Category: Research

When it comes to CRISPR, our society has some important decisions to make.

In a survey published today in Science, two-thirds of people polled believe that using gene-editing technology to modify human cells was “acceptable.” The survey (PDF, sub required), which was carried out by researchers at the University of Wisonsin in Madison and Temple University, presented 1,600 people with various hypothetical use cases for genome editing technology. For example, it asked how people felt about modifying DNA in human germ-line cells, which can be passed down to future generations, versus genes in somatic cells, which aren’t.

The North American Manure Expo, held Tuesday and Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin’s Arlington Agricultural Research Station, offered Kasparek new insights, and not just about the different types of machinery on the market for spreading organic fertilizer on crop fields.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) has started a two-year “virtual dairy farm brain” project that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze data in real time helping dairy farmers improve their management decisions.

Noted: Dave Mickelson is an emeritus professor in geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in glacial geology and the history of Wisconsin’s landscape.

Live at Four talks with a researcher to find out what your smile reveals about you.

Live at Four talks with a researcher to find out what your smile reveals about you.

We hear from Paula Niedenthal, a UW-Madison professor about a new smile study that may help us decipher what a person’s smile really means.

Three years ago, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association put new rules into play to limit contact in high school football practice. A University of Wisconsin-Madison study showed it’s working. Concussions were more than twice as high in the two seasons before the rule change.

It happens to all of us: you’re out shopping for a gift and you find something you like so much you want to get it for yourself too, but you don’t buy two because the maxim “it’s better to give than to receive” was drilled into your head at an early age. If the scenario is familiar, I have good news for you: a new study indicates it might be better for everyone for you to buy that gift — and have it too.

A UW-Madison professor is headed to Washington to write a secret history of the nation’s war against terrorism for the Pentagon.

All life on our planet, to some degree, evolves over time. Think of the furry land mammals that slipped into the water to catch a fish and surfaced – albeit millions of years later – as modern whales.

Baits often consist of high-calorie foods like meat, candy or cookies. MacFarland, along with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, sampled bear bait and native foods in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest for the study. They then compared those samples to tissues taken from black bears during the 2011-2013 hunting seasons.

Scores of Chicagoans and suburbanites retreat from the dog days of summer by heading to bucolic vacation spots around Lake Michigan.

Noted: “The hope would have been that by targeting this, you could especially capture some of the people who early on fall off and get them to keep going for longer,” said Justin Sydnor, one of the report’s authors and a risk-management and insurance professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “These incentive programs did increase slightly how often people went, but only by about one visit, and then it really has no lasting impact.”

“If passing the virus by casual contact were easy, I think we would see a lot more of what we would call secondary transmission in a place like the United States,” said lead researcher Tom Friedrich, from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Scientists have cracked the science behind one of our most common facial expressions – the smile. They say the distinction between sincere and fake smiles that is often made is not entirely accurate.

If your only exposure to archaeology is watching the Indiana Jones movies, than let us quickly disabuse you of the notion that archaeologists spend their days dodging bullets and nabbing ancient idols.Archaeology is dirty work. The researchers that dedicate themselves to the discipline are a dusty sort, armed with an array of trowels, brushes and other tools for unearthing long-lost artifacts.It’s that kind of gritty, grimy, sweaty archaeology that’s a hallmark of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Archaeology Field School at Aztalan State Park.

It takes a hookworm four to six weeks to travel through the human body and reach the gut, where it latches onto the small intestine and sucks blood to sustain itself.

There are three distinct types of smile, a new study has revealed. People switch between ’reward’, ’affiliation’ and ’dominance’ smiles, using different facial muscle combinations to make them, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In 2013, the Wisconsin’s wine industry supported more than 700 jobs statewide, generating about $151 million in sales and another $9 million in state and local taxes, according to a UW-Madison Extension study about the impact of the industry.