Seven years ago, Jo Handelsman ‘s mother died after her body became resistant to the antibiotics that were holding her illness at bay.
Today, working in her lab on the UW-Madison campus, hardly a day goes by that Handelsman doesn ‘t think of her mother ‘s death and the frustrating and ultimately failed struggle of doctors to find drugs that would keep her alive.
Two UW-Madison faculty members made considerable efforts in the United Nationsâ?? Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday jointly with former Vice President Al Gore.
Jin-Wen Yu, entering his 10th year in Madison, is the chair of UW-Madison ‘s dance department and director and choreographer of Jin-Wen Yu Dance. In his upcoming show, “Concert 10, ” Yu will showcase three of his old works and two new pieces in recognition of the past decade.
Included: Helen Blackwell, chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Anna Pidgeon, an avian ecologist in the Department of Forest Ecology and Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin gets a look at a couple of presidential contenders this week. Today in Madison it’s Senator Barack Obama . UW political scientist Charles Franklin says the Democrat is a candidate with a problem.
Harold Scheub has taught African storytelling for decades, but he still has the unflagging enthusiasm that kept him walking through southern Africa decades ago to find storytellers in remote areas and learn from them.
The 76-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison professor speaks nonstop rapid-fire to the 460 students crowded into a huge lecture room in Bascom Hall. He talks about the importance of storytelling and how the same patterns of stories have developed over the years in countries on different continents.
“I love my research, I enjoy writing, but my passion is teaching. I haven’t thought of retirement yet,” he said later.
Arts fund raisers should have ready explanations for donors who want to know why culture groups need their gifts as much as social-service charities that serve the poor, writes Andrew Taylor on The Artful Manager.
Mr. Taylor is director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business. He points to articles published in Good magazine and The New York Times, as well as commentary by former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich that question the validity of giving tax breaks for some types of philanthropy.
Quoted: Michael Pariza, director of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A UW-Madison historian, who spoke Wednesday night about his recent book â??Henry Kissinger and the American Centuryâ? at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, was named a young innovator in a special edition of Smithsonian magazine earlier this month.
Q. Why do leaves change color in the fall?
A. Actually, many of the colors we see in the fall are always present, but normally they’re hidden from view, says UW Arboretum native plant gardener Susan Carpenter.
Quoted: Robert Hawkins of the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Physics professor Franz Himpsel of the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Himpsel sits on the scientific advisory board of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin.
Quoted: Perry Kivolowitz, with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Computer Science Department, was the final witness called Wednesday. He testified as an expert for the state, indicating three of the 33 images in question in the case appeared to be digitally altered.
Microsoft’s new HealthVault project is a welcome innovation for consumers â?? and one that should not be a threat to electronic health records pioneer Epic Systems in Verona, a UW professor Patti Brennan said.
Quoted: David Streckfuss, a Southeast Asia scholar who did a PhD on lese majeste and defamation in Thailand for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Frank Tuerkheimer, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin who focuses on Internet-related issues.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet named former UW-Madison professor of genetics, Oliver Smithies, a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine Monday.
Smithies, along with Mario R. Capecchi of the University of Utah and Martin J. Evans of the United Kingdom, received the Nobel Prize â??for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells,â? according to a statement from the Nobel Assembly.
Smithies was a professor at UW-Madison from 1960-1988, when he left for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is currently the Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
As the temperature drops and the daylight ebbs, Hannah Carey gets giddy.
“This is my favorite time of year,” the UW-Madison biologist said. “The magic is happening again.”
Carey is enchanted by hibernation, specifically the seasonal slumber of the 13-lined ground squirrel.
In January, Host-Jablonski started working on a three-year project to build straw-clay homes on tribal lands in the state. Sue Thering, a UW-Madison assistant professor of landscape architecture and a community development specialist for UW-Extension, is coordinating a partnership with several Native American communities in the state to create affordable, energy efficient housing through a grant.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: Doug Wubben, an outreach specialist in the UW-Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems.
Quoted: Brian Kirkpatrick, a professor specializing in genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Quoted: Ingrid Jordt Applbaum, a former Buddhist nun in Burma and now a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, when I asked to speak to her.
UW-Madison nursing Professor Linda Baumann is among 50 of the nation’s health experts chosen to be ambassadors for an organization that works to raise awareness of the need for greater U.S. public and private investment in research to improve health worldwide.
Quoted: Hasan Mukhtar, vice chair of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
New ultrasound machines offer a relatively cheap, painless way to screen people with no symptoms of heart problems for signs of hidden trouble.
Quoted: UW-Madsion cardiologist Dr. James Stein.
How refreshing.
Tea, something that people around the world enjoy consuming, might actually be good for you.
“The most fascinating thing is, to my knowledge, there is no other natural product known that has such diversified effects,” says Hasan Mukhtar, vice chair of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
For most of us, fewer wasps and yellow jackets is welcome news. It means eating outside is much more pleasant. But it’s not welcome news if you’re counting on yellow jackets for your doctorate, like Ben Taylor. He studies how the insects build their nests and search for food. This summer and fall, they’ve been mysteriously quiet.
“We’re not exactly sure why there are fewer numbers. It could be a parasite, it could be some sort of predator,” said Taylor.
Phil Pelleteri studies insects for a living with UW-Extension. He’s also mystified by the disappearance of so many of these stinging, aggressive insects.
Quoted: Jerry O’Brien, director of the UW-Madison Center for Retailing Excellence
Will it be a long, hard winter? Let’s ask Mr. Woolly Bear Caterpillar.
If the cute fuzzy crawler has a big brown stripe in the middle and smaller black stripes on each end, winter will be mild. A small brown stripe in the middle and bigger black stripes, winter will be harsh. At least that’s the scoop in the bug world.
Quoted: UW-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri
Q. Can plants and trees sense when they’re being cut or chopped down?
A. It depends on how you define “sense, ” said UW-Madison botany professor Edgar Spalding.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sports Illustratedâ??s declared â??Best College Sports Town in America,â? now has another thing to add to its bragging rightsâ??its very own sports drink.
Having an X-ray to look for signs of colon cancer may soon be an option for those who dread the traditional scope exam. Two of the largest studies yet of “virtual colonoscopy” show the experimental technique works just as well at spotting potentially cancerous growths as the more invasive method.
Quoted: Dr. Perry Pickhardt, one of the researchers at the University of Wisconsin Medical School who are reporting the results of their study in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Donald A. Downs, an expert in First Amendment law.
Quoted: Joe Newman, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Volker C. Radeloff, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In a statement issued several weeks ago, scientists reported Arctic sea ice coverage has shrunk to its lowest level in more than 30 years, alarming researchers that global warming might be occurring at an even faster rate than expected.
Her patients can ‘t tell Dr. Ruthanne Chun what ‘s wrong with them.
The dogs she sees at UW-Madison ‘s School of Veterinary Medicine don ‘t explain when their front left leg hurts or they feel run-down or they have a suspicious lump.
Quoted: Giulio Tononi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Quoted: Donald Downs, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Wisconsin.
Q. During World War II, Japanese and Germans prisoners of war were detained in camps in Wisconsin. Where were the Wisconsin camps, how long were these people held and what happened to them after the war?
A. More than 3,000 Japanese and 5,000 German POWs were held in Wisconsin during World War II, said Geraldine Strey, reference librarian and archivist at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Quoted: Allan R. Odden, a professor of educational administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies teacher compensation, â??so the momentum is building.â?
The president of Americans for Medical Advancement and a UW-Madison professor and animal researcher clashed heads on the question of whether using animals for research can help scientific advancement for humans at a debate Wednesday in a packed Wisconsin Historical Society building auditorium.
Two respected experts debated the issue of using animal research as a reliable predictor of human diseases and their cures Wednesday night at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, UW-Madison political scientist.
In this era of â??greenâ? living, universities across the nation are taking the necessary steps toward developing a sustainable society. UW-Madison is among those universities. Still, critical sustainable measures remain absent at UW-Madison. Most notably, Camp Randall and Kohl Center events offer little to no active recycling, so recycling at many UW Athletic events is essentially nonexistent.
Two state legislators called on the cable companies Time Warner and Charter Communications to provide Wisconsin residents with the Big Ten Network on Monday.
Quoted: Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin.
Aboard a newly built research vessel, UW-Madison geologist Harold Tobin and a team of scientists set sail Friday on an eight-week expedition to drill, sample and study a fault zone off the coast of Japan.
The international research expedition, which is part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, will look into understanding what causes earthquakes at deep-sea fault lines.
The University of Wisconsin has been awarded a $7.2 million grant for research employing stem cells and growth factors to fight a devastating disease.
Quoted: Narciso Menocal, a professor of art history at the UW-Madison who specializes in architecture.
Note: This is a new weekly profile series that will focus on UW-Madison’s groundbreaking researchers.
The early language transformation has intrigued UW-Madison psychologist Jenny Saffran for more than a decade.
Quoted: Joel Rivlin, deputy director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Nan Enstad, a cultural historian at the University of Wisconsin.
Scientific consensus has settled the questions of whether global warming is occurring and whether humanity is playing a role. So, what to do about it, especially here in Wisconsin?
Failure to act is unacceptable. John Magnuson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who introduced the “silver buckshot” concept during the discussion, told the panel that his research has shown climate change is not some distant problem, either in space or time.
While searching for a mouse that exhibits the behaviors commonly seen in patients with autism, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have stumbled upon a super smart yet socially awkward mouse similar to the loveable Raymond from the 1988 movie â??Rain Man.â?
Droughts, floods, surges in insect populations and threats to food supply may sound like a biblical apocalypse but according to Jonathan Patz, UW-Madison professor of environmental and population health sciences, these are likely future consequences of climate change.
Last week, UW-Madison researchers announced they had created a new form of an enzyme that adds sugar to a variety of chemicals. In the future, researchers hope to use the newly evolved sugar enzymes to improve current drug treatments.
Quoted: Edward Jesse, UW-Madison professor of agriculture and applied economics.
