Subatomic particles called neutrinos are notoriously hard to catch because they pass right through regular matter like ghosts. But a new study shows that high-energy neutrinos from cosmic sources aren’t totally unstoppable.
Neutrinos are known as “ghost particles”, because they are known to travel through solid objects with ease.
As you pass the turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberries to friends and family this Thanksgiving Day, you can thank many Wisconsin residents, University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni, and UW researchers for making this meal so special.
“Pass the potatoes, please,” may be a common request at Thanksgiving tables this week. A Wisconsin scientist is doing a variation of that, by helping pass thousands of potato plant specimens to the State Herbarium in Madison.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide have – for the first time – measured how Earth absorbs the very highest energy neutrinos. At energies far beyond those we can create in particle accelerators.
Interviewed: UW-Madison professor Paula Niedenthal about a new smile study that may help us decipher what a person’s smile really means.
On Monday night, with the electrodes hooked up to recording machines and other sensors placed on Bochte’s chest and legs, he slept during the baseline portion of the study at Wisconsin Sleep, a joint venture between UW Health and UnityPoint Health-Meriter.
The second generation of the device is also getting more technical, adding a touchscreen interface to track patient process and apps developed in conjunction with bio-medical engineering students at UW-Madison to help patients with cognitive impairments.
Crickets and other edible insects are the pathway to an increased economy, a healthy environment and sustainable agriculture, PhD student Valerie Stull said.
The findings could allow clinicians to prioritize the scarce treatment resources available and provide them to the sickest patients, said the senior author of the study, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virology professor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
“It’s a really rare object,” astronomer Ralf Kotulla, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a different statement.
“It’s a really rare object,” Ralf Kotulla, a University of Wisconsin–Madison astronomer, said in a statement. Kotulla, along with his colleagues from UCLA and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), captured some of the first pictures of the interstellar asteroid using the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope in Arizona.
In a comprehensive and complex molecular study of blood samples from Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, published Nov. 16, 2017 in Cell Host and Microbe, a scientific team led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison has identified signatures of Ebola virus disease that may aid in future treatment efforts.
In his UW-Madison lab, Su-Chun Zhang discovered a likely cause of ALS, the deadly neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after turning skin cells from ALS patients into stem cells.
Noted: Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month.
Noted: Dan Cobian is a research scientist with Badger Athletic Performance and a faculty member in the physical therapy program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON, Wis. – A strange object zipped through our solar system at high speeds, which gives astronomers a rare opportunity to examine an object from somewhere else in our galaxy.
Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories partnered with other institutions, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as the university had the rare opportunity to obtain blood samples from 20 patients sickened with Ebola virus during a major outbreak that began in Africa’s Sierra Leone in 2014.
Noted: At about the same time, a well-known virologist at the University of Wisconsin — Madison showed that a Chinese H7N9 strain could both kill ferrets and be transmitted between them. Because ferrets suffer roughly the same effects from flu that humans do, the development was “not good for public health,” said the virologist, Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka.
A UW-Madison astronomer is calling a strange visitor, either a comet or an asteroid, seen passing through our solar system last month the “first of its kind.”
“It may have something to do with the cumulative impact of a lot of gains in health care, in terms of preventing and treating childhood infections, and improved maternal and child health,” said Karen Cruickshanks, a UW-Madison epidemiologist who led the study, published Thursday in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.
Fictional astronaut Mark Watney’s creatively old-fashioned method of growing nutritious, life-sustaining potatoes in the soil of another planet in the film The Martian was for most people their first exposure to elements of the field of astrobotany.
Noted: The team, made up of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the University of Wisconsin-Madison used a Berkeley X-ray machine known as the Advanced Light Source (ALS) to look at parrotfish teeth. They also used a technique known as polarization-dependent imaging contrast (PIC) mapping to further examine the teeth. PIC was developed by study researcher Pupa Gilbert, a biophysicist and professor in the Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and allowed the researchers to see the parrotfish in a way previously not possible.
Noted: A Journal Sentinel analysis of 2016 workforce data found that Wisconsin is worse than most states in its per-capita workforce of all types of mental health professionals: nurses, counselors, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. Data were compiled by researchers at County Health Rankings & Roadmaps based at UW-Madison.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study shows that the shift of more than 7 million acres into cropland led to massive releases of carbon emissions into the atmosphere after a 2007 federal law mandated ethanol in gasoline.
A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows the amount of land being converted to crops for ethanol production potentially makes climate change worse.
Federal ethanol subsidies aimed at slowing climate change instead helped trigger the annual release of 30 million tons of greenhouse gases as farmers cleared land to plant more crops for production of the renewable fuel, UW-Madison researchers said Wednesday.
Noted: The CIG’s Geodynamo Working Group, led by Aurnou, includes researchers from UC Berkeley, UC Boulder, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, the University of Alberta, UW-Madison and Johns Hopkins University.
Scientists with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Initiative on Climate Change Impacts — an effort to identify climate change fallout and offer coping strategies — believe that the effects can be mitigated with reduced greenhouse gas emissions. They believe that policy makers and public agencies can take measures to adapt. But those measures are on indefinite hold. “It’s disappointing, particularly with the shutdown of the DNR science bureau that WICCI collaborated with,” said Michael Notaro, a UW-Madison professor on the front lines of climate research.
Noted: That article led me to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose Forest and Wildlife Ecology Lab has been studying wildland-urban interface. One of the lab’s research papers defines that term: “The wildland–urban interface (WUI) is the area where houses meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland vegetation. The WUI is thus a focal area for human–environment conflicts, such as the destruction of homes by wildfires.”
Action by federal officials halts UW-Madison plans to offer students first-time, demonstration rides in a driver-less vehicle.
Scientists pride themselves on objectivity — they deal in empirical methods, double-blind studies, data-driven conclusions. But when it comes to human bias, even the most rigorous researchers are vulnerable. At the Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington — attended by 30,000 brain scientists from around the world — Jo Handelsman presented the harsh realities faced by women and minorities in science.
In this month’s installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses sound waves.
Self-driving vehicle company Navya was supposed to demonstrate its driverless shuttle in Madison this week. But now passengers in Madison will have to wait until spring, said Peter Rafferty, a researcher in UW-Madison’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory.
The UW-Madison Adapted fitness program is run through the university’s Department of Kinesiology and helps people with all kinds of disabilities maintain active lifestyles. We talk to a student volunteer for the program about how the benefits of this class reach beyond the clients who are enrolled.
MADISON, Wis. – Think back to a time you felt wronged by someone. Does the memory still cause you pain? A professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison is teaching classes in the practice of forgiveness to students at the UW School of Education.
Heavy drinking greatly increases the risk of some cancers, and even moderate drinking boosts the risk of breast and colon cancer, says a report by a national cancer doctor group whose lead author is a UW Health oncologist.
Consuming alcoholic beverages, even in moderation, may increase your risk of developing certain cancers, according to a new statement released by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Long Valley, California, witnessed a ‘super-eruption’ about 765,000 years ago. This caused a pool of molten rock to explode into the sky causing a devastating pre-historic firework show. The eruption caused 650 cubic kilometers of lava and ash to spew out, which released enough sulfur gas to blanket our planet and cool it.
About 765,000 years ago, a pool of molten rock exploded into the sky, forming the Long Valley Caldera in California – a valley in eastern California adjacent to Mammoth Mountain.
$19 million went toward Morgridge Institute for Research, the highest in WARF history
UW Carbone Cancer Center currently working on modifying cell pathways
Investigations of plant metabolism (at UW–Madison) reveal how an enzyme variant with reduced feedback sensitivity may allow plants to switch their pigment palettes.
MADISON, Wis. – A University of Wisconsin-Madison study shows improved balance and a decrease in falls among older adults who take yoga.
Noted: A coalition opposing restrictions on fetal tissue research called Cures for Tomorrow includes BioForward, representing the state’s bioscience industry, the Medical College of Wisconsin, UW-Madison, UW Health and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The head of the University of Wisconsin medical school says passing a fetal tissue research ban would shut down ongoing potentially life-saving research.
Quoted: “I would say that algorithms and mathematical modeling are fairly pervasive and ubiquitous, from the time someone wakes up in the morning until the end of the day,” said Anthony Gitter, an assistant professor in the department of biostatistics and medical informatics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
More than 30,000 people are expected at exhibits across Wisconsin for the seventh annual Wisconsin Science Festival.
Most people aren’t able to say that they work with data from the South Pole, but Justin Vandenbroucke is the exception.
Vandenbroucke is an assistant professor in the physics department at UW-Madison, and specializes in high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. He works with data from the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory.
Alexandra Witze welcomes a history of IceCube, an ambitious neutrino observatory.
Most people aren’t able to say that they work with data from the South Pole, but Justin Vandenbroucke is the exception.
A recent article by Tamar Haspel argues that the local and organic food movement can’t fix our food system. If this movement were solely focused on “buy fresh, buy local” at farmers markets and upscale restaurants, we would agree. However, bigger changes are underway for sustainable agriculture. Farmers and others in the sustainable food movement pursue a broader vision of change in agriculture.
Sure, fertilizer, irrigation and weed control can make a baseball field look pretty. But there’s a more practical reason for thick, weed-free turf.
Despite the need for function, lots of use makes turf fields hard to maintain, said Soldat, an associate professor and soil scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
With that in mind, he led a three-year grass study beginning in 2015 to determine the best lawn care approaches on sports fields at Racetrack Park in Stoughton.
Noted: Daniel Feiler, Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business’s assistant professor along with his co-authors Jordan Tong, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business and doctoral student Anastasia Ivantsova investigate this paradox in a recent study.
Jack Nitschke said going to class, outside can help in dealing with mental health issues.
Feeling especially stressed about your midterms? This is likely because your brain is used to these feelings.
“A dictionary is never done,” said George Goebel, the third and, it turns out, final editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English, also known as DARE.
Noted: Health care providers can protect babies by testing women of childbearing age for hepatitis C and curing those with the infection, said the research team led by Theresa Watts, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing.
Noted: A second study, from the University of Wisconsin School of Business and economics researchers from two additional universities, focused on property values in Denver and found that homes near retail cannabis outlets — within just 0.1 miles — gained 8.4 percent more in value than houses just steps further away, from 0.1 to 0.25 miles. That big increase amounted to almost $27,000 for an average house.
