One of the more important steps backyard gardeners can take to help disappearing native bees is to grow native plants that provide continuous blooms throughout the season, according to Susan Carpenter, plant curator at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.
Quoted: Native plant curator Susan Carpenter with the University of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison said they detected the rusty patched at the Arboretum about 10 years ago. “That started us on this voyage of discovery,” she said. When the rusty patched was declared endangered, she said, “people just went crazy on that.”
As highly pathogenic avian influenza, or bird flu, continues to spread across Wisconsin, researchers and students at UW-Madison are trying to make a difference by developing a bird flu vaccine.
Wisconsin doctors are seeing a steady increase in the number of children diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes — a disease that primarily affects adults — which may be linked to COVID-19.
Data released last week by UW Health Kids shows a nearly 200 percent increase in the number of cases of Type 2 diabetes over the past four years.
While this is a trend medical experts have noticed for years, Dr. Elizabeth Mann, a pediatric endocrinologist and director of the Type 2 Diabetes Program at UW Health Kids, said it’s taken a worrisome turn recently.
When people think about geology, most people will think of well… rocks. But the geology museum on the UW-Madison campus shows that geology is much more than rocks, it’s rocks from space, bones, and fossilized dino-droppings.
Last month, WORT reporter Andie Barrow went to the Museum of Geology to learn what makes the museum special.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study finds many cannabidiol, or CBD, products sold in southwestern Wisconsin don’t deliver what they promise on the label. One of the study’s authors says a lack of regulation and oversight is to blame.
Using data from 2000 to 2008, the Center for the Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison researched the implications of parental divorce on estranged fathers and their relationships with adult children—particularly when there has been a new relationship since the divorce.
A Harvard study last year showed the use and production of ethanol emits up to 46% fewer greenhouse gasses than gasoline. A University of Wisconsin study has challenged that finding, saying ethanol is worse for the environment than gasoline, based on changes in how land is used to grow the corn used to produce it. But the Argonne National Laboratory disagreed with the Wisconsin study last month, saying the group overestimated carbon loss from soil and double-counted some emissions, among other concerns.
Har Gobind Khorana emerged from this background to receive a Nobel Prize in 1968 at UW-Madison for deciphering the genetic code that translates DNA sequences into the protein molecules that carry out the functions of living cells.
UW-Madison researchers in partnership with the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative interviewed teachers, staff, including leadership staff, and families between January 2021 and September; observed preschool and elementary classrooms; sent surveys to staff, teachers and families; and analyzed documents from One City Schools including reports, newsletters and administrative documents to compile the first phase of the report.
Based at the University of Chicago, the CQE is built around the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University. Its members also include more than 130 researchers at universities, laboratories and even in business research sites around the world focused on quantum sensing, communications, computing, materials, optics, nanomechanics as well as topological and device physics.
About half of those students who were lucky enough to snag internships during the pandemic had to complete them remotely, according to a 2021 workforce study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Remote interns reported lower satisfaction in part because managers were less likely to assign them “high-skill supervised work,” according to the study.
Written by Joe Peterangelo, a senior researcher for the Wisconsin Policy Forum and Ned Littlefield, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a research fellow with the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
After three years of work on a report warning that time is running out to head off a climate disaster, Greg Nemet is optimistic about the planet’s chances.Nemet, a professor at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, was one of the lead authors of a report on ways to slow climate change released Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
After surgery to remove tumors, some cancer cells can be left behind where they can grow back or spread to a new part of the body. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have now developed a hydrogel that can be applied post-surgery to prevent or slow tumor regrowth
Then I read a section in one of the books that featured a long line of photos of a woman making various expressions—transitioning slowly from a sad face to an angry one. A study at the University of Wisconsin showed these pictures to children who had not experienced abuse, then to children who had. The abused kids thought that more of these photos presented an angry threat than the children from normal homes did. They were hyperalert to even the smallest twinges in facial expressions.
Quoted: The report’s findings confirm other research that has shown the link between poverty and COVID-19, says Tiffany Green, a University of Wisconsin economist who researches the impact of race and economics on health.
“This is not about individual behavior,” Green said in an interview. “It’s about what kinds of social conditions place people at risk.”
Early in the Wisconsin pandemic, outbreaks occurred in the meatpacking industry in Brown County. “And because of the way our occupational system is structured, they were disproportionately likely to be Hispanic immigrants,” Green says. “And they were working under conditions that were not properly regulated, that were not safe, when it comes to trying to prevent COVID.”
The report touted Madison as a center for research (the third category), but suggested that in order to keep up with the country’s emergent AI industry, local business leaders should forge more corporate research partnerships with UW-Madison, promoting entrepreneurship and encouraging local job retention and attraction.
Pregnant women with mild high blood pressure and their babies can benefit from treatment, according to a large study co-authored by a researcher at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine Saturday, could change guidelines to make treatment of mild chronic hypertension the standard of care for pregnant women as it is for other people, said the UW doctor who led the local arm of the study. “This is clear evidence that treating women at a lower threshold for their chronic hypertension effectively reduces maternal risk and is safe for the baby,” said Dr. Kara Hoppe, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health are hoping to make strides in preventing eye disease, especially for those with diabetes.
The virus is highly contagious and often fatal to birds. It also costs the poultry industry billions. But a research lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison is working to stop the spread.
Moms may just be one of our most potent weapons against the climate crisis. Dr. Rios-Berrios joined forces with several climate scientists and parents in Science Moms, a nonpartisan group launched by the Potential Energy Coalition in 2021.
“One of the things I love about the Science Moms program is that the website and outreach make it easy for moms to get involved. It takes this complicated topic and breaks it into bite-size pieces,” says Science Mom’s Tracey Holloway, Ph.D., a professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and mom to two.
This is an impressive tour de force and a landmark accomplishment,” Lloyd Smith, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the T2T project, told The Daily Beast. “It takes tremendous commitment, perseverance, and deep technical knowledge to decipher these most difficult to access regions of the genome.”
The first known case of the highly pathogenic avian influenza was discovered March 14 at the Jefferson County chicken farm where a few million chickens were euthanized to prevent further spread. The case was discovered by UW-Madison researchers with the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
Noted: In a 2011 study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison compared the impact of enhanced, high-empathy medical care with what they called “standard care.” When patients with colds rated their care “perfect in empathy” they had shorter and less serious illness than peers who rated their care less than perfect, an indication that even the perception of empathy makes a difference.
Moreover, the body’s own chemistry reflected the difference in care. Patients who perceived their care to be high in empathy showed higher levels of neutrophils ― a type of white blood cell that fights infections ― than those given standard care.
The difference between the standard and the more empathetic care affected the doctors, too.
“When they pulled the card to provide standard care, they felt terrible. When they pulled the enhanced care card, they felt great,” said David Rakel, lead author of the study and chairman of the department of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The study was published in the journal Patient Education and Counseling.
Theo, a Bernese mountain dog, enjoys watching birds on TV. Freya Mowat, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine, can tell this from the way Theo tracks their movements with his eyes and how he lunges toward the screen “as if he’s trying to say hi to the bird.”
A new study by researchers at the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy found inaccurate labels on some non-prescription CBD products sold in the Badger State.
“Not a good sign when you see that sort of thing happen,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matthew Lazzara.
Lazzara monitors temperatures at East Antarctica’s Dome C-ii and logged 14 degrees (-10 degrees Celsius) Friday, where the normal is -45 degrees (-43 degrees Celsius): “That’s a temperature that you should see in January, not March. January is summer there. That’s dramatic.”
In 2020, the University of Wisconsin-Madison opened the new Meat Science and Animal Biologics Discovery building, a $57.1 million facility designed for education, research and outreach. (It’s also home to Bucky’s Varsity Meats.) UW introduced a two-year Master Meat Crafter Training program in 2008, aimed in part at those already in the field.
To infect any living thing, the virus must get into its cells, which isn’t always easy. Virology expert David O’Connor likens the process to opening a “lock” with the virus’ spike protein “key.”
“Different species have different-looking locks, and some of those locks are not going to be pickable by the key,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist said.
A new project from a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison aims to answer the question: What do dogs like to watch on television?
She’s asking dog owners to contribute to her research by sharing their own pups’ preferences.
The survey is part of a larger and more ambitious research project by Freya Mowat, a veterinary ophthalmologist and professor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, to learn more about how canine vision degrades over time and what factors contribute to it. That research could have implications for the treatment of human eyesight, as well.
A new report is highlighting how much the Great Recession widened racial wealth gaps, particularly on the basis of income and homeownership.
“Racial Disparities in Household Wealth Following the Great Recession,” authored by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Fenaba R. Addo and Duke University Professor William A. Darity Jr., found that Black and Latino households continue to lag behind white households in wealth and income statistics.
The report was published this month through the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty and used Survey on Consumer Finances data to come to its conclusions.
More than 100 life-size orange statues of women are scattered around the National Mall, clustered in the gardens at the Smithsonian Castle and tucked inside the Natural History and Air and Space museums. The women hold globes, notebooks, tools, brains — symbols of their work — and one of them is UW-Madison geneticist Ahna Skop.
To predict our future under climate change, some scientists are looking way into the past — and digging deep into the ocean floor.
UW-Madison School of Pharmacy researchers recently published a study that used high-performance liquid chromatography to analyze the contents of 39 CBD-infused products being sold across Southwest Wisconsin. These products included CBD-infused beverages, oils and other miscellaneous items, including chocolate bars, honey, coconut oil, transdermal patches and more.
UW students collaborate, conduct outreach with MIT professor of astronomy.
After state agriculture officials confirmed the presence of bird flu in Wisconsin, one poultry management expert shared safety tips for poultry farmers and what risk exists to humans.
Ron Kean, a faculty associate and extension specialist in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, also explained what costs farmers can and cannot get covered if the flu hits their farm.
UW-Madison researchers with the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory discovered the case of avian flu. This strain of the virus has not been spreading to humans, but could lead to the euthanizing of millions of birds across the U.S., likely raising prices in the egg and poultry industry, according to the researchers. The lab is working to identify cases and control the spread.
The Commonwealth of Virginia is divided into 95 counties, along with 38 independent cities. Last year, the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute rated Petersburg the least healthy locality in Virginia, 133 out of 133.
A new report on how COVID-19 affected education for the littlest learners, 4K, outlines challenges but also reveals a silver lining: better family-teacher connections. Parents being more directly involved in their child’s education gave them “a deeper appreciation for the work 4K teachers do,” the report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Research on Early Childhood Education states, and the platforms used gave parents and teachers a closer connection.
Hospital closures have led to fewer vaccinations of all kinds for some communities — not just shots for Covid-19. In the years after Haywood County’s hospital closed, flu vaccinations dropped almost 10 percent in the county, according to data from the University of Wisconsin.
Corresponding research: Research led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Tokyo, indicated that other antivirals such as Paxlovid, remdesivir and molnupiravir were effective against the BA.2 variant. Kawaoka’s research team found that AstraZeneca’s Evusheld was the most effective against the BA.2 variant out of the antibody treatments that were tested.
“We’re seeing that pretty much everywhere. It started in the pandemic (and) the theory has been when traffic congestion dropped, that created more space on the road for people to drive fast,” said Chris McCahill with the State Smart Transportation Initiative. “That’s part of what we’re seeing.” McCahill is the managing director of the SSTI — a joint project of the University of Wisconsin and Smart Growth America that aims to promote transportation practices that advance environmental sustainability and equitable economic development.
Cited: And a 2019 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that mandates “significantly reduced” the likelihood of borrowing high-interest payday loans.
Biofuels trade group Growth Energy is calling on Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to “correct the record” on a recent peer-reviewed study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison that said the carbon intensity of corn-based ethanol is likely at least 24 percent higher than gasoline. Proponents of ethanol have pushed back against the study, but critics of the Renewable Fuel Standard program have pointed to it as evidence that ethanol has worsened the climate crisis.
Engineers at UW-Madison have created a new method for improving the quality of 3D-printed metal products.
Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, can create complex metal structures with greater ease than traditional manufacturing processes, a release from the university shows. But the process often introduces defects such as tiny cracks and pits in the materia
A massive spending plan to fund the federal government through September has been passed by Congress, including millions of dollars in investments for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In years past, interns across industries may have found themselves paying thousands to hold their positions, worsening income inequality. A recent brief from the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at University of Wisconsin-Madison found that it’s likely middle-class and low-income students “self-select out of unpaid work due to their socio-economic status,” and therefore “are kept from these opportunities and their later rewards or take out loans that may be adding to an already considerable debt load.”
During the past three decades, Susan Paskewitz, a medical entomologist at UW-Madison, has documented the growing prevalence of ticks in Wisconsin. Paskewitz found that deer ticks, also called black-legged ticks, have moved steadily from northwest to southwest, and then into the central and eventually slowly into the eastern and southern Wisconsin.
Antiviral pills against COVID-19 have shown that they remain effective at treating the Omicron variant, according to a University of Wisconsin Madison study.
If life had gone as planned, Maria Alice Lima Freitas would be in medical school, inspired by the career of her father, a surgeon who practiced in Brazil. But instead of changing careers, the 49-year-old therapist retired from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Researchers in Wisconsin continue to study the spread of black-legged “deer” ticks and the long-term impact of Lyme disease. In a recent presentation, Susan Paskewitz, a medical entomologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said ticks have “invaded our state entirely” and, as the climate warms, are marching into Canada.
Xia Lee, a tick biologist in Paskewitz’s lab, has studied the insects for more than a decade. Lee says Lyme-bearing ticks “are always born uninfected,” but they pick up infections as they feed on animal hosts.
Lee notes that Wisconsin never got the proper recognition as the site of the first case of the disease.
“We like to joke about it and say that Wisconsin was actually the first state where Lyme disease was detected,” he says, “but we never got the glory for naming (it).”
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.
Journey North is a crowdsourced citizen science program of the University of Wisconsin-Arboretum. It monitors not only Monarchs but hummingbirds, American robins, leaves, pollinator patches and other seasonal events. Estella Romero who lives in Angangueo, Mexico is the Journey North’s program coordinator, local news reporter and coordinator of the Monarch Symbolic Migration Program. She is the link to the Monarch sanctuaries.
Quoted: Over the past three decades, Susan Paskewitz, a medical entomologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, has documented the growing prevalence of ticks in Wisconsin.
Paskewitz found that deer ticks, also called black-legged ticks, have moved steadily from northwest to southwest, and then into the central and eventually slowly into the eastern and southern Wisconsin.
“They invaded our state entirely,” Paskewitz said in a 2021 Wednesday Nite @ The Lab episode. She said the regeneration of forests decimated by logging in the early 1900s and rebounding of the deer population are the main drivers in Wisconsin. Paskewitz said warming temperatures caused by climate change are expected to lengthen the tick season and accelerate their northward march into Canada.
Research findings from dozens of undergraduates across the UW System took center stage at the State Capitol Wednesday with the annual Research in the Rotunda event.
A video game where kids don’t use their hands for the controller, they use their breath; that’s what researchers at the University of Wisconsin are creating.
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.
A bipartisan bill to create a nitrogen optimization pilot program to aid farmers in reducing nitrogen pollution passed the state Senate Tuesday and will now head to Gov. Tony Evers’ desk. The measure, SB-677 creates a commercial nitrogen optimization pilot program and provides crop insurance premium rebates for planting cover crops, which farmers may use to improve soil health. The bill also creates a new state hydrogeologist position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison extension, tasked with aiding local communities in tackling areas with high concentrations of contamination.
