Wisconsin
Despite a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs during the past 15 years, gene therapy has continued to attract many of the world's brightest scientists. They are tantalized by the enormous potential that replacing missing genes or disabling defective ones offers for curing diseases of many kinds. One group, consisting of researchers from the University of Wisconsin Medical School, the Waisman Center at UW-Madison and Mirus Bio Corporation of Madison, Wis., now reports a critical advance relating to one of the most fundamental and challenging problems of gene therapy: how to safely and effectively get therapeutic DNA inside cells.
While the memory inside electronic devices may often be more reliable than that of humans, it, too, can worsen over time. Now a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Argonne National Laboratory may understand why. Smart cards, buzzers inside watches and even ultrasound machines all take advantage of ferroelectrics, a family of materials that can retain information, as well as transform electrical pulses into auditory or optical signals, or vice versa.
Some of the first data from a new orbiting infrared telescope are revealing that the Milky Way - and by analogy galaxies in general - is making new stars at a much more prolific pace than astronomers imagined. The findings from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope were announced May 27 at a NASA headquarters press briefing by Edward Churchwell, a University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomer and the leader of a team conducting the most detailed survey to date of our galaxy in infrared light.
For children growing up poor, money isn't the only solution to overcoming the challenges of poverty. According to a new study, the genes and warm support received from parents also can buffer these children against many of the cognitive and behavioral problems for which poverty puts them at risk. The findings are published in the May issue of the journal Child Development.
Teenagers have long been regarded as the age group most vulnerable to the addictive lure of cigarettes, and a new report compiling five years of studies from a UC Irvine tobacco research program provides details why this is very likely true. The report, ''Closing the Gap on Youth Tobacco Use,'' determines that adolescents are more susceptible than adults to the rewarding effects of smoking, starting with their first exposure to nicotine.
Medical schools received 45 percent of all federal research and development funds provided to U.S. colleges and universities in the 2002 fiscal year, according to a RAND Corporation study that gives the most complete profile ever of how such funds are distributed. The nation's 126 medical schools received $9.6 billion of the $21.4 billion in federal research and development funds awarded in FY 2002 to the nearly 800 separate campuses of U.S. colleges and universities that received some federal research and development funding. There are more than 1,825 separate campuses of four-year accredited and professional degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States.
Researchers have identified a factor that may improve cardiac arrest survival rates according to a first-of-its-kind study of paramedic response. Researchers found that some ambulance crews giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) exceeded the American Heart Association's recommendation of 12 to 15 breaths per minute when treating cardiac arrest victims. "The overall survival rate in the United States from cardiac arrest is about 5 percent," said lead author Tom P. Aufderheide, M.D., professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. "Excessive ventilation may be contributing to that poor outcome."
There is more to beauty than meets the stranger's eye, according to results from three studies examining the influence of non-physical traits on people's perception of physical attractiveness. The results, which show that people perceive physical appeal differently when they look at those they know versus strangers, are published in the recently released March issue of Evolution and Human Behavior.
Scientists have developed a high-tech map that predicts where wolves will prey on livestock, which in turn may allow wildlife managers and ranchers to prevent attacks in the first place. Using geographic information system (GIS) mapping, the scientists looked at road density, farm size, availability of deer and other factors to develop statewide maps for Wisconsin and Minnesota. Despite dramatic differences in the two states' wolf populations, hunting policies, and farm sizes, the maps revealed several similarities among the sites where wolves had preyed on cattle in the past.
With the slim chance that farmers will stop planting crops containing genes from other organisms, researchers have started to develop strategies that trap these foreign genes, reducing the risk that they'll spread to wild relatives. But an investigation by scientists shows that these containment strategies can quickly fail.
A pint-sized, tree-dwelling Brazilian monkey has proven to be strikingly similar to humans when it comes to sexual responses, a national research team has discovered. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scientists for the first time peered into the brains of fully conscious nonhuman primates to learn what's really on their minds when it comes to sex. Common marmosets, like humans, live in family groups and have to make careful choices when confronted with the scent of an attractive female.
A gene that is crucial to the development and function of an entire family of immune cells is also key to understanding why one member of that family can become cancerous. The researchers had previously shown that one of these cell types, marginal-zone B cells, can give rise to a cancer called mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma when the cells abnormally over-express a gene called Bcl10. The current finding suggests that a drug that blocks the action of Bcl10 could be an effective treatment for this cancer.
In a river valley just southwest of Mexico City stands a small patch of teosinte - a wild, weedy grass thought to be the ancient ancestor of corn. As a gentle breeze blows gene-carrying pollen from a nearby crop of maize to its wild relative, the genetic integrity and even survival of this ancient plant and others could be jeopardized, according to new mathematical models. The models, described in the July 23 online edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and developed by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota-St. Paul, show that genes from crops rapidly can take over those in related wild plants. The end result, say the researchers, could be major changes in the genetic make-up of wild plants, decreases in their population size and the permanent loss of natural traits that could improve crop health.
progressive increase in the brightness of the planet Neptune suggests that, like Earth, the distant planet has seasons. Observations of Neptune made during a six-year period with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope by a group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) show that the planet is exhibiting a significant increase in brightness. The changes, observed mostly in the planet's southern hemisphere, show a distinct increase in the amount and brightness of the banded cloud features that are a distinctive feature of the planet.
Experience total lunacy on Thursday, May 15, as the moon moves completely into the Earth's shadow. Lunar eclipses occur, on average, twice a year. A good viewing, however, happens only every few years. Barring clouds the eclipse should be one of the best since January 2000. The next one will occur this year on Nov. 8.
