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University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers are warning that artificial intelligence tools gaining popularity in the fields of genetics and medicine can lead to flawed conclusions about the connection between genes and physical characteristics, including risk factors for diseases like diabetes.The faulty predictions are linked to researchers’ use of AI to assist genome-wide association studies.

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A strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus found in a Texas dairy worker who was infected this spring was able to spread among ferrets through the air, although inefficiently, and killed 100% of infected animals in studies University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers performed with the strain earlier this year.

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For years, cancer researchers have noticed that more men than women get a lethal form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. They’ve also found that these tumors are often more aggressive in men. But pinpointing the characteristics that might help doctors forecast which tumors are likely to grow more quickly has proven elusive.

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The complex shape of respiratory syncytial virus is one hurdle limiting the development of treatments for an infection that leads to hospitalization or worse for hundreds of thousands of people in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New images of the virus from researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison may hold the key to preventing or slowing RSV infections.

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Land was once set aside as Native American reservations because it was undesirable and low in resources, but now interested Native Americans may have economic leverage in the growing industry of clean energy. A team of researchers led by UW–Madison professors Dominic Parker and Sarah Johnston quantified the economic potential of wind and solar energy projects on these lands and discussed the regulatory barriers for tribes wishing to tap into it.

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A report on more than 40 years of research on Wisconsin lakes is highlighting some of the lessons scientists have learned about aquatic invasive species, including that far more ecosystems are playing host to non-native species than previously thought.  However, the researchers note, those species aren’t necessarily detrimental to their new habitat and, in some cases, the negative “impacts of invasive species control may be greater than the impacts of the invasive species” themselves.

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The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found among students who felt depressed or anxious, transgender students were 74% less likely than their cisgender peers to seek help from parents than from adults in schools.

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While the COVID-19 pandemic quickly reversed decades of progress in closing the gap between life expectancies for Black and white people in the United States, the disease’s toll may have obscured the impact of another significant public health concern — a sharp increase in homicide rates — on the life expectancy of Black men, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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A unique influenza vaccine candidate that’s inhaled and based on technology developed by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers is safe and could bolster protection against seasonal and pandemic influenza for people vulnerable to severe disease when they receive it in addition to the annual flu shot.Those are the results of a randomized, controlled trial of the vaccine candidate, administered in nasal spray form in conjunction with the annual shot to a group of 65- to 85-year-olds in 2022.

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As they are in many places around the globe, glaciers perched high in the Andes Mountains are shrinking. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their collaborators have uncovered evidence that the high-altitude tropical ice fields are likely smaller than they’ve been at any time since the last ice age ended 11,700 years ago.

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People with Parkinson’s disease are receiving a new treatment in a clinical trial started after University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists demonstrated the safety and feasibility of the therapeutic delivery method in a study of non-human primates.

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An invasive fungus that colonizes the skin of hibernating bats with deadly consequences is a stealthy invader that uses multiple strategies to slip into the small mammals' skin cells and quietly manipulate them to aid its own survival. The fungus, which causes the disease white-nose syndrome, has devastated several North American species over the last 18 years.

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While H5N1 avian influenza virus taken from infected cow’s milk makes mice and ferrets sick when dripped into their noses, airborne transmission of the virus between ferrets — a common model for human transmission — appears to be limited.

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A promising therapy that treats blood cancers by harnessing the power of the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells could now treat solid tumors more efficiently.

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University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have developed low-cost sensors that allow for real-time, continuous monitoring of nitrate in soil types that are common in Wisconsin. These printed electrochemical sensors could enable farmers to make better informed nutrient management decisions and reap economic benefits.

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In a rare opportunity to study carnivores before and after wolves were reintroduced to their ranges, researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that the effects of wolves on Isle Royale have been only temporary. And even in the least-visited national park, humans had a more significant impact on carnivores’ lives.

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The small footprint and dim light of white dwarfs, remnants of stars that have burned through their fuel, may make excellent backdrops for studying planets with enough water to harbor life. The trick is spotting the shadow of a planet against a former star that has withered to a fraction of its size and finding that it’s a planet that has kept its water oceans for billions of years even after riding out the star’s explosive and violent final throes.

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Clouds of gas in a distant galaxy are being pushed faster and faster — at more than 10,000 miles per second — out among neighboring stars by blasts of radiation from the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center. It’s a discovery that helps illuminate the way active black holes can continuously shape their galaxies by spurring on or snuffing out the development of new stars.

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Astronomers observing exoplanet GJ 3470 b saw evidence of water, carbon dioxide, methane and sulfur dioxide, findings that UW–Madison astronomer Thomas Beatty presented in Madison today at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society and that he will soon publish in Astrophysical Journal Letters with co-authors from Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, NASA’s Ames Research Center and other organizations.

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Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed the most sensitive method yet for detecting and profiling a single molecule — unlocking a new tool that holds potential for better understanding how the building blocks of matter interact with each other.