University of Wisconsin
MADISON -- Late blight caused the 19th century famine that sparked a wave of emigration from Ireland to the United States, but the disease has also infected tomatoes and potatoes this year. Potatoes, the world's fourth-largest food crop, were raised on 65,500 acres in Wisconsin in 2007. If a potato field is not treated with pesticide, late blight can destroy the crop in a few days.
A large international research team has decoded the genome of the notorious organism that triggered the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century and now threatens this season's tomato and potato crops across much of the US.
What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and Earth's climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, the global finance market and its system-wide crashes, and asthma attacks and epileptic seizures have in common?
MADISON -- Music is one of the surest ways to influence human emotions; most people unconsciously recognize and respond to music that is happy, sad, fearful or mellow. But psychologists who have tried to trace the evolutionary roots of these responses usually hit a dead end. Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health examined records of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients from the national Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system to determine the prevalence of rheumatoid vasculitis (RV) in this population.
MADISON -- A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health has successfully grown multiple types of retina cells from two types of stem cells -- suggesting a future in which damaged retinas could be repaired by cells grown from the patient's own skin.
MADISON -- Success in soccer sometimes comes with "bending it like Beckham." Success in cellular fusion -- as occurs at the moment of conception and when nerve cells exchange neurotransmitters -- requires that a membrane be bent before the merging process can begin, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have shown.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In a presentation today (Aug. 19) to the American Chemical Society meeting, Ankit Agarwal, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described an experimental approach to wound healing that could take advantage of silver's anti-bacterial properties, while sidestepping the damage silver can cause to cells needed for healing.
MADISON -- With the help of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and molecular engineering, researchers have designed synthetic protein-like mimics convincing enough to interrupt unwanted biological conversations between cells.
MADISON -- In an advance that could help transform embryonic stem cells into a multipurpose medical tool, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have transformed these versatile cells into progenitors of white blood cells and into six types of mature white blood and immune cells.
MADISON -- Thousands of scientists and hundreds of software programmers studying the process by which RNA inside cells normally degrades may soon broaden their focus significantly.
New Rochelle, NY, July 28, 2009 -- The unique association between microorganisms and their hosts, whether insects, plants, or mammals, provides a fascinating view into how microbial symbionts adapt to changing biological environments.
Whether it's grandpa's piano or a Nintendo Wii, certain objects become a part of family routines and histories. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research helps explain why some possessions wind up in permanent storage or get tossed away, while others are kept for generations.
A lunar geochemist at Washington University in St. Louis says that there are still many answers to be gleaned from the moon rocks collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts on their historic moonwalk 40 years ago July 20.
And he credits another WUSTL professor for the fact that the astronauts even collected the moon rocks in the first place.
MAYWOOD -- Adverse work conditions may be to blame for the decline in the number of primary care physicians nationwide, according to a study published in the latest issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
