Category Science & Technology
Wisconsin Science Festival: It’s not just a Madison thing
The Wisconsin Science Festival passed a milestone this year, says organizer Laura Heisler of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation at UW–Madison. "For the first time, we had more activities and events outside Madison than inside Madison."
Report reveals a big dependence on freshwater fish for global food security
What is clear, the study authors say, is that society should safeguard freshwater ecosystems for the sake of both fish and people.
UW botanist leads petition to give Venus flytrap endangered species protection
The plant faces multiple threats: habitat loss, diminished genetic diversity, predators and outbreaks of disease.
Move over, solar: The next big renewable energy source could be at our feet
A UW–Madison team's inexpensive, simple method to make flooring from wood pulp converts footsteps into usable electricity.
Buckthorn Baggie kills invasive trees without chemicals
The problem was simple: Buckthorn kept resprouting in Matthew Hamilton's backyard after he cut it back. His patent-pending cure annihilates the weed tree once and for all.
Beyond genes: Protein atlas scores nitrogen fixing duet
The massive atlas of plant and bacterial proteins is possibly the most exhaustive proteomic inventory of any kind to date.
‘Super yeast’ has the power to improve economics of biofuels
Scientists have found a way to nearly double the efficiency with which a commonly used industrial yeast strain converts plant sugars to biofuel.
With designer lignin, biofuels researchers reproduced evolutionary path
As one of the researchers put it, 'Nature was already doing what we thought we’d laboriously taught her to do.'
Engineers reveal fabrication process for revolutionary transparent sensors
The researchers are seeking to expand the technology's applications from neuroscience into areas such as research of stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, cardiac conditions, and many others.
UW getting electron beam lithography system for nanotech research
Researchers from four UW campuses around the state will benefit from the new system, which uses a specialized technique for creating patterns 5,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Mentors sought for science-minded middle schoolers
UW-Madison’s Adult Role Models in Science (ARMS) is seeking campus volunteers to help Madison area middle school students learn about careers in science, how science works and why it is important in their daily lives.
Karen Strier is elected president of International Primatological Society
For the first time in its 52-year history, the International Primatological Society has elected a University of Wisconsin–Madison scientist as its president: Karen Strier, Vilas Research Professor and Irven DeVore Professor of Anthropology.
New endowed chair honors developmental biologist Phil Newmark
Phil Newmark, a developmental biologist studying the mysteries of how the body regenerates damaged tissue, has started serving as the first recipient of the Burnell R. Roberts Chair in Regenerative Biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Arboretum prairies offer rare refuge for vanishing bumblebee
A proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to seek endangered status for the rusty-patched bumblebee has focused renewed attention on bumblebees living in the 1,200-acre natural area.
UW-Madison geoscientist offers free geologic exploration app
Rockd serves both amateur rock lovers and professional geologists, says Shanan Peters. "People see rocks at highway cuts, and some may wonder what they are and when they formed. The answers ... exist in the databases that we tap into."
UW2020 funds projects to enhance research and infrastructure
The initiative seeks to fund research projects that have the potential to fundamentally transform a field of study, as well as projects that require significant development prior to the submission of applications for external funding.
Some brains are blind to moving objects
As many as half of people are blind to motion in some part of their field of vision, but the deficit doesn’t have anything to do with the eyes.
WARF patent drawing exhibit shows artistic side of science
For decades, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has helped UW–Madison inventors transform their ideas into reality, whether it’s a solar cooker, a self-tying shoelace device or even the DNA of the bubonic plague. Now WARF is displaying the visual beauty — and wide variety — of all those ideas.
Life in ancient oceans enabled by erosion from land
As scientists continue finding evidence for life in the ocean more than 3 billion years ago, those ancient fossils pose a paradox that raises questions about whether there was more land mass than previously thought.
Yeast knockouts peel back secrets of cell protein function
The study provided a level of detail not available even five years ago. Improved technology cut the time to analyze all the proteins in a yeast sample from four hours to one hour.