University of Wisconsin
Blacksburg, Va. - Researchers have unveiled the evolutionary origin of the different chromosomal architectures found in three species of Agrobacterium. A comprehensive comparison of the Agrobacterium sequence information with the genome sequences of other bacteria suggests a general model for how second chromosomes are formed in bacteria.*
MADISON -- Runners, listen up: If your body is telling you that your pace feels a little too fast or a little too slow, it may be right.
MADISON -- The adage that dead men tell no tales has long been disproved by archaeology.
Researchers Antonio G. Pisabarro (Professor of Microbiology) as well as José Luis Lavín and José Antonio Oguiza, from the Genetic and Microbiology Group at the Public University of Navarre, have taken part in the international project for the sequencing of the genome of the Postia placenta fungus.
President Obama spurred a dramatic change in the way whites think about African-Americans before he had even set foot in the Oval Office, according to a new study.
A hallucinogenic compound found in a plant indigenous to South America and used in shamanic rituals regulates a mysterious protein that is abundant throughout the body, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have discovered.
Scientists have begun to solve some of the mysteries of the common cold by putting together the pieces of the genetic codes for all the known strains of the human rhinovirus.
Taking a chemical approach, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a two-step method to convert the cellulose in raw biomass into a promising biofuel.
Times are tough for wildlife living at the frontier between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Armies are reportedly encamped in a national park and wildlife preserve on the Congolese side, while displaced herders and their cattle have settled in an adjoining Ugandan park.
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. The new findings, reported online today (Jan. 30, 2005) in the journal Nature Biotechnology by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are important because they provide critical guideposts for scientists trying to repair damaged or diseased nervous systems.
It has been evident to parents since time immemorial: Children, during their active growth years, gain stature in spurts, often overnight. But that bit of conventional wisdom has never been documented scientifically -- until now. With a bit of help from some resting lambs, a team of biomedical researchers has confirmed that growth -- at least in lambs, but very probably in other animals, including humans -- does indeed occur when animals are at rest.
Just as people clean up after dinner by running food scraps down the garbage disposal, cells get rid of proteins they no longer need by breaking them down with a special chemical pathway. Although a simple concept, a cell's ability to clean house is very important, and it may hold the key to problems ranging from rotten tomatoes to cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Richard Vierstra, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher, has spent the last 20 years investigating this pathway, in which cells use the chemical ubiquitin to mark certain proteins for disposal -- and he's revealed some tantalizing secrets in the process.
The polyphenols present in green tea help prevent the spread of prostate cancer by targeting molecular pathways that shut down the proliferation and spread of tumor cells, as well as inhibiting the growth of tumor nurturing blood vessels, according to research published in the December 1 issue of Cancer Research.
PBDEs or polybrominated diphenyl ethers -- chemicals added to plastics in such products as computers, televisions, carpets, and furniture -- are showing up in places from Great Lakes fish to food at the grocery store, and even breast milk according to a Wisconsin Sea Grant study. Because PBDEs are effective economical flame retardants they are used widely. In 1996, a Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene study detected PBDEs in the blood serum of people who ate Lake Michigan fish, prompting Wisconsin Sea Grant to sponsor a study from 2001 to 2004 on the extent of PBDE contamination in Lake Michigan. Researchers found that Lake Michigan's top predator fish, coho and chinook salmon, contain PBDEs at concentrations exceeding 100 parts per billion (ppb). These are ''among the highest levels measured to date in open water fish anywhere in the world.''
The loss of seemingly inconsequential animal species in the marine benthos - the top 6 inches or so of mud and sediment on the floors of the world's oceans - is giving scientists a new look ahead at the consequences of the steady decline of the world's biological diversity.
