“You think it’s a prank until you hear everyone on the (conference) call describing your work,” said Matthew Desmond, the sociologist, who works at Harvard University. Desmond is a 2010 UW-Madison graduate.
Participation in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s “massive online open courses” — also known as MOOCs — has skyrocketed to well above the national average following an overhaul of the university’s offerings.
Research using fetal cell lines has been going on since the 1940s. The cell lines — samples of cells from fetal tissues that can reproduce themselves in labs, making them essentially immortal — are essential to research toward medical treatments, said Dr. Bob Golden, UW-Madison’s vice chancellor of medical affairs.
MADISON — High in a laboratory overlooking Lake Mendota, University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist Gail Robertson is looking for the next breakthrough in medical science. If Republican lawmakers will let her, that is.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’s optimistic the chamber will vote on a bill outlawing research on tissue taken from aborted fetuses.
Wisconsin legislators are set to hold another public hearing on a bill that would outlaw research on tissue taken from aborted fetuses.
The Senate’s health committee was scheduled to hold a hearing on the Republican-authored measure Tuesday morning in the state Capitol. The Assembly’s criminal justice already has held a hearing and approved the bill, clearing the way for a full vote that chamber but it’s unclear how much support the proposal has among Senate Republicans, who are concerned the measure’s effect on research.
The authors of a bill that would outlaw research on tissue from fetuses aborted are trying to persuade the state Senate’s health committee to approve the proposal.
Sen. Duey Stroebel and Rep. Andre Jacque, both Republicans, told the committee during a public hearing Tuesday that the bill will stop atrocities and aborted children should be treated like humans, not specimens.
A bill banning certain types of research using fetal tissue from abortions and allowing others likely lacks the votes needed to pass the state Assembly, Speaker Robin Vos said Tuesday.
The top Republican in the state Assembly says a controversial proposal that would ban researchers from using most tissue from aborted fetuses likely does not have the votes needed to pass out of his chamber right now.
More than one in four female undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who participated in a national survey said they had been sexually assaulted since entering college, often by a friend or acquaintance.
A survey of thousands of UW-Madison students found more than 25 percent of undergraduate women at the university say they have experienced some form of sexual assault, a slightly higher rate than female college students nationwide reported.
More than 1 in 4 female undergraduates at UW-Madison said they have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at the university, but most of them decided not to report those assaults to officials, according to survey results released Monday by campus officials.
A quarter of undergraduate women surveyed at more than two dozen universities say they experienced unwanted sexual contact sometime during college, according to a report released Monday.
Nearly one-quarter of female undergraduate students who responded to a survey created by the Association of American Universities said they have experienced a sexual assault of some kind since enrolling in college. While the survey includes a broader definition of sexual assault than some researchers on the topic advocate using, it also breaks down types of sexual assault and found that 11 percent of female students reported that the sexual assault involved penetration.
Nearly 28 percent of female undergraduates responding to a campus survey at University of Wisconsin-Madison say they’ve been sexually assaulted.
More than one in every four undergraduate women (27.6 percent) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report being a victim of sexual assault, according to a new survey released Monday morning by the Association of American Universities (AAU). That’s a higher rate than the 23.1 percent of female undergraduates who reported being victims in the survey conducted by 27 universities nationwide.
The data comes from a questionnaire that was sent by email to UW students in April and May. Roughly 22 percent of the undergraduate population answered the questions in the survey. It also found that of those students who were sexually assaulted, only 26.1 percent reported the incident to authorities.
A University of Wisconsin System policy on tenure has to include a policy for post-tenure review of faculty if it is going to satisfy concerns about accountability of the university, Regent John Behling said Thursday.
A $22 million donation to the UW-Madison College of Engineering will be aimed at helping undergraduate students by supporting a tutoring center and giving them more opportunities for hands-on learning, officials said Thursday.
Work or play, it’s great to be a Badger. A number of recent rankings — both silly and serious — have placed the University of Wisconsin-Madison among the world’s best universities.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has announced a $22 million gift to elevate undergraduate engineering programs at the campus.
A conflict is escalating over U.S. researchers’ use of human fetal tissue. Legislators in Wisconsin last week advanced a bill that would make it a felony for scientists working in the state to conduct studies using tissue or cells obtained from recently aborted fetuses. The measure, approved by a committee of the Wisconsin State Assembly, has drawn opposition from universities and research groups, who say it will stifle important disease studies. The bill is likely just the first of many similar state-level efforts, science policy observers predict.
UW Biological Anthropologist Carolina Vansickle talks to News 3 This Morning avout the UW’s involvement in the discovery of a new species of human ancestor in South Africa.
University of Wisconsin System leaders are continuing to travel throughout Wisconsin to build stronger connections between businesses, citizens and higher education.
The Republican leader of the Wisconsin Senate said Tuesday that he wants to pass a bill banning the sale of tissue obtained from aborted fetuses, but he doesn’t know yet how it would apply to research.
Faculty at UW-Madison holds the authority to make academic program changes on campus of the kind that can trigger layoffs or termination of tenured faculty under newly revised law, a draft policy proposal asserts.
The Republican leader of the Wisconsin Senate said Tuesday that he wants to pass a bill banning the sale of tissue obtained from aborted fetuses, but he doesn’t know yet how it would apply to research.
A UW-Madison faculty committee on Monday unanimously approved new standards for laying off tenured professors, a few months after legislators drew national attention by weakening them in the state budget.
Two top leaders within the University of Wisconsin System are hitting the road this fall to make new connections and strengthen existing relationships between Wisconsin businesses, residents and the public higher education system.
Proposed legislation banning research using tissue from aborted fetuses would have a devastating impact on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. That was the warning of Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Friday, who told the UW System Board of Regents that the restriction currently being considered by the Legislature could have potential impacts on the university that are “greater than anything we have discussed around budget cuts.”
The scurrilous attacks on Planned Parenthood — based on hidden-camera videos falsely purporting to show that it illegally sells fetal issue — have turned into attacks on fetal tissue research in Congress and in several state legislatures.
The UW Board of Regents will not yet make a formal statement about a fetal tissue research ban circulating in the Legislature. Members of the board said Friday that they do have concerns about the measure that would make it a felony to do research on fetal tissue derived after January 1, 2015.
The scurrilous attacks on Planned Parenthood — based on hidden-camera videos falsely purporting to show that it illegally sells fetal issue — have turned into attacks on fetal tissue research in Congress and in several state legislatures.Various bills now threaten to curtail or eliminate research that has already benefited millions of Americans and is poised to benefit many more.
Every once in a while research and advancement of knowledge at the University of Wisconsin can leave one in awe. It has again this week with the announcement of the UW-led discovery of fossils being described as a new species of human.
The state’s largest business lobbying group on Thursday came out against a bill banning research on tissue from aborted fetuses, further clouding the future of legislation key Republicans hope to pass this fall.
When the guiding mission of the state’s public higher education system for more than a century was on the line in January, stunned educators accused Gov. Scott Walker of trying to kill the Wisconsin Idea in his proposed state budget. The debate drew national attention.
A Wisconsin state Assembly committee has passed a Republican-backed bill opposed by the University of Wisconsin that would prohibit research using tissue obtained from aborted fetuses.
Wednesday’s vote makes the bill available for a vote by the full Assembly as soon as later this month. It’s unclear whether the measure has enough support to pass the Senate, where Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has not commented on its chances.
Buried deep inside a cave in South Africa, researchers have discovered the remains of what scientists are calling mankind’s closest ‘cousin.’ University of Wisconsin researchers are part of an international team investigating the discovery of homo naledi fossils.
“We have a new species of Homo, with all of its interesting characteristics,” John Hawks, a University of Wisconsin-Madison paleoanthropologist said.
What the scientists found was a species of human ancestor that had never been identified before: Homo naledi, an upright-walking hominid believed to be like a cousin on our family tree.
Two Republicans dissented Wednesday on parts of a bill allowing certain types of research using fetal tissue and banning certain other types, falling short of blocking the proposal but provoking a surprised reaction from the committee’s GOP chairman.
The excitement had been building for weeks, first as Alia Gurtov responded to a Facebook post seeking skilled and “skinny” paleontologists, then as she learned she was one of six women chosen, and finally now, as she crept through a South African cave, approaching a new chamber believed to hold clues to our earliest history.
For University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Alia Gurtov, a very pivotal morning in her life started like any other: Wake up, check Facebook.
When an amateur caver and university geologist arrived at Lee Berger’s house one night in late 2013 with a fragment of a fossil jawbone in hand, they broke out the beers and called National Geographic.
Researchers in South Africa discovered extensive remains of a previously unknown humanlike species in a subterranean boneyard, highlighting an early offshoot of humankind and raising questions about the origins of ritual burial and self-awareness, the scientists announced on Thursday.
Acting on a tip from spelunkers two years ago, scientists in South Africa discovered what the cavers had only dimly glimpsed through a crack in a limestone wall deep in the Rising Star cave: lots and lots of old bones.
A trove of bones hidden deep within a South African cave represents a new species of human ancestor, scientists announced Thursday in the journal eLife. Homo naledi, as they call it, appears very primitive in some respects—it had a tiny brain, for instance, and apelike shoulders for climbing. But in other ways it looks remarkably like modern humans. When did it live? Where does it fit in the human family tree? And how did its bones get into the deepest hidden chamber of the cave—could such a primitive creature have been disposing of its dead intentionally?
The two amateur cavers had to feel their way along the cave’s winding passages, crawl on their stomachs through an opening less than 10 inches high, ascend a jagged wall, cross a narrow ledge dubbed the “Dragon’s Back,” and make a 400-foot descent, sideways, through a vertical crack before finally arriving at the prize: a 30-foot-long chamber probably between 2 million and 3 million years old.
Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of an unusual human-like creature that lived long ago. Exactly how long ago is still a mystery — and that’s not the only mystery surrounding this newfound species.
A Wisconsin bill that would limit the research use of fetal tissue from abortions is gaining momentum, over the protest of scientists who say the measure would stifle progress in disease research. The bill, approved today by a committee in the state assembly and expected to win the support of the full assembly this fall, is the first in what many predict will be a series of battles waged at the state level against the distribution and use of fetal tissue.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison fundraising challenge has exceeded expectations, with an endowment fund generating almost $250 million for professorships and chairs.
Biomedical researchers use fetal tissue in their quest to treat diseases. Sometimes they use older cell lines, other times fresh tissue. The bill an Assembly committee will vote on Wednesday would let Wisconsin scientists use the older lines, but it would become a crime to use new fetal tissue or to sell it.
Research could continue in the state on longstanding lines of tissue derived from abortions but University of Wisconsin-Madison officials say some science could be hindered, under a bill that Republican lawmakers are poised to advance Wednesday
A $200 million gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will help to attract and keep top-quality faculty, and has grown larger and faster than expected. UW alumni John and Tashia Morgridge put up $100 million dollars last year and urged UW supporters to match it. They figured that would take up to three years, but it only took seven months to raise an additional 125-million.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison fundraising drive that began last fall with a $100 million pledge has generated a quarter of a billion dollars, university officials announced Tuesday.
A proposed fetal tissue ban has been amended to allow continued work with widely used cells, but UW-Madison and biotech officials still oppose the measure, saying it threatens to shut down important medical research.
A record-shattering gift to help recruit and retain world-class faculty has grown to be worth a quarter-billion dollars thanks to urgent and strong support from alumni, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is poised to announce Tuesday.
The largest-ever gift to UW-Madison has turned out bigger than expected.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison fundraising drive that began last fall with a $100 million pledge has generated a quarter of a billion dollars, university officials announced Tuesday.
Facing what is sure to be a difficult retention season, given this year’s battles over the future of higher education funding and tenure in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin at Madison is today announcing the results of a massive donation-matching campaign aimed at recognizing top faculty members with endowed chairs.
UW-Madison is the 11th best public college in the country and the 69th top college overall, according to Forbes Magazine.
The head of a big Wisconsin paper company is donating $10 million for scholarships and faculty support at the University of Wisconsin.
Tom Falk and his wife Karen are both UW alums and have donated in the past.
