Category: Research

On the Aug. 30, 2018 edition of Wisconsin Public Radio’s Route 51 show, two University of Wisconsin System scientists discussed where Wisconsin stands in the bigger picture of climate change. The ripple effects vary around the world — wildfires in California and above the Arctic Circle in Sweden, a deadly heat wave in Japan, the bleaching of coral in the Great Barrier Reef, and, closer to home, a worrisome toxic algal bloom on Lake Superior.

To address this challenge, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has investigated the ability of split-filter dual-energy CT (DECT) to improve pancreatic tumour contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) for radiotherapy planning.

Joseph Michaelis, a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained that social robots “interact with humans using natural social cues like gestures, tone of voice, or head and eye movements to convey meaning.”

C’est en fait le calcium, un nutriment de la plante, qui produit un signal chimique et électrique pour donner l’alarme, comme vient de le montrer, dans une étude parue dans la revue Science du 14 septembre 2018, une équipe américano-japonaise dirigée par Silmon Gilroy, professeur de botanique à l’université du Wisconsin-Madison.

Three researchers — Stanford University’s Philip Zimbardo and Stephen LaBerge; the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Benjamin Baird — tackled the longtime question of whether dreaming mimics perception or imagination, finally proving the former.

Adding more steps to opt out of mandatory vaccinations could cut the number of unvaccinated children, according to new UW-Madison research. Researchers from the university’s Applied Population Laboratory analyzed how a law change in California affected the rate of unvaccinated children in kindergarten.

Alvarez explains why Foxconn has partnered with Wisconsin for ginseng market development. “With ginseng, we also think that there are medical benefits. And so we’re partnering with UW-Madison and looking with the Carbone Cancer Center and looking at what some of those benefits can be. So we’re looking forward to selling those products not only in Asia but also here in the US.”

C’est en fait le calcium, un nutriment de la plante, qui produit un signal chimique et électrique pour donner l’alarme, comme vient de le montrer, dans une étude parue dans la revue Science du 14 septembre 2018, une équipe américano-japonaise dirigée par Silmon Gilroy, professeur de botanique à l’université du Wisconsin-Madison

A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that ideas generated by diverse teams were of better quality in terms of feasibility and effectiveness. The research showed that critical analysis and suggested solutions were more nuanced when they came from diverse teams. They also noticed that input from individuals with diverse backgrounds offered alternatives to problems that weren’t previously raised.

Facebook and the U-W School of Medicine and Public Health will partner to study teens’ use of digital technologies – and their mental and social health.

UW-Madison Botany Professor Simon Gilroy reveal a communication system within plants.

Amy Carlson sits down with two cancer researchers from UW Carbon Cancer Center to talk about The Ride.

Plants have a sense of touch – and they can even ’feel’ you picking their leaves.A new study has shown how plant leaves can fire pain signals, which are similar to those found in humans, to warn neighbouring leaves of impending danger.

Science is just beginning to understand the subtle but intricate ways that plants — once thought of as an inert branch of life — can communicate and process information about the world around them. Now new research out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed nervous system-like mechanisms within plants that might be our most stunning look yet into the communicative world of flora.

A new study just published in the journal Science uncovered that plants can feel any tactile stimuli that touch their leaves, including the imperceptible movement of a caterpillar’s tiny toes. What’s more, they have a unique system of passing on the message to other leaves, warning them when an assailant is on the prowl and alerting them to brace for an imminent attack.

A thousand miles from Hurricane Florence, in a room nicknamed the Cave, Derrick Herndon and a team of UW hurricane researchers in Madison study every angle and aspect of the storm to assist those on the front lines.

“You’ve got to think like a vegetable now,” says Simon Gilroy, a botanist who studies how plants sense and respond to their environments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

New research published today in Science is providing an unprecedented view of the signaling action that happens within plants when they’re under attack. A second or two after a plant receives an injury, like a chomp from a caterpillar, a warning signal radiates from the location of the wound, spreading out through the entire plant in a process that takes fewer than 120 seconds.

Researchers of a new study found that an injured leaf may send distress signals to other undamaged leaves when under threats such as being eaten. The fluorescent experiment shows how quickly plants’ internal communication really works.

According to new research, plants use the same signalling molecules that animals use in their nervous system. Our green friends don’t have nerves, exactly – but they certainly have something surprisingly similar.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health is teaming up with Facebook for a study investigating the question parents want answered: How much does social media impact the health of our children?

Plants have a unique challenge in staying alive long enough to produce offspring. Unable to move and at the mercy of their surroundings, they present a tempting source of nutrition for bacteria and animals alike. But they’re not helpless. Botanists have long known plants are capable of sensing their environments and responding to them. They can grow differently in response to shade or drought, or release noxious chemicals to fend off predators, even as a caterpillar is mid-way through chewing on a leaf.

When plants are under attack from a very hungry caterpillar, a warning signal flashes through the plant to the other leaves, revealed for the first time in the video above.The video, captured by Masatsugu Toyota at the University of Wisconsin was created using a plant modified to fluoresce in response to calcium signals. The details were published in Science.

“[For] the first time, it’s been shown that glutamate leakage at a wound site triggers a system-wide wound response, and the first time we’ve been able to visualize this process happening ,” says Simon Gilroy, professor of botany at the Gilroy Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and senior author on the paper out today in the journal Science.

Dr. Jim Kossin, NOAA atmospheric scientist at UW-Madison, found that in the past 70 years, hurricanes have slowed 10% over open waters and 16% on the U.S. Coast.

Brain injuries often go undiagnosed because hundreds of brain cells can die, symptoms could still be small enough to go unrecognized.

Kids and teens spend plenty of time playing video games, but new evidence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison study suggests certain games may be good for their brains.

But one of every five workers in Wisconsin is earning poverty-level wages, black women are three times more likely than white men to work at lower-paying jobs, and Latino employees earn 43 percent less than white employees, based on median pay, according to the analysis by COWS, formerly known as the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

A research team led by Xudong Wang, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a prototype wood floor designed to convert footsteps to electricity.