Scott A. Rankin has joined the Department of Food Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as assistant professor of food science and extension food processing specialist. He will develop and provide outreach programs to the dairy processing industry, especially in the area of fluid milk, ice cream, and cultured products. He will also provide support to the farmstead milk processing industry.

Katrina Forest has been selected as one of five W.M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research for 2001. Forest, an assistant professor of bacteriology at the UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, will receive $1 million over a five-year period to study proteins involved in the common early steps of bacterial infection in humans.

Milk is more than a good source of protein, calcium, and vitamin D. It can be a good source of valuable medical foods, says a University of Wisconsin-Madison food scientist.

Students on the University of Wisconsin-Madison food product development team have smelled success for the past four years. Last year it was close enough to taste.

The application deadline has passed for the first group of Discovery Farms to be selected as part of the Wisconsin Ag Stewardship Initiative. The Discovery Farms office has received applications from more than 30 qualified farms.

Visitors to the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station’s summer field day can take a guided tour of the station’s soils. The morning soils program will feature a walk-in soil pit.

As of 2003, Wisconsin Farm Progress Days, the state’s largest outdoor agricultural show, will change its name to Wisconsin Farm Technology Days. The 2003 show will take place in Waupaca County.

University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have discovered that an obscure antibiotic makes a widely used biological pesticide more deadly to gypsy moth caterpillars.

Were your soybean yields low last year? Was the yield low in a field where you didn’t expect it? The problem could be the soybean cyst nematode, a pest that has now been reported from 25 Wisconsin counties.

The University of Wisconsin-based Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (CSARE) has joined the National Coalition for Food and Agriculture Research (C-FAR). The organizations will work together to attempt to double federal funding of food, agricultural, and natural resources research and education programs over the next five years.