Category: UW Experts in the News

Next month President Bush will present both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of TechnologyÃ?­-the nation’s highest awards in those fields-to affiliates of UW-Madison.

Madison, Wis. � A blend of mobile, electronic learning techniques could be the future of education.

Judy Brown, an analyst of emerging technology for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Academic ADL Co-Lab, spoke to the Madison chapter of the World Future Society last Thursday night about the developing trend dubbed ââ?¬Å?me learningââ?¬Â.

In the film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a computer named HAL ran an entire spaceship. Likewise, at the Biotron, one of UW-Madison’s most advanced research facilities, an enormous server directs all building operations. Conditions need to be finely controlled because the Biotron houses some of the most revolutionary research conducted quietly on campus.

The annual Polar Plunge makes its way to Madison’s Lake Monona Saturday. The cold-water dive raises money for Special Olympics and also lets participants face their fears and test their limits in a challenging-but eminently harmless-environment.

Chair of the University of Wisconsin biochemistry department, Hector DeLuca, announced Friday he will be stepping down from his administrative position.

UW-Madison scientist Hector DeLuca, an international authority on vitamin D whose patents have earned the university millions in royalties, will step down in July as chairman of the biochemistry department he has led for the past 35 years.

A UW-Madison researcher has discovered a startling relationship between a breed of ants and the fungus from which the ants derive nutrients. The ants produce chemicals that protect the fungus from bacterial parasites. As the bacteria evolve to survive the pesticides, the ants evolve new pesticides against the bacteria, in a 50-million-year-old chemical arms race that could one day help humans design more precise antibiotics.

A researcher is looking for males and females ages 10 to 15 with fragile X syndrome.

Quoted: Andrew Cohn, a spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin-Madison�s Alumni Research Foundation.

A team of UW researchers has discovered how to revive dying neurons that are responsible for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer�s and Parkinson�s.

UW-Madison received more funding for stem-cell research Thursday in the form of a $1.25 million grant presented to a team led by James Thomson from the Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation, according to a press release.

One month after the tsunami that hit shores of countries bordering the Indian Ocean, fear of a potential infectious-diseases outbreak arose. In a presentation at the Overture Center Tuesday evening, University of Wisconsin Medical School professor Dennis Maki said the potential plagues in the region are also a concern for tsunami victims.

In addition to improving attention and concentration, meditation might also create long-term changes in the brain that improve focus even when a person is no longer in a meditative state, according to a recent UW-Madison study of Buddhist monks and meditation scholars.

Amid opposition from religious groups and a lack of firm support from the government, UW-Madison scientists formed spinal motor neurons from human embryonic stem cells.

University of Wisconsin scientists are the first researchers to coax human embryonic stem cells into spinal motor neurons, a feat that could eventually lead to treatment of individuals with damaged nervous systems, causing disorders such as Lou Gehrig�s disease or muscular dystrophy.

A $5 million Prime Focus Imaging Spectrograph (PFIS), capable of viewing distant galaxies and stars, was presented Friday by the University of Wisconsin�s Space Astronomy Laboratory.

Only in the strange world of astronomy does it make sense to travel halfway around the world to an observatory at the edge of the Kalahari Desert to get a better look at ourselves. But that makes perfect sense to UW-Madison astronomer Ken Nordsieck. In fact, his bags are packed. Nordsieck is part of a group of UW-Madison astronomers who will be traveling to South Africa next month to help complete and christen the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. When it is done, the telescope, the $18-million South African Large Telescope, or SALT, will allow astronomers to peer at the most distant objects ever observed, including remnants of the Big Bang itself.

All federally approved human embryonic stem-cell lines currently available are suspected to be contaminated with an animal molecule, suggesting stem-cell use in medical applications could be unsafe.

The death toll from the Dec. 26 tsunami has reached between 160,000 and 230,000 people. As aid workers clean up the devastated areas, they notice something odd-while human corpses are everywhere, animal carcasses are rarely found. This observation has rekindled debates as to whether animals possess an innate sixth sense that enables them to foretell impending natural disasters and flee before the calamity strikes.