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Category: Research

Skulls Analyzed From The Mayan Sacred Cenote Show That Human Sacrifices Were Sourced From Far And Wide Across Mexico

Forbes

The study published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology Magazine in July of 2019 by T. Douglas Price et al. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that the birthplaces of the individuals varied from near their final resting places in the still waters of the Sacred Cenote (pronounced say-NO-tay) and from far across Mexico and beyond, indicating that the Mayan network extended across thousands of miles.

Aspirin May Interact with Cells’ DNA Modifications to Alter Breast Cancer Outcomes

Nature World News

In an accompanying editorial, Kristen Malecki, Ph.D., MPH, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that the findings support the importance of research examining interactions between epigenetics and low-cost therapies such as aspirin. According to Dr. Malecki, “The study by Wang et al. shows that beyond gene-environment interactions, epigenetic and environment interactions also exist, and suggest that DNA methylation could in the future help to support the identification of individuals for whom treatment may or may not be successful.

The problem with specialization in young athletes

The Varsity

Similarly, David Bell, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Director of Injury in Sport Laboratory, and a team of researchers, found that highly specialized high school athletes are over twice as likely to suffer lower joint injuries, such as around the hips or knees, relative to their unspecialized counterparts.

UW Study Indicates Brain Bounces Back After Anesthesia

Wisconsin Public Radio

General anesthesia allows those having surgery not to feel pain or remember what occurred on the operating table. Both functions are controlled by the brain so no matter what part of the body is being operated on, the brain also is affected. To what degree has been unclear. Past studies have had mixed results.

How Exercise Lowers the Risk of Alzheimer’s by Changing Your Brain

Time

Noted: To find out, for nearly a decade, Ozioma Okonkwo, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and his colleagues have studied a unique group of middle-aged people at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Through a series of studies, the team has been building knowledge about which biological processes seem to change with exercise. Okonkwo’s latest findings show that improvements in aerobic fitness mitigated one of the physiological brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s: the slowing down of how neurons breakdown glucose. The research, which has not been published yet, was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on Aug. 9.

Earth’s magnetic poles probably won’t flip within our lifetime

New Scientist

We appear to be safe from a catastrophic reversal of the north and south magnetic poles, according to evidence showing that the last swap took a lot longer, and was a lot messier, than scientists thought. The magnetic field shields Earth from the sun’s harmful radiation and cosmic rays, so a sudden polarity reversal could affect our power and communications systems, as well as our health.

When Earth’s magnetic field flips, it could take thousands of years

Astronomy.com

But a new study August 7 in Science Advances says we should probably calm down, since the last magnetic field reversal on Earth took quite a bit longer: at least 22,000 years. It’s one more piece in the puzzle of how and why our planet’s magnetic field operates, and slowly but surely researchers are figuring it out.

Can Major Surgeries Cause a Long-Term ‘Brain Drain’?

Health Day

“Our data suggest that, on average, major surgery is associated with only a small cognitive ’hit,’ and while there was a doubling in the risk of substantial cognitive decline, this only affected a small number of patients,” said senior study author Dr. Robert Sanders. He’s an assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

Axios Science – August 8, 2019

Axios

What’s new: In research published this week in Science Advances, geologist Brad Singer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues homed in on the last reversal event in search of the steps leading up to it.

It took an incredibly long time for the Earth’s poles to flip

BGR

Cheesy sci-fi movies depict the magnetic field shift as happening virtually overnight, and while researchers know that’s not the case it’s still hard to pin down an estimate. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that a pole flip which occurred around 770,000 years ago took tens of thousands of years to finish once it began.

Earth’s magnetic field reversals may take much longer than we thought

New Atlas

That said, scientists generally don’t know what causes a reversal, nor how long it takes to play out – it’s believed that the average is about 7,000 years, but some studies suggest it could happen in less than 100 years. To investigate for the new study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UC Santa Cruz and Kumamoto University looked to the turbulent time around the last geomagnetic reversal.

Earth’s roaming magnetic poles create longer periods of instability, study says

CNN

“Reversals are generated in the deepest parts of the Earth’s interior, but the effects manifest themselves all the way through the Earth and especially at the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere,” said Brad Singer, study author and University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist. “Unless you have a complete, accurate and high-resolution record of what a field reversal really is like at the surface of the Earth, it’s difficult to even discuss what the mechanics of generating a reversal are.”

Earth’s last magnetic field reversal took far longer than once thought

Space Daily

New work from University of Wisconsin-Madison geologist Brad Singer and his colleagues finds that the most recent field reversal, some 770,000 years ago, took at least 22,000 years to complete. That’s several times longer than previously thought, and the results further call into question controversial findings that some reversals could occur within a human lifetime.

UW research ‘angels’ help find and identify American MIAs

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Tens of thousands of American service members never returned home.

People who pulled on American uniforms, raised their right hand to support and defend the Constitution before dying in foreign lands and waters far from their homes, and worried families who never got the chance to bury their loved ones.

But the missing in action have not been forgotten. Not by a nation that sent them to war and not by a dedicated group of volunteers and researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Air Conditioning Saves Lives And Needs To Be Affordable

ACHR News

That increased use of electricity to cool buildings could also result in as many as a thousand additional deaths annually in the Eastern U.S. alone due to elevated levels of air pollution, posits a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Climate Change Has Made Our Stormwater Infrastructure Obsolete

Gizmodo

“The take-home message is that infrastructure in most parts of the country is no longer performing at the level that it’s supposed to because of the big changes that we’ve seen in extreme rainfall,” lead author Daniel Wright, a hydrologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a statement.

Why Poor Couples Crave Strong Relationships

KERA

Economists study poverty using hard data – but the numbers don’t always reflect personal experiences. University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor Sarah Halpern-Meekin joins guest host Courtney Collins to talk about how low-income parents struggle for family and community — and how a vacuum of social ties can perpetuate the cycle of hardship. Halpern-Meekin’s new book is called “Social Poverty: Low-Income Parents and the Struggle for Family and Community Ties.”

Alzheimer’s Blood Test Shows 94% Accuracy

Medpage Today

The IPMS method was based on prior work by the Bateman laboratory that immunoprecipitated A? to isolate it from plasma, then used liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to determine A?42 and A?40 concentrations, wrote Barbara Bendlin, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Henrik Zetterberg, MD, PhD, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, in an editorial accompanying the study.

Who did the Maya sacrifice?

Archeology

To try to shed some light on the matter, Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, looked at 40 human teeth recovered from different people cast into the Sacred Cenote. He and his colleagues have just published their results in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Positive messaging early in the school year can help sixth graders transition to middle school, UW study says

The Capital Times

“There’s usually a perfect storm, or a constellation of events all happening at once in a young adolescent’s life when they get to middle school,” Geoffrey Borman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher and the lead author of the paper, said in an interview. “We usually notice a very pronounced decline in student performance when they hit middle school, and it usually has something to do with the transition to a new school that is much more complicated.”

Lab-made “Mini-Sun” sheds light on the real thing

New Atlas

When scientists need to learn about something, recreating it in the lab is often one of the best ways – and now that even applies to the Sun itself. Physicists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have built a mini-Sun in the lab, and used it to probe the secrets of the real thing.

These Academics Spent $1.35 To Make Middle School Less Awful. Here’s How.

Time

Middle school, as documented in such educational opuses as Eighth Grade and School of Rock, is legendarily awful. Students who have done well in elementary school often stumble, become isolated and fall behind. But Geoffrey Borman, a professor at University of Wisconsin Madison who specializes in education policy and analysis, and his team, think they may have found an answer.

Looking to Have a Lucid Dream? There’s a Pill for That

The Crux

The results took researchers by surprise, according to Benjamin Baird, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison involved in the study. “It worked amazingly,” Baird says. “It was not at all clear that it would be this powerful of an effect.”

Significant Digits For Wednesday, July 31, 2019

fivcthirtyeight.com

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, built a 3-meter-wide plasma containment chamber called the Big Red Ball, inside of which they created a model of the mysterious, charged, flowing environment of the sun.

Thanks to science, parasite can have sex in mice, not just cats

Mirage News

In a study now online in the journal Public Library of Science Biology a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison peels back the mystery of why the parasite, which infects a wide range of mammals, including humans, can only have sex and reproduce in the intestines of cats.

Sun’s Puzzling Plasma Recreated in a Lab

Quanta Magazine

A research team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, built each of these factors into their laboratory model. Inside a 3-meter-wide plasma containment chamber — the “Big Red Ball” — the team placed a cylindrical permanent magnet about 10 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters long.

Cannabis Culture

Washington Blade

Noted: African Americans in Wisconsin are four times more likely than whites to be arrested for violating marijuana possession laws, according to an analysis of 2018 arrest data by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

Commenting on the state-specific study, University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor Pamela Oliver said: “The only possibility for these statistics to happen is for police to be stopping blacks more than whites. … We know the usage patterns are not different, so if you’re generating a difference in arrests, it has to be differential policing.”

In Milwaukee County, hundreds are hurt every year by reckless drivers. This is one victim’s story.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Preliminary data show there were 299 car crash injuries related to speed in Milwaukee County through Monday, compared with 224 through roughly the same period in 2010, according to the Community Maps database, an online tool developed by the state Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Safety and the Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That’s a 33% increase.

The Vaccine That Could Prevent Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

Vice

Quoted: One single risk factor will never explain the entirety of psychiatric problems, wrote Chuck Raison, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a special report on the topic in Psychiatric Times. But “inflammation turned out to be a common denominator and likely risk factor for every manner of psychiatric disturbance, from schizophrenia to obsessive compulsive disorder, from mania to depression,” he wrote.