In a new study by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, physicists report the creation of a mini sun, a laboratory model of the Parker spiral system based on a rapidly rotating plasma magnetosphere and the measurement of its global structure and dynamic behavior.
Category: Research
Scientists create artificial sun in a lab, the third of its kind in the world
A team of scientists in Wisconsin have created an artificial, miniature sun in their lab.
These Academics Spent $1.35 To Make Middle School Less Awful. Here’s How.
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 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.”
The tiny tyre device that could change the way cars work
In 2015 the University of Wisconsin-Madison developed what appears to be similar technology to that used by Sumitomo, using a nonogenerator to capture the energy from the movement of the tyre.
Sun’s Mysterious Plasma Blobs were Recreated in a Lab
The scientists have a simple model for the Sun’s magnetic field: a bar magnet, or a dipole, which has a north and a south pole. A research team from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, built those three elements into their laboratory model.
Significant Digits For Wednesday, July 31, 2019
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.
Science Explains Why Chimps Throw Their Feces
According to Karen Strier, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , feces throwing is not that normal of an occurrence in primates, especially in the wild.
Thanks to science, parasite can have sex in mice, not just cats
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
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.
Physicists Made a Hot Plasma Doughnut to Study Solar Wind
So, to supplement the data gleaned from satellites and space probes, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently created a glowing, doughnut-shaped plasma, a respectable 10 feet in diameter, that behaves like a miniature version of the solar wind.
NIH requirements offer new hurdles for fetal tissue researchers
Researchers using fetal tissue faced another setback during the Trump administration as a notice from the National Institutes of Health spelled out new requirements for requesting grants for research involving the use of the tissue.
Cat-like lab mice created at UW could enhance study of parasite infection
Now UW- Madison scientists have discovered why the parasite replicates sexually only in cat intestines. Using the new knowledge, they created cat-like lab mice to enable more research on the disease, a risk especially for pregnant women and people who eat undercooked meat.
Cannabis Culture
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.”
Smith: Regional meeting raises profile, highlights challenges of CWD management
Noted: Mike Samuel, UW-Madison professor emeritus, gave a presentation Tuesday titled “Lessons from 15-plus years of CWD Research in Wisconsin.” Since CWD is a frequency-dependent disease, Samuel said the only way to beat it is to reduce the prevalence in the population.
Graduate school research cited in Mueller report
Josephine Lukito, school of journalism and mass communication graduate student, was interviewed on CNN about research she and a team of UW-Madison graduate students did showing how media used tweets from Russia troll accounts while covering the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. The research was cited in the Mueller report.
In Milwaukee County, hundreds are hurt every year by reckless drivers. This is one victim’s story.
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.
Sumitomo’s concept tire harnesses friction to generate electricity
Back in 2015 we looked at a research group from the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on a similar technology, which was able to harness tire friction to power headlights on a toy Jeep.
The Vaccine That Could Prevent Stress, Anxiety, and Depression
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.
Food Pantry Helps Columbia Students Struggling to Pay Bills
A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates that as many as one-third of American undergraduates experience food insecurity while pursuing college degrees.
SlothBot, the slow but efficient robot, with a cunning mechanism
“The life of a sloth is pretty slow-moving,” said project consultant Jonathan Pauli, and ecologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The nice thing about a very slow life is that you don’t really need a lot of energy input. You can have a long duration and persistence in a limited area with very little energy inputs.”
Boys hit puberty earlier, partially due to rise in BMI
These findings can only be “cautiously extrapolated to a heavier and more heterogeneous population of US adolescent boys,” Dr. Vanessa Curtis from the University of Iowa and Dr. David Allen from the University of Wisconsin wrote in an editorial that published alongside the study.
A Piece of IceCube Arrives at the Smithsonian
Kael Hanson, IceCube’s director of operations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that some 200 collaborators were in Madison the day the sensor was sent to D.C., so it turned into a farewell ceremony.“It’s a great honor,” Hanson says. “It’s the Smithsonian. It’s an invite-only club.”
Smart glass can do neural computing all by itself
When we think of artificial intelligence (AI), we think of advanced computational hardware running code that allows a processor to see patterns in raw information. A team of researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison has just published a paper in Photonics Research that describes a very different type of AI system they’ve invented and demonstrated.
IceCube Neutrino Detector To Receive $37 Million Worth Upgrades
International partners from Germany and Japan and from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Michigan State University will additionally support the neutrino detector’s improvement. In the end, IceCube will benefit from an upgrade worth a total of $37 million.
UW-Madison scientists expand effort to solve mysteries of universe inside South Pole ice
IceCube, the University of Wisconsin-maintained observatory that uses sensors more than a mile beneath the South Pole ice to detect ghostly high-energy particles and shed light on some of the most violent features of our universe, will receive a $37 million upgrade.
IceCube Neutrino: Observatory That Hunts Most Elusive Particle in the Universe Set for $37 Million Upgrade
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a unique detector buried deep within ice at the South Pole that’s designed to observe some of the strangest particles in the universe. Now, the facility is set to receive a $37 million upgrade in order to enhance its capabilities, with the intention of providing fascinating new insights into the nature of the cosmos.
Northern Wisconsin ‘CHEESEHEAD’ Study Covers A Lot Of Ground And Air
Anyone looking skyward near Park Falls in far northern Wisconsin recently may have noticed a mix of drones, other aircraft and towers popping up — not to mention the 10-ton laser.
IceCube: Antarctic neutrino detector to get $37M upgrade
IceCube, the Antarctic neutrino detector that in July of 2018 helped unravel one of the oldest riddles in physics and astronomy — the origin of high-energy neutrinos and cosmic rays — is getting an upgrade.
Three things you should know about a new autism technician program that could be coming to Waukesha County Technical College
Noted: In Wisconsin, the number of children with an ASD continues to increase each year, the agenda notes said. Currently, one in 71 children in Wisconsin has been diagnosed with an ASD, according to data cited in the notes from the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The center also called for planning for ASD services and training.
Are crickets and other creepy crawlies the new superfood?
For example, only last year, a clinical trial from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that eating crickets could improve a person’s gut microbiome.
UW scientists identify genetic link to fungal infection among Hmong
Two large outbreaks of a sometimes deadly fungal infection in Wisconsin disproportionately struck Hmong residents, and now UW-Madison researchers think they know why: Hmong people are genetically more susceptible.
Finally, Scientists Know Why Toxoplasma Has Sex in Cats
Now Laura Knoll of the University of Wisconsin at Madison has thrown her fellow researchers a lifeline. Her team finally worked out why Toxo only has sex in cats.
Why Dogs Now Play a Big Role in Human Cancer Research
The Vaccination Against Canine Cancer Study is currently enrolling dogs between 6 and 10 years of age who weigh at least 12 pounds and do not have a history of cancer or autoimmune disease. To enroll your dog, you must live within 150 miles of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, or the University of California Davis.
Scientists use algorithm track deadly pig virus
Kristen Bernard, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine who was not involved in the latest study, says genomic sequencing studies of PEDV suggest it originated in from a viral strain in China in 2012. Experts suggest that PEDV may have spread to the U.S. through animal feed ingredients from China.
In a first, AI created from sheet of ‘smart’ glass without using any machinery
Scientist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a way to generate AI-enabled smart glass that is able to identify images without the need for any kind of sensors, circuits or a power source.
Mass layoffs: a history of cost cuts and psychological tolls
Charlie Trevor of University of Wisconsin–Madison and Anthony Nyberg of University of South Carolina found that downsizing a workforce by 1% leads to a 31% increase in voluntary turnover the next year.
The Gut Microbiome Can Be a Boon or a Bane for Cardiovascular Health
Noted: Not all gut microbial influences on cardiovascular health are negative. Recently, Bäckhed, University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist Federico Rey, and other colleagues found an apparently protective role for some species.
Potential Tropical Storm Barry to Impact Gulf Coast With Severe Flooding, Surge, Wind Threats; Hurricane Watch Issued
Gulf water is warmer than average for early July, with sea-surface temperatures from 84 to 88 degrees, and according to an analysis from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there is no appreciable wind shear over the Gulf of Mexico that could prevent a tropical depression or storm from forming.
UW team helps rewrite evolution of birds with new discovery
The fossil, known as Lori, was found in 2001 and shows a deeper evolution of when birds gained the ability to fly as well as confirmed that feathered dinosaurs did exist in North America, according to a report released Wednesday, led and co-authored by UW-Madison researchers.
Oldest known Velociraptor relative in North America discovered
Noted: Lomax didn’t forget about Lori, and in 2015 he brought together the team of researchers who would publish the description, using crowdfunding to get them and the specimen to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a week of intense study in 2016.
Discovery of Raptor-Like Dinosaur Adds a New Wrinkle to the Origin of Birds
Noted: Those bones, representing a partial skeleton, were used to name the new dinosaur Hesperornithoides miessleri today in the journal PeerJ. Described by University of Wisconsin-Madison paleontologist and artist Scott Hartman and colleagues, this dinosaur is categorized as an early member of a group of svelte, small, sickle-clawed dinosaurs known to experts as troodontids. These were raptor-like dinosaurs related to the group that contains more famous carnivores like Velociraptor, as well as the forerunners of birds.
Researchers Develop Plant-Based, Eco-Friendly Method to Produce Tylenol
Acetaminophen—the active ingredient in many Americans’ go-to pain reliever, Tylenol—typically stems from a surprising source: coal tar, a viscous liquid produced when oxygen-deprived coal is subjected to high heat.
Researchers Create AI Using Just A Sheet of Glass!
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence are at its forefront. Almost every other day, some or the other jaw-dropping scientific research makes its way to the news headlines. From self-driving cars, a robot that can write articles to AI doctors and teachers, there’s hardly any area that hasn’t been touched by AI. And now another research by University of Wisconsin–Madison involved a way to create AI using nothing but a piece of glass. It neither requires a computer nor any electricity.
The Freshwater Collaborative Hopes to Develop and Tap Water Expertise Within the UW System
The University of Wisconsin System recently launched a proposal to form the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin using the collective water expertise of faculty at all 13 UW System campuses. Building on existing strengths, the UW System proposes to create the Freshwater Collaborative to allow students to pursue elite, cross-disciplinary, water-related studies at the 13 campuses. The collaborative would also bring local, regional and global research talent to Wisconsin to help meet the global, regional and local demand for a skilled water workforce that could solve water resource problems here and throughout the world.
Fish die-offs in Wisconsin expected to double by 2050, quadruple by 2100, report says
Noted: Imagine sauntering up to your favorite Wisconsin lake and recoiling from the stench of rotting fish and the sight of pale carcasses littering the shoreline.
Those days are coming, according to two researchers who worked together at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In a report released Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, Samuel Fey and Andrew Rypel predict fish die-offs in Wisconsin lakes will double by 2050 and quadruple by 2100.
Your smartphone’s analog glass may one day recognize your face
The new technology is currently being developed at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, by researchers Zongfu Yu, Ang Chen and Efram Khoram.
Pain relievers from plants: Wisconsin researchers invent renewable way to make acetaminophen
Noted: “At some point, it may be the case that we are completely prevented from using fossil fuels,” said John Ralph, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose lab conducted the research.
UW Study: Irrigated Farms In Central Sands Region Linked To Cooler Temperatures
And while that initially sounds like a good thing, viewing irrigation as a defense against climate change is not the message, according to Mallika Nocco, lead author of the study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This spray-on nanofiber ‘skin’ may revolutionize wound care
Nanomedic joins other researchers attempting to reimagine the wound healing process. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, created a new kind of protective bandage that sends a mild electrical stimulation, thereby “dramatically” reducing the time deep surgical wounds take to heal.
Cool Factor
Researchers led by biologists Carly Ziter and Monica Turner, then both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used air temperature sensors attached to bicycles to track how temperatures related to tree and impervious surface cover.
Simple ‘smart’ glass can tell images apart without needing power
’We’re using optics to condense the normal setup of cameras, sensors and deep neural networks into a single piece of thin glass,’ says UW-Madison electrical and computer engineering professor Zongfu Yu.
AI made from a sheet of glass can recognise numbers just by looking
It’s the smartest piece of glass in the world. Zongfu Yu at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his colleagues have created a glass artificial intelligence that uses light to recognise and distinguish between images. What’s more, the glass AI doesn’t need to be powered to operate.
UW to launch first study of cell therapy for kidney transplant complication
UW Hospital plans to launch the first study in the country of a cell therapy for a potentially serious complication of kidney transplants, the most common type of organ transplant.
Sleep headband could cut down sleep times, make rest more efficient
UW-Madison is one of two test sites in a NASA-funded study starting in coming weeks to see if the headband can help astronauts sleep more deeply and improve their cognitive performance.
Mosquito repellent could use bacteria, not chemicals, UW-Madison researchers say
Quoted: “Maybe we can use this as some kind of repellent to replace or supplement some of the things out there that people are sometimes a little more nervous about using,” said Susan Paskewitz, chairwoman of UW-Madison’s Department of Entomology and one of the researchers involved.
School of Rock: UW professor jams with band Tent Show Troubadours at Summerfest stage
Doug McLeod, Evjue Centennial Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, just finished teaching his Sports Marketing Communication course before educating the Summerfest crowd how to rock. Yes, that’s correct, McLeod is the co-founder and bass guitarist of Tent Show Troubadours. The quartet McLeod plays with opened for Young the Giant at the Uline Warehouse Stage.
UW Study: Irrigated Farms In Central Sands Region Linked To Cooler Temperatures
A new study on the irrigated farms of Wisconsin’s central sands region is suggesting that something farmers in more arid climates have known for a long time is also true in the Midwest: a high concentration of irrigated farms can cool regional climate.And while that initially sounds like a good thing, viewing irrigation as a defense against climate change is not the message, according to Mallika Nocco, lead author of the study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Why Do We Sleep? Neuroscientists Reveal “Rebalancing” Effect on Brain
The University of Wisconsin-Madison study focused on synapses, the spaces between two connected neurons. To communicate with one another, neurons release neurotransmitters, chemical messengers that nerve cells use to communicate, into synapses. In the mouse experiment at the heart of the study, the authors found that synapses shrink during sleep and expand during wakefulness.
News from around our 50 states – minimum wage
An expert on poverty says the state should raise its minimum wage and provide more help for families who are struggling despite record-low unemployment. University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Timothy Smeeding co-wrote a report that found Wisconsin’s poverty rate has remained stagnant for nearly a decade, fluctuating between 10% and 11% from 2008 to 2017.