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Like exploring the inner workings of a clock, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers is digging into the inner workings of the tiny cellular machines called spliceosomes, which help make all of the proteins our bodies need to function. In a recent study published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, UW-Madison’s David Brow, Samuel Butcher and colleagues have captured images of this machine, revealing details never seen before.

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Soils that formed on the Earth’s surface thousands of years ago and that are now deeply buried features of vanished landscapes have been found to be rich in carbon, adding a new dimension to our planet’s carbon cycle.

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Studying stream bubbles isn’t exactly a walk in the park. What, with the mud and ticks, the long days hiking and swimming through mucky streams, the sun exposure and scratching brush.

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At first, the students considered creating an app or a smart device. But when they got down to it, they decided simplicity really is bliss. Now, the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and undergraduates’ product — designed to help people take the right medication at the right time at the right dosage — is turning heads in business and the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries for its potential to save lives and money.

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison, home of pioneering ecologists who studied lakes, forests, wetlands and prairies, is playing a key role in the next wave of ecological research: large teams of scientists confronting the dilemma of a changing climate on a shrinking planet.

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The relationship between the Hawaiian bobtail squid and the bacterium Vibrio fischeri is well chronicled, but writing in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a group led by University of Wisconsin-Madison microbiologists Margaret McFall-Ngai, Edward Ruby and their colleagues adds a new wrinkle to the story.

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The latitude at which tropical cyclones reach their greatest intensity is gradually shifting from the tropics toward the poles at rates of about 33 to 39 miles per decade, according to a study published today (May 14, 2014) in the journal Nature.

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A young business a University of Wisconsin-Madison grad student started, which links drivers with empty seats to people needing a ride between cities, is ready to launch a mobile app.

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In medicine, time isn’t just money: it can mean the difference between life and death. To ease the burden, biomedical engineer Sarah Sandock has invented a simple, inexpensive, single-use timer that could be worn like a wristwatch to tell a nurse when to administer a drug or unhook a medical device.

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Marital stress may make people more vulnerable to depression, according to a recent study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and their colleagues.

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Seeing their babies’ ultrasound images for the first time is a powerful moment for expectant fathers, and could hasten family bonding and provide an opportunity for promoting positive partnering and parenting, according to a new study.

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It's a scientific axiom: big claims require extra-solid evidence. So when University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscience professor John Valley dated an ancient crystal to 4.4 billion years ago, skeptics questioned the dating. Then, in 2013, Valley's colleagues at CAMECA put the zircon inside an ultra-precise atom probe and, Valley says, got "data that answered the most serious of the challenges going back to 2001."

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Using just a single drop of blood, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has developed a faster, cheaper and more accurate tool for diagnosing even mild cases of asthma.

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Like rings of a tree, hair can reveal a lot of information about the past. And, as a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study of rhesus monkeys, it can also reveal the womb environment in which an infant formed.

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If you start feeling better as spring begins pushing up its tender shoots, you might be living proof of a trend discovered in data from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin: The more green space in the neighborhood, the happier people reported feeling.

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When the Earned Income Tax Credit was expanded in 1993, supporters hoped it would reward poor parents for working while critics feared that it might discourage single mothers from marrying or incentivize women to have more children to boost their tax refund. A new collaborative study done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cornell University reveals the EITC has helped the working poor but hasn’t affected personal choices.

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As one of the most widely consumed and commercially important beverages on the planet, one would expect the experts to know everything there is to know about lager beer. Now, however, scientists are beginning to color in the margins of yeast ecology and genetics, identifying new strains in new environments and using the tools of molecular biology to ferret out traits that could aid industrial fermentation technologies.

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For Simon Gilroy, sometimes seeing is believing. In this case, it was seeing the wave of calcium sweep root-to-shoot in the plants the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of botany is studying that made him a believer.

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By studying nerve cells that originated in patients with a severe neurological disease, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has pinpointed an error in protein formation that could be the root of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

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The latest results from a 25-year study of diet and aging in monkeys shows a significant reduction in mortality and in age-associated diseases among those with calorie-restricted diets. The study, begun at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989, is one of two ongoing, long-term U.S. efforts to examine the effects of a reduced-calorie diet on nonhuman primates.

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Desperate patients are easy prey for unscrupulous clinics offering untested and risky stem cell treatments, says law and bioethics Professor Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is studying “stem cell tourism.”

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Extra sales taxes on soda may not do anything to improve people’s health, according to new research from health economist Jason Fletcher of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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As stem cells continue their gradual transition from the lab to the clinic, a research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered a new way to make large concentrations of skeletal muscle cells and muscle progenitors from human stem cells.

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Equipment and electricity for cooling are a major expense at big computer installations, and Timothy Shedd, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Madison, has invented a system that can do the job more efficiently.

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Using more than 2 million images collected by NASA’s orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, a team of Wisconsin scientists has stitched together a dramatic 360 degree portrait of the Milky Way, providing new details of our galaxy’s structure and contents.

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Capitalizing on the ability of an organism to evolve in response to punishment from a hostile environment, scientists have coaxed the model bacterium Escherichia coli to dramatically resist ionizing radiation and, in the process, reveal the genetic mechanisms that make the feat possible.

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A new study in animals shows that using a compound to block the body’s immune response greatly reduces disability after a stroke.

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A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has detected a higher rate of seizures among children with autism who were fed infant formula containing soy protein rather than milk protein. The study found excess seizures among girls and in the total sample of 1,949 children. The soy-seizure link reached borderline significance among boys, who comprised 87 percent of the children described in the database under study.

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Fathers who returned after military service report having difficulty connecting with young children who sometimes don’t remember them, according to a study released this week.

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The ruins of Sardis have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity since the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia. Now, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.

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Mahal, the young orangutan who became a star of the Milwaukee County Zoo and an emblem of survival for a dwindling species, led an extraordinary life. It turns out, the young ape died an extraordinary death, too.

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A group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is examining alternative materials that can be modified to absorb oil and chemicals without absorbing water. If further developed, the technology may offer a cheaper and “greener” method to absorb oil and heavy metals from water and other surfaces.

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Field ecologists go to great lengths to get data: radio collars and automatic video cameras are only two of their creative techniques for documenting the natural world. So when a group of ecologists set out to see how wind moves seeds through isolated patches of habitat carved into a longleaf pine plantation in South Carolina, they twisted colored yarn to create mock seeds that would drift with the wind much like native seeds.

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With the help of a tiny fragment of zircon extracted from a remote rock outcrop in Australia, the picture of how our planet became habitable to life about 4.4 billion years ago is coming into sharper focus.

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In a study published last week in the journal Science, Choi and postdoctoral researcher Tae Woo Kim combined cheap, oxide-based materials to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases using solar energy with a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 1.7 percent, the highest reported for any oxide-based photoelectrode system.

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A multi-university team of engineers has developed what could be a promising solution for charging smartphone batteries on the go — without the need for an electrical cord.

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As many American public school districts adopt single-sex classrooms and even entire schools, a new study finds scant evidence that they offer educational or social benefits. The study was the largest and most thorough effort to examine the issue to date, says Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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For the three-toed sloth, a trip to the restroom is no rest at all. It’s a long, slow descent into mortal danger from the safety of home among the upper branches of the forest.

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For plants, the only way to grow is for cells to expand. Unlike animals, cell division in plants happens only within a tiny region of the root and stem apex, making cell expansion the critical path to increased stature. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports the discovery of a hormone and receptor that control cell expansion in plants.

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Using a plant-derived chemical, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a process for creating a concentrated stream of sugars that’s ripe with possibility for biofuels.

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Why do animals ranging from fruit flies to humans all need to sleep? After all, sleep disconnects them from their environment, puts them at risk and keeps them from seeking food or mates for large parts of the day.

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Even scientists are fond of thinking of the human brain as a computer, following sets of rules to communicate, make decisions and find a meal. But if the brain is like a computer, why do brains make mistakes that computers don’t?

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Poverty may have direct implications for important, early steps in the development of the brain, saddling children of low-income families with slower rates of growth in two key brain structures, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body.

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With the help of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Australia Telescope Compact Array, an international team of astronomers has identified the glowing wreck of a star that exploded a mere 2,500 years ago — the blink of an eye in astronomical terms.

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A University of Wisconsin-Madison research team reports today that the brain can produce and release estrogen — a discovery that may lead to a better understanding of hormonal changes observed from before birth throughout the entire aging process.

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The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a particle detector buried in the Antarctic ice, is a demonstration of the power of the human passion for discovery, where scientific ingenuity meets technological innovation. Today, nearly 25 years after the pioneering idea of detecting neutrinos in ice, the IceCube Collaboration announces the observation of 28 very high-energy particle events that constitute the first solid evidence for astrophysical neutrinos from cosmic accelerators.

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Alexander disease is a devastating brain disease that almost nobody has heard of — unless someone in the family is afflicted with it. Alexander disease strikes young or old, and in children destroys white matter in the front of the brain. Many patients, especially those with early onset, have significant intellectual disabilities.

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Even as the rate of diagnosis has reached 11 percent among American children aged 4 to 17, neuroscientists are still trying to understand attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). One classic symptom is impulsivity — the tendency to act before thinking.

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Subtle differences in the shape of proteins protect some and endanger others. “All mammals make this same protein called amylin, and it only differs a little bit from species to species,” says Martin Zanni, a University of Wisconsin–Madison chemistry professor. “The mammals that get type 2 diabetes, their amylin proteins aggregate in the pancreas into plaque that kills the cells around them. As a result, you can’t make insulin.”