Science - The Daily Cardinal

SCIENCE

Ask Ms. Scientist: hair and cats

By Jordan Gaal and Maggie Liu | Nov. 20, 2017

Why is some hair curly and some hair straight? How are cats always able to land of their feet?

PODCAST

Sciencecast: Public Health Series - Episode 1

By Maggie Liu | Nov. 6, 2017

Welcome back to the third installment of Sciencecast, the Daily Cardinal’s science podcast series.

SCIENCE

Ask Ms. Scientist: dreams and food comas

By Jordan Gaal and Maggie Liu | Nov. 6, 2017

Do animals dream? Why do I get food comas?

SCIENCE

Care Talks program addresses healthcare communication

By Cayla Guerra | Oct. 23, 2017

Healthcare professionals want to help patients and loved ones to become more knowledgeable about their care and become proficient in supporting themselves medically.

SCIENCE

UW researchers look to improve dairy production efficiency

By Josie Russo | Oct. 23, 2017

Oh where, oh where has the nitrogen gone? Oh where, oh where can it be?

Cary Forest stands in front of the Big Red Plasma Ball, an important tool he uses to study plasma and solar flares.

SCIENCE

UW plasma physics research receives national funding

By Jordan Gaal | Oct. 23, 2017

Plasma is an essential element in science fiction, most notably in the Star Wars franchise as a critical component of the Stormtroopers’ guns.

SCIENCE

Marmoset fathers take on the child burden

By Evan Cory | Oct. 23, 2017

Parenting styles vary among primate species. Some species’ offspring rely on the mother alone for caretaking and education.

SCIENCE

UW community joins over jumping worms?

By Lauryn Branham | Oct. 9, 2017

Many people throughout the Madison area love to spend time outdoors.

CAMPUS NEWS

Research center is set on funding for six years, thanks to grant

By Lauren Sorensen | Oct. 4, 2017

A $15.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation was recently awarded to a flagship UW-Madison interdisciplinary research center focused on material science.

SCIENCE

Ask Ms. Scientist: Jell-O and pepperoni

By Jordan Gaal and Maggie Liu | Sep. 25, 2017

Where does pepperoni come from? What is Jell-O made from?

SCIENCE

UW-Madison professor talks public health

By Maggie Liu | Sep. 25, 2017

As the field of medicine expands, so too does the field of public health. Public health is the marriage of health and community.

SCIENCE

Ask Ms. Scientist: crunchy food and dogs

By Jordan Gaal and Maggie Liu | Sep. 11, 2017

Why do we crave crunchy foods? Is my dog really color blind?

SCIENCE

UW-Madison offers new course on social genomics

By Cayla Guerra | Sep. 11, 2017

The human genome is like a blueprint which lays out how each of us are built, how we function in society and sometimes even how we die.

SCIENCE

UW Space Place director talks solar eclipse

By Maggie Liu | Aug. 14, 2017

In a week, one of the summer’s most hotly anticipated events will arrive, as Americans everywhere finalize plans to travel to a 70 mile wide strip of land stretching from Oregon to South Carolina. “It’s the return of the corona after one hundred years,” said Jim Lattis, director and co-founder of the UW Space Place.

SCIENCE

Ask Ms. Scientist: Cell phones and moons

By Jordan Gaal and Maggie Liu | Aug. 14, 2017

Where did the moon come from? Why is it hard to focus while using our cell phones?

SCIENCE

Immunotherapy research aids in fight against cancer

By Cayla Guerra | Aug. 14, 2017

Like an inoperable tumor inside a patient’s brain, cancer has rooted itself deep within our society.

UW-Madison's Badgerloop placed high and won an innovation award Sunday at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition II in Hawthorne, Calif.

SCIENCE

Badgerloop reveals newest Hyperloop pod to public

By Maggie Liu | Jul. 12, 2017

The Badgerloop team unveiled their latest pod on June 17 in the Engineering Hall to the public. This coming August, they will take their pod and travel to Hawthorne, California to compete in the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition II. Sponsors and community members got up close to the pod and talked with Badgerloop members who worked on different aspects of the pod, including electrical systems, virtual reality, propulsion, feasibility and more. Badgerloop is a student organization at UW-Madison comprising of mostly undergraduate students.

SCIENCE

New method of studying fungi reinvigorates drug discovery

By Evan Cory | Jul. 11, 2017

Drug discovery and fungi have gone hand in hand since pharmacology emerged as a relevant science.

SCIENCE

Ask Ms. Scientist: Beaches and Sun Burns

By Jordan Gaal and Maggie Liu | Jun. 12, 2017

Where do beaches come from? What’s the difference between a sun tan and a sun burn?

Kevin Barnett works in a lab at the department of energy bioenergy technologies office at UW-Madison to better the procedure for deriving 1,5-pentanediol, a possible substitute for a petroleum-like chemical.

SCIENCE

Cheaper, more sustainable way to produce plastic precursors

By Yingshan Deng | May. 1, 2017

Scientists and engineers at UW-Madison developed an economically feasible process to synthesize a possible substitute for petroleum-derived chemicals from non-edible biomass. This substitute, called 1,5-pentanediol, is a type of alpha, omega-diol that has two alcohol groups attached at the beginning and the end of a long carbon chain, which is mostly synthesized as a byproduct of other commercially produced diols. The research was published this April in the journal, ChemSusChem. “We hope to be able to make larger quantities and volumes and be able to put it in the applications that are currently used for other molecules,” said Zachary Brentzel, a graduate research assistant in college of engineering at UW-Madison and the first author of this paper.