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Category Science & Technology

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

Scientists get to the heart of fool’s gold as a solar material

November 18, 2014

As the installation of photovoltaic solar cells continues to accelerate, scientists are looking for inexpensive materials beyond the traditional silicon that can efficiently convert sunlight into electricity. Read More

Grad program honored for closing science-society gap

November 18, 2014

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Neuroscience and Public Policy Program was honored by the Society for Neuroscience with the Neuroscience Graduate Program Achievement Award. Read More

Morgridge scientists find way to ‘keep the lights on’ for cell self-renewal

November 13, 2014

One remarkable quality of pluripotent stem cells is they are immortal in the lab, able to divide and grow indefinitely under the right conditions. It turns out this ability also may exist further down the development path, with the workhorse progenitor cells responsible for creating specific tissues. Read More

New master’s program in energy conservation is first of its kind

November 7, 2014

A new professional master's program will launch at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in fall 2015 and become the first in the world specifically designed to train analytically minded students to evaluate energy efficiency and other resource-conservation initiatives. Read More

UW team’s plants return to Earth after growing in space

November 6, 2014

Researchers at Simon Gilroy's lab in the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin–Madison expect to greet a truck this afternoon that is carrying small containers holding more than 1,000 frozen plants that germinated and grew aboard the International Space Station. Read More

UW-Madison scientist receives award to save babies, a diaper at a time

November 6, 2014

She woke up in her hospital room feeling nothing short of desperation. Katie Brenner remembered giving birth to a tiny daughter hours earlier but the doctors and nurses had whisked the preterm infant away for care. She hadn’t seen little Ruthie since. “I want to meet my daughter,” the normally polite Brenner demanded of the hospital staff. Her little girl is now a healthy 6-year-old and for that, Brenner is thankful. But she knows the story ends much differently for too many families. Doing something about it has inspired her scientific career. Read More

They know the drill: UW leads the league in boring through ice sheets

October 30, 2014

Hollow coring drills designed and managed by UW–Madison’s Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) program are used to extract ice cores that can analyze the past atmosphere. Shaun Marcott, an assistant professor of geoscience at UW–Madison, was the first author of a paper published today in the journal Nature documenting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 23,000 and 9,000 years ago, based on data from an 11,000-foot hole in Antarctica. Read More

Report, experts analyze surging STEM activity at UW–Madison

October 30, 2014

A recent report on instructional activity in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines at the University of Wisconsin–Madison shows significant advances in enrollment and degrees since 2000, which campus experts attribute to a number of factors, including job placement, greater career opportunities and enhanced teaching methods. Read More

Plump turtles swim better: First models of swimming animals

October 29, 2014

For the first time, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have measured the forces that act on a swimming animal and the energy the animal must expend to move through the water. Read More

WISCIENCE to expand possibilities for science education, outreach

October 28, 2014

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Institute for Biology Education is announcing its expansion to become the Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement, or WISCIENCE. The new mission extends across the natural sciences and expands responsibility for facilitating cross-campus collaboration and coordination in the areas of science outreach and support for groups underrepresented in science. Read More

Engineering alumni honored with Distinguished Achievement Awards

October 23, 2014

The University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering will honor the achievements of eight distinguished alumni during the 67th annual Engineers’ Day celebration Friday, Oct. 24. Read More

Wisconsin’s new ‘bug guy,’ insect detective arrives on campus

October 23, 2014

His favorite insect is one he has actually never seen alive in the wild. It lives on snowfields and glaciers in the American West, aptly named an ice crawler. But PJ Liesch, the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s new “bug guy,” continues to search for it. “I’ve been out West looking for them a couple of times and haven’t had any luck, so they’re kind of one I have on my bucket list, just to see one of those out in the wild,” says Liesch. The insect specialist officially took over as manager of the UW–Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab this summer. Read More

UW to serve as national hub for mentor training as part of diversity consortium

October 22, 2014

The University of Wisconsin–Madison will serve as a national hub for research mentor and mentee training for the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) recently announced by NIH as part of a national Diversity Program Consortium. The NIH will award the Diversity Program Consortium nearly $31 million in fiscal year 2014 funds to develop new approaches that engage researchers, including those from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical sciences, and prepare them to thrive in the NIH-funded workforce. Read More

See-through sensors open new window into the brain

October 20, 2014

Developing invisible implantable medical sensor arrays, a team of University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers has overcome a major technological hurdle in researchers’ efforts to understand the brain. The team described its technology, which has applications in fields ranging from neuroscience to cardiac care and even contact lenses, in the Oct. 20 issue of the online journal Nature Communications. Read More

UW physicist receives American Ingenuity Award for IceCube effort

October 17, 2014

Francis Halzen, the University of Wisconsin–Madison physicist who was the driving force behind the giant neutrino telescope known as IceCube at the South Pole, has been named a winner of the 2014 American Ingenuity Award. Read More