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Category: Research

Scientists seek sensor for toxin, (Isthmus – 4/1/05)

It’s a ghastly scenario. Terrorists slip a teaspoon of botulinum toxin into a batch of milk at a dairy plant. As gallons of contaminated milk disapper off store shelves, patients begin showing up in emergency rooms complaining of blurred vision, droopy eyes, then paralysis of the face, neck and arms.

A rare glimpse into campus dog research (The Daily Page)

Isthmus

Hidden from public view and even further from public awareness, the UW-Madison is engaged in often-lethal research involving hundreds of dogs each year. Some experiments entail surgery, others the introduction of pathogens. One even involves bleeding dogs to death.

According to Timothy Mulcahy, the UWââ?¬â?¢s associate vice chancellor for research policy, the UW has used an average of about 650 dogs a year over the last three years ââ?¬Å?in research and teaching activities.ââ?¬Â In its annual report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the year between Oct. 1, 2003 and Sept. 30, 2004, the UW reported using 421 dogs as research subjects. As of last week, relates Mulcahy, there were ââ?¬Å?113 dogs housed in UW facilities.ââ?¬Â

Hell, no, you can’t know, (Isthmus 4/1/05)

Even one of the committee members was initially locked out. The older man, a citizen appointee to the UW-Madison Graduate School’s Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), waited outside the National Primate Research Center on campus for several minutes last week before an employee opened the building’s locked entrance and let him in, along with a small group of animal-welfare advocates.

UW animal testing cruel and unethical, group argues

Daily Cardinal

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an aggressive, self-interested participant in the business of cruel animal testing, according to the Alliance for Animals. The organization hosted a lecture titled “Behind Closed Doors” Thursday to discuss the issue of animal testing done at UW-Madison, specifically at the Primate Research Center.

Tom Still: Walking a line on stem-cell research (Capital Region Business Journal)

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has drawn a thoughtful ethical line with his decision to support one type of human embryonic stem cell research in his state and to oppose another. Although the distinction made by Romney was largely lost in news coverage of his announcement, it could define a more constructive debate about stem cell research in Wisconsin and nationwide.

Stem cell leader opens business

Capital Times

Stem cell pioneer and University of Wisconsin researcher James Thomson is opening a business at the UW Research Park.

Cellular Dynamics International, Inc. will work on cellular tissue regeneration involving the heart; the research there will involve stem cell research, but will not be limited to that, according to an industry insider familiar with the business who wished not to be identified.

UW language faculty create multimedia training tool

Wisconsin Technology Network

Madison, Wis. � Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created an interactive multimedia tool for learning languages, the Multimedia LessonBuilder. The computer program tests foreign language students on several levels, helping them learn with audio and visual components.

Panel hears raves, ACLU dissent about Tasers (AP)

Capital Times

STEVENS POINT – A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher proposed a quick experiment about the newest police tool for subduing unruly bad guys and protecting officers – the X26 Taser – as the safety of the weapon has come under question.

“I could think everyone in this room could be Tasered and we would have no problems,” John Webster told about 100 law enforcement officials who gathered Tuesday for a meeting to develop a state policy about how best to use the weapon.

DeWitt 1 of 6 to get award

Capital Times

Cal DeWitt, a longtime UW-Madison environmental studies professor and founder of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies in northern Michigan, will be among six people to receive special achievement awards Thursday from the National Wildlife Federation.

Rob Zaleski: Prof says Bush really is harming environment

Capital Times

Ever the diplomat, (UW-Madison professor of environmental studies) Cal DeWitt leans back in an easy chair in his rustic town of Dunn home and searches for a tactful way to describe the Bush administration’s relentless and unprecedented attacks on the environment.

…on Thursday, DeWitt will fly to Washington, D.C., to receive a special achievement award from the National Wildlife Federation for his three decades of work protecting wildlife habitats and for building a bridge between Christian groups and the science of conservation.

Pig study protested (AP)

Capital Times

To protest a study that would subject pigs to electric shocks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor on Tuesday withdrew from a project she planned with the man leading the Taser research.

Terry Young, a professor in the department of population health sciences, told university administrators she would no longer participate in a study with John Webster, a professor emeritus of biomedical engineering.

Study: Males With Young Stay Loyal

ABCNEWS.com

March 30, 2005 ââ?¬â?Ã? So a guy’s sitting at a bar and a sweet young thing starts flirting. He’s married, and he knows he should watch his step, but even though the conscience says no, the flesh is more than willing.

Taser study that shocks pigs doesn’t fly with prof (AP)

St. Paul Pioneer Press

MADISON, Wis. — To protest a study that would subject pigs to electric shocks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor on Tuesday withdrew from a project she planned with the man leading the Taser research.

Terry Young, a professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences, told university administrators she would not participate in a study with John Webster, a professor emeritus of biomedical engineering.

Bacteria Use in Nanotechnology, UW-Madison Breakthrough (WPR)

Wisconsin Public Radio

(MADISON) A team of scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a new way use bacteria to build tiny electronic circuits. Eventually, the discovery could lead to the creation of micro sensing devices that could warn of the presence of dangerous biological agents such as anthrax. (Third item)

Professor pulled out of project in protest

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

To protest a study that would subject pigs to electric shocks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor withdrew Tuesday from a project she planned with the man leading the Taser research. Terry Young told university administrators she would no longer participate in a study with John Webster, a professor emeritus of biomedical engineering. (Third item)

Going for the code

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Harmless Fluffy Bunnies are on a mission.

This little-known University of Wisconsin-Madison team hopes to use its problem-solving and code-writing skills to make a big splash at the Big Dance of the college computing world: the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals.

‘Fluffy Bunnies’ ready for Shanghai programming competition

Wisconsin Technology Network

Madison, Wis. � While Easter has come and gone, the University of Wisconsin-Madison still has rabbits around�rabbits that can solve complex equations.

Harmless Fluffy Bunnies, a team of three computer programming students at UW-Madison, will be traveling to Shanghai, China, from April 3 to 7 to compete in the world finals of the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest. The team entered the finals by taking first place in the North Central regional contest last November.

Cloning outpacing ethics

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Eight years after Dolly the cloned Scottish sheep, the world now has Little Nicky, the first cloned pet cat – the progeny of a rather flippantly named Texas company, Genetic Savings & Clone Inc., which is moving to a Madison-area industrial park. But the nagging moral, ethical, legal and long-term scientific questions raised by cloning remain largely unanswered.

Larvae show medical promise

Daily Cardinal

Although not every patient would jump at the chance, several doctors across the country are warming up to the notion of treating hard-to-heal infections with an age-old nemesis: maggots.

This treatment has been used, perhaps unintentionally, for thousands of years. During wartimes, soldiers have sometimes been left for days with infected wounds that became infested with maggots. Doctors would later be surprised to learn that the patients remained healthy despite a lack of medical attention.

Wis. Professor to Test Stun Guns on Pigs

Yahoo! News

MADISON, Wis. – A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plans to study whether stun guns alone can kill pigs ââ?¬â? or whether other medical factors must be at play ââ?¬â? as part of an effort to understand why 70 people have died in North America since 2001 after being shocked by Tasers.

Neutrinos beamed beneath the state

Wisconsin State Journal

Careful, depending on where you live in Wisconsin, you may be stepping on a very expensive and very complicated high energy physics experiment.

An invisible beam of mysterious particles called neutrinos, shot from an accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in northern Illinois, is passing beneath the state at this very second.

In fact, according to UW- Madison physicist Albert Erwin, who has worked on the experiment for the past five years, the beam passes just east of Madison.

Going for the code

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Harmless Fluffy Bunnies are on a mission. This little-known University of Wisconsin-Madison team hopes to use its problem-solving and code-writing skills to make a big splash at the Big Dance of the college computing world: the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals in Shanghai.

House Leaders Agree to Vote on Relaxing Stem Cell Limits

Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The House leadership has agreed to allow a floor vote on a bill that would loosen the restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research imposed by President Bush in 2001, according to members of Congress and others privy to the arrangement.

The vote, expected to take place within the next two to three months, would be the first of its kind on the politically charged topic since Bush declared much of the research off-limits to federal funding.

(Reprinted in the 3/25/05 Capital Times)

Proposed Legislation Threatens to Slow California Stem Cell Rush (Science)

Although California voters last November approved a proposition that promises to push the state to the forefront of embryonic stem (ES) cell research, legislation introduced in the state senate last week may significantly constrain the way that the new California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) conducts business.

Quoted: R. Alta Charo, a lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,

Discovery Institute well worth the cost (WSJ, 3/25/05)

Gov. Jim Doyle is seeking $19 million in his state budget that for a project that, by comparison to its cost, has the potential for a gigantic payback.

The $19 million would help build the first phase of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, an ambitious research center for biotechnology that would rise on the UW-Madison campus over the next 10 years.

Doug Moe: Weather book gets sunny reviews

Capital Times

IT’S NOT true that everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Christopher Burt did something. He wrote a book about it. Not just any weather, either. Wild weather.

….Burt was living in a house on Lake Monona – raised in New Jersey, he came here to study meteorology at UW-Madison – when the Barneveld tornado hit in June 1984.

Bacteria act as glue in nanomachines

Nature

Nanodevices are typically built by connecting tiny components. But such a delicate task is not easy. So, many researchers are exploring ways to fix components in place using the binding properties of biological molecules, notably DNA.

Robert Hamers and his colleagues from University of Wisconsin-Madison propose using entire microbes instead

What $750m means: a review of the state biotech plan

Wisconsin Technology Network

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle has made much of his $750 million biotechnology plan for the state, especially as budget season pushes onward. But it can be easy to lose track of where the money is coming from and going, as the plan involves a handful of separate buildings and initiatives funded through public-private partnerships.

Panel votes for research institute

Wisconsin State Journal

The state Building Commission Friday voted 7-1 to finance a proposed $381 million biotechnology research institute at UW-Madison.

The 450,000-square-foot Wisconsin Institute for Discovery would be built on a wedge of land bordered by University and North Randall avenues and West Johnson and North Charter streets, just north of Union South.

The commission also approved $137.5 million in new bonds for the project that will become available over the next 10 years and reallocated to the institute $50 million of previously approved bonding, said Rob Kramer, secretary of the commission.

UW-Madison student makes math history

Wisconsin State Journal

If you ask Karl Mahlburg about his mathematical breakthrough, he will, typically, smile a very shy smile, duck his head, and say something self- effacing.

But Mahlburg, a 25-year-old UW-Madison graduate student, has solved what may be the last part of a historic mathematical problem that has challenged the brightest minds in the field of number theory for 75 years. It is a feat that has drawn praise from the elite in the math world.

Divide Undercuts Clone-Ban Effort (Wired News)

Wired.com

Discussions about human cloning legislation are heating up once again, with two opposing conservative camps vying for the best strategy to outlaw the practice.

On Thursday, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) reintroduced a bill to ban human cloning that has failed to pass twice since 2001. The bill would ban both reproductive cloning, which would lead to a baby, and therapeutic cloning of the type researchers believe could lead to treatments for human diseases.

UW research center plans met with hope

Wisconsin State Journal

There were many important people at the unveiling Wednesday of the proposed $375 million Institute of Discovery, from college deans to a beaming governor.

But few in attendance may have more to gain from the ambitious research center than three children who stood quietly next to the architectural drawings as the important people spoke.

For monkey dads, parenthood trumps call to be wild

Wisconsin State Journal

The prospect of wild monkey sex, even among wild monkeys, apparently diminishes in allure if the consenting primates are parents. UW-Madison researchers focusing on marmoset fathers found their testosterone levels “barely wavered” in response to the scent of a female, while hormone levels erupted in the nonparent males. The results, released in a report Wednesday and published in the January issue of Hormones and Behavior, surprised the scientists because not only was it a unique demonstration of testosterone response to a social situation, it was not the response everyone expected.

Gov seeks $187M for research institute

Capital Times

Gov. Jim Doyle will seek $187.5 million in state funds to build a research institute that could keep Wisconsin on the leading edge of biotechnology and biomedical research.

In December, Doyle proposed the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, which would bring together biochemists, nanotechnologists and computer engineers at UW-Madison. Doyle said today he would call on the state Building Commission to approve the first phase of funding for the institute at its meeting Friday. The project will also require legislative approval.

Health ‘conscience’ legislation pushed

Capital Times

Several health care professionals joined Rep. Jean Hundertmark Tuesday to support the introduction of her 2005 “Conscience Protection Act.”

The bill from the Clintonville Republican is aimed at protecting doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers from being discriminated against or sued because they follow their consciences in refusing to take part in procedures “that are a planned, calculated destruction of human life,” Hundertmark said.

On campus, science embraces environmental ethics

USA Today

Justin Becknell became an environmental science major because he wanted to help solve ecological problems. He is so determined to get results, in fact, that he’s developing a subspecialty in ethics.

Quoted: Frances Westley, director of the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.