On a recent Saturday morning walk through the UW-Madison Arboretum, Christy Lowney stops to examine the newly formed buds on a stately magnolia tree. They’re lovely to see and touch — fuzzy little proto-blossoms bursting forth from dormant wintry branches. But they’ve arrived several weeks early. “Our curator is kind of in a panic,” says Lowney, an Arboretum ranger. “This normally happens much later.”
When Leigh Orf, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, strives to unravel the mysteries of tornado formation, he needs something way bigger than a laptop. Phenomena like the huge, supercell thunderstorms he studies involve such vast amounts of data, only a supercomputer will do.
In the climax of the classic 1996 disaster movie Twister, scientists are able to map a tornado by deploying a bunch of sensors into a storm, but not before nearly being sucked up by an F5 tornado. Now, researchers have created a similar simulation of the internal workings of tornado, without Hollywood magic or at risk of life and limb. According to a press release, researchers using a supercomputer have created the most detailed simulations of the inner workings of tornados so far.
When Leigh Orf, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, strives to unravel the mysteries of tornado formation, he needs something way bigger than a laptop. Phenomena like the huge, supercell thunderstorms he studies involve such vast amounts of data, only a supercomputer will do.
President Trump’s budget calls for a seismic disruption in government-funded medical and scientific research. The cuts are deep and broad.
Kids are often told that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Even so, people often believe they can rely on their gut to intuit things about other people.
A long history of heavy fertilization by growers has created an overabundance of phosphorus in Wisconsin soil, according to a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study, and farmers cutting back on manure and fertilizer application would help improve water quality.
Using a powerful supercomputer, meteorologists have simulated the “El Reno” tornado — a category 5 storm that swept through Oklahoma on 24 May 2011.
UW Researcher Peter Rafferty from the Wisconsin Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory (TOPS Lab) in the College of Engineering discusses testing driverless cars.http://www.wsaw.com/search?searchKeywords=UW
According to UW-Madison, the video is a new supercomputer simulation of a supercell storm that left a path of destruction in Oklahoma in May 2011.
Merely twenty percent of the mass of this universe is made up of material that scientist are able to identify. Remaining eighty percent is still unknown, which is so called the “Dark Particle” or “Dark Matter”. To discover this particle scientist arranged a more improved experiment in abandon gold mine in South Dakota.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican Wisconsin lawmakers who for years have sought to ban the use of aborted fetal tissue in the state are now bickering among themselves over what to do.
Republican lawmakers are reviving a push to restrict research done in Wisconsin that relies on fetal tissue from abortions.
It would be a disaster to shut down the federal Sea Grant program, said University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Steve Ackerman.
Republican Wisconsin lawmakers who for years have sought to ban the use of aborted fetal tissue in the state are now bickering among themselves over what to do.
A proposal to ban research using aborted fetal tissue in Wisconsin is being reintroduced at the state Capitol. Under the bill, researchers would be prohibited from using fetal tissue gathered during abortions.
You might be hoping for warmer temperatures, but that mild weather we experienced a few weeks ago could actually mean problems for your health and the quality of area lakes. “We had about 65 days of lake ice on Mendota this year,” Hilary Dugan, a postdoctoral researcher studying limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.
Ten professors from a variety of disciplines at UW-Madison have been selected for named professorships from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The city’s University of Wisconsin campus has more than 1,200 faculty in the biological and physical sciences, plus an uncounted number of academic and university staff who are scientists, according to UW spokeswoman Meredith McGlone. And as of last fall, there were more than 19,000 students, including graduate students, in those sciences out of a total of some 43,000. These days, it occurs to me that most of those scientists and science students might be inclined to take to the streets.
Research groups — including UW-Madison, UW Health, Medical College of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and BioForward, which represents the state’s biotech industry — said the fetal tissue research ban would prohibit lifesaving research already regulated under federal law.
Dr. Carlo Croce, a prolific cancer researcher at Ohio State University, has repeatedly been accused of scientific misconduct. New York Times reporters went to Ohio State and inquired about scientific practices there and about who was in the best position to police scientific standards, and acquired troves of public records. The university has since taken a fresh look at allegations made against one of its biggest rainmakers, and organized an independent, external review. Rarely do reporters encounter as few obstacles as they did in this case. The story, one of the reporters says, is a reminder of the importance of keeping public information where it belongs, open and accessible to the public.
In an abandoned gold mine one mile beneath the town of Lead, South Dakota, engineers and physicists with the University of Wisconsin—Madison are working to build a chamber that holds 10 tons of liquid xenon. They hope that in the subterranean realms of the mine, where the experiment will be protected from solar particles and cosmic rays, they will be able to detect dark matter for the very first time.
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.
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.
