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Microbes Help Hibernating Animals Recycle Nutrients, Maintain Muscle Through Winter

To get through a long winter without food, hibernating animals — like the 13-lined ground squirrel — can slow their metabolism by as much as 99 percent, but they still need important nutrients like proteins to maintain muscles while they hibernate.

Perception Study May Explain Promising Depression Therapy

Rather than constantly repainting a new canvas with a picture of the surrounding world each time it takes in information, the human brain appears to build a working model supported by predictions constantly checked and rechecked against the sights and sounds it already expects.

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Ancient Example Of Modern Global Warming Was Too Hot For Tiny, Important Ocean Creatures

During another time in which Earth warmed rapidly in conjunction with a spike in atmospheric carbon similar to our modern climate, seawater temperature and chemical changes decimated an important piece of the food web in the tropical Pacific Ocean, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Scorpions’ Venomous Threat To Mammals A Relatively New Evolutionary Step

Despite their reputation as living fossils, scorpions have remained evolutionarily nimble — especially in developing venom to fend off the rise of mammal predators.

Unexpected Link Between Most Common Cancer Drivers May Yield More Effective Drugs

Two of the most common genetic changes that cause cells to become cancerous, which were previously thought to be separate and regulated by different cellular signals, are working in concert, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Nuclear War Would Turn Oceans Upside Down, Crash Food Web

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given the specter of nuclear war renewed weight as a global threat, and a new study of the environmental impact of a nuclear conflict describes dire consequences for the world’s oceans.

Evolving To Outpace Climate Change, Tiny Marine Animal Provides New Evidence Of Long-Theorized Genetic Mechanism

Some copepods, diminutive crustaceans with an outsized place in the aquatic food web, can evolve fast enough to survive in the face of rapid climate change, according to new research that addresses a longstanding question in the field of genetics.

More News, More Worry During Pandemic

Anxiety and fear went hand in hand with trying to learn more about COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic in the United States — and the most distressed people were turning on the television and scrolling through social media, according to research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Stereotypes Can Be Self-Reinforcing, Stubborn Even Without Any Supporting Evidence

A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison shows why letting stereotypes inform our judgments of unfamiliar people can be such a hard habit to break.

Historical Rates Of Enslavement Predict Modern Rates Of American Gun Ownership

The higher percentage of enslaved people that a U.S. county counted among its residents in 1860, the more guns its residents have in the present, according to a new analysis by researchers exploring why Americans’ feelings about guns differ so much from people around the globe.

Decades Of Work At UW–Madison Underpin Discovery Of Corona Protecting Milky Way’s Neighboring Galaxies

Two dwarf galaxies circling our Milky Way, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, are losing a trail of gaseous debris called the Magellanic Stream. New research shows that a shield of warm gas is protecting the Magellanic Clouds from losing even more debris — a conclusion that caps decades of investigation, theorizing and meticulous data-hunting by astronomers working and training at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Most Preprint Studies Of COVID-19 Hold Up Through Peer-Review

Research findings posted online as preprints — studies made public before undergoing the review and approval of a panel of peer scientists required by most scholarly journals — often hold up quite well to that scrutiny, according to a new report on COVID-19 studies.

Partisan Divide Contributed To False Sense Of Racial Equality In Pandemic Mortality

The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic were marked by far higher death rates among Black people than white people in the United States. Before 2020 ended, however, differences between the two groups had nearly equalized.

Astronomers Map Milky Way By Light Of Exploding Star

A huge flash of radiation from an explosion outside our galaxy that reached Earth on Oct. 9 went into the record books as the BOAT — the brightest of all time.

Lab-Grown Retinal Eye Cells Make Successful Connections, Open Door For Clinical Trials To Treat Blindness

Retinal cells grown from stem cells can reach out and connect with neighbors, according to a new study, completing a “handshake” that may show the cells are ready for trials in humans with degenerative eye disorders.

When Living Closer To Humans, Animals Encounter Each Other More Often

Human presence and influence on landscapes change the way other animals interact by bringing them close together more frequently than happens in wilder places.

Stop Counting Cups. There’s An Ocean Of Difference In Our Water Needs.

A new study of thousands of people reveals a wide range in the amount of water people consume around the globe and over their lifespans, definitively spilling the oft-repeated idea that eight, 8-ounce glasses meet the human body’s daily needs.

Brain-Gut Connection May Reveal Way To Prevent Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine disrupts the balance of microbes in the guts of mice, part of a cycle of waxing and waning neurochemicals that can enhance the drug’s effects in the brain.

Unexpected Link Between Most Common Cancer Drivers May Yield More Effective Drugs

Two of the most common genetic changes that cause cells to become cancerous, which were previously thought to be separate and regulated by different cellular signals, are working in concert, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Seizures and memory problems in epilepsy may have a common cause

Damage to a part of the brain that regulates hyperactivity can contribute to both memory problems and seizures in the most common form of epilepsy, according to research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.