A fungicide commonly used by the agricultural industry to protect grains, fruit and vegetables from mold damage seems to kill fungi by a previously uncharacterized mechanism that delivers a metabolic shock to cells, new research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison finds.
We all know that turning off lights and buying energy-efficient appliances affects our financial bottom line. Now, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers, we know that saving energy also saves lives and even more money for consumers by alleviating the costs of adverse health effects attributed to air pollution.
A team led by University of Wisconsin–Madison cancer researchers Richard A. Anderson and Vincent Cryns reports the discovery of an unexpected regulator of the critical protein p53, opening the door to the development of drugs that could target it.
University of Wisconsin researchers developed a community they named THOR, three species of bacteria isolated from soybean roots and grown together. The complex community of microbes developed new behaviors together that couldn’t be predicted from the individual members alone — they grew tougher structures known as biofilms, changed how they moved across their environment, and controlled the release of a novel antibiotic.
By analyzing troves of genetic data and considering a vast number of possible ways to examine it, University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists now have a high degree of confidence that horseshoe crabs do indeed belong within the arachnids.
With a few genetic tweaks, a type of soil bacteria with an appetite for hydrocarbons shows promise as a biological factory for converting a renewable — but frustratingly untapped — bounty into a replacement for ubiquitous plastics.
Freeing thousands of microorganisms to swim in random directions in an infinite pool of liquid may not sound like a recipe for order, but eventually the swarm will go with its own flow. Theoretical modeling led by University of Wisconsin–Madison applied mathematician Saverio Spagnolie shows that the forces generated by different kinds of tiny swimmers will sweep them all up in predictable ways.
A new study shows climate change may have contributed to the decline of Cahokia, a famed prehistoric city near present-day St. Louis. And it involves ancient human poop.
New research finds that some yeast picked up a whole suite of genes from bacteria that gave them the new ability to scavenge iron from their environment. It’s one of the clearest examples yet of the transfer of genes from one branch on the tree of life to another.
Research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison reveals how one mutation causes fragile X, the most common inherited intellectual disability. Fragile X patients have difficulty in learning and language, as well as temper tantrums, hyperactivity and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Nearly half of fragile X patients are also diagnosed with autism.
. In an exhaustive search of microbes from more than 1,400 insects collected from diverse environments across North and South America, a UW-Madison research team found that insect-borne microbes often outperformed soil bacteria in stopping some of the most common and dangerous antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
In a pair of new papers, University of Wisconsin–Madison Professor of Genetics Chris Todd Hittinger, his graduate student EmilyClare Baker and others show how modern lager yeast adopted the cold-loving and sugar-hungry traits essential to their success.
Less than two years after the first report of wild chimpanzees in Uganda dying as a result of a human “common cold” virus, a new study has identified two other respiratory viruses of human origin in chimpanzee groups in the same forest.
Jean-Luc Thiffeault, a University of Wisconsin–Madison math professor, and collaborators Randy Ewoldt and Gaurav Chaudhary of the University of Illinois have modeled the hagfish’s gag-inducing defense mechanism mathematically, publishing their work today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
“Our aim,” the authors write, “is therefore to use our collective experiences and knowledge to highlight how the current debate about gene drives could benefit from lessons learned from other contexts and sound communication approaches involving multiple actors.”
Variations in the axial tilt of the Earth have significant implications for the rise and fall of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the miles-deep blanket of ice that locks up huge volumes of water that, if melted, would dramatically elevate sea level and alter the world’s coastlines. New research matches the geologic record of Antarctica’s ice with the periodic astronomical motions of the Earth.
A University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher and his collaborators at the University of California, San Francisco have repurposed the gene-editing tool CRISPR to study which genes are targeted by particular antibiotics, providing clues on how to improve existing antibiotics or develop new ones.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered how grasses count the short days of winter to prepare for flowering. The new research provides valuable insight into how winter-adapted grasses gain the ability to flower in spring, which could be helpful for improving crops, like winter wheat, that rely on this process.
Luis Populin and UW–Madison collaborators published a study this week in the Journal of Neuroscience describing increased connections between key parts of the brains of monkeys who have taken methylphenidate (Ritalin).
Previously intractable problems for designing fusion experiments, improving weather models, and understanding astrophysical phenomena such as star formation will be more easily addressed without the need for expensive supercomputers using a new model identified at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Our future on Earth may also be our past. In a study published Monday (Dec. 10, 2018) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers show that humans are reversing a long-term cooling trend tracing back at least 50 million years. And it’s taken just two centuries.
When the tiny and invasive spiny water flea began appearing in UW–Madison researchers’ nets in 2009, scientists began to wonder how Lake Mendota, one of the most-studied lakes in the world, went from flea-free to infested seemingly overnight, undetected by trained technicians. A new report published in the journal Ecosphere says Lake Mendota’s story may be the rule, rather than an exception.
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have made a material that can transition from an electricity-transmitting metal to a nonconducting insulating material without changing its atomic structure.
A new, low-cost wound dressing developed by University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers could dramatically speed up healing in a surprising way. The method leverages energy generated from a patient’s own body motions to apply gentle electrical pulses at the site of an injury.
Nerve cells stripped of their insulation can no longer carry vital information, leading to the numbness, weakness and vision problems often associated with multiple sclerosis. A new study shows an overlooked source may be able to replace that lost insulation and provide a new way to treat diseases like MS.
University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists have made a fresh attempt to untangle the scorpion family tree using not the shape and structure of the arachnids’ bodies, but the shape of their venom.
In support of a microbial connection between fiber and heart health, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have identified a particular fatty acid as the mechanism behind certain protective effects of a high-fiber diet in a mouse model.
An unprecedented comparison of hundreds of species of yeasts has helped geneticists brew up an expansive picture of their evolution over the last hundreds of millions of years, including an analysis of the way they evolved individual appetites for particular food sources that may be a boon to biofuels research.
A team of Wisconsin researchers documents that woodland hawks — once in precipitous decline due to pollution, persecution and habitat loss — have become firmly established in even the starkest urban environments, thriving primarily on a diet of backyard birds attracted to feeders.
A genetic scan of a massive number of samples taken from tuberculosis patients across China has shown a surprising genetic uniformity: just two “strains” of the tuberculosis bacterium account for 99.4 percent of all cases.
The results of a three-year study offer some support for the long-held belief that much of the nitrogen in the wastewater from cheese-making and vegetable processing leaves the soil and harmlessly enters the atmosphere.
A paper published today (Nov. 1, 2018) in the journal Cell Stem Cell describes the global scope and economic impact of stem cell science, including the clinical, industrial and research use of the cells.
A pioneer in the study of neural cells revealed today (Oct. 23, 2018) how a single mutation affecting the most common protein in a supporting brain cell produces devastating, fibrous globs. These, in turn, disturb the location of cellular processing units, harm the flow of energy and signals through the brain, and reduce the formation of myelin, an essential insulator for neurons.
An international team of researchers has shown in mice that a healthy gut microbiome is important for recovery after a heart attack.
The quality of the conversations of a California mice couple after one partner has been unfaithful can help predict which mouse pairs will successfully produce a litter of mouse pups and which males are good fathers, according to a study published recently by the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution in a special issue on the evolution of monogamy.
Fuel cells have long been viewed as a promising power source. But most fuel cells are too expensive, inefficient, or both. In a new approach, inspired by biology, a University of Wisconsin–Madison team has designed a fuel cell using cheaper materials and an organic compound that shuttles electrons and protons.
A new study makes it clear that the constant threat of crop parasites repeatedly pushed evolution in strikingly similar directions in ants, creating structures that helped the ants reinforce their partnership with bacteria.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) with partners at the Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) have shown that a recently-discovered variety of the substance, catechyl lignin (C-lignin), has attributes that could make it well-suited as the starting point for a range of bioproducts.
Researchers show that gene loss — not the evolution of new genes — helped drive the fly amanita mushroom into its symbiotic relationship with plants.
A study published in the journal Scientific Reports provides new evidence that ancient farming practices led to a rise in the atmospheric emission of the heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane – a rise that has continued since, unlike the trend at any other time in Earth’s geologic history.
Asian pitcher plants transplanted to Massachusetts bogs can mimic the living communities of natives so well that the pitcher plant mosquito — a specialized insect that evolved to complete its life cycle exclusively in North American pitchers — lays eggs in the impostors, new research shows.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have built a robot, named Minnie, to serve as a reading buddy to middle school kids, and Minnie’s new friends grew more excited about books and more attached to the robot over two weeks of reading together.
A fantastical scenario involving a space-exploring robot crashing on a distant planet is the premise of a video game developed for middle schoolers by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers to study whether video games can boost kids’ empathy, and to understand how learning such skills can change neural connections in the brain.
Some chemicals used to speed up the breakdown of plants for production of biofuels like ethanol are poison to the yeasts that turn the plant sugars into fuel. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and several Department of Energy laboratories have identified two changes to a single gene that can make the yeast tolerate the pretreatment chemicals.
University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Monica Turner and her research team and colleagues explore how the patterns of fire and recovery are changing, particularly as the climate warms and drought becomes more common.
New research has discovered a previously unknown mechanism for controlling cellular decisions, one which combines an on-and-off switch in a single protein, either promoting or preventing the transition to flowering in plants.
A new clinical trial shows that consuming crickets can help support the growth of beneficial gut bacteria and that eating crickets is not only safe at high doses but may also reduce inflammation in the body.
In new research published Aug. 2 in the journal PLOS Genetics, UW-Madison researchers discovered that two genes work together to construct a cellular communication system in the ovaries of mice to maintain healthy eggs.
Thousands of miles of buried fiber optic cable in densely populated coastal regions of the United States may soon be inundated by rising seas, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Oregon.
A new way to examine stress and inflammation in the heart will help Parkinson’s researchers test new therapies and explore an unappreciated way the disease puts people at risk of falls and hospitalization.
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