Advances

Advances gives a glimpse of the many significant research projects at the university. Tell us about your discoveries. E-mail: wisweek@news.wisc.edu.

Paper examines “Why People Smoke”
The paper, the first in a series of reports based on interviews with some 6,000 Wisconsin residents, indicates important differences in motivations for smoking among heavy (21 or more cigarettes a day), moderate (six to 20 a day) and light smokers (five or less).

For example, while more than 16 percent of light smokers viewed the habit as more of a social activity, only 1 percent of moderate and heavy smokers reported this reason as their main motivation. However, the researchers did find that the majority of smokers in each category viewed smoking as an addiction: 68 percent of light smokers, 86 percent of moderate smokers and 95 percent of heavy smokers. About 30 percent of the smokers in each category said the main reason for not trying to quit was the craving that would soon follow. This paper, along with the others to come, says Michael Fiore, director of CTRI, will “give us good insight into smoking patterns and present recommendations for action so we can reduce the disease and death caused by smoking in Wisconsin.”

No more udder tampering
Along with being primped before a show, dairy cows might also get a “lift” in their udders. Though against the rules, these tactics to boost the beauty of cows have been undetectable — until Robert O’Brien, a veterinarian at UW’s School of Veterinary Medicine, came along.

By using an ultrasound machine, O’Brien can detect the presence of certain chemicals or proteins injected into the udder to make it look bigger, smoother or less wrinkled — all plusses for earning points during a show.

O’Brien and his colleague, Steven Trostle, originally developed the technique to diagnose diseases of the udder. When they published their results in 1998, officials from the World Dairy Expo contacted them to find out if their technique could also detect udder enhancements. It could.

Since then, O’Brien has been detecting enhancements in show cows, including those at last week’s Expo in Madison. Unfortunately, O’Brien’s ultrasounds can only be taken after champions have been picked. If tampering is detected, the owner is barred from showing at the event for one, two or three years.

Saving hemlocks — and biodiversity
Though Eastern hemlock was one of the most common trees surveyors spotted in northern Wisconsin during the 1840s, it casts little shade in the state today.

To increase its presence in Wisconsin, Craig Lorimer and Christopher Webster, forest ecologists at UW–Madison, have been testing a new management method. The standard practice has been to, over time, remove the mature trees to give young hemlocks the space to grow. The problem, Lorimer says, is that it results in a new stand of hemlock trees that are all the same age, lowering biological diversity.

As an alternative, foresters of the Menominee Nation in northeastern Wisconsin have been removing single or small groups of trees in the hemlock stands, a practice, Lorimer says, that mimics the way trees often die and create gaps in old-growth forests. The researchers found that in areas where the gaps were 35 feet or less in diameter — and where fewer deer graze on leaves — the young hemlocks took root among the older trees.