While state legislative, research and business leaders debate the ethical and economic implications of an amendment denying tax credits to companies engaging in new lines of embryonic stem cell research, University of Wisconsin scientists are not worrying, pointing to the improbability of its approval.
(MADISON) The next big thing in science is very small. Nanotechnology is an emerging field that uses tiny particles for everything from faster computers to self-cleaning windows and pants that don�t stain. (4th item)
By Stacy A. Teicher, The Christian Science Monitor
College life requires just the right balance between study, work, and play. And for many, there’s a fourth essential: prayer. Nearly two-thirds of American college freshmen pray at least weekly, according to the first comprehensive nationwide survey about their spiritual and religious views.
On public and private campuses alike, spirituality has moved beyond the chapel. Whether students prefer meditation, sacred music, or grappling with meaning-of-life questions around the dinner table, many schools are responding by making more space for spiritual exploration.
Instead of going to class last Thursday and Friday, engineering students joined community-members and businesses in the biennial Engineering Expo.
Well over 200,000 animals spend their entire lives in UW-Madison research labs. After reading recent media reports about alleged cruel and unnecessary experiments on these animals, I and several other concerned citizens have made numerous attempts to attend the federally-mandated meetings of the UW-Madison’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees.
For more than a year, Karl Mahlburg chipped away at a math problem that couldn’t be solved — until he solved it.
Madison: If you’re wondering how you can afford to travel when gas costs $2.25 at the pump, the answer may be in getting 40 miles per gallon.
While that’s out of reach for most vehicles today, UW Automotive Faculty Advisor Glenn Bower says it’s not unrealistic for the vehicles of tomorrow. “More like a Ford Taurus will be in the high 35’s to the 40 range 5 years from now is what I’d predict. The SUV’s will be around 30.”
University officials and alumni gathered on Henry Mall Thursday to attend a program entitled The BioStar Journey: Celebrating Discovery that introduced three new building additions on campus and allowed attendees to tour the buildings.
It has been 12 years since Nancy Hopkins, a senior professor of molecular biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was crawling around the floor of her laboratory with a tape measure, intent on proving to a male administrator that she had 1,500 square feet less laboratory space than her male counterparts.
Warfarin, a drug discovered and patented at the University of Wisconsin, has more negative side effects than its competitor aspirin, according to a recent study published in last month�s New England Journal of Medicine.
Gov. Jim Doyle is blasting a Republican proposal to cut off state tax breaks for Wisconsin companies seeking to develop new stem cell lines.
Doyle said the move would close the door on new research in Wisconsin and sends the wrong message to biotech businesses seeking to locate or expand here.
Stepping gingerly into a politically charged arena for the first time, some large companies in the United States are pursuing plans to study stem cells drawn from early-stage human embryos.
Noted: Becton Dickinson received supplies from the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin political, business and science leaders who have pushed the state’s nascent biotech industry reacted with dismay Wednesday to a vote by the Assembly Tuesday night that would bar companies doing research on new stem cell lines from applying for research and development tax credits.
(MADISON) The Medical School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is getting eight million dollars in grants to compare five, federally-approved smoking treatments. (Third item.)
Cites research by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor that showed feral cats kill millions of songbirds as well as native species such as pheasants and grouse every year in the state.
Gov. Jim Doyle, citing groundbreaking discoveries made in Wisconsin and his own mother’s health issues, reaffirmed his support of embryonic stem cell research Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A common cold bug could cause heart attacks in younger men, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that Chlamydia pneumoniae and perhaps other infections can sometimes damage the heart and arteries, causing heart disease.
Quoted: Christine Arcari and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
If a front-row seat at a human science fair won’t soften our skepticism, maybe a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor’s research will. To get a better read on Tasers, John Webster is ready to study how current enters the body, flows through it and affects muscles and the nervous system.
An emotional battle erupted in the Wisconsin Assembly Tuesday night as Republicans voted to bar firms probing new embryonic stem-cell lines from proposed new research and development tax credits.
The bill, passed by the Assembly 59-36 and sent to the Senate for approval, is one of the legislative linchpins in the Assembly Republicans’ “100- day agenda” for job creation. The Assembly also passed five other bills designed to improve Wisconsin’s business appeal with regulatory and legal changes.
Sufferin’ succotash ââ?¬â? Sylvester had better stay home. A statewide vote in Wisconsin could pave the way for legally shooting stray cats there.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are recruiting 2,800 smokers in the Madison and Milwaukee areas for what they describe as the largest smoking study ever in Wisconsin.
Most of the smokers will have access to the latest federally approved drugs, although 13 percent will be given placebos. The study will be different from past research because it will study people for longer and evaluate the entire portrait of their health, the researchers said.
From the dawn of life, it has tugged our oceans to create the tides. It has shone like a beacon for wanderers in the night. It has inspired the hearts of poets and stirred the souls of romantics. It is a metaphor for something unattainable, yet something that can be attained nonetheless with human ingenuity and desire.
It is the moon, on average a quarter of a million miles away from us. Yet between 1969 and 1972, 12 men spanned that unimaginable distance to set foot on its dusty surface. One of those men is now a UW-Madison professor who, in 1972, was one of three astronauts who piloted Apollo 17 into space and one of two to walk on the moon.
The U.S. Department of Justice is paying the University of Wisconsin $500,000 to put pigs under general anesthesia, inject them with cocaine and zap them with Tasers.
The Supreme Court will hear a patent case regarding the protection of research tools April 20 which numerous organizations and universities, including the Wisconsin Alumni Research Association, have taken active roles in the case�s discussion.
Amid controversy on the University’s tazer tests on pigs, a head honcho assures everyone there’s nothing to worry about. (Audio.)
MADISON, Wis. – Call it much ado about almost nothing. To create buzz about an otherwise arcane subject, the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed off a tiny speck of zircon crystal believed to be the oldest known piece of Earth at about 4.4 billion years old.
Science is a subject worth going to class for on the weekend for Niabi Schmaltz and Holly Godar.
The eighth-graders rode their bicycles to the UW-Madison campus Saturday to participate in the Celebrating Women in Science program at the university’s chemistry department.
From manipulating objects several atoms thick to using physics to find a cure for brain cancer, some of the most revolutionary research on campus is being conducted by women. As part of the “Celebrating Women of Science” program, five female UW-Madison scientists summarized their research in a public discussion Saturday.
Four UW-Madison faculty members are recipients of the 2005 Hilldale Awards, which annually recognize excellence in teaching, research and public service.
This year’s recipients are Richard M. Amasino, professor in the department of biochemistry, James S. Donnelly Jr., professor in the department of history; Paul H. Rabinowitz, a Vilas Research Professor in the department of mathematics; and Karen B. Strier, professor of anthropology and affiliate professor of zoology.
Three UW-Madison professors are among 186 scholars and artists in the United States and Canada to receive prestigious fellowhips from the Guggenheim Foundation.
UW-Madison’s awardees are French professor Richard E. Goodkin, English professor Theresa M. Kelley and David Sorkin, a professor of Jewish studies and director of the university’s Institute for Research in the Humanities.
In a hyper-mediated and ultra-commercialized age, where can we find just plain old “folks?”
UW-Madison will explore that question starting Thursday with a 10-day series of music performances, museum exhibits and public lectures called “The Future of Folk.”
A tiny speck of zircon crystal that is barely visible to the eye is believed to be the oldest known piece of Earth at about 4.4 billion years old.
For the first time, the public will have a chance to see the particle today at UW-Madison, where researchers in 2001 made the breakthrough discovery that the early Earth was much cooler than previously believed, based on analysis of the crystal.
Consumers still spending
So far, consumers appear only a little worried about rising prices and interest rates. The Consumer Confidence Index dipped slightly for March. It’s published monthly by The Conference Board, a private business-research center.
“We haven’t seen much of a drawback on spending. It would really depend on how high and how long; I think duration is important here,” said Lynn Franco, a Conference Board economist. “So far, we’ve seen consumers at least weathering the hikes well.”
But Laura Dresser, research director at the Center on Wisconsin Strategies, a think tank at UW-Madison, added, “Inflation is obviously a problem for people. It stretches already stretched paychecks and high gasoline prices are hard for very many families to deal with on a budget. . . . Gas prices take a real toll on lower and moderate income families.”
Quoted: Stanley Temple, professor, wildlife ecology.
‘Country is watching’ Hunters generally support the feral cat proposal, citing a 1996 study by UW-Madison wildlife ecology professor Stanley Temple that from 7.8 million to 219 million birds are killed by rural cats in Wisconsin each year.
Controversial plans to test tasers on drugged pigs have been blocked, for now.
UW animal research to study the effects of tasers could involve drugging animals in the future
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley said an approved research protocol for using pigs to study the effects of taser stun guns has limits and the study’s principal researcher will have to honor those limits.
Midwest Symposium of Student Paleontologic Research begins at 4-7 pm today with registration and reception at the UW Geology Museum. The best events are mostly tomorrow, including the keynote address, “Dinosaurs on Ice,” by Dr. William R. Hammer, at the UW Pyle Center at 5:30 pm. The conference cost, for those who have rocks in their head, is $60.
Trees in Wisconsin and around the nation might one day be the raw materials for everything from car bodies to wiring, a new report on forest industries found.
The report argues that the wood and paper industries – key but stagnant parts of the state and national economy – might be rejuvenated by nanotechnology, the science of the very small.
A $5 million education research grant has been bestowed on the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the school announced. The five-year federal grant will fund an interdisciplinary training program in the education sciences at the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research in the School of Education. (Sixth item)
Dear Editor: The University of Wisconsin’s pig-shocking project discussed in the March 30 Capital Times brought back memories of another notable UW “research” project.
A number of research universities and related organizations are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to buck the wishes of the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government in a widely watched patent case to be heard by the court on April 20.
The institutions, which include the University of California system, the foundation that manages patents for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the American Council on Education, say that if the court rules for the drug industry, many of the patents that universities now hold could lose value or become worthless.
Quoted: Andy Cohn, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation,
The use of Tasers by law enforcement personnel has evolved into an extremely controversial and contentious issue over the past several months. Tasers fire two small darts carrying roughly 50,000 electric volts that temporarily paralyze a recipient. While law enforcement officials, including Madison Police Chief Noble Wray, laud the Taser for its effectiveness as an alternative to using deadly firearms, groups such as Amnesty International have called for a Taser ban due to the 70 deaths related to electric shocks since 2001.
A drug used in organ-transplant patients could double as an effective cancer fighter, scientists announced last week.
In the upper Midwest, modesty is considered a virtue.
But in the competitive world of stem cell research, not tooting your own horn enough can be counterproductive.
A $10 million “super” research tax credit for corporations was advanced today by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee. The vote was 9-6.
Action came despite the lack of a public hearing on the measure, with state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, saying it “seems odd to do outside the (regular) budget process.” The committee is expected to start voting on the budget bill by mid-April.
The number of Wisconsin residents with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to triple to 348,000 within 50 years, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
University of Wisconsin researchers who think they may be able to slow that increase appeared Monday at a press conference at the State Capitol, calling for legislative support of a proposal in the governor’s budget that would provide $3 million for Alzheimer’s research during the next two-year budget period.
Try a quick brainteaser: how many ways can you express 4 as a sum of whole numbers? There are 1+1+1+1, 2+1+1, 2+2, 3+1 and 4 itself, making five ways. Simple, right?
Now try it for 100.
Children with autism generally avoid social contact, but scientists were never sure why until now. A recent UW-Madison brain study suggests that autistic individuals feel uncomfortable and threatened by looking another person in the eye.
It was a paleontologist’s dream find: a three-and-a-half foot thigh bone from a Tyrannosaurus rex, preserved wonderfully in the Montana ground. But when the scientists tried to load the femur onto their tiny helicopter, they realized to their dismay it would not fit. Tragically, they would have to break the precious bone to fit it on board.
For those who want to enhance their sense of kinship with butterflies, zebras, apes, and even ancient dinosaurs, Sean B. Carroll offers a treasure trove in “Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo.
Carroll is a genetics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON, Wis. ââ?¬â? University of Wisconsin scientists are urging legislators to provide $3 million for Alzheimer’s research they say could lead to more effective treatment and better knowledge of the disease.
Three noted UW-Madison biotech researchers, including stem-cell pioneer James Thomson, have begun construction on a laboratory to house a new drug screening company in Madison’s University Research Park.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering students have accepted a challenge: the Future Energy Challenge. A team of 30 engineering students and three professors are developing vehicles and engines that operate on clean and renewable energy, taking their inventions to competitions around the country.
It has been more than 30 years since Richard Nixon declared war on cancer, an enemy that has proved far more wily and intractable than anyone thought.
The number of Wisconsin residents with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to triple to 348,000 within 50 years, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
University of Wisconsin researchers who think they may be able to slow that increase appeared at a press conference at the State Capitol today, calling for legislative support of a proposal in the governor’s budget that would provide $3 million for Alzheimer’s research during the next two-year budget period.
Long ago, Charles Darwin noted similarities between the expressions of primates and humans. Now, some scientists go further, contending that animals laugh, and that those play sounds might be the evolutionary basis for laughter in humans.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology professor Charles Snowden.
A new study paints a grim picture of today’s environment, arguing that the world is living far beyond its means. But as part of the study, a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist and other experts laid out four scenarios that offer hope that humans can turn things around.
Stem cell pioneer James Thomson has started a company with two other University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members that aims to provide drug screening services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
After five years of exhaustive research and experimentation, doctors at University Hospital here announced that they can now cure, with a surgical procedure, the bane of most golfers — the cursed slice.
“We can guarantee that after we perform this surgery, which usually can be done lapriscopically, the golfer will hit the ball straight and almost always the yardage lost to a slice will be restored to the end of the drive, making it longer,” said Dr. Schott Schank, one of the team of surgeons who developed the new procedure.
(HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY!!!)
Vicki Bier, a professor of engineering at the UW-Madison, is paid to think like a terrorist. She’s heading up a research project looking into ways terrorists might attach the United States.
