There’s a new plant fungus among us in the United States and it’s not afraid to cross the Mason-Dixon line. Asian soybean rust, an aggressive fungus of legumes, was first detected in Louisiana in November, and in eight other states since then. Severe infestations can devastate soybean fields. But Craig Grau and Brian Hudelson, plant pathologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are poised and ready for it, should it enter Wisconsin during the 2005 soybean growing season.

Just as people clean up after dinner by running food scraps down the garbage disposal, cells get rid of proteins they no longer need by breaking them down with a special chemical pathway. Although it’s a simple concept a cell’s ability to clean house is very important, and it may hold the key to problems ranging from rotten tomatoes to cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

A PBS documentary about Native American veterans is one step closer to your television screen, thanks to a $75,000 production grant to a University of Wisconsin-Madison communications professor and filmmaker from Native American Public Telecommunications.

A National Institutes of Health grant–the largest of its kind in the country–that promotes graduate training in biotechnology has been renewed for an additional five years.

Professional athletes, including cyclists and distance runners, will soon have a powerful new tool to predict energy expenditure and performance over a race. The technology also has potential medical applications, including helping to treat obese children and adults and cardiac patients.

Elton D. Aberle, dean of the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences since 1998, announced Nov. 8 that he will retire Sept. 1, 2005.

Ants that tend and harvest gardens of fungus have been closely studied for dozens of years, and are often cited as a model system for symbiosis. However, two other key players-an antibiotic-producing bacteria and a garden parasite, which have likely been co-evolving with the ants and the fungus for tens of millions of years-have been identified in recent years.

When it comes to onions, most of us want it both ways-we want to have our onion and eat it, too. We want the health benefits that onions provide without the pungency, which can cause halitosis, heartburn and hyperactive tear ducts. University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Michael Havey and his colleagues in Argentina and Turkey are interested in developing a sweet, less pungent onion that does a body good.

A CALS research partnership with a local manufacturer of cycling products has resulted in a generous donation of new equpiment for University of Wisconsin Sports Medicine physical therapy patients.

By installing headlocks in four-row freestall barns, farmers can reduce the risk to workers and increase their profits by as much as $43 per cow each year, say University of Wisconsin-Madison farm safety experts.