For plants, the ability to accurately sense light governs everything from seed germination, photosynthesis and pigmentation to patterns of growth and flowering. Now, for the first time, scientists at UW-Madison have obtained a detailed map of one of biology’s most important light detectors, a protein found in many species across life’s plant, fungal, and bacterial kingdoms.
A team of health and climate scientists at UW-Madison and the World Health Organization report in the journal Nature that the growing health impacts of climate change affect different regions in markedly different ways. Ironically, the places that have contributed the least to warming the Earth are the most vulnerable to the death and disease higher temperatures can bring.
UW-Madison historian Jeremi Suri is working on the definitive biography of one of the world’s most polarizing figures – tentatively titled “Henry Kissinger and the American Century” – based on nearly a dozen sit-down interviews with the globe-hopping former secretary of state.
The Vikings: scourge of the seas, masters of the strategic rampage, fearsome warriors of the frozen North… Actually, this somewhat lopsided view of medieval Norsemen is the product of the much-later Romantic imagination. The preferred, more accurate term is “Norse,” Wolf says. “Vikings were only a tiny fraction of the total population of Scandinavia in …
More than eight decades ago, two enterprsing biologists from UW-Madison opened a modest research outpost on Trout Lake, deep in the heart of Wisconsin’s northern lakeregion. The goal was to peer into the fundamental mysteries of freshwater lakes, from their basic chmistry to their elaborate life cycle.
On Nov. 10, 1975, Lake Superior swallowed the Edmund Fitzgerald, along with her 29 crew members and cargo of almost 26,000 tons of ore. The wreck evolved into a Midwestern legend. Thirty years later, researchers at UW-Madison have built a simulation of the storm using the latest forecast technology.
A group of UW-Madison civil engineers has received a Popular Science magazine “Best of What’s New” award in engineering for a unique technology that may lengthen life of bridges without raising construction costs.
By fostering early-stage collaborations between UW-Madison biomedical engineering researchers and practicing physicians, a new initiative will enable researchers to deliver their advances more quickly to the patients who need them.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto Thursday (Nov. 3) of Assembly Bill 499 was an important step to preserve Wisconsin’s leadership in the burgeoning field of embryonic stem cell research. The bill would have criminalized a promising form of biomedical research.
More than 80 years ago, two UW-Madison biologists opened a rustic research outpost on Trout Lake, deep in the heart of Wisconsin’s pristine northern lake region. Their goal was to unlock some basic mysteries of freshwater lakes, from their chemical makeup to their elaborate circle of life. Today, research at Trout Lake is thriving more than ever, but a great deal of the focus has shifted to the developmental pressures that threaten what people cherish most about recreational lakes.
David Gustafson, director of the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx), will present on connections between addiction and mental health at the 21st Annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy on Nov. 2-3 in Atlanta.
Film offers lessons in effective resistance Smack in the middle of World War II, a group of German college students took it upon themselves to stop Hitler and reclaim their country. Their plan of attack involved strategically distributing pamphlets, calling upon ordinary citizens to resist the Nazi regime. The story “The White Rose” is well …
Call for proposals for DoIT technology support The Division of Information Technology is offering Engage “Adaptation” Awards. These awards will provide $800 and up to 10 hours of instructional technology support through DoIT Academic Technology to help instructors integrate podcasting into their teaching efforts. To apply, call 262-5667 or e-mail engage@doit.wisc.edu by Wednesday, Nov. 30. …
“Wis-Kino Fall Kabaret” is an international film movement that invites innovative people everywhere to make short films with limited budgets and time. The Kabaret is its autumn showcase and will include a selection of international Kino shorts. Organized by students on the Wisconsin Union Directorate Film Committee, the free event will be held at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 12, in the On Wisconsin Room at the Red Gym.
Unsuspecting prey be warned! Hiding in the darkest corner of the constellation Circinus is a gigantic black widow spider waiting for its next meal.
In the event of an influenza pandemic, the world’s vaccine manufacturers will be in a race against time to forestall calamity. But now, thanks to a new technique to more efficiently produce the disarmed viruses that are the seed stock for making flu vaccine in large quantities, life-saving inoculations may be available more readily than before. The work is especially important as governments worldwide prepare for a predicted pandemic of avian influenza.
A UW-Madison researcher is building on one of Wisconsin’s great strengths to address a major nutrition issue in the developing world: the scarcity of milk.
Hoping to reduce the nation’s growing inventory of stored spent nuclear fuel, UW-Madison will team with scientists and students from Big Ten universities, the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to develop innovative nuclear fuel cycles that will recycle and dispose of this high-level radioactive material.
UW-Madison has established a Center for Global Health, a joint initiative of the UW schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and veterinary medicine, and the Division of International Studies.
It seems obvious to assume that marriage rates are waning in the industrialized world because women are more educated and financially independent than ever before. But sociologists say the connection is hardly so black or white.