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Category Science & Technology

UW Tech Exploration Lab student projects highlight innovation, emerging technologies

May 19, 2025

Bold ideas, creative problem solving and community impact were at the heart of 24 student projects launched this past semester at the Tech Exploration Lab. Read More

The real costs of research funding cuts

May 19, 2025

UW–Madison could lose tens of millions of dollars in annual research support due to a proposed change in federal funding. But what’s really at stake? The university’s ability to advance life-saving research and innovation. Read More

UW biochemists engineered a poplar tree that produces a high-demand industrial chemical. It was a surprise discovery only made possible by sustained investment in research.

May 15, 2025

Professor Brian Fox has engineered a genetic alteration to poplar trees to help them produce an industrial chemical commonly used as a preservative and an ingredient for synthetic fibers. Read More

UW–Madison chemistry professor Martin Zanni elected to National Academy of Sciences

May 13, 2025

Only 120 American and 30 international scientists are elected to the academy each year for what the academy describes as their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Read More

A UW biochemistry researcher is studying effective treatments for the next pandemic. Federal funding changes are slowing the work.

May 13, 2025

UW–Madison biochemistry professor Robert Kirchdoerfer is studying the structure of coronaviruses like COVID-19 to better understand how they work and to help develop drugs that protect against them. Read More

Beyond the weather forecast: 5 ways UW satellite technology helps save lives

May 1, 2025

The University of Wisconsin–Madison may be the birthplace of satellite meteorology, but scientists on campus have never stopped developing new ways for space-based instruments to protect and improve the lives of people back on Earth. Read More

AI, data science and the transformation of scientific research: A primer

March 14, 2025

The pace of technological advancement in AI and data science can be overwhelming. Here are 10 things to know about the two closely related yet distinct fields that are driving research and innovation in one of Wisconsin's key industries: agriculture. Read More

Remembering Professor Emerit Ann Palmenberg, renowned leader in virology

March 12, 2025

Enthusiastic, jovial and persistent, Palmenberg rarely did anything halfway, at work or at home. She made it her mission to find ways to connect with everyone she met — and if that meant an opportunity to share the coolest thing she did in the lab that week, all the better. Read More

UW–Madison researchers win prestigious Sloan fellowships

February 24, 2025

UW–Madison’s 2025 Sloan Fellows are James Roberts Crall, assistant professor of entomology, and Sharon Yixuan Li, assistant professor of computer sciences. Read More

New discovery on how plants detect light and grow could result in more resilient crops

January 10, 2025

UW researchers isolated the effects of certain photoreceptors through genetic manipulation editing and photographed the growth of tiny sprouting seedlings with highly sensitive cameras. Read More

Dinosaurs roamed the northern hemisphere millions of years earlier than previously thought, according to new analysis of the oldest North American fossils

January 7, 2025

A newly described dinosaur whose fossils were uncovered by UW paleontologists is challenging the existing narrative with evidence that the reptiles were present in the northern hemisphere millions of years earlier than previously known. Read More

Project to explore enzyme behind early evolution of life on Earth

January 6, 2025

A team of scientists at UW–Madison led by bacteriology professor Betül Kaçar will explore the paleoenvironments and ancient history of Earth by bridging paleontology, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and evolution.  Read More

Threat of abrupt mortality events keeps endangered monkey population at risk, despite decades of growth

December 16, 2024

Researchers hope their work eventually could inform conservation policies that might improve habitat quality management or create habitat corridors between isolated populations of the muriquis. Read More

UW researchers find previously unknown links between microbial bile acids and the risk of colon cancer

December 13, 2024

A team of UW–Madison scientists have uncovered that bile acids produced by the liver to help digest food may affect our risk for developing colon cancer. Read More

New tool makes quick health, environmental monitoring possible

November 26, 2024

Vatsan Raman, who has received a provisional patent for this work, sees broad applications for the technology his lab developed, including field tests that identify pollutants in local water sources in minutes and at-home tests that track health indicators. Read More

How might pulsed microwaves harm the brain? UW–Madison engineers lead the search for answers

November 19, 2024

UW-Madison engineers will leverage cutting-edge research techniques to investigate changes — spanning the molecular level to the animal level — that occur in the brain due to pulsed microwave exposure. Read More

Gene therapy protects against motor neuron disease in rats 

November 12, 2024

The gene therapy approach allowed the non-mutated gene to be expressed in neurons and better support the transportation of proteins, preventing disease. Read More