Focus: Hidden - Wisconsin

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Orchids, a fantastically complicated and diverse group of flowering plants, have long blended the exotic with the beautiful. Previously, botanists have proposed more than a half dozen explanations for this diversity. Now, research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published last week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, corroborates many of these explanations, but finds no evidence for other logical suggestions, such as that deceitful pollination.

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Watershed health and water quality issues are a growing concern. Researchers examined the sediments traveling downstream toward Lake Winnipeg. In order to better understand where sediments are coming from, they used a technique called color fingerprinting to identify the specific origin of the erosion.

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Vaccines to protect against an avian influenza pandemic as well as seasonal flu may be mass produced more quickly and efficiently using technology described today (Sept. 2) by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the journal Nature Communications.

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The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, a multi-institutional research center based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has inked a new contract with the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will provide nearly $20 million in support over the next five years.

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The fungus Cryptococcus causes meningitis, a brain disease that kills about 1 million people each year. It’s difficult to treat because fungi are genetically quite similar to humans, so compounds that affect fungi tend to have toxic side effects for patients. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified 18 proteins that play a role in spore formation and germination. The findings raises the possibility of preventing the disease by blocking the spores’ germination.

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No matter where you live, soils protect the natural environment around you

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Grenada, Spain's climate and layout is like that of many cities in the Mediterranean area, which has the highest occurrence of pollen allergies in the world. The researchers hope their efforts will lead to fantastic urban green spaces that don’t cause allergic reactions for 30% of the city’s population.

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Changing climate conditions have caused dramatic changes in groundwater levels. This study aimed at understanding the changes in soil wetting and drying that occur as snow melts in mountainous, snow-packed regions. The study examined subsurface water content levels in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. In these regions, soils do not freeze during the winter and remain wet beneath the snowpack.

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Researchers using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have sorted through the billions of subatomic particles that zip through its frozen cubic-kilometer-sized detector each year to gather powerful new evidence in support of 2013 observations confirming the existence of cosmic neutrinos. The evidence is important because it heralds a new form of astronomy using neutrinos, the nearly massless high-energy particles generated in nature’s accelerators: black holes, massive exploding stars and the energetic cores of galaxies.

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Antimicrobials, antidepressants, anticancer medicines have their roots in soils.

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In South Africa, sweet potatoes are a traditional crop for rural families. “We realized it would be great if we could develop a local variety [of sweet potato] which has good yield, high dry mass, and desirable taste attributes, and promote it to combat vitamin A deficiency,” says researcher.

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Soils provide nutrients, biodiversity and physical support, all crucial to healthy living

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One teenager is tackling serious water quality issues that threaten the health of rivers, streams and groundwater. When she was just 14 years old, Maria Elena Grimmett was the youngest person published in the Journal of Environmental Quality. Now at 16, she has just put the final touches on her research of a plastic adsorbent that removes pharmaceutical drugs from water sources.

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Healthy soils mean healthy food, protects human health

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Courses in classics, mythology, Greek and Latin are attracting more students, thanks to renewed interest in a classical education and the influence of movies and television borrowing plots from Greek and Roman mythology.

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The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's MFA in performing arts/dance helps working professional dancers enhance their credentials with an academic degree while continuing their careers.

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Researchers find improved soil properties in strip-till compared to no-till method A major result was that after just five years, soil organic matter content was 8.6% greater in the strip-till plots when compared to the no-till plots. Furthermore, bulk density was reduced by 4% and penetration resistance, the force a root must exert to move in the soil, decreased by 18%.

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A new variety of peanut, called OLé, has recently been released by a team of researchers at the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and their colleagues at Oklahoma State University. OLé peanuts have longer shelf lives and increased disease resistance compared to other peanut varieties, and pack high amounts of a heart-healthy fatty acid called oleic acid.

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Diversity of life in soil keeps “bad” bacteria in check.

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Helpful bacteria promote growth, less fertilizer on crops.

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Recent work showed that long-term differences in soil use and management influence not only the sizes and numbers of soil aggregates, but also what the pores inside them will look like.

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Soil animals degrade organic matter, maintain soil structure

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A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and a collaborator from China have developed a nanogenerator that harvests energy from a car's rolling tire friction.

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Soil Science Society leads effort to get soil recognition on World Soil Day

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Soils home to more creatures than there are humans on the earth!

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Plants need water. People need water. Unfortunately, there’s only so much clean water to go around — and so the effort begins to find a solution. One strategy is to use treated wastewater, containing salt leftover from the cleaning process, to water large areas of turf grass. Researchers have found ways to breed salt-tolerant turf that can withstand this irrigation.

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In late 2013, when the neutron star at the heart of one of our galaxy’s oddest supernovae gave off a massive burst of X-rays, the resulting echoes — created when the X-rays bounced off clouds of dust in interstellar space — yielded a surprising new measuring stick for astronomers.

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Using switchgrass to produce biofuel is one way to decrease the United States’ dependence on oil, but growing it and making it profitable can be complicated. It lacks qualities, such as high biomass yield, needed to maximize biofuel production. To combat this issue, and breed switchgrass that has the optimal combination of these traits, the researchers tried evaluating plants using the Smith-Hazel Selection Index. This index allowed the researchers to estimate and combine information on multiple traits. It also looked at the economic value of each trait, which further maximizes the rating.

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UW-Milwaukee’s App Brewery and the Waukesha (Wisconsin) County Public Libraries have developed a free app called “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten” that families can use to track the books they’re reading to their preschoolers.

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Soil compaction harms soil microbes, health of the forest ecosystem.

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Fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited intellectual disability and the greatest single genetic contributor to autism. Unlocking the mechanisms behind fragile X could make important revelations about the brain. In a new study published June 4 in the journal Cell Reports, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center and Department of Neuroscience show that two proteins implicated in fragile X play a crucial role in the proper development of neurons in mice.

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Most of us don’t consider forests a source of pollution. As natural bodies, they should be good for the environment. But a recent study in Japan shows that older cedar and cypress plantations are causing as much pollution as a poorly managed agricultural field or urban setting.

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In a study published today in ACS Central Science, a research team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Timothy Bertram peels back the mysteries of the structures of tiny aerosol particles at the surface of the ocean. The work shows how the particles’ chemical composition influences their abilities to take in moisture from the air, which indicates whether the particle will help to form a cloud — a key to many basic problems in climate prediction.

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Scientists have prior evidence that the hormone estrogen is a major driver in the growth of cervical cancer, but a new study examining genetic profiles of 128 clinical cases reached a surprising conclusion: Estrogen receptors all but vanish in cervical cancer tumors.

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In a new study published June 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, David C. Schwartz and his University of Wisconsin-Madison research team describe a new approach for studying the cancer genome that Schwartz says will let scientists account for both the individual tiles and the whole mosaic. It enables researchers and clinicians to look at the small- and large-scale genetic changes that define individual cancers.

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Drawing from experiences that helped her endure 140 days in a North Korean prison, Emmy-winning broadcast journalist Laura Ling urged Carthage College’s graduating class to “always have hope.”

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A University of Wisconsin-Madison animal scientist has developed an antibiotic-free method to protect animals raised for food against common infections.

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Soil texture important to sports performance, safety and durability of fields

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In the United States, federal mandates to produce more renewable fuels, especially biofuels, have led to a growing debate: Should fuel or food grow on arable land? Recent research found encouraging, sustainable results when growing Camelina sativa with soybean in the Midwest.

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Walks in forests, soccer games and horse races all depend on soil.

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A century spent treating wildfires as emergencies to be stamped out may have cost Central Wisconsin a natural setting that was common and thriving before the state was settled.

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In an effort to alleviate the environmental burden of electronic devices, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has collaborated with researchers in the Madison-based U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) to develop a surprising solution: a semiconductor chip made almost entirely of wood.

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The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee gives students the opportunity to study the Anishinaabe language spoken by the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa tribes.

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The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the city’s Sojourner Family Peace Center have partnered to develop an app that discreetly and quickly gives those affected by domestic abuse an emergency connection to the help they need.

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A team of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee journalism students took on an unusual research project during the spring semester – helping find the missing photos and stories of Wisconsin soldiers killed in Vietnam.

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In celebration of the International Year of Soil 2015 (IYS), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is coordinating a series of activities throughout the year to educate the public about the importance of soil. May’s theme is “Soils Support Buildings and Infrastructure”. In SSSA’s May 15 Soils Matter blog post, experts why mudslides occur.

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Researchers at Kansas State University have looked into how vegetables take up different soil contaminants. They also considered how different gardening practices could reduce this uptake. They found that, in the majority of examples, eating vegetables grown in the contaminated soils studied was safe.

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Robert Schneider, a professor at UW-Milwaukee who researches experience in sustainable transportation, explains how improved infrastructure, in-town redevelopment and changing attitudes are getting more people nationwide traveling on two wheels to get to work.

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Expansion of cattle pastures has led to the destruction of huge swaths of rain forest in Brazil, home to the world’s largest herd of commercial beef cattle. But a new study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Holly Gibbs shows that market-driven “zero deforestation agreements” have dramatically influenced the behavior of ranchers and the slaughterhouses to which they sell.

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The suspicion that the federal Affordable Care Act reduces options for patients to choose their health care providers proves to be true, according to a new study co-authored by David Weimer, a professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. However, the quality of hospitals in insurance exchange networks was as good or better than those in commercial insurance networks.