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.
Quoted: John Fallon of the University of Wisconsin, Madison
MADISON ââ?¬â?? Five years ago, it wasnââ?¬â?¢t necessary to use terms such as “entrepreneur,” “venture capital” or “knowledge worker” when talking about the state economy. That was before the recession of 2000, the war on terror and other global trends fundamentally changed the Wisconsin landscape.
An investment expert with deep family ties to the University of Wisconsin System will manage the money that’s used to help support UW research.
Tom Weaver is the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s new director of investments. He guides decisions about how to invest the $1.4 billion in WARF’s hands.
The group responsible for patenting the discoveries of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will announce today it has hired a new chief investment officer to replace the man who managed its now $1.4 billion investment portfolio for 26 years. Tom Weaver, who was senior investment manager of the $2.1 billion Fairfax County Employees Retirement System in Fairfax, Va., began overseeing the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation�s portfolio at the beginning of the year following the retirement of Mark Bear, said Andrew Cohn, a foundation spokesman.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Mark Cook, a tenured animal sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had seen his patents get licensed out to several businesses, only to sit on the shelves.
He�d been working since the mid 1980s on biotechnology that was was not being promoted by any of the businesses to which it had been licensed through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 10 – The chairman of California’s new $3 billion stem cell research institute wants to award its first grants in less than five months, even though the institute has no staff, headquarters or review procedures – a timetable that some board members fear is too ambitious.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? To model something as big as the weather, the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies needed a bigger computer.
Aetos Technologies Inc. pulled the wraps off a new high-tech microscope accessory last month at a scientific conference in Washington, D.C. But the unveiling of the company’s first product is probably far less significant than the existence of Aetos itself.
In the winter night sky, just above Orion’s shoulder and not far from the gathering of stars known as the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, a mysterious and rare visitor to our corner of the universe is visible to anyone with a pair of binoculars.
A Wisconsin church leader predicts more schools in rural areas will consider incorporating creationism into lesson plans, and a UW-Madison historian who studies the issue thinks more court challenges are likely.
Dear Editor:…We need to continue stem cell research, especially at the university level….Let’s back Gov. Doyle and our own University of Wisconsin to continue the search for answers. We cannot afford to lag behind in this valuable research.
Sylvia Oberle
Stanley
New Jersey would invest an additional $500 million during the next decade to secure the state’s place as a world leader in stem-cell research in a proposal being considered by acting Governor Codey.
California’s new stem cell agency is generating a lot of talk – and it’s not all about the ethics of human embryonic research. First Amendment advocates are grousing about the veil of secrecy covering how the agency is coming together and where $3 billion in taxpayer money is going.
Quoted: Jon Keevil, an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have found a way to revive dying brain cells in lab mice, spurring hopes of combating major human neurological diseases.
“It’s actually amazing,” said Jeff Johnson, an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy and the lead researcher. He said the discovery can be put to work trying to halt the progression of early-stage diseases like Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s and Alzheimer’s.
UW-Madison researchers have found a protein that may stop the progression of neurological diseases such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s and Alzheimer’s.
Traditional, rural Alaskan knowledge can now spread globally thanks to a joint effort between UW-Madisonââ?¬â?¢s Environmental Remote Sensing Center and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys. Their MapTeach effort, or Mapping Technology Experiences with Alaska’s Cultural Heritage, is designed to combine geospatial information with traditional knowledge as a teaching tool.
Networking in the cold north
When I stopped up at the Capitol last week to say goodbye to retiring state Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud, most of the dead animals had already disappeared from his office.
Arthur Barclay “Chappie” Chapman, who became one of UW-Madison’s most accomplished animal genetic researchers, nearly moved to New Zealand to become a sheep farmer instead.
UW-Madison’s psychology department last year led the nation with $22.8 million in federal research grants, according to the National Science Foundation. That amount was almost equal to the entire federal research budget of UW-Milwaukee, and it was $10 million more than the next nearest university, Penn State.
UW-Madison is home to one of the nation’s premier psychology departments, ranking first in the country for federal research funding and employing a stable of academic stars with national and international reputations for work in brain imaging, emotions and other areas.
You are getting sleepy, sleeeepy … your eyelids are getting heavyyyyyy. … When I snap my fingers, you will forget everything you’ve ever heard about hypnotism.
Something like hypnotism had already been around for centuries when finally it was “invented” around 1775 by Franz Anton Mesmer, a German physician who used it to effect seemingly miraculous cures.
“Like a lot of people at the time, he was interested in these non-material forces such as electricity and magnetism,” says professor Thomas Broman of the UW-Madison history of science department.
(AP) Wisconsin’s Democratic governor and the Assembly’s top Republican want to clean up the state’s financial mess, make government more efficient and improve the lives of Wisconsin residents. They just have very different ideas on how to do it.
Gov. Jim Doyle and the Republican-dominated Legislature head into the next two-year legislative session with a $1.6 billion state budget deficit to solve amid growing pressure to ease the growth in property taxes.
In its most recent annual study of UW-Madison students, the university ‘s department of information technology found that students were online an average of 26.5 hours per week in the 2003-04 school year…
In the wildlife clinic at Tufts University’s veterinary school, Mark Pokras is slicing into the stomach of a North Atlantic seabird to see whether it might have succumbed to environmental or biological toxins. After getting past the snowy-white feathers of the emaciated gannet (similar to a pelican), he pokes around for signs of poisoning or accidental ingestion of foreign objects, like lead fishing sinkers or plastic fragments. (Subscription required.)
Women’s advocates are worried about potential changes in laws affecting reproductive rights that could emerge during the 2005 session of the Wisconsin Legislature. They’re concerned because the Legislature has shifted toward the right after the last election.
….Wisconsin Right to Life plans to keep an eye on Governor Jim Doyle’s plan for stem cell research.
Quoted: Phil Pellitteri, an entomologist who specializes in Lyme disease at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Pat Behling loves snowflakes. Her ardor doesn’t stop with ogling them or tasting them on her tongue. Behling tries to capture their oh-so-fleeting existence on film. It’s a hobby for Behling, 52, who works in the Center for Climate Research at the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To get her snowflake photos, Behling sets out microscope slides on cookie sheets. The slides are coated with a sealant, and as the snowflakes fall on the slides, they leave an impression, similar to someone making a snow angel. Behling then takes pictures through a microscope of the snowflake impression. A showing of her snowflake photos is at the Mosquito Hill Nature Center in New London until the end of January.
The UW-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center does a higher volume of interesting work than most of us can comprehend — especially those of us who could muster no better than a merciful C in high-school physics.
The response has been less than overwhelming to Gov. Jim Doyle’s proposal to invest nearly $750 million in public and private money in Wisconsin’s biotechnology future. Budget-conscious members of the Legislature have choked on the price tag, opponents on stem cell research have once again protested, and Milwaukee politicians have asked if they’re being shortchanged in favor of Madison.
A series of earthquake-generated tsunamis – massive tidal waves – radiated across the Indian Ocean on Sunday, killing more than 20,000 people. Dennis “Chuck” DeMets, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talked about these killer waves with Journal Sentinel science reporter Susanne Quick.
“The response has been less than overwhelming to Governor Jim Doyle’s proposal to invest nearly $750 million in public and private money in the state’s biotechnology future…,” says Wisconsin Technology Council president Tom Still.
“Doyle should address all legitimate gripes about the specifics of his plan, but he shouldn’t back down a nanometer on the core idea behind it: Wisconsin has a chance to be a national leader in biotechnology, including stem cell research, and that opportunity won’t wait forever while we wring our hands.” (12/26/04 Opinion)
Quoted: Bruce Klein, an infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Lake Wingra’s murky water could be clear within six years if an experiment starting next spring proves the lake can be cleaned of invasive plants and bottom-stirring carp.
The County Board’s Lakes and Watershed Commission gave the green light to Department of Natural Resources lake researcher Dick Lathrop to install a fish “exclosure” on the lake’s western shore, after an informal survey of residents at a public hearing earlier this month showed overwhelming support for the project.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Imagining the effects of being able to manipulate materials just atoms at a time got a bit easier with the opening of Exploring the Nanoworld, an exhibit on display at the University of Wisconsin-Madisonââ?¬â?¢s Engineering Centers Building.
University researchers hope efforts such as this one can make nanotechnology, the study of things on a scale of individual atoms and molecules, easier to grasp.
For millions of people with aches and pains, chiropractic care is the answer. But now there’s similar help for your pet, big or small. At the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Dawn Mogilevsky is using chiropractic care to adjust the spines of myriad horses, cats and dogs.
Imagining the effects of being able to manipulate materials just atoms at a time got a bit easier with the opening of Exploring the Nanoworld, an exhibit on display at the University of Wisconsin-Madison�s Engineering Centers Building.
On a palm tree at the University of South Florida’s St. Petersburg campus, a squirrel munches on an acorn. A few feet below, three students quietly assemble their equipment.
IRVINE, Calif. – So far, not a single person has been helped by human embryonic stem cells.
But in cramped university labs, a young neurobiologist with movie-star good looks, a Carl Sagan-like fondness for the popular media and an entrepreneur’s nose for profits is getting tantalizingly close.
Three years after President Bush announced restrictions on federally funded medical research using stem cells from human embryos, a California panel will meet today to begin the process of granting $3 billion in state money to stem cell researchers.
