Tag College of Letters & Science
Depression saps endurance of the brain’s reward circuitry
A new study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison suggests that depressed patients are unable to sustain activity in brain areas related to positive emotion.
Stellar mosh pit, complete with crashing stars, resolves a mystery
For almost 50 years, astronomers have puzzled over the youthful appearance of stars known as blue stragglers.
Dental delight! Tooth of sea urchin shows formation of biominerals
Some of the most common minerals in biology, including those in bones and shells, have a mysterious structure: Their crystals are positioned in the same orientation, making them behave as one giant crystal, even though they do not look like a faceted crystal.
Interactive animations give science students a boost
For a generation of students raised and nurtured at the computer keyboard, it seems like a no-brainer that computer-assisted learning would have a prominent role in the college science classroom.
Stage fright is not an issue for Shakhashiri
On Dec. 6, Shakashiri wrapped up the 40th year of his wildly popular Christmas lecture with two packed performances of “Once Upon a Christmas Cheery in the Lab of Shakhashiri.”
Project helps seniors put lives on paper
A UW–Madison graduate student leads a workshop that will ultimately help participants at the Madison Senior Center write their own life stories.
Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ramps up aspen growth
The rising level of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be fueling more than climate change. It could also be making some trees grow like crazy.
Giant collider back in gear, sets record for collision intensity
On Nov. 30, the world's largest scientific instrument, the Large Hadron Collider, set a record when it smashed one stream of protons against another and then accelerated the beams to 1.18 trillion electron volts, exceeding the record held by Fermilab in Illinois since 2001.
Exhibit explores state of science at time of Darwin’s book
“Science Circa 1859: On the Eve of Darwin’s Origin of Species,” opening Monday, Nov. 23, in the Department of Special Collections at Memorial Library, explores the state of science before Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking book arrived on the scene 150 years ago.
Like humans, ants use bacteria to make their gardens grow
Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.
Sweet corn story begins in UW–Madison lab
This week, scientists are revealing the genetic instructions inside corn, one of the big three cereal crops. Corn, or maize, has one of the most complex sequences of DNA ever analyzed, says University of Wisconsin–Madison genomicist David Schwartz, who was one of more than 100 authors in the article in the journal Science.
After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals - including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers - began their precipitous slide to extinction.
Warmer means windier on world’s biggest lake
Rising water temperatures are kicking up more powerful winds on Lake Superior, with consequences for currents, biological cycles, pollution and more on the world's largest lake and its smaller brethren.