Research
On a narrow footpath in UW-Madison's Arboretum, Chris Kucharik '92, PhD'97 and two students make their way toward a small site surrounded by leafy prairie plants. But they didn't come to see the view.
“It's all the things you can't see that interest us,” says Kucharik, an ecologist at the university's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.
The researchers are examining the role prairies play in storing carbon, whose abundance in the atmosphere threatens the quality of the air we breathe and the soil in which our crops grow. Those answers lie underground, where soil microbes and dense root systems release and store carbon. To get at the root of the matter, so to speak, Kucharik and the students measure fluxes in the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled from the soil, as well as soil temperature and moisture and the amount of vegetation above ground.
The work is helping define the value of prairies, which once dominated the landscape of southern Wisconsin. When farmers began tilling the land in the mid-1800s, they gradually depleted the soil of organic matter, the very material that makes it fertile, and eliminated much diverse habitat. In 1985, in an effort to restore biodiversity, the federal government established the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to turn portions of their fields into prairies for ten- to fifteen-year periods. Some 14 million hectares have been converted under the program.
“It's all the things you can't see that interest us,” says Kucharik, an ecologist at the university's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.
The researchers are examining the role prairies play in storing carbon, whose abundance in the atmosphere threatens the quality of the air we breathe and the soil in which our crops grow. Those answers lie underground, where soil microbes and dense root systems release and store carbon. To get at the root of the matter, so to speak, Kucharik and the students measure fluxes in the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled from the soil, as well as soil temperature and moisture and the amount of vegetation above ground.
The work is helping define the value of prairies, which once dominated the landscape of southern Wisconsin. When farmers began tilling the land in the mid-1800s, they gradually depleted the soil of organic matter, the very material that makes it fertile, and eliminated much diverse habitat. In 1985, in an effort to restore biodiversity, the federal government established the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to turn portions of their fields into prairies for ten- to fifteen-year periods. Some 14 million hectares have been converted under the program.
Kucharik says more strategic restoration could lead to greater gains, including at least temporarily offsetting the amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, one of the chief causes of global warming.
“There's a lot of money being pumped into the federal program and onto the lands,” he says. “Restoration ecology is a new science. There is no blueprint on the best ways to restore the land.”
Kucharik and the students are using their measurements to assess how well different prairie grasses and plants sequester carbon, or accumulate it underground in the soil. He has a grant from Madison Gas and Electric Company, for example, to explore the possibilities of switchgrass, a tall, wide-bladed type of prairie grass, not only for storing carbon, but also as a clean energy source.
And while they collect data at several sites around Madison, the Arboretum offers some natural advantages. With some of the oldest examples of restored prairies, Kucharik says, “There's not a better place on the planet to do this work.” An added benefit: driving there, compared to more distant spots, generates less carbon dioxide.
— Emily Carlson
“There's a lot of money being pumped into the federal program and onto the lands,” he says. “Restoration ecology is a new science. There is no blueprint on the best ways to restore the land.”
Kucharik and the students are using their measurements to assess how well different prairie grasses and plants sequester carbon, or accumulate it underground in the soil. He has a grant from Madison Gas and Electric Company, for example, to explore the possibilities of switchgrass, a tall, wide-bladed type of prairie grass, not only for storing carbon, but also as a clean energy source.
And while they collect data at several sites around Madison, the Arboretum offers some natural advantages. With some of the oldest examples of restored prairies, Kucharik says, “There's not a better place on the planet to do this work.” An added benefit: driving there, compared to more distant spots, generates less carbon dioxide.
— Emily Carlson
COOL TOOL — Particle Party
The electrons that flow through devices like laptop computers can give off so much heat that sometimes the computers burst into flames. Although it's rare, it does point out a shortcoming in the manufacture of high technology. While engineers know plenty about how to control electrical charge, the heat generated by electrons remains a mystery.
Robert Blick has come up with a device that could help. Along with graduate student Eva Hoehberger and colleague Werner Wegscheider, Blick, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has created something like a tiny trampoline for bouncing electrons, which will allow researchers to learn how the particles generate heat. The device, about one ten-millionth of an inch wide, includes a thin membrane suspended over a semiconductor cavity.
A series of gates allows researchers to flow electrons in multiple directions, and by measuring the vibration of the membrane, they can judge the heat dissipation of the flow. The instrument can even be tuned so that a single electron is trapped and evaluated.
Understanding those transfers has practical benefits for the companies that make computer chips. They could use the tool to optimize technology that currently is hindered by the build-up of heat.
— James Beal '88
Robert Blick has come up with a device that could help. Along with graduate student Eva Hoehberger and colleague Werner Wegscheider, Blick, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has created something like a tiny trampoline for bouncing electrons, which will allow researchers to learn how the particles generate heat. The device, about one ten-millionth of an inch wide, includes a thin membrane suspended over a semiconductor cavity.
A series of gates allows researchers to flow electrons in multiple directions, and by measuring the vibration of the membrane, they can judge the heat dissipation of the flow. The instrument can even be tuned so that a single electron is trapped and evaluated.
Understanding those transfers has practical benefits for the companies that make computer chips. They could use the tool to optimize technology that currently is hindered by the build-up of heat.
— James Beal '88
Neptune's Long Winter
Anyone who's endured a Wisconsin winter feels that dim hope that one glorious day, the snow will melt. But if four months of scraping ice off the windshield seems like an eternity, just imagine living on Neptune — where spring takes forty years to arrive.
A team of scientists from UW-Madison and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come forward with research showing that, like Earth, Neptune has seasons. Over a six-year period beginning in 1992, Sanjay Limaye PhD '77, Patrick Fry '87, and Lawrence Sromovsky MS'67, PhD'71 of the UW Space Science and Engineering Center observed the distant planet using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. When they compared these images to ground-based observations dating back to 1972, the team noticed a continual brightening in the banded clouds that encircle the planet.
“We believe this phenomenon is due to a cloudiness increase in the hemisphere getting the most sunlight,” says Sromovsky. Because Neptune is tilted on its axis at an angle toward the sun, the Wisconsin team theorizes that the brightness is caused by a seasonal change.
A team of scientists from UW-Madison and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have come forward with research showing that, like Earth, Neptune has seasons. Over a six-year period beginning in 1992, Sanjay Limaye PhD '77, Patrick Fry '87, and Lawrence Sromovsky MS'67, PhD'71 of the UW Space Science and Engineering Center observed the distant planet using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. When they compared these images to ground-based observations dating back to 1972, the team noticed a continual brightening in the banded clouds that encircle the planet.
“We believe this phenomenon is due to a cloudiness increase in the hemisphere getting the most sunlight,” says Sromovsky. Because Neptune is tilted on its axis at an angle toward the sun, the Wisconsin team theorizes that the brightness is caused by a seasonal change.
Neptune takes 165 years to orbit the sun, meaning each of those seasons could last more than four decades. The researchers say it's late spring in Neptune's southern hemisphere right now, and, if their model is correct, the cloud bands should continue to brighten for the next twenty years.
But don't start planning those summer vacations just yet. Neptune, named for the Roman sea god because of its brilliant blue hue, is no beach-side resort. Summer highs might reach –353 degrees Fahrenheit, only slightly warmer than the temperature at which liquid nitrogen freezes. “Summers on Neptune wouldn't be much warmer than winters,” says Sromovsky.
Neptune isn't the only other planet in the solar system with seasons, but scientists believe it's the farthest seasonal planet from the sun.
“Saturn shows brightness changes in its hemispheres, and so does Titan, one of its moons,” says Sromovsky. “What's remarkable is that Neptune shows such dramatic changes, considering the fact that the sun's light is nine hundred times dimmer there than it is on Earth.”
— Erin Hueffner '00
But don't start planning those summer vacations just yet. Neptune, named for the Roman sea god because of its brilliant blue hue, is no beach-side resort. Summer highs might reach –353 degrees Fahrenheit, only slightly warmer than the temperature at which liquid nitrogen freezes. “Summers on Neptune wouldn't be much warmer than winters,” says Sromovsky.
Neptune isn't the only other planet in the solar system with seasons, but scientists believe it's the farthest seasonal planet from the sun.
“Saturn shows brightness changes in its hemispheres, and so does Titan, one of its moons,” says Sromovsky. “What's remarkable is that Neptune shows such dramatic changes, considering the fact that the sun's light is nine hundred times dimmer there than it is on Earth.”
— Erin Hueffner '00
Escape of the Genes
Are wild plants becoming less wild? After using statistical models to study the evolution of plants, one university research team says that sort of genetic change can happen very quickly, and that cultivated crops are the culprit.
The models reveal that genes from crops such as corn can rapidly flow to related wild species, changing their genetic makeup and threatening their survival. Even small increases in the spread of pollen can create a superhighway for genes to flow from crops to wild plants. The study suggests crop genes can become common in wild plants within ten or twenty generations.
Gene flow has occurred ever since humans started farming, but the issue has gotten more attention with the development of genetically engineered crops. With some 145 million acres of those crops planted around the world, concerns are mounting over the effect foreign genes may be having on uncultivated plants.
The models reveal that genes from crops such as corn can rapidly flow to related wild species, changing their genetic makeup and threatening their survival. Even small increases in the spread of pollen can create a superhighway for genes to flow from crops to wild plants. The study suggests crop genes can become common in wild plants within ten or twenty generations.
Gene flow has occurred ever since humans started farming, but the issue has gotten more attention with the development of genetically engineered crops. With some 145 million acres of those crops planted around the world, concerns are mounting over the effect foreign genes may be having on uncultivated plants.
Ralph Haygood, a doctoral fellow who led the study, is quick to note that the researchers didn't distinguish between genetically engineered crops and those created by traditional breeding. “How the genes get in the crops doesn't matter,” he says. “What's important is what they do once they're in there.”
Haygood says the infiltration of outside genes could cause some wild species to lose the natural traits that have helped them thrive. Those advantages, he says, are important to preserve. “The fact is that most genes for crop improvement have come from wild relatives of those same crops,” he says.
— Emily Carlson
Haygood says the infiltration of outside genes could cause some wild species to lose the natural traits that have helped them thrive. Those advantages, he says, are important to preserve. “The fact is that most genes for crop improvement have come from wild relatives of those same crops,” he says.
— Emily Carlson
The Knock on Lab Rats
UW-Madison's newest rat is a knockout — genetically, at least. The laboratory animal is among a breed of the first so-called knockout rats, whose genomes have been altered to strip away certain genes that make them more advantageous as research models.
Lab rats, pretty much synonymous with biological research, have actually fallen a bit out of favor among researchers, who have turned to other species whose genetic codes are more easily manipulated. By adding or subtracting specific genes in mice and other animals — knocking them out — scientists have been able to learn volumes about the function of genes in health and disease. Despite ten years of trying, no one had been able to create rats with such genetic flexibility. That all changed when a team working in a UW oncology lab successfully knocked out the genes that suppress breast cancer among a group of lab rats. That spells bad news for rats — but perhaps just what the doctor ordered for biological researchers around the world.
— Michael Penn
Lab rats, pretty much synonymous with biological research, have actually fallen a bit out of favor among researchers, who have turned to other species whose genetic codes are more easily manipulated. By adding or subtracting specific genes in mice and other animals — knocking them out — scientists have been able to learn volumes about the function of genes in health and disease. Despite ten years of trying, no one had been able to create rats with such genetic flexibility. That all changed when a team working in a UW oncology lab successfully knocked out the genes that suppress breast cancer among a group of lab rats. That spells bad news for rats — but perhaps just what the doctor ordered for biological researchers around the world.
— Michael Penn
Wisconsin Ideas
Plant pathologists have engineered a new variety of potato that is resistant to blight, the devastating disease that brought on the Irish potato famine in the nineteenth century and still plagues farmers today. Virtually all commonly grown potatoes are susceptible to blight, which causes the insides of infected plants to rot. Researchers borrowed a gene from a naturally resistant wild Mexican potato to create the studly spud.
Dogs are kids' best friends, too, according to a study performed at the UW Children's Hospital. The project found that hospitalized children are happier when they get a chance to interact with dogs than when they are given organized, but pet-free, play time. While studies have shown benefits of pet ownership and interaction for adults, this is the first study of their effect on children.
Researchers from UW-Madison, King's College in London, and the University of Otago in New Zealand have found that variations in a gene that regulates chemical messengers in the brain may predict who is likely to develop depression after stressful life events. The finding could lead to new treatments and diagnostic techniques for a mental illness that affects millions of people each year.
Dogs are kids' best friends, too, according to a study performed at the UW Children's Hospital. The project found that hospitalized children are happier when they get a chance to interact with dogs than when they are given organized, but pet-free, play time. While studies have shown benefits of pet ownership and interaction for adults, this is the first study of their effect on children.
Researchers from UW-Madison, King's College in London, and the University of Otago in New Zealand have found that variations in a gene that regulates chemical messengers in the brain may predict who is likely to develop depression after stressful life events. The finding could lead to new treatments and diagnostic techniques for a mental illness that affects millions of people each year.
Are Parents in the Know?
Parents may think outfitting their teenagers with cell phones or pagers is a great way to keep tabs on them. But, according to Bradford Brown's research, it may take more than wireless technology for Mom and Dad to be wired into their kids' lives.
Brown, a professor of educational psychology, is looking into the strategies parents use to manage their adolescents' peer relationships — and the strategies adolescents use to manipulate that management. He says there is convincing evidence that the latter strategies work better: that most of what parents know about teenagers' relationships comes from what teens tell them, not from what parents find out on their own.
“This suggests that adolescents consciously try to control the information a parent has about their social lives,” says Brown.
His team has been exploring teens' attitudes about what, specifically, they think parents have a right to know about their social relationships. He divides those interactions into four domains: activities with friends (where they're going, with whom, what they're doing); relationships with individual peers (whether they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, when they have a fight with a close friend); the behavior of their close associates (how well a friend does in school, if a friend gets in trouble with the law, what religion their boyfriend or girlfriend follows); and characteristics of the larger peer group (which crowds at school do drugs, how well peers of different ethnic or social backgrounds get along, how important academics are to people they know).
Brown, a professor of educational psychology, is looking into the strategies parents use to manage their adolescents' peer relationships — and the strategies adolescents use to manipulate that management. He says there is convincing evidence that the latter strategies work better: that most of what parents know about teenagers' relationships comes from what teens tell them, not from what parents find out on their own.
“This suggests that adolescents consciously try to control the information a parent has about their social lives,” says Brown.
His team has been exploring teens' attitudes about what, specifically, they think parents have a right to know about their social relationships. He divides those interactions into four domains: activities with friends (where they're going, with whom, what they're doing); relationships with individual peers (whether they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, when they have a fight with a close friend); the behavior of their close associates (how well a friend does in school, if a friend gets in trouble with the law, what religion their boyfriend or girlfriend follows); and characteristics of the larger peer group (which crowds at school do drugs, how well peers of different ethnic or social backgrounds get along, how important academics are to people they know).
Teens typically believe that parents have more right to know some of those things than others, Brown says; they agree more that parents should know about activities with friends, for example, than about the general characteristics of peers. Boys and girls have similar attitudes, but there are differences by age and ethnic background. Generally, though, it is true that the more teens think parents have a right to know, the more freely they divulge information.
In the next phase of the research, Brown plans to investigate whether there is a correlation between how much parents and children see eye to eye on the right-to-know issue and the health of their relationships.
— Candice Gaukel Andrews '77
In the next phase of the research, Brown plans to investigate whether there is a correlation between how much parents and children see eye to eye on the right-to-know issue and the health of their relationships.
— Candice Gaukel Andrews '77
Defense on CWD
Wisconsin's fight against chronic wasting disease has gotten help from an interesting benefactor. The U.S. Department of Defense, acting on a congressional mandate to launch a national research program on prion-related diseases like CWD and mad cow, has awarded UW researchers three grants totaling more than $5 million to study the diseases.
So does that mean the plight of Wisconsin deer ranks as a national security issue? Not quite, says Judd Aiken, one of the professors who will receive funding. “It would take an awfully patient bioterrorist to use CWD as a threat,” he says.
But Aiken welcomes help from any source. Researching CWD is intensive and expensive, and thus far funding has been scarce. “These diseases have fallen through the cracks,” says Aiken. “It's been very difficult to get funding to do the work we need to do.”
With the new support, Aiken and colleagues in the School of Veterinary Medicine will try to make headway on some of the persistent mysteries of the diseases — including how CWD is transmitted between species, how to spot it in live animals, and whether the disease can get into the soil. “There's so much we don't know, and so much that needs to be done,” he says.
— Michael Penn
So does that mean the plight of Wisconsin deer ranks as a national security issue? Not quite, says Judd Aiken, one of the professors who will receive funding. “It would take an awfully patient bioterrorist to use CWD as a threat,” he says.
But Aiken welcomes help from any source. Researching CWD is intensive and expensive, and thus far funding has been scarce. “These diseases have fallen through the cracks,” says Aiken. “It's been very difficult to get funding to do the work we need to do.”
With the new support, Aiken and colleagues in the School of Veterinary Medicine will try to make headway on some of the persistent mysteries of the diseases — including how CWD is transmitted between species, how to spot it in live animals, and whether the disease can get into the soil. “There's so much we don't know, and so much that needs to be done,” he says.
— Michael Penn
