Category: Research

William Hoch is receiving attention for his theory that autumn colors provide leaves with sunscreen.

Just days after publishing a well-received study in which they engineered the 1918 pandemic influenza virus to find out why it was so deadly, researchers are catching flak from critics who say their safety precautions were inadequate. The lead investigator, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, contends his team followed federal guidelines. But critics say these rules are out of date

As trees across the northern United States turn gold and crimson, scientists are debating exactly what those colors are for.

At a university where scientific research abounds, University of Wisconsin researchers system-wide can enjoy a new cross-campus collaboration in sharing technology and resources.

A group of scientists at Harvard University has asked the school’s ethics committees for permission to clone human embryos in order to create stem cells for disease research. If they get the go-ahead, they’ll be the first researchers at a U.S. university to do so.

Viewers in Green Bay, Milwaukee, La Crosse and Madison are among the top targets of TV commercials across the country in the battle for the White House, according to a study released Tuesday by UW- Madison’s Wisconsin Advertising Project and Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, England – Every year, about 500 women come to the Newcastle Fertility Center, an assisted reproduction clinic in the heart of this northern industrial British city.
They walk under a large, exuberant sign in primary colors that reads “Life” (the “f” in the shape of a chromosome), past a cafe called Twist (the “i” in the shape of a double helix), amid throngs of children parading to the nearby science museum, and then into the bright yellow Life Bioscience Center building.
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Usually they come in hope of conceiving a child, but beginning recently, the patients have been offered an unusual option: the possibility of donating egg cells for the creation of cloned human embryos, which researchers here hope to use to isolate human embryonic stem cells. So far, the laboratory director says, most patients are willing.

Much of politics is timing. For Senator John Kerry, whose aides have called embryonic stem cell research a “sleeper issue” in the presidential race, the death of Christopher Reeve puts a spotlight on the issue just as the senator has begun emphasizing it in the campaign.

University of Wisconsin scientists have developed a sensitive, rapid test to detect the presence of the botulinum toxin, the most lethal substance known on earth

By recreating the influenza virus that killed up to 50 million people in 1918-19, researchers may have identified the gene that turned it into one of the most lethal in human history.

Profile of large animal veterinarian, UW School of Veterinary Medicine.

Mosquito abatement usually means one thing: blasting the pesky critters with pesticides. Those pesticides, although highly effective, can impair other organisms in the environment.

Que Lan, insect physiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her colleagues in the entomology department are working on a new, more targeted approach to mosquito control: inhibiting their ability to metabolize cholesterol.

In every cartoon I’ve ever watched, when a volcano erupts, it spews out waves of thick orange lava. So when I watch footage of Mount St. Helens nearing eruption again, I’m a little disappointed that all I see is white clouds of steam. Where’s all the lava? Where’s the wall of flaming-red liquid, destroying everything in its path? It happens in Hawaii-why isn’t it happening in Washington?

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 4 – Senator John Kerry accused President Bush on Monday of “turning his back on science in favor of ideology,” and he presented himself as the more forward-looking leader who would lift the president’s restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research.

For experts who handle hazardous materials and who specialize in bioterrorism preparedness, there are fears – fears that a chemical or biological terrorism attack will take place under their watch and they won’t know anything has happened until it’s too late.
Now a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists thinks it may help alleviate some of these worries – at least when the neurotoxin botulinum is involved.

Daily Cardinal staff opinion

The University of Wisconsin is one of the world’s greatest research institutions. Researchers at the UW have been pioneers in furthering the understanding of diseases including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, such work has given Wisconsin a very strong base in academic-based research, creating thousands of private sector jobs and assuring the state a place in the high-tech, knowledge-based economy that has emerged in the 21st century.

The Bush administration has held back science, a Nobel laureate said during a visit to UW-Madison. (9/30/04 Capital Times print edition)

Using a vibrating arm less than one-millionth of an inch long and one-thousand times thinner than a human hair, a new transistor toggles on and off through the movement of a single electron.

The single electron transistor (SET) was created by UW-Madison engineering professor Robert Blick and physicist Dominik Scheible of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.