The topic of discussion at a special seminar Wednesday night given by Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, of the University of Wisconsin department of population health sciences and Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, centered on the emergence of disease from global ecological change.
A University of Wisconsin professor plans to test his hypothesis that deaths occurring after Taser use are not a result of the darts but instead caused by the drugs present in the person�s system.
The recent controversy over whether Taser guns can kill justifies the use of pigs in a study, said a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher.
Over the past three years, more than 70 people in North America have died after being shocked by Tasers, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. But John Webster questions whether Tasers were really the cause of death. Many of those people were high on drugs, namely cocaine, argued the emeritus professor of biomedical engineering.
Quoted: Professor of pediatrics Dr. Norman Fost, director of UW-Madison’s medical ethics program.
A condom for fire hoses. A grenade that eats oxygen. A transmitter to help firefighters navigate a smoke-filled room. Only the last one won $10,000.
Three College of Engineering students created FireSite, a radio-like guide that lets firefighters “see” through smoke. The students, who won the 2005 Schoof’s Prize for Creativity this February, say any of us can come up with creative a ideas that can make a difference.
A stellar flare that originated before the dawn of recorded human history delivered a mighty burst of energy to the Earth last December, astronomers announced Friday.
‘Eat your fruits and vegetables:’ Most Americans know that’s good advice, but are the nation’s college-age adults listening? Story focuses on UW-Madison nurtitional scientist Susan Nitzke’s study, designed the increase fruit and vegetable consumption among economically disadvantaged young adults.
Climate change, according to UW-Madison researcher Jonathan Patz, is about a lot more than melting ice caps.
It’s also about people getting sick.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science wants to know if scientists believe that academe’s growing pursuit of patents, and related practices for commercializing research, “are aiding or hindering the progress of science.”
Quoted: John Young, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and director of the State Climatology Office.
California may be the state ready to spend $3 billion on stem cell research, but Wisconsin is in line to get a piece of that action. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation may be positioned to play a big role in, and perhaps even profit from, the huge cash infusion California is making in stem cell research.
The Undergraduate Biological Research Society’s Thursday night lecture evolved from a stem-cell research presentation into a heated discussion concerning ethics and morality.
SAN FRANCISCOÃ? Feb 17, 2005 ââ?¬â?Ã? San Diego researchers recently confirmed scientifically what biologists knew intuitively: The stem cell lines President Bush approved for federally funded research are contaminated by the mouse “feeder cells” used to make them grow in the lab.
Researchers with UW-Madison and a private stem-cell research center have removed at least one of the potential stumbling blocks that stand in the way of testing human therapies promised by human embryonic stem cells.
For years, the promise of embryonic stem cells has been corrupted by the inescapable reality that most, if not all, lines of those cells are so contaminated by animal cells that they never would be usable for human research. But scientists at the WiCell Research Institute and University of Wisconsin-Madison may have leaped over a substantial hurdle in the dream to someday use those cells to treat human diseases.
University of Wisconsin-Madison and WiCell researchers have developed a way to grow human embryonic stem cells without using large amounts of mouse cells, which could contaminate the lines.
It’s a significant step because a recent study by University of California-San Diego researchers showed that human embryonic stem cells used for research have been contaminated with the animal cells in which they were grown. That made them acceptable for use in research, but not for potential clinical applications.
WHEN Krishna Ella went to venture capitalists in 1995 he was laughed out of their offices. A molecular biologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, he was proposing to make hepatitis B vaccine in India, his native land, for a mere dollar a shot.
The Dept. of Justice has already issued a grant to John G. Webster, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, to study the health effects of Tasers. That research is to be completed in 2006.
Next month President Bush will present both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of TechnologyÃ?Â-the nation’s highest awards in those fields-to affiliates of UW-Madison.
What will likely become the world’s largest scientific instrument successfully passed the first round of its construction Tuesday from 1.5 miles beneath the surface of Antarctic ice, thanks in part to UW-Madison.
The clock counts down to May for California’s audacious $3 billion experiment in funding stem cell research. That’s when Robert Klein, the architect of the program and acting president of the newly organized California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, hopes to begin cutting the first checks.
States have long worried about how far to go in attracting jobs, with the debate focused mainly on tax incentives and other corporate giveaways. Now, as states gamble billions on controversial stem cell research to attract coveted biotech jobs, they’re confronting an issue rare in job development: moral values.
When explorer Robert Scott reached the South Pole in 1912, he looked around and said “Great God! This is an awful place!”
A professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is among the recipients of the 2003 National Medal of Science, while the university’s patenting and licensing arm has won a 2003 National Medal of Technology, the school announced Tuesday. Carl de Boor, a computer scientist and mathematician, was informed about his medal by President Bush’s science adviser, John Marburger, via telephone. He’ll receive the honor, considered the nation’s most prestigious science award, during a White House ceremony on March 14.
WASHINGTON ââ?¬â?? Four Californians were given the nation’s highest honor for science on Monday, winning the 2003 National Medal of Science.
Carl R. De Boor, of University of Wisconsin, Madison, who won for mathematics was also a winner.
Hector DeLuca may be retiring as chairman of the biochemistry department, but the man who brought the University of Wisconsin millions in royalties will continue to do what he does best.
DeLuca will remain on the faculty as a researcher, studying the healing properties of vitamin D compounds. DeLuca, 74, said he had to scale back because he has been undergoing chemotherapy for a treatable form of lymphoma.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? A blend of mobile, electronic learning techniques could be the future of education.
Judy Brown, an analyst of emerging technology for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Academic ADL Co-Lab, spoke to the Madison chapter of the World Future Society last Thursday night about the developing trend dubbed ââ?¬Å?me learningââ?¬Â.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Tools for firefighters and fishermen won the day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Innovation Days contest for engineering undergraduates.
In the film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a computer named HAL ran an entire spaceship. Likewise, at the Biotron, one of UW-Madison’s most advanced research facilities, an enormous server directs all building operations. Conditions need to be finely controlled because the Biotron houses some of the most revolutionary research conducted quietly on campus.
The annual Polar Plunge makes its way to Madison’s Lake Monona Saturday. The cold-water dive raises money for Special Olympics and also lets participants face their fears and test their limits in a challenging-but eminently harmless-environment.
Madison will be well represented when the presidents honors the country’s top contributors to science and technology next month.
Congress should make sure that the new administrator of the National aeronautics and Space Administration takes a fresh look at a possible reprieve for the Hubble space telescope.
SAN FRANCISCO — Last fall, a group of pioneering scientists, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs sold Californians on the ultimate startup, one with shoot-for-the-moon ambitions. The men and women pitched the state’s residents on a new science that they said might one day lead to cures for humankind’s worst diseases. “Save Lives with Stem Cells!” campaign posters urged.
Chair of the University of Wisconsin biochemistry department, Hector DeLuca, announced Friday he will be stepping down from his administrative position.
If you’re trying to find fish or firefighters, Friday was a day that could signal a leap forward in technology.
A homing device designed to help firefighters find their way out of smoky, burning buildings and a high-tech fishing lure took top honors Friday at UW-Madison’s 11th annual Innovation Days competition.
UW-Madison scientist Hector DeLuca, an international authority on vitamin D whose patents have earned the university millions in royalties, will step down in July as chairman of the biochemistry department he has led for the past 35 years.
Those who approve animal studies at the University of Wisconsin say there are reasons to give professor John Webster the green light to test the effects of TASER’s on pigs.
As far as Gov. Jim Doyle is concerned, the future for stem-cell research in Wisconsin couldn’t be brighter.
Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts said this week that he opposes a controversial type of research on human embryonic stem cells and may propose a state ban that would affect several institutions, including Harvard University.
BOSTON, Feb. 10 – Massachusetts Democrats and several prominent researchers unleashed a flurry of objections on Thursday to Gov. Mitt Romney’s proposal to outlaw a form of embryonic stem cell research.
BOSTON, Feb. 9 – Setting up a political battle over stem cell research, Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts said this week that he would propose legislation to outlaw a type of embryonic stem cell research that is being planned by laboratories at Harvard University and other institutions in the state.
A UW-Madison researcher has discovered a startling relationship between a breed of ants and the fungus from which the ants derive nutrients. The ants produce chemicals that protect the fungus from bacterial parasites. As the bacteria evolve to survive the pesticides, the ants evolve new pesticides against the bacteria, in a 50-million-year-old chemical arms race that could one day help humans design more precise antibiotics.
A researcher is looking for males and females ages 10 to 15 with fragile X syndrome.
Quoted: Andrew Cohn, a spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin-Madison�s Alumni Research Foundation.
The scientist who attracted world attention by cloning Dolly the sheep is about to take another step for medical research. He will clone human embryos and extract stem cells to unravel the mysteries of muscle-wasting illnesses such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS.
Undergraduate student inventors at the UW-Madison will display medical devices, collapsing stools, water filters, a fishing lure, a device to walk on water and more inspired ideas during the 11th annual Innovation Days competition Thursday and Friday.
President Bush’s budget for science would provide slight increases for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and cuts for several other agencies that provide most of the federal funds for research in the physical sciences and engineering. Spending for basic research overall would fall by 1 percent
Terry Hannaford never knew his career would lead him to the ends of the Earth.
Butg as a logistics manager for Project Ice Cube, Hannaford spent almost two months at the South Pole. His efforts have helped scientists in their quest to detect neutrinos and delve into the lives of black holes
A team of UW researchers has discovered how to revive dying neurons that are responsible for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer�s and Parkinson�s.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Su-Chun Zhang received another boost to his stem-cell research from a grant awarded on Monday by the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Taxpayer-funded scientists should submit their research papers to a free public archive within one year of publication, says the National Institutes of Health.
On the bottom floor of a nondescript building in the countryside near Stoughton, University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist Cary Forest and his colleagues are learning about the innermost parts of the Earth by studying what happens when 300 gallons of liquid sodium are beaten and stirred like a cake mix in a bowl.
Another example of the fact that we live in an age of scientific breakthrough came to light this week. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported that they have successfully created a formula that allows human embryonic stem cells to turn into motor neurons.
University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell researchers have received a $1.2 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles.
The team, led by renowned researcher James Thomson, will use the money for a three-year project focusing on the ability of embryonic stem cells to proliferate indefinitely while being able to develop into any of the cell types in the human body.
UW researchers say a major discovery came from an animal no bigger than the head of a pin.
Genetics researchers used fruit flies to study evolution. They took a close look at the nuts and bolts of DNA to see how changes in a species become permanent.
UW-Madison received more funding for stem-cell research Thursday in the form of a $1.25 million grant presented to a team led by James Thomson from the Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation, according to a press release.
Less encumbered by societal restrictions on embryonic stem cells, scientists in the developing countries of Asia are giving Western researchers a run for their money
Stem cell researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison received a three year, $1.25 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles. (Third new item).
In his first Wisconsin appearance as a private citizen in 38 years, former cabinet secretary Tommy G. Thompson said Thursday that he supports all types of stem cell medical research but refused to criticize controversial limits on that research imposed by President George W. Bush.
Researchers studying human embryonic stem cells on the UW-Madison campus have been awared a a $1.25 million grant by the W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles.
