Category: Research

It is not unusual for insect pests to feast on each other as well as on their staple veg, but it’s now been shown that tomato plants can team up to directly push caterpillars into cannibalism.

Caterpillars turn into cannibals and eat each other when plants deploy defensive chemicals to make their foliage less appetising, research has revealed.

In the caterpillar-versus-plant fight, the winner might seem obvious. One side sits motionless in the sun, while the other feasts on it. But the tomato plant has a nefarious defence strategy. In some encounters with herbivores, it winds up relatively unscathed, while the caterpillars wind up eating each other.

Some plants have been found to use nature’s dog-eat-dog world to their advantage, forcing herbivores to become cannibals when the plants feel threatened by a caterpillar’s endless appetite.

LAKE ALFRED, FLORIDA — Put expensive high-tech scientific equipment in a former citrus packing house more than 60 years old, throw in an overworked air conditioner, a corroding foundation, and the sticky Central Florida climate, and you’ve got problems.

Many people complain about the people they work with sometimes, but Hannah Black’s co-workers are a bunch of monkeys, literally. The Waunakee woman looks after the primates at the UW-Madison’s Harlow Primate Lab, feeding them and hosing down their cages.

In March, the rusty patched bumble bee was listed as an endangered species.One of the places this species is still found is right here in Madison. A visiting bee expert from California found a rusty patched bumble bee at the UW Arboretum in 2010, says Susan Carpenter, a native plant gardener there. Now the organization has a group of volunteers keeping an eye out for this species, as well as the 11 other bumble bee species found on the 1,200 acres.

Scientists at a Wisconsin university have created a mineral coating that mimics bone and keeps protein-based drugs more stable.

The three-year study, involving 58 colonies of the grassland rodents in seven Western states, tested a vaccine developed at UW-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center on Madison’s West Side.

Physicist Usama Hussain laughed uncomfortably every time the conversation even got close to the question, “Do you look for nothing?” His professors would kill him if they heard him agree with that. After all, he’s technically looking for a brand new particle that may or may not exist, with the hopes that it might help explain some of the Universe’s weirdness.

The UW was the only institution in the U.S. to have frequent access to a ‘giant meat laboratory’ in its backyard. Students saw the application of meat science and technology at the plant. Company personnel (some became UW adjunct professors) provided lectures for UW classes and the company provided internship and employment opportunities for UW students.

New technology developed in part by UW-Madison researchers is speeding up the discovery time for new molecules from fungi.  We’ll find out how it works and why fungi are a potential-rich place to look for new disease-fighting agents.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison have found that sleep helps improve brain performance by shrinking synapses in the brain. A synapse is the area where cells pass messages to other cells.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s 11 agricultural research stations across the state will soon be under new leadership. Mike Peters has been named director of the network of ag stations, where he will replace the retiring Dwight Mueller.

Scientists have known for a long time that air pollution is worse on hot days. For example, ozone pollution levels are higher on the hottest days of the year.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s 11 agricultural research stations across the state will soon be under new leadership. Mike Peters has been named director of the network of ag stations, where he will replace the retiring Dwight Mueller.

Some UW Madison students are taking their design to the next level in a competition for Space X.

There’s an online dating site for nearly everybody, but can too many choices be problematic?

Keep Wildlife Wild is a partnership between Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wildlife rehabilitators across Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison that aims to educate the public on when to intervene with young, injured or orphaned wildlife, and when it’s better to stay on the sidelines.

On Friday (6/16), University of Wisconsin archaeologists will host a public event displaying artifacts at Aztalan State Park. Central Time spoke with Professor Sissel Schroeder about what the public can learn from these digs.

Online daters with lots of potential suitors are less satisfied and more likely to pursue other partners, new research reveals.

Earth and its parent galaxy are living in a cosmic desert — a region of space largely devoid of other galaxies, stars and planets, according to a new study. The new study shows this model of the KBC void is not ruled out based on additional observational data, Amy Barger, an observational cosmologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was involved with both studies, said in a statement from the university.

If you’ve ever traveled between Portage and Madison on Highway 51, you’ve driven past it – the flagship research facility for the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, the Arlington Agricultural Research Station will play host to a crowd likely to number in the hundreds. It’s the site of the 40th annual Moo-Day Brunch, Columbia County’s traditional salute to the dairy industry.

French President Emmanuel Macron doesn’t kid around. Last week, the newly minted French leader delivered a bruising rebuke of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord in a televised address. And in a jab at just how backward US climate politics have become, he invited American climate researchers to move to France.

University of Wisconsin-Madison lake researchers discovered the invasive mussel species in Mendota in 2015 and since then the mussels have spread rapidly.

According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, our very own Milky Way galaxy may float near the center of one of these voids.

Facing protests from senior scientists, including members of its own advisory board, the National Institutes of Health on Thursday abandoned a plan to help younger researchers by imposing a general three-grant limit.