Category Science & Technology
Biomass blues: Breaking up not so hard to do
A UW spinoff is advancing an audacious effort to convert biomass into three profitable streams of industrial chemicals.
Squished cells could shape design of synthetic materials
Nobody knew what would happen if something soft and squishy like a synthetic vesicle got into the mix.
Town of Dunn award highlights UW role in local land ethic
A talk with two of Wisconsin's most prominent wetland biologists occurs in a wetland located just south of Madison.
Rare ice data collected by early ‘citizen scientists’ confirms warming since Industrial Revolution
Data reveals increasing trends toward later ice cover formation and earlier spring breakup.
Madison-made electrolyte going big at global battery manufacturer
Silatronix, a UW–Madison spinoff, says its formulation will lead to safer lithium-ion batteries used in phones, laptops and tablets.
Antenna design turns entire vehicles into broadcasting equipment
UW–Madison engineers are working to increase the effective size of antennas by turning the military vehicles that carry them into transmitters.
New material combines useful, typically incompatible properties
A team of engineers and physicists has created an entirely new material in which completely contradictory properties can coexist.
With simple process, engineers fabricate fastest flexible silicon transistor
The transistor can transmit data wirelessly, which could unlock advances in applications ranging from wearable electronics to sensors.
Built-in shades may protect delicate sensors from blinding light
Even commonplace laser pointers can fry the optics of sensitive cameras. Optical limiters may be able to shade those eyes.
Forensic botany course covers legal side of wood, pollen, contraband logging
The new course focuses on science as problem solving, but also fills utterly practical needs.
When inhaling media erodes attention, exhaling provides focus
For people who text while watching TV or listen to music while reading, sharpening their focus may be as simple as breathing.
Wisconsin Energy Institute adds spark to Crawford County classroom
Lisa Andresen is teaching science for the first time this year with the help of two WEI educator institutes she attended.
UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative proposals selected
Reviewers identified ambitious, early stage research ideas and infrastructure investments in an effort to jump-start innovative interdisciplinary research.
In these microbes, iron works like oxygen
Two new studies can shed some light on the perennial question of how life arose, but they also have practical applications in the search for life in space.
Experience is the best teacher in creating a better STEM faculty
The Delta Program has helped to prepare hundreds of UW–Madison graduate students for faculty positions in STEM fields.
Recent evolutionary change allows a fruit fly to dine on a toxic fruit
A fruit called the noni, now hyped for a vast array of unproven health benefits, is at the heart of a new research study.
Science Expeditions puts UW–Madison research on display April 1-3
UW-Madison's 14th annual science open house starts Friday with 8 tons of mastodon and a window out into the cosmos — and then gets really big.
No snow, no hares: Climate change pushes emblematic species north
UW researchers report that the range of the snowshoe hare in Wisconsin is creeping north by about five and a half miles per decade.
Golden: UW continues to thrive
As dean of the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I was both troubled and puzzled by an opinion piece posted…
NAS panel takes stock of U.S. science literacy
Professors Dominique Brossard and Noah Feinstein are exploring the association between knowledge of science and public perception of and support for science.