I&D

• Family, memories at core of anthropologist’s new book Dec. 5, 2007 A UW-Madison anthropologist first decided to write a book about her family when she was 10 years old, a decision she made while growing up in Bombay, the child of an American mother and an Indian father.
• New program takes grassroots approach to training school leaders Dec. 5, 2007 Schools across the United States today face more pressure than ever to boost student performance levels and close the gaps in achievement between students of different racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. While many schools are struggling to make adequate progress, others have developed strategies that are contributing to significant improvements.
• Waistline growth on high-carb diets linked to liver gene Dec. 4, 2007 Experts have been warning for years that foods loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and other processed carbohydrates are making us fatter. Now, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study has uncovered the genetic basis for why this is so.
• What lies beneath: Growth of root cells remarkably dynamic, study finds Dec. 3, 2007 A new UW-Madison study, publishing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that certain plant cells pulse as they grow.
• New Antarctica research season kicks off Nov. 30, 2007 The approach of winter in the northern hemisphere means that summer is coming to Antarctica - still bitterly cold, but just warm enough to let scientists make progress on ongoing studies. A number of UW-Madison researchers are awaiting the call.
• Recipe for a storm: The ingredients for more powerful Atlantic hurricanes Nov. 29, 2007 As the world warms, the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean and atmosphere may be the recipe for stronger, more frequent hurricanes.
• Nanotech’s health, environment impacts worry scientists Nov. 26, 2007 The unknown human health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology are a bigger worry for scientists than for the public, according to a new report published Nov. 25 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
• UW-Madison scientists guide human skin cells to embryonic state Nov. 20, 2007 In a paper to be published Nov. 22 in the online edition of the journal Science, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers reports the genetic reprogramming of human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.
• http://wisconsinidea.wisc.edu/features/weather-guys-weather-science-with-a-strong-chance-of-humor/ Nov. 16, 2007
• Bridging the divide between math and biology Nov. 14, 2007 As a mathematician who has navigated the field of biology for nearly a decade, mathematics professor Julie Mitchell has some sage advice for those who choose to follow. Never hesitate to ask a “dumb” question. Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know something. Meanwhile, show some bravado.
• Beowulf’s world comes to life in new book Nov. 14, 2007 A new Hollywood film opening in theaters Friday, Nov. 16, employs special effects wizardry to tell the story of Beowulf, but a just-released illustrated edition of the epic tale from a UW-Madison English professor comes much closer to showing us the world where the action takes place.
• Tool-wielding chimps provide a glimpse of early human behavior Nov. 12, 2007 Chimpanzees inhabiting a harsh savanna environment and using bark and stick tools to exploit an underground food resource are giving scientists new insights to the behaviors of the earliest hominids who, millions of years ago, left the African forests to range the same kinds of environments and possibly utilize the same foods.
• Deep-sea drilling expedition off Japan seeks earthquake, tsunami causes Nov. 12, 2007 Harold Tobin is interested in deep scientific questions, whose answers lie thousands of meters underwater. The UW-Madison geologist studies deep oceanic earthquake faults, which extend miles into the Earth’s crust below the seafloor, to learn what causes earthquakes and tsunamis.
• New test can curb losses of potatoes in storage Nov. 8, 2007 UW-Madison researcher Zahi K. Atallah has developed a test that helps farmers identify in their fields potato crops that will not store as long as others, resulting in fewer crop losses.
• Health toll of climate change seen as ethical crisis Nov. 6, 2007 The public health costs of global climate change are likely to be the greatest in those parts of the world that have contributed least to the problem, posing a significant ethical dilemma for the developed world, according to a new study.
• Computer scientist forges new line of defense against malicious traffic Nov. 5, 2007 Paul Barford has watched malicious traffic on the Internet evolve from childish pranks to a billion-dollar "shadow industry" in the last decade, and his profession has largely been one step behind the bad guys.
• Project aims to reduce risks of falls among the elderly Nov. 5, 2007
• Wildfire drives carbon levels in northern forests Oct. 31, 2007 Far removed from streams of gas-thirsty cars and pollution-belching factories lies another key player in global climate change. Circling the northern hemisphere, the conifer-dominated boreal forests - one of the largest ecosystems on earth - act as a vast natural regulator of atmospheric carbon levels.
• New classes explore environmental film’s mobilizing power Oct. 31, 2007 Gregg Mitman believes in the power of a well-told story. This semester the professor of history of science is teaching two new courses on the environment from a cinematic perspective: a class on environmental film in history and a hands-on production class in documentary storytelling.
• Computer scientist fights threat of ‘botnets’ Oct. 31, 2007 Computer scientist Paul Barford has watched malicious traffic on the Internet evolve from childish pranks to a billion-dollar “shadow industry’” in the last decade, and his profession has largely been one step behind the bad guys. Viruses, phishing scams, worms and spyware are only the beginning, he says.