A global survey of fossil pollen has discovered that the planet’s vegetation is changing at least as quickly today as it did when the last ice sheets retreated around 10,000 years ago.
By engineering a short chunk of protein, or peptide, that can prevent the attachment of human parainfluenza viruses to cells, researchers have improved a method in rodent models intended to help keep children healthy.
In a study published April 16 in ACS Photonics, University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers fabricated graphene into the smallest ribbon structures to date using a method that makes scaling-up simple. In tests with these tiny ribbons, the scientists discovered they were closing in on the properties they needed to move graphene toward usefulness in telecommunications equipment.
Researchers argue that advanced tech, especially CRISPR, demands more robust and thoughtful public engagement if it is to be harnessed to benefit the public without crossing ethical lines.
You can probably guess that losing a job late in life affects your finances and your mental health. But did you know that it can also affect your weight?
In new research, scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found for the first time that disruptions to a particular protein called Akt can lead to the brain changes characteristic of bipolar disorder. The results offer a foundation for research into treating the often-overlooked cognitive impairments of bipolar disorder, such as memory loss, and add to a growing understanding of how the biochemistry of the brain affects health and disease.
A new, nondestructive optical technique will unlock more knowledge about nacre, and in the process could lead to a new understanding of climate history.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a way to use a cell’s own recycling machinery to destroy disease-causing proteins, a technology that could produce entirely new kinds of drugs.
Millions of people are administered general anesthesia each year in the United States alone, but it’s not always easy to tell whether they are actually unconscious. A small proportion of those patients regain some awareness during medical procedures, but a new study of the brain activity that represents consciousness could prevent that potential trauma.
Mexican wolves in the American Southwest disappeared more quickly during periods of relaxed legal protections, almost certainly succumbing to poaching, according to new research published Wednesday.
With this detection, scientists provided another confirmation of the Standard Model of particle physics. It also further demonstrated the ability of IceCube, which detects nearly massless particles called neutrinos using thousands of sensors embedded in the Antarctic ice, to do fundamental physics. The result was published March 10 in Nature.
Grafting neurons grown from monkeys’ own cells into their brains relieved the debilitating movement and depression symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison reported today.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Health have developed a tool that incorporates a person’s age and socioeconomic status to prioritize vaccine distribution among people who otherwise share similar risks due to their jobs.
As a new, apparently more transmissible version of the virus that causes COVID-19 has appeared in several countries, new research finds that the transmissibility of viral strains and the population density of a region will play big roles in how vaccination campaigns can help towns and cities return to more normal activities. The findings suggest that directing vaccines toward densely populated counties would help to interrupt transmission of the disease.
Deforestation dropped by 18 percent in two years in African countries where organizations subscribed to receive warnings from a new service using satellites to detect decreases in forest cover in the tropics.
The proliferation of face coverings to keep COVID-19 in check isn’t keeping kids from understanding facial expressions, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin–Madison psychologists.
Crime rates among undocumented immigrants are just a fraction of those of their U.S.-born neighbors, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of Texas arrest and conviction records.
Multilayer plastic materials are ubiquitous in food and medical supply packaging, particularly since layering polymers can give those films specific properties, like heat resistance or oxygen and moisture control. But despite their utility, those ever-present plastics are impossible to recycle using conventional methods.
By combing the ocean for antimicrobials, scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered a new antifungal compound that efficiently targets multi-drug-resistant strains of deadly fungi without toxic side effects in mice.
Researchers have discovered a previously unknown way that pancreatic cells decide how much insulin to secrete. It could provide a promising new target to develop drugs for boosting insulin production in people with Type 2 diabetes.
In a new study, University of Wisconsin–Madison physicists observed reef-forming corals at the nanoscale and identified how they create their skeletons. The results provide an explanation for how corals are resistant to acidifying oceans and suggest that controlling water temperature, not acidity, is crucial to mitigating loss and restoring reefs.
While decades of monitoring and regulatory efforts have paid little attention to Lake Michigan's tiny tributaries, new research shows that they play an outsized role in feeding algae blooms and impacting coastal waters.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered a way to control the growth of twisting, microscopic spirals of materials just one atom thick. The continuously twisting stacks of two-dimensional materials built by a team led by UW–Madison chemistry Professor Song Jin create new properties that scientists can exploit to study quantum physics on the nanoscale.
MADISON – Ecologists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found that carnivores living near people can get more than half of their diets from human food sources, a major lifestyle disruption that could put North America’s carnivore-dominated ecosystems at risk.
At night in a Ugandan forest, a team of American and African scientists take oral swabs from insect-eating cyclops leaf-nosed bats. In a necropsy room near the Baltic Sea, researchers try to determine what killed a donkey, a Bennett’s tree-kangaroo and a capybara at a German zoo — all of them suffering from severe brain swelling. Neither team was aware of the other, yet they were both about to converge on a discovery that would forever link them — and help solve a long-enduring mystery.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers demonstrated a proof-of-concept stem cell treatment in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease. They found that neurons derived from stem cells can integrate well into the correct regions of the brain, connect with native neurons and restore motor functions.
Nearly 30 years after recording a temperature of minus 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 69.6 Celsius) in Greenland, the measurement has been verified by the World Meteorological Organization as the coldest recorded temperature in the Northern Hemisphere. The measurement was first recorded by a University of Wisconsin–Madison Antarctic Meteorological Research Center Automatic Weather Station in December 1991.
As Americans begin pulling up their sleeves for an annual flu vaccine, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have provided new insights into an alternative vaccine approach that provides broader protection against seasonal influenza.
University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists discovered that many different genetic mutations result in surprisingly similar changes to heart muscle proteins in patients with the most severe manifestations of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
MADISON – Thanks to a bevy of telescopes in space and on Earth — and even a pair of amateur astronomers in Arizona — a University of Wisconsin–Madison astronomer and his colleagues have discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting at breakneck speed around a distant white dwarf star.
Astronomers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their colleagues have discovered that a halo of warm gas surrounding the Magellanic Clouds likely acts as a protective cocoon, shielding the dwarf galaxies from the Milky Way’s own halo and contributing most of the Magellanic Stream’s mass.
How do different bird species respond to extreme weather events that occur for different amounts of time, ranging from weekly events like heat waves to seasonal events like drought? And how do traits unique to different species — for example, how far they migrate or how commonly they occur — predict their vulnerability to extreme weather?
University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists have discovered that a majority of back-pain patients they tested who were taking opioid painkillers produced anti-opioid antibodies. These antibodies may contribute to some of the negative side effects of long-term opioid use.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a method combining sticky nanoparticles with high-precision protein measurement to capture and analyze a common marker of heart disease to reveal details that were previously inaccessible.
A nationally representative survey of young men finds that 90 percent believe their doctors should ask whether they have perpetrated or experienced domestic violence — but only 13 percent have ever been asked. The large gap suggests that physicians have an opportunity to begin more conversations about domestic violence and potentially intervene, says Tova Walsh, a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who led the study.
Chemists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their collaborators have created a highly efficient and long-lasting solar flow battery, a way to generate, store and redeliver renewable electricity from the sun in one device.
Thanks to 20 years of homegrown galactic data, astronomers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, UW–Whitewater and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University have finally figured out just how much energy permeates the center of the Milky Way.
The researchers say it could one day help astronomers track down where all that energy comes from. Understanding the source of the radiation could help explain not only the nature of the Milky Way, but the countless others that resemble it.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have developed a safer and more efficient way to deliver a promising new method for treating cancer and liver disorders and for vaccination — including a COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna Therapeutics that has advanced to clinical trials with humans.
University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have made it possible to remotely determine the temperature beneath the surface of certain materials using a new technique they call depth thermography. The method may be useful in applications where traditional temperature probes won’t work, like monitoring semiconductor performance or next-generation nuclear reactors.
Showing people how their peers feel about diversity in their community can make their actions more inclusive, make members of marginalized groups feel more like they belong, and even help close racial achievement gaps in education, according to a new study. Drawing on strategies that have worked in anti-smoking, safe-sex and energy-saving campaigns, University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers decided to try to change behavior by showing people that positive feelings about diversity are the norm.
— In an animal model for COVID-19 that shares important features of human disease, scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Tokyo and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai show that prior infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus provides protection against reinfection, and treatment with convalescent serum limits virus replication in their lungs.
Freshwater lakes have often been invaded by species from salty environments. New research shows that fluctuating conditions in the home ranges gave these species the genetic flexibility they needed to evolve and adapt to their new homes.
Using the Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper telescope, astronomers have for the first time measured the Fermi Bubbles in the visible light spectrum. The Fermi Bubbles are two enormous outflows of high-energy gas that emanate from the Milky Way and the finding refines our understanding of the properties of these mysterious blobs.
New research shows that in the important ceramic material silicon carbide, carbon atoms collect at those grain boundaries when the material is exposed to radiation. The finding could help engineers better understand the properties of ceramics and could aid in fine-tuning a new generation of ceramic materials.
In almost every region of the world where hurricanes form, their maximum sustained winds are getting stronger. That is according to a new study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Center for Environmental Information and University of WisconsinMadison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, who analyzed nearly 40 years of hurricane satellite imagery.
In a study published today (May 13, 2020) in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists in the U.S. and Japan report that in the laboratory, cats can readily become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and may be able to pass the virus to other cats.
By combining the fine-grained detail available from animal studies with the statistical power of genetic studies involving hundreds of thousands of human genomes, researchers have discovered a new gene involved in regulating the body’s cholesterol.
When the sun expels plasma, the solar wind cools as it expands through space — but not as much as the laws of physics would predict. UW–Madison physicists now know the reason.