Cockroaches, mice, cats and dogs can make asthma worse, but exposure to the pests and pets during infancy can lower the risk of developing the breathing disease, according to a national study led by a UW-Madison doctor.
Category: Research
UW-Madison students travel to Houston to squash severe mosquito problem
Two University of Wisconsin-Madison students traveled to Houston after Hurricane Harvey to aid in mosquito control and study mosquito-borne diseases.
UW-Madison students help identify disease-carrier mosquitoes in Texas
Two University of Wisconsin-Madison students are in Texas helping identify the millions of nuisance mosquitoes that are hampering Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts and raising concerns about mosquito-borne diseases as floodwaters recede.
Houston: UW-Madison students aiding post-Harvey mosquito control
MADISON – As the floodwaters recede in Houston following Hurricane Harvey, millions of mosquitoes have emerged to blanket southeastern Texas, hampering recovery efforts and raising public health concerns about mosquito-borne diseases.
As Consumer Demands Shift, Wisconsin Ag Experts Encourage Innovation
Bill Tracy has spent the last 30 years thinking about and breeding new varieties of corn at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station.
UW-Madison ‘Kindness Curriculum’ Nurtures Emotional Awareness In Preschoolers
UW-Madison’s Center For Healthy Minds is providing its “Kindness Curriculum” to preschool teachers. Thousands of teachers have requested the curriculum, including Sesame Workshop. The researchers at the Center For Healthy Minds consulted on kindness episodes for the 47th season of “Sesame Street” premiering Sept. 18 on Wisconsin Public Television.
Hurricane scientists aren’t afraid to make eye contact
Noted: To put the effects of storm winds into perspective, Steve Ackerman, director of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, compared a brisk wind to hurricane-level gusts.
Little refuge for wildlife as smoke lingers over region
SPOKANE, Wash. — Wild critters can’t heed health agency warnings to take refuge indoors from the pall of wildfire smoke smothering the West.
Why five patients in the same hospital contracted a rare blood infection
As an infectious disease doctor, Nasia Safdar is a detective of sorts at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison.
Planting crops by plane; new method for area farmers
Noted: Farms in DeForest, Waunakee, Sun Prairie and Fitchburg are participating in a project to help clean up Dane County lakes. Around nine farms are partnering with Dane County land and water resources department, UW-Extension, Yahara wins, and the natural resources conservation service.
Trust science for more than hurricanes — Linn Roth
Noted: These actions were initiated based on mathematical models utilizing data generated by techniques and technologies substantially developed at UW-Madison.
What’s the buzz? Officials helping to strengthen bee populations in Dane County
Bees aren’t necessarily welcome at picnics and outdoor events, but they are essential for pollinating crops worth millions of dollars to the Wisconsin economy. To that end, UW-Madison and UW-Extension staff in Dane County are working with the Dane County Environmental Council to increase bee education and get the most out of bee-friendly land use and development.
Fire on the mountain: 2 forests offer clues to Yellowstone’s fate in a warming world
What will happen to the forests of Yellowstone if a changing climate means not only old forests burn, but young ones, too? That’s what (former UW graduate student) Brian Harvey and his colleague, Monica Turner, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, are here investigating. Yellowstone’s recent fires offer a rare natural experiment to see how forests regenerate after burning and reburning at short intervals.
Cave Explorers Find New Fossils of Mysterious Human Relative
A new trove of fossil bones found in a cramped South African cave is adding to our understanding of an unusual cousin of modern humans, scientists announced today.
Despite Climate Change Concerns, Water Quality Is Unchanged In Wisconsin Lakes
A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology found that despite concerns over climate change, the conditions of Wisconsin’s lakes have remained relatively stable over the past 20 years.
Fire on the Mountain: 2 Forests Offer Clues to Yellowstone’s Fate in a Warming World
This is a tale of two forests, Densetown and Stumptown, whose paths diverged after a succession of wildfires. One illustrates the historic resilience of the dense Yellowstone pinelands; the other portends a much sparser future for these forests under climate change.
UW lab urges hunters to test deer for CWD
The UW-Madison lab that checks deer carcasses for chronic wasting disease says new scientific research shows the importance of testing. Keith Poulsen at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, says it would be a mistake to not get your deer tested for CWD this fall.
Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Jose: View from Space
We can now watch Irma and Jose’s stunning fury nearly in real time. Researchers and engineers at the Space and Science Engineering Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison stitched together daytime and nighttime imagery for a full, composite picture of the storms, made available to TIME.
UW’s Davidson teams with famed science writer to dive deep into the science of meditation
Renowned scientist Richard Davidson and science writer Daniel Goleman collaborated on a new book that explores a simple, yet transformational, idea: Good mental hygiene.
New urgency for hunters to test deer for CWD, lab says
The UW-Madison lab that checks deer carcasses for a deadly brain disease said Monday there may be increased urgency for hunters to test for chronic wasting disease this year based on new scientific research.
Hawks: Renewed excavations in the Rising Star cave
ur team is underground this month in the Rising Star cave system, in South Africa. Project leader Lee Berger and I, along with several other team members, are doing periodic updates from the site on Twitter and Facebook, with hashtags #Homonaledi, #LesediChamber, and #DinalediChamber.
Energy generating floor installed at Union South
University of Wisconsin researchers are behind cutting edge technology in the field of renewable energy, and they’re collecting data with the help of thousands of Wisconsin Badgers.
New Research Shows Solar Energy May Have Been Undervalued
Has the future reach of solar energy been underestimated? New research shows it may be so.
This Wisconsin floor has some powerful potential
If you recall, yesterday we told you about Michigan State engineer Dr. Nelson Sepúlveda and his groundbreaking ferroelectret nanogenerator, or FENG, device which can produce energy anywhere there is mechanical movement, such as the soles of your shoes.
This Wisconsin floor has some powerful potential
Well, if you liked reading about this innovative source of green energy, then you might want to check out University of Wisconsin-Madison engineer Dr. Xudong Wang’s equally astonishing triboelectric nanogenerator, or TENG, technology.
Telehealth, mHealth Studies Show the Value of Proper Preparation
Noted: Conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Pennsylvania, the five-year study found that a health clinic’s telephone-based e-visit platform boosted office visits by 6 percent. This meant that providers spent more time with those patients in the office, and ultimately led to a 15 percent drop in new patients.
UW researchers have key role in tracking Hurricane Irma
nside the “cave,” Sarah Griffin looked over a rainbow of satellite data showing Hurricane Irma passing over Cuba Saturday afternoon.
What Goes Into Hurricane Forecasting? Satellites, Supercomputers And More
Noted: “We have a whole suite of numerical forecast models ranging from those at the global scale, that have less spatial resolution, to other models that cover smaller domains, but have higher resolution,” Christopher Velden, a senior researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center, tells NPR.
Wisconsin researchers first to spot Irma
Irma was spotted before it was a hurricane by satellites tracking it for UW-Madison’s Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies.
UW-Madison chancellor announces new faculty recruiting effort to drive critical research areas
After a 15-year hiatus, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is launching a hiring program to recruit clusters of faculty from different disciplines who will work together in emerging areas of research.
Far from actual storms, UW scientists provide indispensable data on developing hurricanes
While Hurricane Harvey washed through neighborhoods in and around Houston last week, a small group of University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists noticed something unusual off the coast of Africa.
Marshfield study: Kids raised on dairy farms less likely to get allergies, rashes
A study of rural children in the Marshfield area suggests that kids raised on dairy farms are much less likely to suffer severe respiratory illnesses, allergies and chronic skin rashes, according to the University of Wisconsin.
Christine Seroogy, associate professor of pediatrics, and James Gern, professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, worked with researchers at the Marshfield Clinic on the study.
Next wave breeding
Inside the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery, Madison chef Tory Miller stands over a tiny bamboo serving boat, concentrating as he pipes a dollop of bearnaise to finish off a bite-sized dish.“Tomato,” he says, almost reverently, placing the specimen in front of a hungry dinner guest. But it’s not your standard grocery-variety (or even garden-variety) fruit — it’s from a special breeding line developed as part of UW-Madison’s Seed to Kitchen Collaborative.
The universal cost of sex
Dan Levitis and his wife, Iris, were living in Germany when they lost their first pregnancy. An ocean away from their families, they had few people they could talk to about their loss. Then they had a second miscarriage and were devastated.
UW-Madison Scientist: Nothing In Historical Record Rivals Hurricane Harvey’s Flooding
Hurricane Harvey was a 1-in-1,000-year flood event, according to new calculations by the University of Wisconsin’s Space Science and Engineering Center at UW-Madison. The research scientist who mapped this calculation explains why Harvey’s record shattering rainfall over Southeast Texas and Louisiana was so devastating.
Hip hop/hip hope in the classroom
African American children fail and drop out of school at an alarmingly high rate, but providing them with skilled teachers who bring African American culture into the classroom can reverse that trend. Gloria Ladson-Billings, an internationally acclaimed scholar of education at UW–Madison credited with the concept of “culturally relevant pedagogy,” discusses hip hop as a transformative educational tool.
University of Wisconsin picked as a site to provide promising and expensive cancer drug
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s American Family Children’s Hospital will be one of 20 sites to offer one of the most promising and expensive new cancer drugs, one that will come with what amounts to a limited warranty.
UW-Madison study links nicotine addiction to genetic variation in brain
Some smokers have more of an urge to light up right after they wake up, and UW-Madison researchers have identified a reason: genetic variation in a substance that breaks down nicotine in the brain.
Big data will be focus of new UW research institute
The Institute for Foundations in Data Science, which will be part of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, will re-examine the core mathematics, statistics and computer science that make big data science possible. The ultimate mission will be to come up with new ways to more efficiently and effectively use big sets of data.
Report: Wisconsin unemployment rate great, but other economic factors are cause for concern
[A] report from from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), a nonpartisan think-tank based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wants to remind Wisconsinites that the health of the economy can’t be encompassed in a single statistic.
Dairy Farm App Could Revolutionize The Industry
Dairy farms generate massive amounts of data every day – too much for a farmer to analyze alone. But a new app being developed at the UW-Madison Department of Dairy Sciences called Virtual Dairy Farm Brain aims to collate all that data in real time to help the farmer make better decisions.
COWS Release The ‘State Of Working Wisconsin’ Report For 2017
Wisconsin-based think tank COWS has released their latest “State of Working Wisconsin” report. We speak with Laura Dresser, Associate Director of COWS, about what headway the state has made in the last year.
New managing director at Waisman Biomanufacturing
The interim director of a cell and gene product development facility at UW-Madison is now the permanent managing director.Carl Ross began his new duties on July 1 after more than a year as the Waisman Biomanufacturing interim director.
Study: Not even money incentivizes people to get to the gym
UW Madison researcher Justin Sydnor and his colleagues studied a group of people of all ages and fitness levels who just joined a gym.
UW-Madison team wins innovation award for Hyperloop
University of Wisconsin-Madison students didn’t win the global competition to prototype a Hyperloop pod, but they did take home an award for innovative design.
Bells and belly buddies: kindness curriculum
A new mindfulness-based “kindness curriculum” created at the UW Center for Healthy Minds shows promising results in early research.
Why Blue Is the World’s Favorite Color
“It turns out, if you look at all of the things that are associated with blue, they’re mostly positive,” explains Karen Schloss, an assistant professor of psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s really hard to think of negative blue things. A lot of things that we kind of think of as blue and bad aren’t really that blue.”
Ask the Weather Guys: Is UW-Madison involved in hurricane forecasting?
It may surprise you to know that UW-Madison is a major contributor to national efforts to monitor and predict these powerful storms.
Losing their footing: More Wisconsin seniors are drinking, falling and dying
“Alcohol is hitting you harder and your balance is a little off because you’re older and your bones are more brittle,” said Julia Sherman, chair of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “You add that all together and the danger is obvious in hindsight.”
1 Simple Trick that Will Make You Insanely Creative
Noted: Jihae Shin, Professor at the University of Wisconsin, designed an experiment to prove the most creative ideas come after procrastination. She asked people to come up with business ideas: one group shared ideas immediately, while another group was asked to play a simple computer game for 5 minutes before sharing their idea.
Psychedelic drug being looked at to treat PTSD
The Food and Drug Administration has deemed MDMA a “breakthrough therapy” in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, putting it on a fast track for possible approval. MDMA is also known by the street name Ecstasy. “MDMA opens up a space where people feel safe, they feel better about themselves, and they feel better about other people…,” said Dr. Charles Raison, a psychiatrist and member of the scientific advisory board of MAPS, which stands for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
UW Study Examines How Air Pollution Affects Birds
Interview with Tracey Holloway.
The Looming Decline of the Public Research University
Quoted: “What difference does having a major research university in a place like Wisconsin make?” said University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank. “It’s the future of the state.” If Blank is right, then current trends put that future in doubt for much of the Midwest. Many of these same universities have suffered some of the nation’s deepest cuts to public higher education. Illinois reduced per-student spending by an inflation-adjusted 54 percent between 2008 and last year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The figure was 22 percent in Iowa and Missouri, 21 percent in Michigan, 15 percent in Minnesota and Ohio, and 6 percent in Indiana. While higher education funding increased last year in thirty-eight states, Scott Walker’s 2015–17 budget cut another $250 million from the University of Wisconsin system. The University of Iowa recently had its state appropriation cut by 6 percent, including an unexpected $9 million in the middle of the fiscal year.
U.S. current account imbalance unlikely to diminish: researcher
Noted: University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor Menzie Chinn’s research also suggests lawmakers in the United States should look to domestic fiscal policy if they want to reduce external imbalances.
If Recession Hits US Tomorrow, Will Trump’s Economic Policies Help?
Noted: In a separate study, Professor Menzie Chinn from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said that the Trump administration will likely not be able or willing to reduce the US foreign debt, as, amongst other reasons, the Treasury notes’ safe-haven status supports capital inflows in the US.
Couple worked to restore native savanna landscape at Pleasant Valley Conservancy
In 1980, when Tom and Kathie Brock’s children were 3 and 5, they considered buying a vacation home “up north,” where Tom, a University of Wisconsin-Madison microbiology professor, had done research on lakes.
Science Proves That Gifts Are Better When The Gift Giver Gets One For Themselves, Too
Noted: The study was conducted by Evan Polman, marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Sam Maglio, marketing professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
UW Study Finds Surprising Lack Of Research On How Air Pollution Affects Birds
The effects of air pollution on human health have been well documented. We also have research on how air pollution affects plants and wildlife.
The model lake
When Lake Mendota turned the color of a bad Gatorade experiment in June, you should have seen it through Steve Carpenter’s eyes.Carpenter, who is retiring this month after 28 years at the UW Center for Limnology, talks about Lake Mendota with a subtly relaxed sense of time.
E-visits have unintended consequences, new research finds
Medical “e-visits”—electronic communications between patients and physicians, primarily via secure messaging—have been touted as a low-cost method for doctors and patients to stay in touch without the time and expense involved with office visits. But, so far, they seem to be doing more harm than good, according to new research from the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.