Buried in the $5.6-billion bioterrorism bill signed into law by President Bush on Wednesday is a little-noticed provision that will increase the federal government’s share of construction and renovation costs for biocontainment facilities at universities and nonprofit institutions. (Subscription required.)
Pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories and UW-Madison spin-off Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals Inc. today announced the completion of an option and license agreement to develop a new generation of vitamin D receptor activators (VRDAs) for the treatment of kidney disease.
Quoted: Joel Rivlin, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project political advertising group
Federal funds for academic research increased by 13.6 percent in 2002 over the previous year, the largest increase since 1979, the National Science Foundation has reported. Meanwhile, financing from industry fell by 1.2 percent, the first decrease since 1964. (Subscription required.)
One critical aspect of drug addiction is the effect of conditioned cues on drug-seeking behavior. Scientists at the University of Wisconsinââ?¬â??Madison have reported that adolescent and adult rats exhibit different behaviors in response to nicotine and nicotine-related environments, suggesting there are molecular differences in adolescent and adult rat brains.
Quoted: Matthew Graham, a University of Wisconsin postdoctoral fellow
The Automotive Research Center, an eight-university consortium that includes UW-Madison, has received a $40 million U.S. Army grant to develop advanced engine technologies.
Scientists at UW-Madison are teaming up with information technology company SRA International Inc. to build an online, publicly accessible library of data on disease-causing infectious agents and their genomes, including ones that could be used as biological weapons.
A researcher at the University of Nebraska Medical Center has applied for a grant for a project involving two embryonic stem cell lines.
The proposed study would use two existing stem cell lines from the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, San Francisco,
FREEPORT — FHN has unveiled new technology that is expected to have a huge impact on fighting cancer at the Leonard C. Ferguson Cancer Center in Freeport.
Two weeks ago, the center treated its first patient with Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, made possible by a $750,000 investment by FHN and a partnership with the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Scott Craven, chair of the Department of Wildlife Ecology, in a story first printed in the LaCrosse Tribune, discusses why animals such as foxes and coyotes are moving closer to humans. He also explains what people should do if they come in contact.
In a coup for the open-access movement, the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has recommended that the National Institutes of Health provide the public with free, online access to articles resulting from research it has financed. (Subscription required.)
Elizabeth Renken was a smart kid in high school. She had a passion for science but was less excited about her career options.
It wasn’t until she was majoring in biology at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and doing an internship at the National Institutes of Health that she decided a life of research would be suffocating.
A nationwide, highly detailed analysis of presidential campaign advertising, released Sunday and originating in large part from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, confirms what anyone watching television in Wisconsin already knows: Advertising is flooding the airwaves in unprecedented volumes, and Wisconsin is right near the highest level of the flood.
Young men who got intensive counseling before and after being released from prison were less likely to have unsafe sex or to do other things that put them at risk of getting HIV and other sexually spread diseases, a study found
ASTRONOMY: At dusk on July 24 in the amphitheatre at Ottawa Lake Park, Highways ZZ and 67, Ottawa. Graduate students from the astronomy department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will present a slide show. Weather permitting, telescopes will be set-up for participants to view the moon, planets, star clusters, constellations, satellites and other celestial bodies. Call Rob Wessberg at 594-6200
A natural stink bomb is ticking in Birge Hall, and greenhouse director Mohammad Fayyaz can barely wait to smell it.
“In a matter of 10 to 14 days it will fully open,” Fayyaz said Thursday, sounding breathless on the phone. “It’s great news.”
Quoted: Stanley Dodson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who testified for the Lake Pewaukee Sanitary District Commission, which opposes the City of Pewaukee’s plan to use the herbicide
UW-Madison resident chemistry magician Bassam Shakhashiri has received one of the science world’s highest tributes with his inclusion in the Hall of Fame of the chemical fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma.
Beauty from a big stink is blossoming at UW-Madison, where workers are expanding and renovating a botanical garden using proceeds from the recent blooms of the university’s famed corpse flowers.
GenTel BioSurfaces Inc. of Madison announced that it has received five Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants totaling more than $900,000 by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation….The UW-Madison spin-off company specializes in the development, manufacture and distribution of biochips for life sciences, pharmaceutical and diagnostics research.
Quoted: Frank Greer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) committee on nutrition.
WAUKESHA – Michael Crowley and his family have been trying to get a message to President George W. Bush to support extending stem cell research.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases officials have awarded a five-year, $13.6 million contract to develop a system that will collect and analyze data for biodefense studies.
SRA will receive assistance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s genetics researchers on bioinformatics tools and user interfaces.
The National Institutes of Health will direct $18 million in grants over four years to the creation of at least three stem cell research centers, wrote Thompson, secretary of health and human services, in a letter to U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). The federal agency also will create a National Embryonic Stem Cell Bank to enhance the distribution of stem cells to researchers
Research published today in the journal PLoS Biology indicates that during migration season the creatures manage to survive on less shuteye without deleterious effects often observed in other sleep-deprived animals.
When it’s time to migrate, sparrows slash the amount of time they spend sleeping. But unlike long-haul truckers or college students cramming for exams, this avian insomnia may not take a serious toll on their cognitive skills. Understanding how the sparrows pull off this trick could provide a fresh insight into the nature of sleep.
Niels Rattenborg is an enthusiastic amateur birder, but he’s also a scientist who studies the behavioral ecology of sleep. So when he hears birds flying at night on their long migration journeys, he has always asked himself, “When do they sleep?”
Now, studying white-crowned sparrows in a laboratory at UW-Madison, Rattenborg has come up with a surprising answer to his question — they go without.
(MADISON) University of Wisconsin researchers are taking a close look at sixty sparrows in order to help soldiers better endure the demands of certain military operations.
When Jim Ferris was a doctoral student, he directed a theatrical production in which each cast member had a disability. All but one of the performers used a wheelchair, so that put a woman who could walk in the minority. “Where do I fit?” she asked. It is a fundamental question for people who live with a disability, says Ferris, a poet who also teaches at the University of Wisconsin and has succeeded in making disability studies an interdisciplinary program there.
The time has come to re-examine the federal policy on stem cell research. Continue reading
The incredible diversity of eyespots and other patterns on the wings of butterflies all comes down to the timing of gene expression, a new study finds.
Quoted: Frank Greer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Does your lover look just as beautiful to you today as five years ago, or last year or … yesterday?
That depends on what you have learned about the person, according to new research by Kevin Kniffin, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A significant number of researchers are not complying with leading journals’ requirements that they disclose financial ties that could lead to bias, according to a report released on Monday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog group. (Subscription required.)
The University of Michigan’s College of Engineering plans to announce today that it landed a $40-million contract from the U.S. Army to continue funding the Automotive Research Center – the largest contract in the university’s history.
Among the five fellows inducted into the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters during ceremonies Sunday, July 11, at Monona Terrace were: Michael Fiore, who has pioneered smoking cessation at UW Hospital & Clinics; UW Professor Richard Davidson, who has pioneered Eastern spiritual practices in physical and mental health; and UW Professor Richard Davis, nationally acclaimed jazz bassist. Other inductees were Ellen Kort, Wisconsin’s poet laureate, and Tom Uttech, a renowned landscape painter who taught art for 30 years at UW-Milwaukee. (Caption only)
University of Minnesota officials are stepping up efforts to establish a research park near the transit way that links the school’s campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul. (Registration required.)
Quoted: Aaron Carrel is a pediatric endocrinologist and medical director of the Pediatric Fitness Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.
UW-Madison will help protect the nation’s food supply from terrorist attack using a federal grant announced Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security is spending $15 million over three years on an anti-terrorism center at the University of Minnesota. UW-Madison is a partner in the effort and will focus on using biosensors to detect toxins.
A new kind of cranberry is ripening on the vine in Wisconsin, with a major assist from plant scientists at UW-Madison. Known as HyRed, the variety took 10 years to develop and is the first cranberry to be patented.
Quoted: Kevin Kniffin, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
The maximum Pell Grant award would remain level, and the budget of the National Institutes of Health would rise slightly, under a spending proposal for the 2005 fiscal year approved on Thursday by an appropriations subcommittee of the House of Representatives. (Subscription required.)
University of Wisconsin students showed off their retrofitted sport utility vehicle that recently won them the FutureTruck competition for the third year in a row….UW-Madison ran away with the competition, beating 14 other universities.
For Dave Brunson, being a UW-Madison professor of veterinary anesthesia means never having time to yawn.
WASHINGTON – When UW-Madison researchers established a collection of human embryonic stem cells six years ago, “Wisconsin became the epicenter of the scientific universe,” according to a recent letter sent to candidates running for state office in November. Despite the breakthrough for the university, however, many of Wisconsin’s Republican candidates view the research as a step in the wrong direction – and are seizing on the issue in their campaigns.
The time has come to reexamine the federal policy on stem cell research.
By developing a computer model that mimics how children learn to read, two researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University track the development of a skilled reader, ultimately showing that phonics gives readers an edge, especially early on.
STORRS — For weeks, the exotic titan arum has stood, erect and awe-inspiring, under the loving gaze of University of Connecticut botanists and gawking visitors. (Login required.)
A new technology developed by a research group headed by Nimmi Ramanujam, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be a “third eye” during breast biopsies and can increase the chance for an accurate clinical diagnosis of breast cancer.
In a sign of growing impatience with the law of the land on stem-cell research, 20 members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, are trying to pump more federal money into the promising but polarizing science.
The company’sprocess – developed at engineering labs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – has a complex technical name but a simple result. Called aqueous phase reforming, it essentially amounts to extracting hydrogen from the sugars found in corn plants and other plants, without increasing emissions of carbon dioxide
It’s been nearly two years since David Busta held a book in his hands, combed his hair, pedaled a bike or took a step from his bed or wheelchair.
The 29-year-old UW-Madison graduate is limited by the injuries he sustained in a freak 30-foot fall outside the Marcus Amphitheater in Milwaukee. Likely paralyzed for life, Busta looks ahead in part by focusing back on his alma mater, where he believes scientists can solve the puzzle of reanimating his arms and legs through the promise of human embryonic stem-cell research.
Critics of human embryonic stem-cell research say they aren’t insensitive to the suffering of paralyzed people and those with debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Uw Specialist Developed Biopsy Technique That Doesn’t Involve Invasive Surgery.
Dog owners faced with some of the worst news they can get about their pets — Champ or Lady might have a brain tumor — have new cause for hope because of developments at UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
Technology may work surgical miracles, but someone still has to tend the leeches.
MINNEAPOLIS – While much of the nation’s anti-terrorism effort focuses on government buildings and skyscrapers, Frank Busta worries about the plate on the dining room table.
Technology dreamers are always pondering what the next ââ?¬Å?killer appââ?¬Â will be. I want to propose that we have a real killer app on our campuses right now.
Author: Annie Stunden, chief information officer and director of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
Wisconsin schools on the whole graduate the vast majority of their students. But there’s an unacceptably wide gap between white graduation rates (87 percent) and those of African-American students (44 percent) and Hispanic students (55 percent).
Cited: UW-Madison research
Quoted: The University of Wisconsin Survey Center.
