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Culminating a decade of planning, innovation and testing, construction of the world's largest neutrino observatory was successfully completed Dec. 17.

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It’s one of the more frustrating parts of summer. You check the weather forecast, see nothing dramatic, and go hiking or biking. Then, four hours later, a thunderstorm appears out of nowhere and ruins your afternoon.

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Those who choose to pray find personalized comfort during hard times, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist.

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The “A” grades that high schoolers earn aren’t just good for making the honor roll — they also make them healthier as adults, too.

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Bacteria are among the simplest organisms in nature, but many of them can still talk to each other, using a chemical “language” that is critical to the process of infection. Sending and receiving chemical signals allows bacteria to mind their own business when they are scarce and vulnerable, and then mount an attack after they become numerous enough to overwhelm the host’s immune system.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have published a study showing listeners can become effectively deaf to sounds that do not conform to their brains’ expectations.

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A University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor of soil science has just been named U.S. Professor of the Year.

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A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and their colleagues describe a molecular pathway that is a key determinant of the aging process.

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Months of volcanic restlessness preceded the eruptions this spring of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, providing insight into what roused it from centuries of slumber.

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A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports the development of a fully defined culture system that promises a more uniform and, for cells destined for therapy, safer product.

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Nature’s capacity to store carbon, the element at the heart of global climate woes, is steadily eroding as the world’s farmers expand croplands at the expense of native ecosystem such as forests. A group of universities is releasing a study on the topic.

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A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University has devised a technology to more easily obtain membrane proteins for study.

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Researchers may have pinpointed a reason many smokers struggle to quit. According to new research published in the journal Addiction, smokers with a history of anxiety disorders are less likely to quit smoking.

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Psychological well-being is powerful enough to counteract the pull of socioeconomic status on the long-term health of the disadvantaged, according to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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In cold weather, many children can’t resist breathing onto a window and writing in the condensation. Now imagine the window as an electronic device platform, the condensation as a special conductive gas, and the letters as lines of nanowires.

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A University of Wisconsin-Madison doctor who has long worked to increase the entry of women into the scientific workforce has won a grant to develop video games to uncover and neutralize implicit, unintentional biases against women, minorities and people with disabilities.

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The mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin.

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Widespread planting of genetically modified Bt corn throughout the Upper Midwest has suppressed populations of the European corn borer, a major insect pest of corn, with the majority of the economic benefits going to growers who do not plant Bt corn, reports a multistate team of scientists in the Oct. 8 edition of the journal Science.

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Ambitious plans to expand acreage of bioenergy crops could have a major impact on birds in the Upper Midwest, according to a study published today (Oct. 4) in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Typically, monkeys don’t know what to make of a mirror. They may ignore it or interpret their reflection as another, invading monkey, but they don’t recognize the reflection as their own image. Chimpanzees and people pass this “mark” test — they obviously recognize their own reflection and make funny faces, look at a temporary mark that the scientists have placed on their face or wonder how they got so old and grey.

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The world’s rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis.

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Engineering researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard University have demonstrated the low-temperature efficacy of an atomically dispersed platinum catalyst, which could be suitable for on-board hydrogen production in fuel-cell-powered vehicles of the future.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin will lead a dynamic conversation on Wednesday, Sept. 29, with four UW-Madison faculty at the top of their fields to cut through the chatter and tackle the issues at the core of what it means to live in a democracy in 2010.

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Former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist will give this year’s memorial public affairs lecture in honor of Paul Offner, a Wisconsin lawmaker and national policy expert who died in 2004.

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A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate students is among three teams selected to design, build and test an inflatable habitat that will integrate with an existing NASA operational hard-shell prototype, providing a space crew with more livable room.

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A trio of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering professors has launched a new high-performance computing center.

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Fostering community cooperation, building on skills and strengths, and getting strangers to work together -- these are fundamentals of community development.

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In a study that promises to fill in the fine details of the plant world's blueprint for surviving drought, a team of Wisconsin researchers has identified in living plants the set of proteins that help them withstand water stress.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently announced that the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies — formed in Madison in 1980 as a joint venture between the federal agency and the university’s Space Science and Engineering Center — would stay put for at least five more years.

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Most cancers are easier to treat if detected early, so cancer educators emphasize the benefits of screening and prompt treatment. But for immigrants and other “medically underserved communities,” simply handing out a brochure on early detection — even if it’s been translated into the appropriate language — may not work.

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A new study focused on anxiety and brain activity pinpoints the brain regions that are relevant to developing childhood anxiety. The findings, published in the Aug. 12 edition of the journal Nature, may lead to new strategies for early detection and treatment of at-risk children.

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Burning the candle at both ends for a week may take an even bigger toll than you thought.

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It comes as no surprise that many children suffer when a parent is behind bars. But as rates of incarceration grew over the past 30 years, researchers were slow to focus on the collateral damage to children.

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The parents of grown children with autism are more likely to divorce than couples with typically developing children, according to new data from a large longitudinal study of families of adolescents and adults with autism.

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With more than 100 billion neurons and billions of other specialized cells, the human brain is a marvel of nature. It is the organ that makes people unique.

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Establishing a firm link between environmental change and human disease has always been an iffy proposition. Now, however, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, writing in the current (June 16, 2010) online issue of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, presents the most enumerated case to date linking increased incidence of malaria to land-use practices in the Amazon.

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A research team at the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) has developed a powerful new tool that promises to unlock the secrets of biomass degradation, a critical step in the development of cost-effective cellulosic biofuels. The details of this method were published online on June 11 in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

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Genetic abnormalities are most often discussed in terms of differences so miniscule they are actually called “snips” — changes in a single unit along the 3 billion that make up the entire string of human DNA.

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The “mineral-breathing” bacteria found in many oxygen-free environments may be “carbon-breathing” as well.

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Incoming biology students at University of Wisconsin-Madison will get extensive new help navigating the tricky transition from high school to a university that has 31 different majors related to biology, funded by a $1.4 million undergraduate science education grant announced today by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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What Madison Avenue knew decades ago has been observed in brain chemistry. A simple phone call from mom can calm frayed nerves by sparking the release of a powerful stress-quelling hormone, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Scientists have no problem making a menagerie of nanometer-sized objects -- wires, tubes, belts, and even tree-like structures. What they sometimes have been unable to do is explain precisely how those objects form in the vapor and liquid cauldrons in which they are made.

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The vivid colors and designs animals use to interact with their environments have awed and inspired since before people learned to draw on the cave wall.

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A new model of the Earth, 20 years in the making, describes a dynamic three-dimensional puzzle of planetary proportions.

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For more than 30 years, scientists have known that multiple sclerosis (MS) is much more common in higher latitudes than in the tropics. Because sunlight is more abundant near the equator, many researchers have wondered if the high levels of vitamin D engendered by sunlight could explain this unusual pattern of prevalence.

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Materials scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have designed a way to harvest small amounts of waste energy and harness them to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel.

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Exerting delicate control over a pair of atoms within a mere seven-millionths-of-a-second window of opportunity, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created an atomic circuit that may help quantum computing become a reality.

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A novel compound is highly effective against the pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, including some drug-resistant strains, according to new research led by a University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist.

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Genetic interactions between avian H5N1 influenza and human seasonal influenza viruses have the potential to create hybrid strains combining the virulence of bird flu with the pandemic ability of H1N1, according to a new study.

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The great promise of induced pluripotent stem cells is that the all-purpose cells seem capable of performing all the same tricks as embryonic stem cells, but without the controversy.