From tropical tomato viruses to stressed-out pre-med students, about 25 undergraduate research projects from the UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences will be presented at a symposium on Saturday, April 30, at the J. F. Friedrick Center, 1950 Willow Drive, from 8 until noon.

Upsizing or supersizing – taking advantage of fast food restaurants’ willingness to pile on lots more food for little more money – seems economically sound, but investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say it’s no bargain financially if the extra calories get stored as fat.

Many projects will be featured at a poster session showcasing biotechnology research by University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students, held March 10 from 4:30 to 7:00 at the Monona Terrace.

Young adults can be motivated to eat more servings of fruits and vegetables if they are exposed to tailored, practical messages about nutrition.

Scientific study sometimes focuses on one process at the expense of the larger, interconnected picture. One University of Wisconsin-Madison bacteriologist recognizes this trend, and tries to take a step back in her own research; she works to understand not just how biochemical processes work, but how they affect one another.

It’s probably more effective to get vitamins and nutrients by eating fruits and vegetables than by taking dietary supplements, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher. And what’s more, your vegetable options may soon expand as lines of specialty red, yellow and purple carrots begin appearing in stores.

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 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.

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.