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When Wes Schroll moved from a dorm into an apartment and began grocery shopping, he hated it. “Every single one had the same issues,” he says. “I had no idea how much I'd spent until I checked out. Coupons were a pain in the butt, so I never used them. And the checkout was inefficient." Pointing to his smartphone, he adds, "I figured there had to be some way to utilize these pieces of technology that everyone has to streamline the process.”

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The mushroom nicknamed "death cap” made headlines this summer when it poisoned Syrian refugees fleeing through Eastern Europe. But it was cooperation, not toxicity, that attracted Anne Pringle to Amanita phalloides.

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A new species of giant Galapagos tortoise, revealed this week in a study conducted by scientists at Yale University, also happened to be lurking in the collections of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Zoological Museum, it turns out.

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University of Wisconsin–Madison engineer’s solution for streamlining the construction of skyscrapers is having a skyscraper moment in one of the most seismically active regions of the country. All coupling beams in the 1.5 million-square-foot Lincoln Square Expansion —which includes luxury condos, a hotel, dining, retail and office space in two 450-foot towers in the heart of Seattle suburb Bellevue, Washington — are made of fiber-reinforced concrete using a unique design co-developed by Gustavo Parra-Montesinos.

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In May 2007, hundreds of freshwater drum — also known as sheepshead — turned up dead in Lake Winnebago and nearby Little Lake Butte des Morts, both inland lakes near Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The fish were splotched with red and their eyes were swollen and bulging. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) launched a quick response and, working with the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (WVDL), quickly learned that a deadly virus was responsible: viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus, or VHSv.

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A global effort to create a new computer ecosystem that is easily accessible to people with disabilities, senior citizens and others with special needs is set to become reality through a $20 million federal grant to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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How nacre, or mother-of-pearl, is first deposited by the animals that make it has eluded discovery despite decades of scientific inquiry. Now, a team of Wisconsin scientists reports the first direct experimental observations of nacre formation at its earliest stages in a mollusk.

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A study of zircons from a gigantic meteorite impact in South Africa, now online in the journal Geology, casts doubt on the methods used to date lunar impacts.

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A new study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says managing our environment for predictable outcomes is risky. In fact, more often than not, it backfires.

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A new study shows that iron-bearing rocks that formed at the ocean floor 3.2 billion years ago carry unmistakable evidence of oxygen. The only logical source for that oxygen is the earliest known example of photosynthesis by living organisms, say University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscientists.

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The genetic and developmental innovations plants used to make the leap to land have been enduring secrets of nature. Now, an international team of researchers reveals that the aquatic algae from which terrestrial plant life first arose were genetically pre-adapted to form the symbiotic relationships with microorganisms that most land plants need to acquire nutrients from the soil.

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A new University of Wisconsin-Madison study details how extreme temperatures affect urban heat islands — densely built areas where heat-retaining asphalt, brick and concrete make things hotter than their nonurban surroundings.

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Imperfections running through liquid crystals can be used as miniscule tubing, channeling molecules into specific positions to form new materials and nanoscale structures, according to engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The discovery could have applications in fields as diverse as electronics and medicine.

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Many people assume that electronic medical records would simplify doctoring, helping medical staff retrieve symptoms, diagnoses and prescriptions at computer speed. But Jonathan Baran, a Madison entrepreneur who began developing medical automation software while a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says providers often don't see the promised efficiencies.

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The new “poverty numbers” from the U.S. Census Bureau reflect some good news for the nation’s antipoverty efforts, according to UW–Madison experts.

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A $22 million commitment over four years from The Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Illinois, will establish the Grainger Fund for Undergraduate Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering to help give undergraduate students an unparalleled environment that will position them for success, not only academically, but in their future careers.

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Francis Halzen, the University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist and leader of the giant neutrino telescope known as IceCube, has been named winner of a 2015 Balzan Prize. The Balzan Prizes are awarded annually to four scientists, scholars or artists who have distinguished themselves through contributions to four fields chosen more than a year in advance.

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A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers recently released a new computer-aided engineering software program, and its users are already calling it a “gift from heaven.” Mechanical engineering Professor Krishnan Suresh led a team that spent four years developing the software, which assists in optimizing the design of parts for just about anything — from bicycles and airplanes to bridges and furniture.

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"In the hydrogen evolution reaction, the whole game is coming up with inexpensive alternatives to platinum and the other noble metals," says Song Jin, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the online edition of Nature Materials that appears today, Jin's research team reports a hydrogen-making catalyst containing phosphorus and sulfur — both common elements — and cobalt, a metal that is 1,000 times cheaper than platinum.

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Working in a cave complex deep beneath South Africa’s Malmani dolomites, an international team of scientists has brought to light an unprecedented trove of hominin fossils — more than 1,500 well-preserved bones and teeth — representing the largest, most complete set of such remains found to date in Africa. The discovery of the fossils, cached in a barely accessible chamber in a subterranean labyrinth not far from Johannesburg, adds a new branch to the human family tree, a creature dubbed Homo naledi.

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“Gaydar” — the purported ability to infer whether people are gay or straight based on their appearance — seemed to get a scientific boost from a 2008 study that concluded people could accurately guess someone’s sexual orientation based on photographs of their faces. In a new paper published in the Journal of Sex Research, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison challenge what they call “the gaydar myth.”

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Orchids, a fantastically complicated and diverse group of flowering plants, have long blended the exotic with the beautiful. Previously, botanists have proposed more than a half dozen explanations for this diversity. Now, research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published last week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, corroborates many of these explanations, but finds no evidence for other logical suggestions, such as that deceitful pollination.

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Vaccines to protect against an avian influenza pandemic as well as seasonal flu may be mass produced more quickly and efficiently using technology described today (Sept. 2) by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the journal Nature Communications.

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The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, a multi-institutional research center based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has inked a new contract with the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will provide nearly $20 million in support over the next five years.

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The fungus Cryptococcus causes meningitis, a brain disease that kills about 1 million people each year. It’s difficult to treat because fungi are genetically quite similar to humans, so compounds that affect fungi tend to have toxic side effects for patients. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified 18 proteins that play a role in spore formation and germination. The findings raises the possibility of preventing the disease by blocking the spores’ germination.

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Researchers using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have sorted through the billions of subatomic particles that zip through its frozen cubic-kilometer-sized detector each year to gather powerful new evidence in support of 2013 observations confirming the existence of cosmic neutrinos. The evidence is important because it heralds a new form of astronomy using neutrinos, the nearly massless high-energy particles generated in nature’s accelerators: black holes, massive exploding stars and the energetic cores of galaxies.

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A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and a collaborator from China have developed a nanogenerator that harvests energy from a car's rolling tire friction.

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In late 2013, when the neutron star at the heart of one of our galaxy’s oddest supernovae gave off a massive burst of X-rays, the resulting echoes — created when the X-rays bounced off clouds of dust in interstellar space — yielded a surprising new measuring stick for astronomers.

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Fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited intellectual disability and the greatest single genetic contributor to autism. Unlocking the mechanisms behind fragile X could make important revelations about the brain. In a new study published June 4 in the journal Cell Reports, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center and Department of Neuroscience show that two proteins implicated in fragile X play a crucial role in the proper development of neurons in mice.

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In a study published today in ACS Central Science, a research team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Timothy Bertram peels back the mysteries of the structures of tiny aerosol particles at the surface of the ocean. The work shows how the particles’ chemical composition influences their abilities to take in moisture from the air, which indicates whether the particle will help to form a cloud — a key to many basic problems in climate prediction.

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Scientists have prior evidence that the hormone estrogen is a major driver in the growth of cervical cancer, but a new study examining genetic profiles of 128 clinical cases reached a surprising conclusion: Estrogen receptors all but vanish in cervical cancer tumors.

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In a new study published June 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, David C. Schwartz and his University of Wisconsin-Madison research team describe a new approach for studying the cancer genome that Schwartz says will let scientists account for both the individual tiles and the whole mosaic. It enables researchers and clinicians to look at the small- and large-scale genetic changes that define individual cancers.

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A University of Wisconsin-Madison animal scientist has developed an antibiotic-free method to protect animals raised for food against common infections.

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In an effort to alleviate the environmental burden of electronic devices, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has collaborated with researchers in the Madison-based U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) to develop a surprising solution: a semiconductor chip made almost entirely of wood.

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A century spent treating wildfires as emergencies to be stamped out may have cost Central Wisconsin a natural setting that was common and thriving before the state was settled.

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Expansion of cattle pastures has led to the destruction of huge swaths of rain forest in Brazil, home to the world’s largest herd of commercial beef cattle. But a new study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Holly Gibbs shows that market-driven “zero deforestation agreements” have dramatically influenced the behavior of ranchers and the slaughterhouses to which they sell.

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The suspicion that the federal Affordable Care Act reduces options for patients to choose their health care providers proves to be true, according to a new study co-authored by David Weimer, a professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. However, the quality of hospitals in insurance exchange networks was as good or better than those in commercial insurance networks.

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As with rivers, civilizations across the world rise and fall. Sometimes, the rise and fall of rivers has something to do with it. At Cahokia, the largest prehistoric settlement in the Americas north of Mexico, new evidence suggests that major flood events in the Mississippi River valley are tied to the cultural center’s emergence and ultimately, to its decline.

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A new study from a multidisciplinary team, published April 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes a powerful new model to help decision makers maximize the cost-effectiveness of barrier removal projects that also restore migratory fish habitat.

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Scientists today demonstrated the potential for softwoods to process more easily into pulp and paper if engineered to incorporate a key feature of hardwoods. The finding, published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could improve the economics of the pulp, paper and biofuels industries and reduce those industries’ environmental impact.

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For a generation motivated by technology and fast-moving information, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has created an energy-tracking app to make reducing day-to-day energy usage more accessible.

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In a move that could improve the energy storage of everything from portable electronics to electric microgrids, University of Wisconsin–Madison and Brookhaven National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel X-ray imaging technique to visualize and study the electrochemical reactions in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries containing a new type of material, iron fluoride.

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People who live in countries built on centuries of migration from a wide range of other countries are more emotionally expressive than people in more insular cultures, according to research led by University of Wisconsin–Madison psychology Professor Paula Niedenthal.

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Since lasers were invented in 1960, they have penetrated countless scientific, industrial and recreational fields: from eye surgery to DVD players, from cutting steel to triggering ignition in missile stages. That last use is a target market for Alfalight, a University of Wisconsin-Madison spinoff that set out in 1999 to use patented technology to make lasers for the telecommunications industry.

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A company with deep roots at UW-Madison wants to make blood sampling less painful and more convenient. Tasso Inc. is perfecting a device the size of a pingpong ball that extracts a small sample while held against the skin for two minutes.

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Take a material that is a focus of interest in the quest for advanced solar cells. Discover a “freshman chemistry level” technique for growing that material into high-efficiency, ultra-small lasers. The result, disclosed today [Monday, April 13] in Nature Materials, is a shortcut to lasers that are extremely efficient and able to create many colors of light.

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Clearing grasslands to make way for biofuels may seem counterproductive, but University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study today (April 2, 2015) that crops, including the corn and soy commonly used for biofuels, expanded onto 7 million acres of new land in the U.S. over a recent four-year period, replacing millions of acres of grasslands.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a modeling tool to help local communities better understand their vulnerabilities to large storms stoked by climate change.

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Argentina might seem a long way to go for an environmental engineer seeking to better understand land use in Wisconsin. But there are some surprising parallels between the two countries' histories of land use and ecohydrology that could help farmers and officials make better groundwater decisions.

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Research has discovered a role for prolactin, the hormone that stimulates milk production in nursing mothers, in the bond between parents. The study on cotton-top tamarins found a link between prolactin levels and sexual activity and cuddling among paired adults. Although this was a first for prolactin, it has previously been found for oxytocin, a hormone that stimulates childbirth and is linked to a range of pleasurable emotions.