Curious about how amorous male fruit flies dance and display their spotted wings during courtship, UW-Madison researchers dug deeply into the genetic underpinnings of the behavior and are shedding new light on the mechanisms that drive evolution.
The promise of biotech crops ââ?¬â? foods genetically engineered to resist pests and weeds or even to produce drugs for humans ââ?¬â? may be going to seed.
After years of significant growth, the number of biotech crops in the regulatory pipeline has plummeted, says a report out today from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a group that supports a cautious approach to biotechnology.
Michael J. Fox has long spoken about the virtues of studying human embryonic stem cells. And on a visit to UW-Madison, he finally got to see them.
He peered through a microscope to see the technological wonders at the Waisman Center, where scientists study human development, developmental disabilities and neurodegenerative diseases.
On the heels of a major breakthrough involving stem-cell research and the nervous system, UW-Madison brought out the heavy hitters at the Waisman Center Tuesday-Gov. Jim Doyle, Chancellor John Wiley and, most notably, actor Michael J. Fox-in its ongoing crusade to highlight the importance and potential of the scientific discoveries occurring every day on this campus.
Actor Michael J. Fox hopes that the stem cell research that’s going on at the UW will lead to some treatments for dibilitating diseases…and eventually cures. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, toured the Waisman Center on campus yesterday….
Fox called the work the UW is doing the “gold standard,” and added that “there isn’t another Madison. There isn’t another Waisman Center.”
Ã?Â
One month after the tsunami that hit shores of countries bordering the Indian Ocean, fear of a potential infectious-diseases outbreak arose. In a presentation at the Overture Center Tuesday evening, University of Wisconsin Medical School professor Dennis Maki said the potential plagues in the region are also a concern for tsunami victims.
Former actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson�s Disease, toured the University of Wisconsin Waisman Center Tuesday afternoon with Gov. Jim Doyle to view the building�s science facilities in an effort to advocate scientific research dedicated to the condition.
Declaring that ââ?¬Å?we need at least one source of public health information in this country that can be completely trusted,ââ?¬Â National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni on Tuesday announced a ââ?¬Å?sweepingââ?¬Â new ethics regulation barring all employees from moonlighting for any company or organization that could benefit from such a relationship.
It’s being billed as a scientific breakthrough. Xue-Jun Li says, “I was very exciting, the first time, after I really got the very, very high population of the cells, what I want.”
Since 2001, Li’s been a part of a team of researchers, led by University of Wisconsin instructor, Dr. Suââ?¬â??Chun Zhang, which has been trying to develop a method to guide stem cell development. They’ve succeeded.
In addition to improving attention and concentration, meditation might also create long-term changes in the brain that improve focus even when a person is no longer in a meditative state, according to a recent UW-Madison study of Buddhist monks and meditation scholars.
Amid opposition from religious groups and a lack of firm support from the government, UW-Madison scientists formed spinal motor neurons from human embryonic stem cells.
University of Wisconsin scientists are the first researchers to coax human embryonic stem cells into spinal motor neurons, a feat that could eventually lead to treatment of individuals with damaged nervous systems, causing disorders such as Lou Gehrig�s disease or muscular dystrophy.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have whipped up an exciting – but intricate – new recipe that could someday treat spinal cord injuries or provide a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The attention of the scientific community is centered right here in Madison, after UW researchers announce a major breakthrough in stem cell research.
Led by University of Wisconsin neurodevelopmental biologist Dr. Suââ?¬â??Chun Zhang, a team of scientists has developed a way to encourage human embryonic stem cells to become spinal motor neurons. Since spinal motor neurons dictate almost every bodily movement.
Using their own line of embryonic stem cells, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have become the first to make human motor neurons, the spindly nerve cells that control nearly all movement in the body.
A $5 million Prime Focus Imaging Spectrograph (PFIS), capable of viewing distant galaxies and stars, was presented Friday by the University of Wisconsin�s Space Astronomy Laboratory.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported Sunday that they have been able to coax stem cells into becoming motor neurons in an experiment that could someday help scientists treat spinal-cord injuries or provide a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The success, which was reported online in the science journal Nature Biotechnology, is important because scientists have struggled to do what researcher Su-Chun Zhang and his colleagues say they have accomplished after two years of tedious trial and error. Perhaps more important, Zhang’s recipe shows researchers that timing is everything when adding their chemical cocktails to stem-cell ââ?¬Å?stews.ââ?¬Â Stem cells are vulnerable to human manipulation for only the briefest of moments ââ?¬â? and at different intervals, depending on the results each researcher craves. ââ?¬Å?It’s very specific,ââ?¬Â Zhang says. ââ?¬Å?You have to have the right cocktail in the right amount at the right time.ââ?¬Â
UW-Madison researchers have grown human motor neurons in the lab for the first time using embryonic stem cells.
The breakthrough could let researchers more easily and quickly test drugs to treat neurological diseases. And researchers hope that in the future, these cells might replace dead motor neurons – which carry messages from the brain directing the body to move – in patients with spinal cord injuries or neurological diseases.
Only in the strange world of astronomy does it make sense to travel halfway around the world to an observatory at the edge of the Kalahari Desert to get a better look at ourselves. But that makes perfect sense to UW-Madison astronomer Ken Nordsieck. In fact, his bags are packed. Nordsieck is part of a group of UW-Madison astronomers who will be traveling to South Africa next month to help complete and christen the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. When it is done, the telescope, the $18-million South African Large Telescope, or SALT, will allow astronomers to peer at the most distant objects ever observed, including remnants of the Big Bang itself.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are working on a $5 million imaging instrument that will be a major ingredient in a huge telescope being finished in South Africa.
The instrument is the Prime Focus Imaging Spectrograph. It will allow researchers to make digital images of objects in space. It will divide the object into many colors so they can study the composition and speed of movement.
Many regard regenerative medicine as the string theory of life sciences ââ?¬â? elegant, global and controversial. Born in 1998, on the hands of Dr. James Thomson, the now world-renowned University of Wisconsin researcher, the science of stem cells already has scientists and economists gushing over its seemingly endless applications.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Carl Gulbrandsen, the managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, will serve a three-year term on the national Patent Public Advisory Committee, officials have announced. He will help guide the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in its procedures.
CHICAGO (Reuters) – The perception that children seem to grow taller overnight is likely true, researchers say.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison placed sensors on the leg bones of lambs to monitor bone growth in the animals. Ninety percent of bone growth occurred when the animals were sleeping or otherwise at rest, according to the study published in the Journal of Paediatric Orthopaedics on Thursday.
A popular Hollywood star may be helping researchers come close to curing a degenerative neurological disease, UW-Madison researchers said Thursday in anticipation of a visit by Michael J. Fox.
For UW-Madison physicist Cary Forest, a daily journey to the center of the Earth begins with a drive to Stoughton.
As more states line up to promote human embryonic stem-cell research, policymakers and investors will ask, ââ?¬Å?Will it pay off for all?ââ?¬Â The most likely answer is no. But among those states poised to compete with Californiaââ?¬â?¢s $3 billion initiative, Wisconsin may be the best positioned for success.
High-risk jobs now have virtual training tools, thanks to a string of developments in video games. Groups like the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab have been at the front of this effort, developing simulations that give users an equal dose of realism and cooperation.
Hysteria — A functional disturbance of the nervous system, characterized by such disorders as anaesthesia, hyperaesthesia, convulsions, etc., and ususally attended with emotional disturbances and enfeeblement or perversion of the moral and intellectual faculties. — Oxford English Dictionary
A study by researchers at the University of California-San Diego found that human embryonic stem cells used for research are contaminated by animal cells they’re grown in.
All federally approved human embryonic stem-cell lines currently available are suspected to be contaminated with an animal molecule, suggesting stem-cell use in medical applications could be unsafe.
(MADISON) A new study done in California points to the potentially harmful effects posed by contaminated stem cells. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin say the study shows the need for more federal money to develop new lines.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s medical research agency that conducts and funds research at institutions around the USA to improve people’s health. As a leader of medical research, NIH aims to make discoveries that will help prevent, detect and treat disease and disability. That includes funding research on existing human embryonic stem cells.
Once President Bush makes a decision, he doesn’t like to look back. But the time has come for Bush to revisit the policy he set in 2001 on stem cell research. The basis for it has disappeared.
The death toll from the Dec. 26 tsunami has reached between 160,000 and 230,000 people. As aid workers clean up the devastated areas, they notice something odd-while human corpses are everywhere, animal carcasses are rarely found. This observation has rekindled debates as to whether animals possess an innate sixth sense that enables them to foretell impending natural disasters and flee before the calamity strikes.
As most any student will tell you, hunger and sleepiness seem to go together all too often. Recent findings from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study offer new evidence that appetite and sleep are indeed linked, and that two hormones may cause people who get shortened sleep to feel hungrier when they are awake.
A new experiment led by University of Wisconsin researchers is attempting to create a magnetic field-generating dynamo, similar to what is found in the Earth�s core.
OpGen, an early-stage Madison biotechnology company, has received $5 million in venture capital. Investors in the second-round funding include the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
When Eric J. Topol, one of the nation’s most prominent medical researchers, sought her advice after coming under pressure for his corporate ties, Catherine D. DeAngelis, editor in chief of The Journal of the American Medical Association, said she was straightforward.
“I said, ‘If you’re smart, just give it all up,’ ” she recalled. ” ‘I don’t know how much you get, but whatever it is, it’s not worth it.’ ”
Quoted: John Magnuson, UW-Madison limnologist
Ted Iltis was in his Middleton home near Lake Mendota on a recent Saturday morning, sitting at his desk when he heard an explosion and felt the house shake.
There is even a name for it – “lake thunder” – said UW- Madison limnologist John Magnuson, a longtime student of Madison’s lakes, especially Lake Mendota.
All human embryonic stem cell lines approved for use in federally funded research are contaminated with a foreign molecule from mice that may make them risky for use in medical therapies, according to a study released Sunday.
Researchers at the University of California-San Diego and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego report that if the stem cells are transplanted into people, the cells could provoke an immune system attack that would wipe out their ability to deliver cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
UW-Madison senior Brynna Larsen saw much that was new and wonderful, she said, when she spent a month doing down-and-dirty community development work in Costa Rica the summer before her junior year.
Washington — The human embryonic stem cells available for research are contaminated with nonhuman molecules from the culture medium used to grow the cells, researchers say.
Last year, while working on a vaccine to protect against bioterrorist attacks, three laboratory workers at Boston University were exposed to the bacteria that cause a rare disease called tularemia, or rabbit fever.
The human embryonic stem cells available for research are contaminated with nonhuman molecules from the culture medium used to grow the cells, researchers report.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? If the last video game you played was Pac-Man, you might have missed the advances that turned games into immersive training tools for skilled professionals and leaders.
Three University of Wisconsin-Madison professors, among the top researchers in learning through game-playing, explained the advantages of games over traditional teaching tools Thursday evening.
This is in response to “Tracy in Nasville, Tenn.,” who suggested people should donate money for the care of people, not animals. She cited a story about a blind great-horned owl receiving implanted contacts.
Researchers have been trying for decades to figure out why men are more successful than women in math and science careers, and experts agree that no one yet has found a genetic reason. This debate took center stage Friday when Harvard University president Lawrence Summers told the audience at an economics conference that innate differences between the sexes might be a reason.
Children who are too big for a car seat and too small to safely use a seat belt are at risk of serious injury and death, according to studies published in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.
Children ages 4 to 8 have a significantly reduced risk of injury if they are restrained in booster seats instead of adult seat belts, one study found, but only 10 to 20 percent of them are properly restrained.
There appears to be some truth to the adage that the more you work, the more satisfied you’re likely to be.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison panel has suspended a popular researcher of Lou Gehrig’s disease from leading research studies.
You’ve seen it many times in pizza commercials: An unseen hand uses a spatula to lift a slice. The cheese, hot and stringy, becomes long and elastic as it resists the pull from the pie.
Since California voters approved a $3-billion ballot measure last November to provide state funds for stem-cell research, several other states have seen similar proposals, and now a Florida group is beginning to campaign for a similar measure on the 2006 ballot.
…It is a primal human response to melt and stretch that attracts humans to pizza, says Professor Sundaram Gunasekaran.
A cheese expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Gunasekaran has worked with the pizza industry to develop more efficient ways to measure that melt. There is a scientist for every art, and when it comes to the way cheese melts, “Dr. Guna” is your man.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has hired a new director of investment, who has worked with the organization since December 1 and was officially announced Wednesday.
Plantings of biotech crops worldwide increased by 20% in 2004, says a report by a group that promotes agricultural technology in poor nations.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s State of the State speech tonight (at 7 p.m.) will alternate between the conciliatory and the contentious, aides say.
….Doyle is likely to offer some boost to the University of Wisconsin System, which absorbed more than $150 million in budget cuts over the past two years. Aides say Doyle is still looking to university officials to trim administrative costs, but he has already proposed a $750 million building initiative to encourage biotech research.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which patents and manages the licensing of the discoveries of UW-Madison researchers, has hired a new chief investment officer.
Tom Weaver, 54, has spent the last five years as senior investment manager of the $2.1 billion Fairfax County Employees Retirement System in Fairfax, Va.
