Category: Research

After 42 years of being ranked among the top five research universities in the country, UW-Madison remained at number six after dropping out of the top five last fall.

The Great Lakes Evaporation Network project was started in 2008 with funding from the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission. The project continues to operate through funding from NOAA, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Colorado, and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

(Geared toward health professionals) Newly identified biomarkers may be able to distinguish fatal from nonfatal Ebola infections, ultimately enabling clinicians to prioritize scarce treatment resources, researchers suggest. Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues used a technique called multi-platform ’omics (multi-omics) to analyze and compare 29 samples of peripheral blood mononuclear cells taken at initial diagnosis from 11 patients who survived the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and nine samples from nine patients who died.

New research suggests a novel way to help kids on the autism spectrum — and part of it involves ninjas. It’s part of a new video game aimed at improving the balance in young people with autism spectrum disorder.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison study released on Nov. 15 has officials in the ethanol industry frustrated, disputing the methodology of the study saying the claims of the study are not supported by fact.

The 2017 Knowles Teacher Initiative Fellowship aims to increase STEM learning in high school students, and announced over 300 winners of the fellowship, including UW alumni LJ Neumann, Sean Moore and Sarah Timmler.

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.

Acclaimed University of Wisconsin journalism professor Sue Robinson has just released her new book, published by Cambridge University Press, chronicling her exploration of race-related power dynamics in media and, by extension, public decision making.

Current law prohibits public employees from entering into contracts if they have private financial interest in the project. Proponents of the new legislation say it would fix the current law which is slow and time-consuming, leading to lost contracts.

Every second of every day, trillions of near massless particles from outer space pass through our bodies. These mystery “ghost particles” are the most abundant in the universe and are the only thing that can move through Earth—including its dense core—and come out the other side.

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.

Crickets and other edible insects are the pathway to an increased economy, a healthy environment and sustainable agriculture, PhD student Valerie Stull said.

“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.

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.”

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 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.