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Category Science & Technology

With new professor, university-industry effort to focus on energy storage

December 11, 2014

With expertise in energy storage systems for electric vehicles, smart-grid technology and military applications, Deyang Qu will be the first Johnson Controls Endowed Professor in Energy Storage Research. Read More

Internet of Things Lab focuses on tech-savvy inventions

December 8, 2014

If six young technologists at University of Wisconsin–Madison have their way, bike thieves around campus will face a new obstacle: bikes capable of “talking” to Internet-connected bike racks. Read More

Collaboration yields new organic sweet corn variety

December 4, 2014

When the time comes for Wisconsin’s organic farmers to decide which crops to plant next year, they’ll have a tasty new variety of sweet corn — with a particularly sweet name — among their choices. The new variety, called “Who Gets Kissed?,” is the first in a series of organic, open-pollinated sweet corns being developed through a plant-breeding project led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Organic Seed Alliance (OSA). Farmers and professional breeders are also involved. Read More

Letting off steam: Gas discharge terminates galaxy’s star formation

December 3, 2014

With the help of a radio telescope in the French Alps, an international team of astronomers, including two from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has observed a never-before-seen stage of galactic evolution. Writing in this week’s Nature, a group that includes UW–Madison astronomers Aleks Diamond-Stanic and Christy Tremonti, reports measurements of dense, cold hydrogen gas being blasted from a distant star-forming galaxy, the first direct observation of the “blow out” phase of a galaxy’s evolution. Read More

Computer equal to or better than humans at cataloging science

December 1, 2014

In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat chess wizard Garry Kasparov. This year, a computer system developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison equaled or bested scientists at the complex task of extracting data from scientific publications and placing it in a database that catalogs the results of tens of thousands of individual studies. Read More

UW team explores large, restless volcanic field in Chile

November 28, 2014

If Brad Singer knew for sure what was happening three miles under an odd-shaped lake in the Andes, he might be less eager to spend a good part of his career investigating a volcanic field that has erupted 36 times during the last 25,000 years. As he leads a large scientific team exploring a region in the Andes called Laguna del Maule, Singer hopes the area remains quiet. Read More

Study models the past to understand the future of strengthening El Niño

November 26, 2014

El Niño is not a contemporary phenomenon; it’s long been the Earth’s dominant source of year-to-year climate fluctuation. But as the climate warms and the feedbacks that drive the cycle change, researchers want to know how El Niño will respond. A team of researchers led by the University of Wisconsin’s Zhengyu Liu will publish the latest findings in this quest Nov. 27 in Nature. Read More

Telescopes hint at neutrino beacon at the heart of the Milky Way

November 26, 2014

Thanks to a confluence of data from a suite of vastly different telescopes, there are tantalizing clues that the massive black hole at the core of the Milky Way may be a cosmic accelerator. In a recent paper published in the journal Physical Review D, a team led by University of Wisconsin–Madison physicist Yang Bai reports a correlation of IceCube data with a recorded burst of X-rays from Sagittarius A, an object at the center of our galaxy that is believed to be a supermassive black hole. Read More

Save power, make power: UW chemist confronts ambitious agenda with a brash laugh

November 25, 2014

Trisha Andrew, a UW assistant professor of chemistry, holds a solar cell that her research group printed on paper last year. She’s currently… Read More

Grasshoppers signal slow recovery of post-agricultural woodlands, study finds

November 24, 2014

New research by Philip Hahn and John Orrock at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on the recovery of South Carolina longleaf pine woodlands once used for cropland shows just how long lasting the legacy of agriculture can be in the recovery of natural places. By comparing grasshoppers found at woodland sites once used for agriculture to similar sites never disturbed by farming, Hahn and Orrock show that despite decades of recovery, the numbers and types of species found in each differ. Read More

AAAS honors four UW–Madison professors for advancing science

November 24, 2014

Four members of the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the society announced today. Read More

Satellite history at UW–Madison comes full circle with award

November 21, 2014

Michael Pavolonis thinks of himself as a volcano guy. Read More

Ecologist/hunter talks deer, plants, hunters and balance

November 20, 2014

UW-Madison Professor of Botany Donald Waller is a pioneer in exploring the impact of deer in natural habitats. For more than 20 years, Waller - who counts himself among the state's deer hunters - has led research on the economic, health and environmental impacts of deer, including: Read More

Halting the hijacker: Cellular targets to thwart influenza virus infection

November 20, 2014

The influenza virus, like all viruses, is a hijacker. It quietly slips its way inside cells, steals the machinery inside to make more copies of itself, and then - having multiplied - bursts out of the cell to find others to infect. Read More

Full color 3-D printing takes top prize in Collegiate Inventors Competition

November 20, 2014

Innovative 3-D printing technology came out on top as Spectrom - developed by a University of Wisconsin–Madison team that includes Cedric Kovacs-Johnson, Charles Haider and Taylor Fahey - won first place in the undergraduate category of the Collegiate Inventors Competition. Read More

Crops play a major role in the annual CO2 cycle increase

November 19, 2014

In a study published Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Nature, scientists at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin–Madison and McGill University show that a steep rise in the productivity of crops grown for food accounts for as much as 25 percent of the increase in this carbon dioxide (CO2) seasonality. Read More

Imagination, reality flow in opposite directions in the brain

November 19, 2014

As real as that daydream may seem, its path through your brain runs opposite reality. Aiming to discern discrete neural circuits, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have tracked electrical activity in the brains of people who alternately imagined scenes or watched videos. Read More