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.
Noted: Ashley Lauren Smith, who co-facilitates the fourth grade girls’ group, is a Ph.D. student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s education policy program. Her research focuses on African-American girls and school discipline.PauseCurrent Time 0:00/Duration Time 0:00Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%0:00Fullscreen00:00Mute
As President Trump moves to rein in federal efforts to slow warming, his administration is also mulling cost-saving measures that would leave coastal Americans more vulnerable to rising seas, heavier deluges, acidifying waters and other effects of climate change.
Letter to the editor: Students don’t come to a program understanding how to do research. Research involves many challenging skills, such as collecting and interpreting data, writing and presenting reports, publishing the results, getting funding for research, and identifying commercial possibilities. All this is learned only by a student’s active participation in the research process.
Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also could affect some of the roughly 20 climate change researchers at UW-Madison who receive federal funding, but Wisconsin relies on agency dollars more heavily in the other areas.
Rep. Andre Jacque and Sen. Chris Kapenga are circulating a bill targeting an arrangement between Planned Parenthood and the university in which faculty members work part-time at the organization’s Madison clinic.
From diabetes, asthma and tooth decay to lake algae, dairy production and panda reproduction, UW-Madison researchers are studying how tiny bugs in our guts, our mouths and a variety of ecosystems help or harm.
Republican legislators introduced a bill Friday that may result in UW System employees no longer being able to perform abortions or train others at Madison Planned Parenthood clinics.
In her nearly two decades of work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Social Work, Kristen Slack has dedicated her energy to uncovering the roots of poverty and finding solutions for those who need it most, particularly those who are the victims of child neglect.
President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to slash one of the government’s premier climate science agencies by 17 percent, delivering steep cuts to research funding and satellite programs, according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post.
Whether you’re an educator, or just have an interest in paleobiology as a hobby, this interactive fossil finding tool is incredible. The web tool was developed by engineers from the US Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it contains all the data found in the Paleobiology Database. You can filter finds by geologic time filters, or zoom into specific areas of the world to narrow down your search.
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.
University of Wisconsin students, faculty and community members gathered to discuss agriculture’s most controversial topic: genetically modified organisms and crops.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Most cars on Wisconsin roads will be driverless two decades from now, a University of Wisconsin researcher says. “They’re coming, whether we like it or not,” engineering professor David Noyce said at an Assembly committee hearing on the future of autonomous cars Wednesday.
Two UW-Madison professors have been selected to received Sloan Research Fellowships, one of the more prestigious awards young researchers can get.
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: An Assembly committee will hold an informational hearing next week on the state of self-driving vehicle testing in Wisconsin, which got a jumpstart earlier this year when the UW-Madison College of Engineering was picked by the federal Department of Transportation as one of 10 institutions nationwide that will test self-driving cars.
Kathy Cramer’s journey to the center of the political landscape began with road trips to corners of Wisconsin many people only drive through — if they drive there at all.
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.
Editing of human cells to alter traits handed down to future generations may one day be ethically permissible, said a committee co-chaired by bioethicist Alta Charo, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law.
Scientists could be allowed to make modifications in human DNA that can be passed down through subsequent generations, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine say. “It is not ready now, but it might be safe enough to try in the future,” R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who co-chaired the committee, said. “And if certain conditions are met, it might be permissible to try it.”
The report Tuesday from the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine was compiled by a 22-member committee with two members from UW-Madison: R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics who co-chaired the NAS panel, and Dietram Scheufele, a professor of life sciences communication.
“If we have an absolute prohibition in the United States with this technology advancing, it’s not like it won’t happen,” said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the committee’s other leader. “We see an advantage of setting out a stringent regulation that guards against the uses that people are most fearing and signals to the rest of the world what it should look like when it’s done right.”
Noted: “It is essential for public discussions to precede any decisions about whether or how to pursue clinical trials of such applications,” said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leader of the panel that wrote the report. “And we need to have them now.”
Ethicists have been working overtime to figure out how to handle CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing technique that could potentially prevent congenital diseases but could also be used for cosmetic enhancements and lead to permanent, heritable changes in the human species.
Noted: “It is not ready now, but it might be safe enough to try in the future,” R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who co-chaired the committee, told NPR. “And if certain conditions are met, it might be permissible to try it.”
Noted: Trials on genes in the lab, and on mice, have been successful, but editing the human genome is a further step that bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-chair of the committee, Alta Charo, says “is not ready.” But, “if certain conditions are met, it might be permissible to try it.”
Noted: “It is essential for public discussions to precede any decisions about whether or how to pursue clinical trials of such applications,” said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leader of the panel that wrote the report. “And we need to have them now.”
A federal freeze on Environmental Protection Agency grants has some University of Wisconsin researchers questioning the future of innovation at the university.
In research labs, work is being done to make the UW Initiative to End Alzheimer’s a realization. For the man who directs that research, finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease is personal. Dr. Sanjay Asthana lost his father to Alzheimer’s.“I’m absolutely sure that one day we will get there and the amount of research that’s going on right here at UW-Madison actually is making some very important contributions,” says Dr. Asthana, associate dean of gerontology at UW-Madison.
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.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican state lawmakers are renewing their push to ban research on aborted fetal tissue in Wisconsin, with one proposal circulated this week branded as ineffective by the staunchest anti-abortion forces.
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.
Republican state lawmakers are renewing their push to ban research on aborted fetal tissue in Wisconsin, with one proposal circulated this week branded as ineffective by the staunchest anti-abortion forces.
Noted: But although the march has garnered the endorsement of many prominent scientists and some scientific societies, others have so far remained on the sidelines, cautioning in part that the march could paint scientists as just another partisan special interest in an already highly polarized political climate. If the event is “interpreted as ‘These people who like science are marching against Trump,’ it could politicize science even more and potentially hurt public trust in science as an institution,” says communications researcher Dominique Brossard, who specializes in public attitudes on scientific issues at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
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.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study shows the human toll on wolves is higher than previously estimated and that state officials have underreported wolf deaths in past analyses.For years, wolves have been shot illegally, struck by cars and trucks or legally killed by authorities acting on reports that wolves were killing and threatening livestock and pets.
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.
Ah, to sleep, perchance … to shrink your neural connections? That’s the conclusion of new research that examined subtle changes in the brain during sleep.
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.
Noted: In 2003, Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, biologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed that synapses grew so exuberantly during the day that our brain circuits got “noisy.” When we sleep, the scientists argued, our brains pare back the connections to lift the signal over the noise.
Although they have yet to announce a date, a group of scientists say they’re moving forward with a plan to march on Washington. In the first days of the Trump administration, some scientists are concerned about the politicization of climate change data, the future of fact-based decision-making and the road blocks to international cooperation. We look at the future of science under the Trump administration.
A $10 million plant research facility in Middleton first opened in 1982 with the help of UW-Madison scientists, and now, through donation, it has become part of the University.
Noted: At the University of Wisconsin, virologist Dave O’Connor has been infecting macaques with Zika and carefully tracking the virus’ progress through time and tissues. During the pregnancies, his team repeatedly samples blood and amniotic fluid to determine how quickly the virus can infect a fetus. They take fetal MRIs to make measurements on how the baby macaque is growing. And once the pregnancy is complete, they analyze more than 60 different fetal tissues for little bits of Zika DNA and virus-induced damage.
A $10 million commercial biotech plant laboratory in Middleton that helped develop genetically modified plants and crops was donated by Monsanto Co. to UW-Madison, which has made it the hub of a new crop research center.
The use of non-human primates in research has fueled some of the most pivotal scientific discoveries to date and saved countless lives. Rhesus macaques have been instrumental in the development of vaccines, the discovery of HIV/AIDS treatments, the characterization of blood groups, and a myriad of other medical and scientific breakthroughs.
Two University of Wisconsin students are working toward using natural substances to create eco-friendly that can help scrub cancer-causing gases from water and air.
Last week, David Bart had to tell students assisting him in research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to stop working until federal officials lifted a short-lived freeze on grants from the Environment Protection Agency. The students are back at work for the time being, but questions over what to expect in support for scientific research under President Donald Trump’s administration continue, said Bart, an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture who studies human-environmental interactions.
A new center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be researching the spread of new diseases in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest region carried by ticks and mosquitoes.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will lead a new center designed to stop insects from spreading diseases.
University of Wisconsin-Madison is one the Midwestern universities that will receive a portion of $10 million to establish a new research and training program to stop the spread of diseases carried by insects, according to a release.
