NASA, Space.com, Sky & Telescope magazine, observatories everywhere — just about any entity with a stake in the night sky — have been busy telling us how great the full moon will be Nov. 14 because the satellite will be closer to Earth than it’s been for almost 70 years. But to the casual observer, the moon will look little different from any other full moon.
Biochemists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have created the first atlas that maps where molecular tools that can switch genes on and off will bind to the human genome. It is a development they say could enable these tools to be targeted to specific parts of an individual’s genome for use in precision medicine, developing therapies and treating disease.
Do severe wildfires make forests in the western United States more susceptible to future bark beetle outbreaks? The answer, according to a study co-authored by a University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist, is no. By leading to variability in the density and size of trees that grow during recovery, large fires reduce the future vulnerability of forests to bark beetle attacks and broad-scale outbreaks.
University of Wisconsin–Madison chemical engineers have developed a new way to create inexpensive chemical sensors for detecting explosives, industrial pollutants or even the chemical markers of disease in a patient’s breath.
Freshwater fish play a surprisingly crucial role in feeding some of the world’s most vulnerable people, according to a study published Monday (Oct. 24) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
University of Wisconsin-Madison ecologists have played a key role in a petition filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Friday seeking emergency Endangered Species Act protection for the Venus flytrap.
A study in the current journal Oncotarget provides the first evidence linking a disturbance of the most common protein in the body with a poor outcome in pancreatic cancer.
Co-D Therapeutics, a University of Wisconsin-Madison spinoff, is developing a three-drug cocktail to battle a wide range of cancers. The first target for Co-D is angiosarcoma, a rare and lethal cancer that arises from blood vessels.
Flooring can be made from any number of sustainable materials, making it, generally, an eco-friendly feature in homes and businesses alike. Now, flooring could be even more "green," thanks to an inexpensive, simple method developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers that allows them to convert footsteps into usable electricity.
Of the many elusive grails of agricultural biotechnology, the ability to confer nitrogen fixation into non-leguminous plants such as cereals ranks near the very top.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) have found a way to nearly double the efficiency with which a commonly used industrial yeast strain converts plant sugars to biofuel. The newly engineered “super yeast” could boost the economics of making ethanol, specialty biofuels and bioproducts.
When scientists reported in 2014 that they had successfully engineered a poplar plant “designed for deconstruction,” the finding made international news. The highly degradable poplar, the first of its kind, could substantially reduce the energy use and cost of converting biomass to a number of products, including biofuels, pulp and paper. Now, some of those same researchers are reporting a surprising new revelation.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have described in great detail how to fabricate and use transparent graphene neural electrode arrays in applications in electrophysiology, fluorescent microscopy, optical coherence tomography, and optogenetics.
A proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to seek endangered status for the rusty-patched bumblebee has focused renewed attention on bumblebees living at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. This 1,200-acre natural area in Madison still has wild populations of the rare insect, which was fairly common until about 20 years ago.
"Rockd" serves both amateur rock lovers and professional geologists. For amateurs, "the goal is to help people discover the natural history that is recorded all around them. People see rocks at highway cuts, and some may wonder what they are and when they formed. The answers to many of these questions exist in the databases that we tap into."
As many as half of people are blind to motion in some part of their field of vision, but the deficit doesn’t have anything to do with the eyes. In a new study, University of Wisconsin–Madison psychology Professor Bas Rokers and collaborators in the Netherlands have shown that motion blindness is a failure of the brain to properly interpret sensory information — a type of deficit called agnosia.
As scientists continue finding evidence for life in the ocean more than 3 billion years ago, those ancient fossils pose a paradox that raises questions about whether there was more land mass than previously thought.
To fill in the blanks on mitochondria, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison deleted 174 genes, one by one, in yeast. They then subjected the yeast to high-intensity mass spectrometry to measure unprecedented detail on thousands of metabolic products, including proteins, intermediate chemicals called metabolites, and lipids.
As solar cells produce a greater proportion of total electric power, a fundamental limitation remains: the dark of night when solar cells go to sleep. Lithium-ion batteries are too expensive a solution to use on something as massive as the electric grid. Song Jin, a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has a better idea: integrating the solar cell with a large-capacity battery.
The promise of stem cells to treat cardiovascular disease may soon be a step closer to clinical application as scientists from three institutions seek to perfect and test three-dimensional “heart patches” in a large animal model — the last big hurdle before trials in human patients.
New research published Monday (Sept. 19) in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark and the University of Wisconsin–Madison illuminates where and why novel species combinations are likely to emerge due to recent changes in temperature and precipitation.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a switch that redirects helper cells in the peripheral nervous system into "repair" mode, a form that restores damaged axons.
Millions of years ago, the ancestor of modern rattlesnakes was endowed with a genetic arsenal of toxic weaponry. But in a relatively short period of evolutionary time, different types of snakes kept different types of toxin genes, and shed others.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering is the new home of a unique machine capable of milling in three dimensions with nanometer precision. The machine, called the ROBONANO α-0iB, is the first of its kind in North America.
MADISON, Wis. - Computer chip makers continuously strive to pack more transistors in less space, yet as the size of those transistors approaches the atomic scale, there are physical limits on how small they are able to make the patterns for the circuitry.
New research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison shows that Asian jumping worms, an invasive species first found in Wisconsin in 2013, may do their work too well, speeding up the exit of nutrients from the soil before plants can process them.
For decades, scientists have tried to harness the unique properties of carbon nanotubes to create faster high-performance electronics. Now, University of Wisconsin–Madison materials engineers have created carbon nanotube transistors that outperform state-of-the-art silicon transistors.
Late Wednesday night (Aug. 31), a shiny white aircraft with a wingspan of roughly 120 feet soared aloft from Wallops Island, Virginia. Following takeoff, the aircraft — a high-altitude drone known as a Global Hawk — flew patterns off the east coast of the U.S., tracing two big loops as it headed south toward Florida’s west coast. Its destination: Tropical Storm Hermine in the Gulf of Mexico.
A collaboration of Chinese and U.S. chemists has laid out a highly efficient new method to convert abundant organic molecules into new medicines. Teams led by the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison describe a way to convert carbon-hydrogen bonds into nitriles, common components of bioactive molecules used in medicinal and agricultural applications.
Antennas often need to trace circles in the sky. For example, radar arrays atop air-traffic control towers rotate to sweep signals in all directions. Now, University of Wisconsin-Madison electrical engineers are working out a new strategy to create antennas that spin their beams in circles while the devices stand still.
Interfering with your vision makes it harder to describe what you know about the appearance of even common objects, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have made new updates to old technology that will enable weather forecasters to make improved predictions of severe weather.
The Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Madison Police Department are launching a pilot study to better understand the impact of mindfulness-based practices on police officers’ physical and mental well-being.
Functional human collagen has been impossible to create in the lab. Now, a team of University of Wisconsin—Madison researchers describe what may be the key to growing functional, natural collagen fibers outside of the body: symmetry.
in 1999, Kurt Sippel started Applied Tech Solutions and worked out of a 450-square-foot apartment on Madison’s east side. Today, the business, with 62 employees, provides computer support and technical oversight to small and mid-size companies.
A method for "silencing" RNA that emerged from a University of Wisconsin-Madison spinoff company is in clinical trials in Europe, Asia and the United States against hepatitis B, an infection that can destroy the liver.
Using a unique combination of advanced computational methods, University of Wisconsin–Madison chemical engineers have demystified some of the complex catalytic chemistry in fuel cells — an advance that brings cost-effective fuel cells closer to reality.
In an effort to fill in the blanks of the Standard Model of particle physics, science has been conducting a diligent search for a hypothesized particle known as the “sterile neutrino.” Now, with the latest results from an icy particle detector at the South Pole, scientists are almost certain that there is no such particle.
NASA established the Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team and this past week tapped Tracey Holloway, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, to lead the multi-institutional effort to help make environmental satellite data more accessible and useful.
A new virus has been identified in association with a die-off of largemouth bass in Pine Lake in Wisconsin’s Forest County. The previously unknown virus was isolated at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s La Crosse Fish Health Center from dead fish collected by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) during an investigation into a May 2015 fish kill in the northeastern Wisconsin lake.
MADISON, Wis. — Imbed Biosciences today received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to market its patented wound dressing for human use.
The botulinum toxins are among the deadliest substances on Earth, and two specific toxins — including the popular drug Botox — have multiple uses for treating many neuromuscular conditions, including frown lines, disabling muscle spasms and migraine headaches.
University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have created high-performance, micro-scale solar cells that outshine comparable devices in key performance measures. The miniature solar panels could power myriad personal devices — wearable medical sensors, smartwatches, even autofocusing contact lenses.
Could periodic forest thinning and prescribed burns intended to prevent dangerous "megafires" help conserve owls in the long run? Or are those benefits outweighed by their short-term harm to owls? The answer depends in part on just how big and bad the fires are, according to a new study.
It’s no accident that researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have taken a lead role addressing the Zika virus epidemic gripping the Americas. Many of them were already at work fighting viruses and mosquito-borne diseases in Central and South America.
Morgridge Institute for Research and University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are working to optimize a camera capable of a slick optical trick: snapping pictures around corners.
With a unique approach that draws on 3-D printing technologies, a team of University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers is developing new tools for understanding how ovarian cancer develops in women.
MADISON – In molten sandstone extracted by prospectors a century ago, an international team of scientists has discovered microscopic crystals telling of unimaginable pressures and temperatures when an asteroid formed Meteor Crater in northern Arizona some 49,000 years ago.
MADISON — Serotonin is best known for eliciting feelings of happiness in the human brain, but scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found the hormone plays a role in milk production in dairy cows — and may have health implications for breastfeeding women.
MADISON — Understory, a company spawned by two University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students in 2012, designs and deploys flocks of miniature weather stations that create an unprecedented level of detail on measures such as wind, hail and rain.
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