How does one visualize thought? Well, by pressing the open tip of an electrolyte-filled glass pipette much thinner than a human hair against the membrane of an individual brain cell, researchers can isolate a patch and identify the current flowing through individual ion channels on a cell’s membrane.
Tackling a pressing and controversial technical barrier in stem cell biology, scientists at the WiCell Research Institute and UW-Madison have crafted a recipe that allows researchers to grow human embryonic stem cells in the absence of mouse-derived “feeder” cells, long thought to be a source of potential contamination for the therapeutically promising cells.
Working under harsh Antarctic conditions, an international team of scientists, engineers and technicians has set in place the first critical elements of a massive neutrino telescope at the South Pole.
“Parameter Estimation and Inverse Problems,” Cliff Thurber, professor of geology and geophysics (Elsevier/Academic Press, 2005)
A multidisciplinary team led by James Thomson has received a $1.25 million grant for stem cell research from the W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles.
New work by the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute adds to the accumulating understanding of how evolution works at the most fundamental level.
After years of trial and error, scientists have coaxed human embryonic stem cells to become spinal motor neurons, critical nervous system pathways that relay messages from the brain to the rest of the body.
In the spring of 2005, when the new Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) trains its huge eye on the southern sky for the first time, the starlight it gathers will be parsed and analyzed by an instrument more befitting a space-based telescope than a ground-based monster.
It has been evident to parents since time immemorial: Children, during their active growth years, gain stature in spurts, often overnight.
People with a rare enzyme mutation that makes their bodies smell like rotten fish find it devastating.
Arrest the Music! Fela and His Rebel Art and Politics; Tejumola Olaniyan
There’s more evidence that America’s largest corporations increasingly look to public business school graduates to fill top leadership roles.
Public lectures by Kati Haycock, director of the Washington-based Education Trust, and Elizabeth Burmaster, state superintendent of public instruction, will highlight a conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Feb. 2-4, on the No Child Left Behind Act and its consequences.
UW-Madison agricultural economists dusted off some long-idle superlatives to write their year-end review of the state’s farm sector, and they’re fairly optimistic about prospects for the year ahead.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professor Robert Blick and colleagues in Germany have demonstrated a new nanoscale mechanism for field emission that could lead to a new type of energy efficient flat-panel display.
The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NiCT) of Japan has signed a $200,000 contract with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop new educational uses for Croquet, an innovative open-source operating system that UW-Madison made available to developers in October.
A new center, aimed at helping businesses improve the economic well-being of their low-income workers, has opened its doors.
Taking stock of the stuff between the stars – the all-important dust and gases that are the building blocks of new stars – has never been easy.
Donald R. Johnson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, has been recognized with a national award for his years of excellence in teaching and mentoring students.
Patients who suffer from neurological diseases such as Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and Alzheimer’s disease have dramatically different symptoms. An Alzheimer’s patient, for instance, will lose memory and cognitive function, while an ALS sufferer will gradually lose motor control.