With exploding consumer demand for Greek yogurt, production is up. That’s great for food companies’ bottom lines, but it also leaves them dealing with a lot more acid whey, a problematic byproduct of the Greek yogurt-making process. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are developing a way to transform this trash into treasure.
A new study published today [Monday, March 2, 2015] in Nature Plants shows that hungry, plant-eating insects may limit the ability of forests to take up elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, reducing their capacity to slow human-driven climate change.
Two UW-Madison graduate students are working to introduce highly productive kits for farming mealworms to regions such as sub-Saharan Africa where eating insects is already culturally palatable. They are just practicing what they are beginning to preach: insects, and mealworms in particular, are an overlooked, healthful, economically viable and sustainable source of nutrition for people.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) have identified the biological mechanism that may give some cancer cells the ability to form tumors in dogs. The recent study uncovered an association between the increased expression of a particular gene in tumor cells and more aggressive behavior in a form of canine bone cancer. It may also have implications for human cancers by detailing a new pathway for tumor formation.
Is there a life for compact discs in the age of the cloud? No, and yes, is the answer from Murfie, a Madison business founded by two UW-Madison alumni that is now in its fourth year of operation. No: It’s a hassle to juggle discs. Yes: Ownership of the disc gives you the right to play its music through a cloud-connected device in your car, home, office or pocket. Murfie’s business is encoding music from customers’ CDs onto its hard drives, and then playing them through any device a customer owns.
When Edgar Spalding crunches data on Wisconsin corn, the numbers boggle the mind. Four million acres are planted annually, with 30,000 seeds planted per acre, producing about 120 billion seedlings sprouting skyward each May. With help from the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC), Spalding is applying this astronomical sense of scale to our understanding of corn. Spalding uses the HTC capabilities pioneered by Miron Livny, Morgridge Institute for Research chief technology officer, to quantify the incredibly complex process of corn growth from seed to vigorous seedling — not just one at a time, but over thousands of samples.
Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center, and his research team have published a unique model for learning more about the role of human astrocytes in the Journal of Clinical Investigation today. The findings may lay a foundation for the treatment of a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and debilitating spinal cord injuries.
As thesis writing approached, University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Veronica Berns faced a conundrum. She knew how hard it was to describe her work to friends and family — indeed, anybody outside the tight clan of structural chemists. And that was particularly true since she concentrated on a category of should-be-impossible structures called “quasicrystals.” However, Berns liked drawing and using “normal, English-language words,” and so about a year before graduation, she opted to accompany her traditional Ph.D. thesis with a comic book version, “Atomic Size Matters.”
Prekindergarten students in the Madison Metropolitan School District took part in a study assessing a new curriculum meant to promote social, emotional and academic skills, conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (CIHM) at the Waisman Center. Researchers found that kids who had participated in the curriculum earned higher marks in academic performance measures and showed greater improvements in areas that predict future success than kids who had not. The results were recently published in the journal Developmental Psychology.
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has developed a new tool to help engineers better gauge the overall yield, efficiency and costs associated with scaling solar-fuel production processes up into large-scale refineries.
In a new study to evaluate the Brazilian Soy Moratorium, published today (Jan. 22, 2015) in Science, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Holly Gibbs and colleagues across the U.S. and Brazil show that the moratorium helped to drastically reduce the amount of deforestation linked to soy production in the region and was much better at curbing it than governmental policy alone.
Some industrial robots are hulking, highly specialized pieces of machinery that are cordoned off by cages from human factory workers. But manufacturers have also begun experimenting with a new generation of “cobots” designed to work side-by-side with humans, and University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are playing an important role in making these human-robot collaborations more natural and efficient.
Pelizaeus Merzbacher disease, or PMD, is a devastating neurological condition that, in its most severe form, kills infants weeks after birth. Thirty years ago, UW-Madison neuroscientist Ian Duncan noticed a genetic mutation in dogs that was practically identical to the disease in humans. Now, in the online edition of the journal Neurobiology of Disease, Duncan has laid out the results of his marathon pursuit of PMD.
Manufacturers have begun experimenting with a new generation of “cobots” designed to work side-by-side with humans, and UW-Madison researchers are playing an important role in making these human-robot collaborations more natural and efficient. Bilge Mutlu, an assistant professor of computer sciences, is working with counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to determine best practices for effectively integrating human-robot teams within manufacturing environments. Their research is funded by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of its National Robotics Initiative program.
Preschool teachers who work with bilingual or multilingual children in five states across the country, and as many as 13 additional states, soon will begin using new learning tools and receiving specialized training developed and provided by WIDA, an international nonprofit specializing in English and Spanish language development based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
What if there were a way to take the mind-boggling amount of existing computer code, organize it, and learn from it in a way that makes writing new code more error-free and secure? That scenario is headed toward reality thanks to a project called Pliny, which takes its name from the Roman naturalist and philosopher who authored the first encyclopedia. Pliny is being funded by a four-year, $11 million grant recently announced by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Department of Defense.
An international team of researchers says climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed beyond levels that put humanity in a “safe operating space.” Civilization has crossed four of nine so-called planetary boundaries as the result of human activity, according to a report published today in Science by the 18-member research team.
Xiaojun Tan, a graduate student in Richard A. Anderson's lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, made an unexpected observation while studying the locations inside cells where EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) can be found. His subsequent investigation revealed how some cancers evade clinical drugs: by sneaking through the cellular back door. Tan found that cancer cells are able to use the inactive EGFR form to thrive.
University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have made a significant leap toward creating higher-performance electronics with improved battery life — and the ability to flex and stretch. Led by materials science Associate Professor Michael Arnold and Professor Padma Gopalan, the team has reported the highest-performing carbon nanotube transistors ever demonstrated. In addition to paving the way for improved consumer electronics, this technology could also have specific uses in industrial and military applications.
A group of University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers has provided new insights on hydrophobic interactions within complex systems. In a study published today in the journal Nature, the researchers show how the nearby presence of polar (water-attracted, or hydrophilic) substances can change the way the nonpolar hydrophobic groups want to stick to each other.
In 1961, with memories of Holocaust atrocities and the prosecution of Nazi officials at Nuremburg still fresh, psychologist Stanley Milgram undertook a series of now infamous experiments on obedience and reprehensible behavior. But Milgram divided his subjects into just two categories: obedient or disobedient. After examining the experiences of more than 100 of Milgram’s participants, Matthew Hollander, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, sees a great deal more nuance in their performances.
A new study finds that the period of frozen ground has declined by an average of two or three weeks since 1948. During that time, wood harvests have shifted in years with more variability in freezing and thawing to red pine and jack pine — species that grow in sandy, well-drained soil that can support trucks and heavy equipment when not frozen.
Emeritus Professor Neal First, a pioneer in cattle reproduction and cloning who studied animal physiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 45 years, died Nov. 20 from complications of cancer. His work in the 1980s on how sperm and eggs are prepared, or matured, for fertilization set the stage for in vitro fertilization of cattle.
Known as the “inside-out” theory of eukaryotic cell evolution, an alternative view of how complex life came to be was published recently in the open access journal BMC Biology.
Dave Pagliarini, a UW-Madison assistant professor of biochemistry, recently published two studies shedding more light on coenzyme Q and how it’s made, one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) in October and another today in Molecular Cell.
For seven years, an area larger than the city of Madison has been rising by 10 inches per year. That rapid rise provides a major scientific opportunity: to explore a mega-volcano before it erupts. That effort, and the hazard posed by the restless magma reservoir beneath Laguna del Maule, are described in a major research article in the December issue of GSA Today.
This year, a computer system developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison equaled or bested scientists at the complex task of extracting data from scientific publications and placing it in a database that catalogs the results of tens of thousands of individual studies.
El Nino is not a contemporary phenomenon; it’s long been the Earth’s dominant source of year-to-year climate fluctuation. But as the climate warms and the feedbacks that drive the cycle change, researchers want to know how El Nino will respond. A team of researchers led by the University of Wisconsin’s Zhengyu Liu published the latest findings in this quest Nov. 27, 2014 in Nature.
By comparing grasshoppers found at woodland sites once used for agriculture to similar sites never disturbed by farming, UW-Madison Philip Hahn and John Orrock show that despite decades of recovery, the numbers and types of species found in each differ, as do the understory plants and other ecological variables, like soil properties.
On August 14, 1864, in a Union Army camp in Georgia, a captain from Wisconsin plucked a plant, pressed it onto a sheet of paper, wrote a letter describing the plant as "certainly the most interesting specimen I ever saw," and sent it with the plant to a scientist he called "Friend" in Wisconsin.
As real as that daydream may seem, its path through your brain runs opposite reality. Aiming to discern discrete neural circuits, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have tracked electrical activity in the brains of people who alternately imagined scenes or watched videos.
In a comprehensive new study published today in the journal Cell Host and Microbe, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Yoshihiro Kawaoka and a team of researchers have revealed methods for thwarting influenza viruses by shutting down the cellular machinery they need, like cutting the fuel line on a bank robber’s getaway car.
In a study published Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Nature, scientists at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and McGill University show that a steep rise in the productivity of crops grown for food accounts for as much as 25 percent of the increase in this carbon dioxide (CO2) seasonality.
As the installation of photovoltaic solar cells continues to accelerate, scientists are looking for inexpensive materials beyond the traditional silicon that can efficiently convert sunlight into electricity. Theoretically, iron pyrite could do the job, but when it works at all, the conversion efficiency remains frustratingly low. Now, a University of Wisconsin-Madison research team explains why that is, in a discovery that suggests how improvements in this promising material could lead to inexpensive yet efficient solar cells.
Asthma that requires daily medication is associated with a significantly higher risk of heart attack or stroke, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH).
University of Wisconsin-Madison computer science researchers have developed a method for using social media posts to estimate air pollution levels with significant accuracy.
A team from the Morgridge Institute for Research regenerative biology group, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and stem cell pioneer James Thomson, discovered a way to impose an immortal-like state on mouse progenitor cells responsible for producing blood and vascular tissue. By regulating a small number of genes, the cells became “trapped” in a self-renewing state and capable of producing functional endothelial, blood and smooth muscle cells.
University of Wisconsin-Madison computer science and medical researchers have teamed up to create a sophisticated new simulator to help surgical students practice detailed procedures before operating on live patients.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) a seven-year, $70 million grant for its continuing work on the Inner-City Asthma Consortium (ICAC). The goal of the work is to reduce the severity of asthma in inner-city children.
A conversation with a University of Wisconsin-Madison neurosurgeon prompted two engineering researchers to challenge a commonly held idea about tumor ablation, and as a result, they’re now working to commercialize a new technology that could yield less invasive radiation therapies for cancer patients.
A new professional master’s program will launch at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 2015 and become the first in the world specifically designed to train analytically minded students to evaluate energy efficiency and other resource-conservation initiatives.
Researchers at Simon Gilroy's lab in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this afternoon greeted a truck carrying small containers holding more than 1,000 frozen plants that germinated and grew aboard the International Space Station.
L’Oreal USA and the American Association for the Advancement of Science selected Katie Brenner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison postdoctoral researcher, as one of five female scientists in the U.S. to receive the For Women in Science Fellowship this year. Brenner is developing technology to help in the early diagnosis of illness in premature infants
In September, a group of UW-Madison professors and their colleagues published a study in the journal Journalism & Mass Communications Quarterly showing a connection between “h-index” — a measure of the quality of a researcher’s work and influence — and whether the scientists interact with reporters and get mentioned on Twitter.
Scientists today disclosed a new method to convert lignin, a biomass waste product, into simple chemicals. The innovation is an important step toward replacing petroleum-based fuels and chemicals with biorenewable materials, says Shannon Stahl, an expert in “green chemistry” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Applying a similar approach to the 3-D printer, a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison students are commercializing a device that adds color to a printer that now dominates the market. Their business idea was one of two student projects to receive an Igniter grant from the university’s Discovery to Product (D2P) office.
Hollow coring drills designed and managed by UW-Madison’s Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) program are used to extract ice cores that can analyze the past atmosphere. Shaun Marcott, an assistant professor of geoscience at UW-Madison, was the first author of a paper published today in the journal Nature documenting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 23,000 and 9,000 years ago, based on data from an 11,000-foot hole in Antarctica.
For the first time, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have measured the forces that act on a swimming animal and the energy the animal must expend to move through the water.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been awarded an $8.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create a research center focused on urological health. The George O’Brien Center at UW-Madison is a collaboration with the University of Massachusetts-Boston to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of male urinary symptoms associated with hormones, aging, obesity and benign prostate enlargement.
In a new study published this month in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers highlight the urban heat island effect in Madison: The city’s concentrated asphalt, brick and concrete lead to higher temperatures than its nonurban surroundings.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right