magazineââ?¬â?¢s first annual college guide, yet falls short in the ââ?¬Ë?social mobilityââ?¬â?¢ category of the review.

Washington Monthly magazine has ranked the University of Wisconsin-Madison best in the country for research and 12th overall nationwide. The magazine computed its research score by looking at each university’s research spending as well as the number of doctorates awarded in the sciences and engineering.

Other factors in the overall score were “social mobility” (commitment to admitting and graduating lower-income students) and “community service” (measured by numbers of students in ROTC, the Peace Corps and use of work-study grants for community service projects).

See www.washingtonmonthly.com for the full report.

Mars and Venus might be closer together than psychologists thought. Popular culture represents men and women as being so different as to hail from separate planets, but a new analysis of research challenges that view. There are more ways in which men and women are similar than they are different, says a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who cautions that believing otherwise could lead to unnecessary conflicts at school, work and home.

Madison, Wis. – Undeterred by a small group of anti-abortion protestors, a crowd of more than 450 people packed the Madison Overture Center Monday night to hear a speech by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor James Thomson, who used the forum to outline UW’s stem cell research efforts.

Craig Atwood thinks he knows why most of us will get old and die. And it’s all about sex. The maverick University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is convinced that’s the secret of why cancer cells might spread through our organs, why our hearts someday might fail and why our brains might be short-circuited by Alzheimer’s disease.

Shyira, Rwanda – At the age of 15, Good News weighed 50 pounds. Just four months ago, his bones were held together only by the thin envelope of his bruised and fungus-infected brown skin.

He was dying of a disease that many Rwandans consider their new genocide: AIDS.

Muramba, Rwanda – As a steady flow of women and children carrying empty straw satchels and jerrycans made their way down the mountain road to the market below, a smaller, more determined stream worked its way up against the current. Carrying hoes, picks, shovels and machetes, these women – many with infants swaddled to their backs – were headed toward a potato field where Peter Bosscher, a civil engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was waiting.

IN the battle of the sexes it may be time for a truce. A study has found that the differences between men and women have been vastly overestimated.

As people from around the country come together to support Hurricane Katrina victims, researchers at the University of Wisconsin�s little-known Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies are already busy tracking the next threatening tropical storms, just as they have for decades.

UW-Madison is the top research university in the United States, according to the September issue of Washington Monthly.

The campus was 12th overall among national universities in the magazineââ?¬â?¢s annual college guide. But UW-Madison’s research ranking topped the likes of MIT, Stanford and UCLA, Michigan.

Have you ever heard of “Fast Plants”? Probably not.

Neither had I until recently. How I missed hearing about this most fascinating subject I’ll never know. However, I do know that many teachers and schoolchildren have learned basic biological principles from studying plants that take only 40 days to grow from seed to maturity, i.e. “Fast Plants.”

My guess is that (Paul) Williams is one of the true innovators of the agricultural world. He searches for fast growing plants to aid disease research in vegetable crops, and then works it into both advanced research and education of young people.

Just one or two drinks a day during pregnancy can cause not only developmental defects in babies but also addiction, sensory disorders and other problems when exposed children become adults, suggests a new study in monkeys by UW- Madison researchers.

The findings provide even more reason for pregnant women or women who may become pregnant not to consume alcohol, the researchers say. That warning carries special significance in Wisconsin, where the binge drinking rate among women is nearly twice the national average.

In the third presentation in a series of talks on primate research Tuesday, members of the Alliance for Animals Primate Freedom Project and the Madison Coalition for Animal Rights asserted that UW-Madison primate research is unnecessary.

Examining ancient trees, probing black holes and observing cannibalistic spiders are all part of the job for young researchers honored in Popular Science’s fourth annual “Brilliant 10” feature.

Amy Barger used data from multiple telescopes to study black holes, becoming a pioneer in studies of light wavelength. A cosmologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she is now studying how the activity of black holes relates to star formation and possible origins of the universe.