Category: Research

When local gardeners turn over a spade of soil, they’re usually happy to find an earthworm or two. While these familiar worms were brought over by European settlers and are not beneficial to native habitat, they can form a healthy partnership with plants that farmers and gardeners have come to depend on.

While Wisconsin’s new voter ID requirement continues to cause controversy, the Dane County Clerk’s office will study the November election to see how much of an impact the law really has on voters.

David Thomas is looking over his life’s work at the Spooner Agricultural Research Station in northern Wisconsin. After 26 years with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the professor of sheep genetics and management is retiring and the research station’s dairy sheep program is going along with him.

Donald Trump is a master in the use of traditional news outlets and social media, said Chris Wells, an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Government regulators have no idea how often laboratories working with some of the world’s most dangerous viruses and bacteria are failing to fully kill vials of specimens before sending them to other researchers who lack critical gear to protect them against infection, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin have found a way to coax peripheral nerve cells into repairing damaged axons. Peripheral cells extend outside the central nervous system into the arms and legs and are responsible for sensation. They contain long fibers known as axons that transmit impulses from the brain. They can be damaged in diseases such as diabetes, causing pain.

Monkeys being used for research has been a long-lasting debate, especially when things go wrong.

The recently announced discovery of the invasive starry stonewort in the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal is more extensive than previously thought.

The overcast sky is clearing as a wave of moderate thunderstorms moves off to the east. On rolling, sandy terrain northeast of Tomah, in the heart of cranberry country, rows of short shrubs called aronia have reached two feet in height.

“These are “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) – not Drones” – proclaimed Brian Luck of  the UW-Madison Biological Systems Engineering Department to the visitors seated on the three tractor drawn people movers.

The worms are not like the other night crawlers. They are not from around here. When held they thrash and jump. They do not live deeply, but they are very good at sucking down their food and passing it out in a gravelly residue.

While earthworms are generally welcomed in soils for their ability to break down dead leaves and other organic matter into nutrients the plants can absorb, the invasive Asian jumping worm does so at an astounding rate, potentially accelerating the losses of nutrients from soils and harming native plants.

Wisconsin has 2.94 million jobs — more than ever before — and unemployment has fallen to 4.2 percent statewide as of July, down from a peak of more than 9 percent in 2009, the report by the UW-Madison Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) said.

“Earthworms are the kind of organisms we call ecosystem engineers. They change the physical and chemical properties of the ecosystem as they dig and feed,” University of Wisconsin-Madison zoologist Monica Turner said in a statement. “But nobody really understood if these Asian worms would have the same effect as the European worms we have had here for many years.”

As Hurricane Hermine hit land last night, researcher Derrick Herndon could tell you step by step where it’s heading.

Jaime Martindale, librarian at UW–Madison’s Arthur H. Robinson Map Library, helped find the exact site in northern Wisconsin of the 1966 crash of an Air Force B-52 bomber.

Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison geology major Ethan Heyrman spent the summer creating the “Digital Docent” on a fellowship through the Morgridge Center for Public Service.

So-called “shoot em ups” are usually deemed — bad.  However, a study done in part with a UW Madison researcher shows that’s not the whole story.

Mark Louden, author of “Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language,” surely has written the definitive guide to the subject. He also has definitively answered such burning questions as: “Is it ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ or ‘Pennsylvania German’?” and “Is ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ (or ‘German’) dying?”

In one study at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 90 people with knee osteoarthritis received either dextrose jabs, saline jabs or exercise therapy.

On TV and online, sensational headlines grab our attention: “You’ll Be Shocked What Happened Next!” or “17 Secrets Cruise Ship Workers Don’t Want You to Know.” These clickbait headlines work because we want to satisfy our curiosity, so we watch, or click.