Category: Research

Noted: The state climatology office has been maintaining lists of dates when ice covers three Madison lakes — Mendota, Monona and Wingra — since the mid-19th century, based on observations made by various individuals, including at Washburn Observatory on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

MADISON — What once seemed like science fiction is now on the horizon. Self-driving cars, also known as automated cars, are on their way to Wisconsin. “To have those running fully autonomous, but maybe on a fixed route could be within five years,” explained Peter Rafferty, a transportation researcher at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A study published earlier this year, led by Galen McKinley from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimated that “since preindustrial times, the ocean has removed from the atmosphere 41% of the carbon emitted by human industrial activities.”

Scientists at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery are at the forefront of human genome research, examining and developing processes that allow for gene editing.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine are studying how pathogens affect fetal development and change the outcome of pregnancy.

Thanks to some help from the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a small local cheesemaker was able to create and produce a nationally recognized Best of Show cheese.

Noted: “We must weigh scientific objectives with animal welfare,” said Dr. Allyson Bennett, faculty director of the Animal Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which houses more than 2,500 primates.

A federal freeze on Environmental Protection Agency grants has some University of Wisconsin researchers questioning the future of innovation at the university.

Noted: But in 2010, Abigail Rajala from the University of Wisconsin-Madison noticed that some of her lab monkeys, which had been fitted with head implants as part of an unrelated experiment, were checking themselves out in a mirror. Those same monkeys had previously failed a mark test, but now, they were investigating their weird skull adornments. Later, they even started examining unseen parts of their bodies, like their genitals (as in the video below). “We cannot objectively claim that these animals are self-aware, all the pieces are there to suggest that, in some form, they are,” Rajala and her colleagues wrote.

After years under siege by activists who harassed him with violent threats and protests outside his home, the university scientist J. David Jentsch might be a chief beneficiary of the government’s decision to shut down a federal website listing animals used in research.

Walleyes have given way to largemouth bass and an array of smaller fish in many northern Wisconsin lakes the past 30 years, maybe because ol’ marble-eyes can’t compete with all those hungry mouths during its first few months of life.

Noted: The owner of the possible meteorite did not want to go on camera, but she did tell Local 5 that she had to shut off her phone because so many people were calling with questions, and wanting to buy it. She did collect the fragments from the snow and will be donating them for research at the University of Wisconsin. “We can can learn huge amounts from small pieces of rock like this,” said Professor John Valley, a faculty member and Geoscience Researcher at UW-Madison.

“Deer are affecting understory communities in many different ways,” explains Autumn Sabo, a University of Wisconsin-Madison plant ecologist and the lead author of a new study that teases out some of the secondary impacts of white-tailed deer on forest ecosystems. “It is only in recent years that scientists have started to look at factors beyond herbivory.”

MILWAUKEE — The state Department of Natural Resources apparently underreported wolf poaching over the last three decades, according to a UW-Madison study.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned a $10 million commercial biotechnology plant laboratory in Middleton into the hub of a new crop research center.

A trove of information about animal welfare in university and government research laboratories, in zoos and circuses, and elsewhere disappeared from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website on Friday, worrying animal-rights activists and others who have been concerned that the Trump administration will stop making available a range of data collected by the government.

The scientific community has been roiled by the Trump travel ban.

Sleep is essential to clear our minds of yesterday’s memories, two new studies have shown.

Sleep, is an enduring mystery, and scientists continue to study its forms and its functions, and some new research shows sleep helps make us smarter.

In 2003, Chiara Cirelli from the University of Wisconsin-Madison theorized that this mass downscaling happens specifically while we sleep. In fact, she argued, it might be one of the reasons that sleep exists at all—to provide a quiet time when our brains can effectively renormalize our synapses, ready for another day of learning. That may partly explain why sleep is so universal among animals, and why our mental abilities take a hit after a sleepless night. Sleep is the price we pay for the ability to learn, and it’s non-negotiable.