The University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers say this is good news for vaccine developers. Lead researcher Prof David O’Connor said: “It suggests the sort of immunity that occurs naturally is sufficient. If you can mimic that in a vaccine, you’ll likely have a very successful vaccine.”
Monkeys infected with Zika virus are protected from future infection, and pregnancy dramatically prolongs infection in monkeys, findings that could help in fighting the virus in people, UW-Madison researchers said Tuesday.
Despite an increase in jobs, there was no reduction in poverty in Wisconsin between 2013 and 2014 under a broad measure developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin.
This week’s challenge was suggested by Jordan Ellenberg, a math-world superstar and current professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. Jordan is the child prodigy who turned out well. After teaching himself to read at age 2, he attained a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT at age 12, won two gold medals in the International Math Olympiad (with perfect scores), and was a two-time Putnam Fellow at Harvard.
Walk into most macaque enclosures, and you might expect a ruckus: bird-like cooing if you’re bringing them food, or guttural barks if you aren’t.
The Rising Star cave system, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa, has been well mapped and was explored by cavers for many years, but without any fossils being noted there. That changed in September 2013, when two South African cavers, Rick Hunter and Steve Tucker, entered a remote, unmapped chamber and found the first-known fossil bones of what is now called Homo naledi strewn across its floor.
A UW-Madison virologist whose controversial work has sought to create more effective flu vaccines will receive a prestigious award from Japan’s scientific academy, officials announced Wednesday.
There’s an arms race raging underground – well, between microbes and plants anyway. When bacteria attack crop roots, plants fight back by snaring the pathogens in a sticky trap made from their own DNA secretions. But a new study shows how the bacteria bust out, using a set of enzymes that act as molecular scissors, splitting the DNA like bubble wrap.
Noted: New research (by Evan Polman of the Wisconsin School of Business) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison says that might be key: If you can’t make up your own mind, pretend to make up someone else’s.
UW scientists develop app that could help women get pregnant.
Heat waves can kill. In 2003, during a major European heat wave, 14,802 people died of hyperthermia in France alone. Most were elderly people living alone in apartment buildings without air conditioning, according to Richard Keller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of medical history and bioethics and author of “Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003” (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found opioid addiction is related to the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for self-control and planning.
Noted: BadgerLoop, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, received the Pod Technical Excellence award for its design.
Wisconsin consumers widely agree that “local” food means food grown in Wisconsin, according to a new statewide survey conducted by faculty affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Extension, UW-Madison, and UW-River Falls. Food from Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota, meanwhile, is not considered “local” by most Wisconsin shoppers.
Data collected from sensors on a buoy in Lake Mendota map the ebb and flow of the algal blooms that each year turn the lake green with phytoplankton. A look at the patterns created over time shows a confluence of interconnected cycles driven by season, temperature, sunrise and sunset.
iPS cells have made their mark in a different way. They have become an important tool for modelling and investigating human diseases, as well as for screening drugs. Improved ways of making the cells, along with gene-editing technologies, have turned iPS cells into a lab workhorse — providing an unlimited supply of once-inaccessible human tissues for research. This has been especially valuable in the fields of human development and neurological diseases, says Guo-li Ming, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who has been using iPS cells since 2006.
Since the 17th century, when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek first observed microorganisms through the lens of a rudimentary microscope, humans have slowly come to appreciate that ours is a germy world.
The remnants of this town, nestled along a shallow bend in the Crawfish River, have generated many other fantastic myths over time — myths that researchers like University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropology professor Sissel Schroeder work to dispel.
Snapshot Wisconsin, as the project has been named, is “an unprecedented effort to capture in space and time the deer, bears, elk, coyotes, bobcats, badgers, and any other wild animal that lumbers, hops, lopes or slithers across the Badger state,” according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the school leading the charge on this project. “Snapshot Wisconsin aims to provide one of the richest and most comprehensive caches of wildlife data for any spot on our planet.”
Like some humans, giant pandas struggle with digestion due to changes in diet – an affliction that could be interrupting their reproduction, according to a new study.
AZTALAN — Ancient Aztalan was a prehistoric Native American village in southern Wisconsin occupied by Mississippian and Late Woodland peoples 800 to 1,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence suggests it was an ethnically diverse community — some residents were local to the area, but others were newcomers who brought their exotic beliefs, practices and ways of living with them.
Noted: Recently, that method of playing changed thanks to the help of engineers at UW-Madison. They made a device for Roy so he’s able to play the instrument by himself.
University of Wisconsin researchers this week installed an underwater wave pressure sensor along Duluth’s Park Point beach that could help detect deadly rip currents.
UW-Madison vector biologist Matthew Aliota joined Steve Ketelaar on Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News to look at the latest case of the Zika virus in Wisconsin, if it could start to spread locally, and if athletes should be concerned about it in Rio for the Olympics.
Coinciding with National Beach Safety Week and Rip Current Awareness Week from June 4th to the 11th, the WIsconsin Sea Grant Program is continuing a couple of projects at the Park Point Beach in Duluth designed to save lives.
An impressive cadre of researchers just launched a new initiative to install trail cameras throughout Wisconsin that will help scientists keep track of the state’s wildlife populations.
Just in time for National Beach Safety Week and Rip Current Awareness Week June 4-11, beaches on lakes Superior and Michigan will be safer thanks to continuation of two projects, according to a press release from Wisconsin Sea Grant.
What if the power of the wind could help villagers in rural India stay in touch via cellphone?
A high school student from Fond du Lac and a team of middle school students from Berlin grew the best overall crystals in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s third annual crystal-growing contest.
Expanding its research collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, Johnson Controls Inc. is funding projects in Madison that will research improving fuel efficiency for both start-stop and battery-electric vehicles.
If you’ve ever started a sentence with, “If I were you . . . ” or found yourself scratching your head at a colleague’s agony over a decision when the answer is crystal-clear, there’s a scientific reason behind it. Our own decision-making abilities can become depleted over the course of the day causing indecision or poor choices, but choosing on behalf of someone else is an enjoyable task that doesn’t suffer the same pitfalls, according to a study published in Social Psychology and Personality Science.
Wisconsin Technology Council President Tom Still explains how budget cuts will continue to affect the University of Wisconsin System’s ability to contribute to economic growth in Wisconsin. Still says a bipartisan effort is necessary in order for both the state economy and UW System to thrive.
Spring comes earlier to dense cities, and while that might be great for city gardeners and outdoorsy types, it might be bad for native birds and insects.
NASA’s next search for life is headed somewhere close to home: into the woods of Wisconsin, where the space agency is partnering with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to create “one of the richest and most comprehensive caches of wildlife data for any spot on our planet.”
Twenty years after UW-Madison scientist Jamie Thomson began work to isolate human embryonic stems, research has advanced so far that the field is now poised to boom and create Wisconsin companies that could rival Epic, the Verona-based electronic healthcare records company with more than 9,000 employees.
Musician David Teie composed music inspired by cats’ vocalizations and matching purr frequencies. “An independent study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and published in Applied Animal Behavior verified that Music for Cats resonates conclusively with its audience,” Music for Cats says on its site.
A powerful and inexpensive technique for rewriting snippets of DNA — known as CRISPR-Cas9 — has two research institutions locked in a bitter patent battle. On one side is UC Berkeley, where faculty first reported using the gene-editing technology in 2012, on the other, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where faculty won a special expedited patent for the technique in 2014.
Every year as spring unfolds, fruit growers around Wisconsin start feeling anxious, wondering whether a late frost will harm their crop. Overall, temperatures are warming across the state amidst global climate change, but this pattern is accompanied by unseasonable cold weather events, such as the late spring frost much of the state experienced earlier this month.
During the 2014-15 flu season, the poor match between the virus used to make the world’s vaccine stocks and the circulating seasonal virus yielded a vaccine that was less than 20 percent effective.
Medical science has had difficulty developing flu vaccines that accurately match circulating seasonal influenza strains.
The development by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka follows research he did last year suggesting another way to improve flu shots: manufacturing them with dog or monkey cells instead of the current, lengthy process using chicken eggs.
Wisconsin scientists have launched an ambitious new project that uses trail cameras to inventory wildlife and tamp down simmering questions about how many deer really roam the state.
Editor’s note: The Water Sustainability and Climate project at the University of Wisconsin–Madison collaborated with other groups to launch the Our Waters, Our Future Writing Contest in January. The group—including the UW–Madison Center for Limnology, Sustain Dane and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters—sought short stories reflecting visions for positive futures for the watershed. This is the winning piece. To read the entry chosen as the runner-up, see the June tablet edition of Madison Magazine.
Like some humans, giant pandas struggle with digestion due to changes in diet – an affliction that could be interrupting their reproduction, according to a new study.
Studies show that being overweight or obese is associated with a higher risk of cancer. One woman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is trying to figure out why that is, specifically in cases of breast cancer.
MADISON — Wisconsin scientists have launched an ambitious new plan to catalog wild animals using thousands of trail cameras, a project that could help answer just how many deer and other creatures roam the state.
Quoted: “Something like this has never been done before, not for such a large area,” said UW–Madison Professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology Phil Townsend, a leader on the project, in a statement released Tuesday by the university. “The number of trail cams and the spatial scale we’re working on will make this project unique.”
A stomachache can put a real damper on your love life — especially if you’re a giant panda. One minute it’s breeding season and you’re happily dining on fresh bamboo leaves, the next you’re left clutching your stomach while your gastrointestinal lining passes through your system. This is exactly what seems to happen to captive giant pandas, and the researchers behind a new study are beginning to suspect it may play a role in their struggles to reproduce.
Health officials are collaborating with the a state university after learning that a Wisconsin woman contracted the Zika virus.
On the May 18, 2016 episode of The Opening Bell, Steve Grzanich talked with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Life Science Communication department chair, Dominique Brossard. The two discussed the recent details of a genetically engineered crop study and how it effects the market. Rick Seaney, airline industry expert, stopped by as well to share some more perspective on the TSA line madness.
Wisconsin is home to numerous species of wild animals, although getting a handle on just how many can often prove quite difficult. A joint effort between University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and the state Department of Natural Resources could take some of the guesswork out of that process, with members of the public also lending a hand.
Noted: Researchers at UW-Madison have seen a spike in the ticks in the UW arboretum, increasing from around 40 in 2014 to 600 found last year.
“It’s a new risk for people to worry about for both themselves and for their families and for their animals,” said Susan Paskewitz, a UW-Madison entomologist.
Paskewitz is leading a group of students to find ways to reduce the risk of Lyme disease from ticks.
Anyone with computer access can now take part in conducting wildlife research in Wisconsin.Snapshot Wisconsin, a collaboration between UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, is recruiting the public to help track the state’s wildlife population.
A scientist who is a pioneer in studying how the body regenerates damaged tissue will be joining the UW-Madison faculty this fall.
Who would you call if you had a wood-related question? The Forest Products Laboratory, of course. But, did you even know of its existence?
A collaboration of NASA, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Snapshot Wisconsin aims to provide one of the richest and most comprehensive caches of wildlife data for any spot on our planet.
Noted: Silatronix was founded by two UW-Madison chemistry professors, Robert Hamers and Robert West, after a hallway conversation in which the “two Bobs” sought to literally change the world.
“The safety issues are very real,” Hamers said recently in an interview in the company’s laboratory on the city’s east side, near the Madison College campus. “Our goal is to make lithium ion batteries perform better and be safer, and the way we did that is by inventing a new liquid called an electrolyte. It’s one of the three major components of the lithium ion battery.”
Noted: According to Lisa Thomas Prince, there’s even research going on in Madison on the topic of mindfulness and children. She said prior research proves kids who can tap into their thoughts and feelings and “check in” can better focus their attention, lower their anxiety and maintain good physical health. In addition, adolescents who have participated in the Center for Healthy Minds courses have had an easier time sleeping and navigating social situations.
In a special column for the paper, Katie Hustad, Waisman Center professor of communication sciences and disorders, writes about her work studying how communication develops in children with cerebral palsy.
Every parent wonders at some point: How do you get kids to eat their vegetables? The answer: You make them grow the vegetables too!
