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The most common congenital disorders of all, especially in baby boys, are differences in a newborn's sexual anatomy that is not standard female or male. In boys, they include undescended testicles, misplaced urethras, and improperly developed internal organs. Some of these disorders may be treated with surgery and some also with hormonal supplementation.

In an animal model for COVID-19 that shares important features of human disease, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Tokyo and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai show that prior infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus provides protection against reinfection, and treatment with convalescent serum limits virus replication in their lungs.

University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have found that a constantly fluctuating environment can enable some species to invade new areas by helping them maintain the genetic diversity they need to settle into their new homes. And once those invasive species arrive, adaptation can take surprisingly similar paths.

In the not-too-distant future, flexible electronics will open the door to new products like foldable phones, tablets that can be rolled, paper-thin displays and wearable sensors that monitor health data. Developing these new bendy products, however, means using materials like new plastics and thin films to replace the rigid circuit boards and bulky electronic components that currently occupy the interiors of cell phones and other gadgets.

Astronomers used the WHAM telescope to measure huge outflows of gas extending from the Milky Way's center known as the Fermi Bubbles. They were able to measure the velocity, density and pressure of the gas for the first time, confirming and extending previous measurements made by using a distant quasar as a light source to look through and measure the gas.

Andrea Dutton, examining rock samples at the University of Florida, says, "Earth science issues impact our daily lives in many different ways. So, when policies are developed, it's imperative they are at least informed and evidence-based so we can make good decisions about what to do” Photo by Erica Brouch On May 20, 2020, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine published a report that provides a framework for the next 10 years of research in the earth sciences.

When most people think of ceramics, they might envision their favorite mug or a flowerpot. But modern technology is full of advanced ceramics, from silicon solar panels to ceramic superconductors and biomedical implants. Many of those advanced polycrystalline ceramics are combinations of crystalline grains which, at the microscopic level, resemble a stone fence held together with limestone mortar.

In a study published today (May 13, 2020) in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists in the U.S. and Japan report that in the laboratory, cats can readily become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and may be able to pass the virus to other cats. Professor of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine Yoshihiro Kawaoka led the study, in which researchers administered to three cats SARS-CoV-2 isolated from a human patient.

Illustration of a cell being infected by COVID-19 particles (shown in pink). Researchers hope to better understand how coronaviruses enter cells, spread, and cause varying immune responses in different individuals. NIAID/NIH Viruses like novel coronavirus can be sloppy multipliers, leaving lots of junk particles around infected cells during reproduction.

When a story in the Los Angeles Times recently claimed that the novel coronavirus behind COVID-19 had mutated into a more contagious version, it was quickly amplified by other outlets and stoked fears that the virus was becoming more dangerous. The problem is, that wasn't necessarily true. Scientists quickly took to Twitter to point out the research paper the story was based on was a preprint - a first draft of scientific findings.

Precision medicine has the potential to tailor treatments to a patient's unique genetic sequence. But achieving this precision - or developing new drugs - requires knowing which genes are involved in disease. "Unfortunately, we don't really have a good understanding of how these genetic differences can derive differences in traits, whether that's cholesterol or obesity," says Brian Parks , a professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a method to combine traits from up to six different yeast species in a single hybrid strain - a yeast that could carry more tools for a specific job, such as producing biofuels.

In the center of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals are racing to maintain quality care for patients with severe disease while facing a shortage of resources and limited understanding of the novel coronavirus.

An applied magnetic field (in blue) can cause magnetized particles embedded in a soft material to rearrange themselves into new patterns. By harnessing this phenomenon, researchers can fine-tune the soft material's properties. Image courtesy Xin Zou, Grainger Institute for Engineering Soft materials, such as rubber or polymers that can endure drastic changes to their shape, are promising for applications where flexibility and shapeshifting abilities are paramount.

When a fire extinguisher is opened, the compressed carbon dioxide forms ice crystals around the nozzle, providing a visual example of the physics principle that gases and plasmas cool as they expand. When our sun expels plasma in the form of solar wind, the wind also cools as it expands through space - but not nearly as much as the laws of physics would predict.

In the future, treating a concussion could be as simple as cooling the brain. That's according to research conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers, whose findings support the treatment approach at the cellular level. "There are currently no effective medical treatments for concussions and other types of traumatic brain injuries," says Christian Franck, the UW-Madison associate professor of mechanical engineering who led the study.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have identified a new way that common Aspergillus molds can induce asthma, by first attacking the protective tissue barrier deep in the lungs. In both mice and humans, an especially strong response to this initial damage was associated with developing an overreaction to future mold exposure and the constricted airways characteristic of asthma.

Life is tough if you're a beetle. Things want to eat you, and you can't much stop them. You're very small in a big, big world. And even if you're lucky enough to reproduce, a nasty fungus might come by and destroy your eggs. Bummer. Fortunately for the liltingly named Lagria villosa beetle found throughout South America, its ancestors long ago picked up some bacteria with quite a trick.

Parkinson's disease researchers have used gene-editing tools to introduce the disorder's most common genetic mutation into marmoset monkey stem cells and to successfully tamp down cellular chemistry that often goes awry in Parkinson's patients. The edited cells are a step toward studying the degenerative neurological disorder in a primate model, which has proven elusive.

An immunofluorescence image of a region of the brain called the dentate gyrus within the hippocampus which is one of two places that neural stem cells reside in a rodent brain. In this image you can see many neural stem cells in the brain labeled by vimentin in red and Sox2, a marker for cells that are self-renewing, in cyan.