Category: Research

A team of researchers at the UW-Madison developed a process that recycles disposable masks into new plastic goods — not just lesser materials. Given the increased use of disposable masks as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, practices on how to properly dispose of them — such as the research at UW-Madison — have emerged amid concerns about them ending up in landfills or littered, and negatively affecting the environment.

With three-dimensional imaging licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, based on work from the lab of UW-Madison biomedical engineering professor Kevin Eliceiri, Elephas Biosciences can analyze live tumor samples to see how well they respond to therapies, CEO Maneesh Arora said.

The reality isn’t that clean. Fenske’s video hinges on a new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study, released last month, suggests that in the real world, ethanol provides no discernible reduction in emissions. In fact, corn-based ethanol is up to 24 percent more carbon-intensive than traditional gasoline. That’s because, while growing corn is a carbon sink, every other part of the process of turning corn into fuel creates intense emissions output.

Religious participation seems to promote individual flourishing in a variety of interlocking ways, beginning with the friendships it fosters. In 2010, Chaeyoon Lim (of the University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Robert Putnam (of Harvard University) estimated that about half of the effect on satisfaction comes from deep and supportive relationships. The effects are also particularly strong with respect to marriage, with weekly service attenders being about 50 percent less likely to divorce than never-attenders. Religious participation also strongly protects against self-destructive behaviors: One of our studies found that, compared with never-attenders, regular attenders were substantially less likely (68 percent less likely for women, 33 percent less likely for men) to die from alcohol poisoning, drug overdose or suicide.

The analysis by University of Wisconsin and University of Pennsylvania researchers looked at data from 36,000 people who were part of the UK Biobank, a dataset with genetic and medical information from half a million British middle-aged and older adults.

That new playbook, as promising as its goals are, might be a mistake, the chief global economists of Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley, as well as economists at the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin, said in a recent paper. Looking at inflation and employment for more- and less-advantaged groups, the team found that the balance between maximum employment and stable prices would be hard to achieve without serious risk.

Weight is often a key consideration for scientists pushing the boundaries of bullet-proof materials, imagining armor that keeps the wearer safe while also improving their mobility. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have now forged a new type of ultralight armor material described as a “nanofiber mat,” which features a unique chemistry that enables it to outperform Kevlar and steel.

That new playbook, as promising as its goals are, might be a mistake, the chief global economists of Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley, as well as economists at the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin, said in a recent paper. Looking at inflation and employment for more- and less-advantaged groups, the team found that the balance between maximum employment and stable prices would be hard to achieve without serious risk.

Video: While corn-based ethanol may be no better for the climate than fossil fuels, UW-Madison scientists are working on new plant-based fuels that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In a paper published last week in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, Prashant Sharma, a professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his colleagues are challenging the idea that horseshoe crabs are on their own very particular and individual branch on the tree of life.

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a federally funded research center led by UW-Madison, would receive an additional $5 million in funding each year through 2026 from legislation that passed the House earlier this month but still faces hurdles to its final passage.

The lead author of the study, Tyler Lark, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, told Reuters, “Corn ethanol is not a climate-friendly fuel.”

“Anyone who is in a position where they would benefit from greater than normal cognitive control, top-down attention, peripheral visual processing would benefit from playing action games, which are primarily first- and third-person shooter games,” said Dr. C. Shawn Green, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose work studying the effect of video games on cognitive performance was supported by the Office of Naval Research.

Another research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has also produced a new atomic clock set-up.

Shimon Kolkowitz and his colleagues used comparisons between six different strontium atomic clocks to measure a second. This comparative model, known as a multiplex clock, means the team can use a less stable laser than the JILA group’s clock, but still achieve a very high level of precision: the clock would lose just 1 second every 300 billion years.

Researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted the study with 80 overweight adults between ages 21-40 who sleep less than 6.5 hours a night. The clinical trial extended their sleep hours for two weeks.

Zoom in: Philadelphia is ranked the least healthy county in the state, according to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

She respectfully declines to identify the crops’ specific varieties to protect the recipient tribal nations and their seeds, citing past scientific and corporate exploitation—like genetic patenting. She first encountered resistance to the technology in 2017 when she embarked on a growing project on former Ho-Chunk land with Claire Luby, a postdoc researcher in plant breeding and seed systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Initially, the duo considered mapping the genomes of each plant, hoping the DNA would reveal advantages that may have helped the ancient corn adapt to the northern climate. They theorized that genetic patterns might suggest whether any varieties were the foundations for some of the present-day corn grown across the Midwest. Or maybe that a cluster of crops from the Great Lakes region are distantly related to Southwestern ones. But it wasn’t meant to be.

The study also involved researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and explored this question via a randomized clinical trial involving 80 adults. These subjects were overweight and had habitually short sleep duration, of less than 6.5 hours a night, a recognized risk factor for obesity. The idea was to investigate whether extending their sleep duration could mitigate this risk, with the subjects taking part in a four-week study, the first two weeks of which were used to gather baseline information on sleep and caloric intake.

New OIL-TAS test will provide cheap, fast, accurate alternative to PCR testing

Skye Bruce, a PhD student at University of Wisconsin-Madison, focuses on monarch landscape ecology, which is essentially the study of the best possible ways to conserve the species’ habitats. In her work she seeks to answer questions such as: Do monarchs need lots of habitat in the landscape in order to find a patch? Do they need continuous, non-isolated habitat like a lot of butterflies and other insects do? Or can they find these isolated patches?

In an aquatic lab in Madison, four juvenile nurse sharks swim comfortably in a new tank built specifically for them. They are not wild sharks.

A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows current anti-COVID-19 pills work well against the Omicron variant, but antibody drugs are less effective. Researchers at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine found the Omicron variant has so many different mutations in spike proteins that antibody treatments can’t keep up.

UW Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Megan Moreno led the study, which evaluated one year of publicly displayed posts on Facebook and Instagram by retail companies from four states in which recreational marijuana use is legal: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

Several research groups are already working on a pan-coronavirus vaccine, including scientists at the California Institute of Technology, Duke University, University of Washington, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

At UW-Madison’s AIDS Vaccine Research Lab, thousands of samples from across Wisconsin are sequenced — or analyzed for their genetic code.

UW-Madison researchers are collaborating with three other teams to create a universal coronavirus vaccine.

Wei-Di Cheng, a 1993 UW–Madison graduate, is a stress analyst at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. Cheng analyzed mechanical ground systems to propose, design, fabricate, test and deliver ground systems to support spacecraft and payload integration of the James Webb telescope.