WASHINGTON – Simply mentioning words such as ââ?¬Å?wheezeââ?¬Â can activate the brains of asthma patients, researchers said in a study that shed light on the emotional underpinnings of the disease.
This hurricane season has been unusally severe…but scientists say it’s probably not a statement of years to come. Jim Kassen is at the UW Space Science and Engineering Center… and he tells WIBA News, “It’s been a far from average season down there…but of course averages are just that…they’re averages. And so…the idea that from one year to the next you’ll have swings very far from averages is not necessarily indicative of anything systematic that we can expect to see next year or anything like that.”Kassen says this year has been an anomoly….and adds it’s probably not indicative of global warming or any other phenomenon that could affect weather in the long term.
Wisconsin may not be hurricane country…
But some scientists here in Madison are right in the eye of the storm when it comes to helping meteorologists predict wild weather.
The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, or SIMS, is located right here at the University of Wisconsin.
For 15 years, one local learning facility has served the Madison community by providing a place to explore space. Today, this place is a little bigger, as the University of Wisconsin’s “Space Place” begins life in a new set of dimensions.
Savannah Novy says she can already apply Sunday’s “out-of-this world” activities to real-world concerns. “I learned about Hurricane (Katrina), and that it might hit New Orleans, and that would be a really big disaster.”
Madison, Wis. — A large whiteboard in the corridor of the Waisman Clinical BioManufacturing Facility at UW-Madison lists, in color-coded fashion, the schedule for use of the facility’s various laboratory suites and research services.
In its very low-technology manner, the whiteboard indicates the success of the facility, which is about to enter its fifth year of operation. Very few times slots are available for the facility’s six suites, with a backlog of projects awaiting scheduling.
Paul Nealey is a cat herder at the molecular scale.
The chemical and biological engineer at UW-Madison is looking for ways to take infinitesimally small materials – mere molecules that by themselves might stray off into a kind of feline disorder, and shape them into circuits.
Who cares?
Anyone who wants cell phones, laptops and other gadgets to get smaller and more powerful.
Alfonso Gutierrez smiles as boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese tagged with tiny chips zip around a conveyor belt and pass under a reader that instantly displays information about the product.
“It’s going fast,” said Gutierrez, who heads a new university research lab dedicated to helping businesses deploy the technology that could one day replace the bar code.
Gutierrez was referring to the speed of the conveyor belt – 600 feet per minute, the speed Wal-Mart uses in its warehouses – but he could have been talking about the rapid acceptance of radio frequency identification, a technology that can revolutionize business but also erode privacy.
In the lab of Imago Scientific Instruments, atoms are in flight, an invisible stream of 15,000 a second zipping through the sealed core of a stainless steel microscope.
Over 17 years of effort and obsession, Madison scientist Tom Kelly wagered everything from his job and his house to his mother’s money on the belief that he could turn this stream of atoms into Technicolor images.
“I felt there was an opportunity to do something extraordinary,” the red- haired materials engineer said in his Boston brogue. “We can go through life ordinary, or we can grasp that one chance when it comes.”
Welcome, earthlings who dream of the stars.
Space Place is celebrating its new and expanded home this week with activities to share the universe with the curious.
From learning about inertia by dropping a coin into the gravity well to pondering the Milky Way, inquisitive visitors of all ages are invited to explore.
The news that a group of Harvard University researchers has managed to turn ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos has some people already shouting that they told us so. Unfortunately, they’re getting ahead of themselves.
At the dedication of the UW Arboretum on June 17, 1934, naturalist Aldo Leopold eloquently detailed a vision of using the site, mostly worn-out farms, to recreate what “old Wisconsin” looked like when our ancestors settled in the state in the 1840s.
He said he envisioned the Arboretum as “a living exhibit of what Wisconsin was, what it is, and what it expects to become.”
While the Arboretum eventually became known as the birthplace of ecological restoration, it also fulfilled another of Leopold’s predictions, though not necessarily in the positive way he imagined.
It’s arguably the largest industry in town, employing nearly 20,000 people.
Some $500 million in new construction is currently in the works – including a $78 million UW Children’s Hospital, a $134 million Interdisciplinary Research Complex or “IRC” and the $174 million expansion at St. Marys Hospital.
Yet when it comes to talking about economic development strategies for the Madison area, not everyone thinks of the health care industry.
Wednesday marks the anniversary of one of Madison’s darkest days, and a pivotal day for the nation’s anti-Vietnam war effort.
On this day, 35 years ago, four men thought a bomb would end military research on the UW-Madison campus. They never knew it would cost a life.
Scientists have converted skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells. This is a promising development in stem-cell research, which began at UW-Madison.
But this technique is years away from being perfected and shouldn’t divert support for existing methods of extracting and using embryonic stem cells.
It especially should not stop the U.S. Senate from passing a bill to expand federal funding for research on stem cells created through existing methods.
Many Madison residents are recalling where they were when the Army Math Research Center in the U-W Madison’s Sterling Hall was bombed by anti-war protestors 35 years ago today.
Wednesday is the 35th anniversary of a day many long-time Madison residents will never forget.
On August 24th, 1970, four men bombed UW-Madison’s Sterling Hall. Using a ton of ammonium nitrate, they bombed the building that held the Army Mathematics Research Center to protest the Vietnam War.
Biologists who unveiled an important advance in stem cell technology Monday said their discovery offers lessons on how stem cells can ââ?¬Å?reprogramââ?¬Â other cells to turn into new tissues. Scientists at Harvard Medical School announced that they have created a new kind of hybrid stem cell by fusing skin cells with embryonic stem cells.
While a potential scientific breakthrough released on the eve of a landmark vote in the Senate holds great promise, scientists warn that even if the new stem cell approach works, there are still significant hurdles to be overcome – obstacles likely to take years, if not decades, to resolve.
The tornado that dropped down to splinter homes and lives in Stoughton early Thursday evening was born in a three-mile high mass of swirling air and rumbling thunderstorms that started moving down the length of Wisconsin just as the day was dawning.
Jon Martin, an associate professor of atmosphere and oceanic science, recalls being awakened by deep and rolling thunder in the hour before sunrise Thursday. The growling echoed for as long as 15 seconds after some of the reports and Martin found himself thinking that something powerful was developing high overhead.
Scientists for the first time have turned ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells – without having to use human eggs or make new human embryos in the process, as has previously been required, a Harvard research team announced Sunday.
Women continue to face severe bias in science careers despite university programmes to overcome such challenges, according to a study published in today’s issue of Science.
The career path of most women scientists at universities is riddled with obstacles, including unconscious bias, “chilly” campus climates and the difficulty of balancing work and family.
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? Few women rise to top jobs in science because of lingering gender biases in academia, not because of innate differences between men and women, according to a new paper by prominent women leaders in higher education.
Astronomers’ Findings Say Milky Way Is More Unusual Than Thought.
You’ve probably got a few pictures of your neighborhood in dusty photo albums; images of that familiar place where you’ve raised a family and watched the seasons come and go.
Ed Churchwell and Robert Benjamin have such an album.
A professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was suspended from doing animal research for two years after an investigation into deaths and illnesses among rhesus monkeys in her laboratory in 2001 and 2002, university officials acknowledged this week.
Ei Terasawa, a professor of pediatrics who also works at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, was suspended from conducting animal research there after review boards at the university found that she and others in her research group had violated the protocols approved for an experiment she was conducting.
The Medical College of Wisconsin has leveraged a $2.5 million grant, part of the Bush Administration’s “War on Drugs,” to partly fund a new, wide-ranging research facility. The school’s technology transfer office calls the $8.3 million facility another step forward in its efforts to move scientific discoveries into new products that can help patients. Among other things, its high-powered imaging equipment will be used to study the effects of cocaine on the brains of rats. The facility also will be available for other projects by scientists from across the state.
Fred is waiting for you. He’s nestled deep in his lush, green vines and he’s growing every day.
By the time you get to admire him Saturday, he may be Dane County’s largest pumpkin at perhaps 400 pounds.
Fred is an Atlantic Giant, and he’s one of a kind on his vine. But he’s in good company among the extra-long, oddly shaped, bumpy and glossy and gleaming vegetables featured this year at the annual open house at UW-Madison’s West Madison Agricultural Research Station.
Mothers who drink too much can have children with a disorder called fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), and while that’s been known, new research suggests how this damage is done and that there may be a connection with addiction later in life.
Fetal alcohol syndrome occurs in between 2 and 15 of every 10,000 live births, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and causes facial abnormalities, slow growth, and malfunctions in the central nervous system.
Susan M. Smith, 45, a biochemist who is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led the recent research.
A newspaper�s investigation is focusing new attention on the way some university researchers take money to share early opinions about clinical drug trials they are conducting.
This month, The Seattle Times published articles that detailed the way investment firms tap into medical professors and other doctors involved in drug trials to get advance work on how the trials are going.
DODGEVILLE ââ?¬â?? Mike Gingrich — now a Wisconsinite and one of the countryââ?¬â?¢s top cheesemakers — grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, but spent many a summer working on his unclesââ?¬â?¢ dairy farms in Michigan.
The experience left a deep impression on Gingrich, who became an electrical engineer and spent the first 15 years of his career working for the Xerox.
After creating the most detailed analysis yet of what the Milky Way looks like, astronomers say a long bar of stars cuts on an angle through the center of the galaxy that includes the sun and planet Earth.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is serving a two-year suspension from experimenting with animals after at least three monkeys died during or soon after her experiments, the university confirmed.
A monkey died in a research chair while a technician took an unapproved lunch break, Eric Sandgren, chairman of the All-Campus Animal Care and Use Committee, confirmed on Monday.
The deaths were part of an unusual number of complications from Ei Terasawa’s animal experiments several years ago, Sandgren said. The university reported the deaths to the federal government, but did not make a public statement at the time.
For 18 months, Kevin Kniffin, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, tracked the social interactions of a university crew team, about 50 men and women who rowed together in groups of four or eight.
MADISON, Wis. – Critics of animal research on Monday released internal records detailing a study at the University of Wisconsin that led to an “unusual number” of deaths and illnesses of rhesus monkeys in 2001 and 2002.
The UW memos uncovered by the Primate Freedom Project show one of the monkeys died while an attendant went out to lunch during an experiment, and others were given drugs that had not been approved by a review committee.
Madison, Wis. — Implementation of RFID must be done in a holistic manner if the efficiencies and controls the technology offers are to be truly realized, attendees at Friday’s premiere of UW-Madison’s RFID lab heard.
Those comments came from Patrick Sweeney, CEO of Virginia-based ODIN Technologies and author of RFID for Dummies, who gave the keynote address at the lab’s open house – an event that also gave attendees a chance to see RFID in action.
A system built by the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology (DoIT) played a key role in winning $1.6 million in federal research funding for Wisconsin health agencies.
The National Science Foundation recently awarded a three-year Goal Oriented Privacy Preservation grant that promotes research on data mining strategies that preserve privacy.
The past 25 years have been difficult for Wisconsin taverns, but so far there is no hard evidence to show that the smoking ban in Madison is making matters worse, a UW Medical School researcher says.
“A valid study is never done through self reports,” researcher David Ahrens said Friday, referring to early claims by dozens of bar owners that business has been down by 20 percent or more since July 1, when smoking was forced outside.
He said that this kind of data is “highly unreliable,” and in the coming months he’d look at a sample of sales tax receipts submitted to the state Department of Revenue to gauge what’s happening to the city’s taverns and restaurant bars.
MADISON – A University of Wisconsin-Madison medical school researcher plans to study whether the city’s smoking ban has hurt taverns.
Dozens of bar owners claim the ban has cost them at least 20 percent of their customers since it took effect July 1. But researcher David Ahrens says their claims are unreliable at bes
The University of Wisconsin-Madison unveiled its new radio-frequency identification test laboratory Friday, which will help Wisconsin businesses find ways to use the technology in their operations.
Chances are, you’ve seen radio frequency identification at work if you’ve ever driven the Illinios tollway and seen the Iââ?¬â??pass, but that same technology is making breakthroughs in the manufacturing world as well.
UW-Madison has won the first battle in what could be a long legal skirmish with animal-rights groups that want to build a protest hall right outside the university’s primate research facilities.
The owner of a set of sheds sandwiched between two University of Wisconsin-Madison primate labs wants to sell them to the university instead of animal rights activists who claim they have first dibs on the land.
Interviewed: Dr. Joan Schiller, an oncologist at the University of Wisconsin
The owner of property wedged between two University of Wisconsin primate research facilities says he’s likely to sell the land to the university instead of to two animal rights groups.
The groups, the Alliance for Animals and the Primate Freedom Project, say they have a written agreement with the owner to give them nine months to buy the land. They hope to put a museum about animal experimentation on the property.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? The Badger State will likely never produce a Silicon Valley, but it could become a major force in the science and technology business world, a trio of experts told trustees of the Wisconsin Investment Board Wednesday morning.
But to do that, emerging companies need financial backing so they can grow, produce jobs and contribute to the state�s economy.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has awarded a $3.4 million grant to University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to study the disease.
The researchers, led by Professor Ian Duncan of the School of Veterinary Medicine, will attempt to develop new ways to repair and protect the nervous system in patients with multiple sclerosis. The research will include the use of human stem cells.
The group is developing cell transplant techniques, which might someday be used to repair nervous system fibers.
A UW-Madison official said a property owner has accepted a $1 million purchase offer for land right next to UW primate research facilities on Charter Street.
UW Research Park Director Mark Bugher told 27 News the property owner’s acceptance of the UW’s proposed option to buy, may lead to an expansion of the exisiting primate research facilities.
(UNDATED) Alcohol during pregnancy can harm the developing fetus. Now some UW-Madison researchers think they know why. (Second item.)
Snuppy, the world’s first cloned pup, romped onto front pages last week to fascinate and provoke. Seoul National University’s puppy, whose genetic material came from a single cell from the ear of an Afghan hound, teased the public with the prospect that people might soon be able to clone their beloved dogs.
Even creating embryos for stem cells to research is morally wrong. Those of us who support a ban on all types of human cloning do so because we believe that ultimately no good can come from the procedure.
State of Wisconsin Investment Board trustees on Wednesday began studying the possibility of making more investments in young state firms.
….Madison’s University Research Park is betting on the emerging technology effort in Wisconsin. It recently spent $8 million to acquire about 300 acres of land and will make $15 million in infrastructure improvements, the park’s director told trustees. The additional acreage more than doubles the park’s size, allowing it to provide more space for companies that spin out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re writing the check because we think this economy in the science and technology area is where the action will be in the next several years,” said Mark D. Bugher, the park’s director.
NASA and its daring astronauts showed again this week that they can face danger, ad lib and succeed in space – all while furthering our knowledge of the universe.
President Bush said it well Tuesday – the amazing shuttle trip, covering 5.8 million miles in 14 days, “regains the confidence of the American people” following the Columbia accident in 2003.
Discovery landed safely Tuesday morning in California after a series of events and experiments, some planned and others a surprise. It helped show why our nation’s space program deserves strong support despite significant risks and costs.
The successful mission also bodes well for UW- Madison. Our great university has had strong ties to the nation’s space program dating back to the 1950s.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will use $16 million from the federal government to find ways to improve the flow of goods through the Upper Midwest.
UW-Madison will set up one of 10 new national research centers with money included in the federal transportation bill President Bush was expected to sign this week. The center at UW will build on regional transportation studies the school already is doing at its Midwest Regional University Transportation Center.
Kevin McSweeney, the interim director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, has won the permanent position, the university announced today.
McSweeney is also a professor of soil science.
Martin Cadwallader, dean of the graduate school, said in a statement that McSweeney’s leadership will “work wonders for the Arboretum,” the UW’s 1,260-acre ecological facility.
US scientists say they have successfully tweaked a common heart drug to make it fight cancer. Digoxin or digitalis, which comes from the foxglove plant, is normally used to steady the rhythm of the heart and help it beat more efficiently. Now a University of Wisconsin-Madison team has changed some of its building blocks to make it target tumours.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has found that national forests have become islands of wilderness, increasingly blocked off from other forests by creeping residential development.
An organization associated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison is considering spending $1 million to purchase buildings next to the school’s primate research center that animal rights activists want for a museum to protest the work going on next door.
Wisconsin is on track to have another strong year for new-business starts. If the current rate of business openings continues, this will be the fourth straight year of double-digit growth. So far this year, 20,341 new companies have registered with the state, a rate that’s 12.5% ahead of last year. Some are high-tech companies spawned by professors and proximity to the state’s universities, but many more are in the traditional business categories of services, retail and manufacturing.
Two animal rights groups are wrestling with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s real estate buyer to purchase a property wedged between two primate research facilities.
The university has offered to buy the property for $1 million, outbidding the activists by $325,000. But the animal rights groups say they have a contract allowing them to buy it first.
The groups, Alliance for Animals and the Primate Freedom Project, want to create a museum at 26 Charter St. The groups say the museum would detail the suffering of animals who serve as research subjects.
U. S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s smart and courageous stance on embryonic stem-cell research should embolden more Wisconsin state lawmakers – especially Republicans – to support scientific advances.
Frist, R-Tenn., recently threw his support behind a House bill to expand federal funding for research on stem cells. The bill would only affect stem cells taken from embryos created in fertility clinics for reproduction, but which aren’t used and would probably be discarded. He also asked for a comprehensive system of ethical oversight.
150 research reactors in the world still use highly enriched uranium, including at eight U.S. universities. After 9/11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered the universities to upgrade their security.
The University of Florida and Texas A&M will convert their reactors to low-enriched uranium in 2006. The Senate Appropriations Committee added another $7 million to President Bush’s budget to speed up conversion of reactors at Purdue, Oregon State, Washington State and the University of Wisconsin.
