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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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A Grand Experiment |
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Fed up with the formalities of traditional education, Professor Alexander Meiklejohn decided in 1927 to try something new, converting a university residence hall into the "Experimental College." Students took few tests and received no grades, but instead participated in discussions, plays, performances and other activities that integrated learning into their daily lives. Although the college lasted only five years, it created a powerful legacy. Decades later, when universities across the nation wanted to offer students more than standard textbook instruction, they used the "Ex College" as a model to design residential learning communities. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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A Stage for All |
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Not long after she was denied permission to perform in the D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., because she was African-American, famous singer Marian Anderson found welcome at the University of Wisconsin. She sang at the Memorial Union in 1939, headlining the inaugural season of performances in the Wisconsin Union Theater, the first cultural center to be opened in a university union. Over the years, the theater established itself as a showcase for great performers, hosting such luminaries as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Paul Robeson. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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Academic Freedom Rings |
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In 1894, the University of Wisconsin regents defended the rights of professors with a rhetorical flourish. The regents' powerful words, commemorated on the "sifting and winnowing" plaque on Bascom Hall, did more than just exonerate a professor charged with teaching "pernicious ideas." The statement has become one of the most important symbols of academic freedom at universities across the nation. "Sifting and winnowing" represents the ideological backbone of American higher education: that teachers and students should be free to search for the truth. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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Global Vision |
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In 1961, more than 100 University of Wisconsin students and graduates applied to spend two years volunteering in some of the world's neediest countries as part of a new government program known as the Peace Corps. Their participation began a long relationship between the university and the Peace Corps, symbolic of the university's deep commitment to helping uncover and solve international problems. This university was one of the first to train these volunteers, and it traditionally has sent more students and graduates into the Corps than any other university. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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Leaders in Science |
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The University of Wisconsin's setting along the shores of Lake Mendota made it a natural place to found the study of lakes in North America. But advances in limnology, which was first studied here in the 1880s, are only one aspect of a long legacy of scientific discovery and innovation on campus. For example, science researchers here were among the first to study cancer in the 1940s, the first to make possible genetic engineering for plants and food crops in the 1950s, and the first to design technology that allowed satellites to take pictures of earth from space in the 1960s. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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Natural Wonders |
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Surrounded by the natural beauty of this campus, a student named John Muir developed a love of the outdoors that would touch not only his own life, but those of future generations. Muir left the University of Wisconsin in 1863 and became one of the most famous naturalists in America. His writings influenced the creation of our national park system and convinced the expanding nation that resources such as the great redwoods of California were worth preserving. These surroundings, which so inspired Muir, have helped to shape generations of environmental leaders who have followed in Muir's footsteps and are still working to ensure that the beauty of nature will endure. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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On the Air |
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In 1919, a group of students and professors gathered in the basement of Sterling Hall to transmit some of the earliest educational programming over the airwaves. Their regular broadcasts became the foundation of WHA, one of the oldest radio stations in continuous operation in the United States. A pioneer in using this new medium to teach its listeners, the station aired lectures, lessons and the world's first on-air sing-along, led in 1922 by Edgar "Pop" Gordon. For decades, it brought the university into the households of thousands around the state and nation. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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Reform and Revolt |
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University of Wisconsin students traditionally have been active in political and social causes, and that was never more apparent than during the turbulent 1960s. During that time, students frequently led rallies and demonstrations, many of which protested U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Those activities succeeded in mobilizing thousands for and against the war. The tensions and divisions on campus eventually devolved into violence, culminating with the bombing by four radicals of Sterling Hall, which housed the Army Math Research Center. On August 24, 1970, the explosion killed a Physics researcher, bringing the period of protest to a tragic end. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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Securing the Future |
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The Social Security system that became a cornerstone of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal was written by University of Wisconsin economist Edwin Witte, who served as an adviser to Roosevelt. Witte drew from deep Wisconsin roots. He based the new program largely on the ideas of UW researchers who had been demonstrating since the turn of the century how government could play a role in securing the well-being of its citizens. That Wisconsin school of thought helped rewrite the nation's labor laws and brought about such programs as unemployment insurance and the minimum-wage law. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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The American Character |
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At the end of the 19th century, one of the most popular classes at the University of Wisconsin was Frederick Jackson Turner's course on the American frontier. In those lectures, Turner shared beliefs about our nation's history that would help define what it means to be an American. His "frontier thesis" traced strains of American self-reliance and individualism to the hard experience of colonizing the rugged West. Turner's argument became one of the most influential ideas about the American experience ever posed in a classroom. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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The First Dance |
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When the University of Wisconsin started the country's first college dance program in 1926, the goal was to teach more than dance. The program's founder, UW alumna Margaret H'Doubler, wanted the women's physical education curriculum to be worth a college woman's time, so she incorporated lessons on philosophy and art history. Under her direction, the university's dance program helped shape the world of modern dance and allowed thousands of students to explore this realm of creative expression. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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Bascom Hill Historic District |
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The Power of Ideas |
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As president of the University of Wisconsin from 1903 to 1918, Charles Van Hise championed a mission of public service that became known as the Wisconsin Idea. Calling for professors to share the wealth of their teaching and research, Van Hise declared that he would "never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family in the state." Campus leaders have been guided ever since by this moral imperative that the university should work for the benefit of all. |
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This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Controlling Blood Clotting |
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Through the misfortune of a Wisconsin farmer, biochemist Karl Paul Link and his University of Wisconsin associates were handed the keys to discovery of anticlotting factors. Farmer Ed Carlson in February 1933 brought to Link sweet clover hay that he thought might be involved in the death of his cattle from uncontrollable bleeding. Link and students isolated and identified dicumarol as the anticlotting agent in the spoiled hay. Link, and biochemists Mark Stahmann and M. Ikawa, then synthesized comparable compounds including Warfarin, which is widely used to treat thrombosis and other clotting disorders. It also proved to be a highly effective rodenticide. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Discovering Vitamins and Trace Minerals |
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By feeding diets of single grains to sixteen dairy heifers, University of Wisconsin scientists under the direction of biochemist E.B. Hart in 1907 set the stage for the discovery of vitamins and essential trace minerals. These feeding experiments revealed that micro-components other than fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and salts were necessary for life and reproduction. These missing components were later shown to be vitamins and essential minerals such as iron, copper, and iodine. The single-grain experiments, inspired by biochemist Stephen M. Babcock, changed forever the way scientists viewed diet and nutrition in animals and humans. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Discovery of Vitamins A and B |
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In 1913 University of Wisconsin biochemist Elmer V. McCollum and associates used rats to conduct nutritional studies that led to the discovery of vitamin A in butterfat and cod liver oil. In 1917 his group discovered the vitamin B complex in milk whey. Scientists first named these "fat-soluble factor A" and "water-soluble factor B." Incorporating C. Funk's term of "vital amine," McCollum later named them "vitamine" A and "vitamine" B. This opened the field of nutrition for the identification of all the vitamins, a search completed in the 1940s. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Disease-Resistant Plants |
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At the end of the 19th century, a fungal infection called cabbage yellows threatened the entire Wisconsin cabbage crop. University of Wisconsin plant pathologist John C. Walker solved the problem by developing strains of cabbage resistant to the fungus. This was the first of many successful research efforts that later developed disease resistance in onions, potatoes, beans, peas, and cucumbers. Fifty-two of his 101 years of life were devoted to studying plant diseases at the University of Wisconsin. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Eliminating Pellagra |
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Pellagra once was a widespread and often fatal disease that was particularly common where corn was a dietary staple. In 1938, University of Wisconsin biochemists Conrad Elvehjem and Frank Strong isolated and identified the B vitamin, niacin, and demonstrated that pellagra was caused by niacin deficiency. The application of this discovery eliminated pellagra as a significant health problem. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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First Chemical Synthesis of a Gene |
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Biochemist Har Gobind Khorana shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1968 for research that was essential to understanding how DNA is translated into proteins. His work at the Institute for Enzyme Research completed the puzzle of which particular nucleic acid sequences code for each of the twenty-one amino acids that make up all proteins. He was also the first person to synthesize a gene chemically. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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First Reliable Test of Milk Quality |
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A milestone in modern dairying was the development of a simple and accurate measure of the butterfat content of milk. University of Wisconsin biochemist Stephen M. Babcock in 1890 developed the test that made him internationally famous and revolutionized milk production and marketing. The test provided a rational basis of milk evaluation, and prompted better breeding, feeding, and milk production practices. Babcock instructed dairy farmers in the use of the test, which led to the start of the nation's first dairy manufacturing short course. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Forging Agrarian Democracy |
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The modern discipline of agricultural and applied economics owes much to University of Wisconsin scholars Henry C. Taylor and Benjamin H. Hibbard for their seminal work on the economic, political, and social meaning of land ownership. Agricultural economists Kenneth H. Parsons and Raymond J. Penn continued and deepened Wisconsin's commitment to the traditions of land and institutional economics, emphasizing landuse planning and resource policy, public interest in private land, and the role of the family farm. After World War II the philosophies of these agricultural economists helped guide and democratize agrarian and landtenure policies around the world. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Genetically Superior Crops |
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University of Wisconsin geneticist R.A. Brink brought hybrid corn to Wisconsin, releasing the s first hybrid for production in 1933. Eight years later ninety percent of Wisconsin corn was hybrid. Soon the yield per acre was tripled. Brink also developed a strain of alfalfa that could survive freezing weather. This strain, Vernal, soon became the leading variety in the nation. Throughout his career, Brink remained involved in basic research. His best-known efforts focused on transposable genetic elements, bits of DNA that move from one chromosomal site to another and add to genetic diversity. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Mass Production of Penicillin |
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During World War II countless lives were saved through the use of the antibiotic penicillin, a natural product of a mold. However, the drug became widely available only after a method was developed to mass-produce it from a selected and genetically altered strain of the mold. University of Wisconsin bacteriologist Kenneth B. Raper isolated a productive organism, botanist John F. Stauffer genetically modified it, and biochemists William H. Peterson and Marvin Johnson developed submerged fermentation techniques to produce penicillin in quantity. The early wholesale cost of 100,000 units dropped from twenty dollars to three cents by the end of the war. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Pioneering Bacterial Genetics |
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Geneticist Joshua Lederberg was the first University of Wisconsin faculty member to receive the Nobel Prize. His discovery of conjugation in bacterial cells was a milestone in biology and ushered in the new field of bacterial genetics. Soon, the genetics of the bacterium Escherichia coli became better understood than the genetics of all other organisms. Lederberg also discovered, with graduate student Norton Zinder, that a virus can carry genes from one bacterium to another through a process called "transduction." A man of wide knowledge and many scholarly interests, Lederberg later became president of Rockefeller University. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Preventing Endemic Goiter |
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In regions distant from the oceans, goiter once was a common disease of humans and animals. Goiter, manifested through an enlarged thyroid gland, is caused by a deficiency of iodine in the diet. University of Wisconsin biochemists Edwin B. Hart and Harry Steenbock in 1917 confirmed the cause of goiter. In 1939, Hart and his associates developed a process to stabilize added iodine in table salt. This provided an inexpensive and universal means to prevent goiter. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Revolutionizing Animal Reproduction |
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Techniques of assisted reproduction, particularly of cattle, have revolutionized animal breeding practices worldwide. University of Wisconsin biochemists Henry Lardy and Paul Phillips developed methods for dilution and longterm preservation of sperm. Reproductive biologist Lester E. Casida pioneered studies leading to control of the estrous cycle, ovulation, and oocyte maturation, and conducted the first embryo transfer that resulted in the birth of a calf. This work, conducted from the 1930s to the 1970s, laid the foundation for invitro embryo production, cloning, and transgenic production widely used today. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Scientific Approach to Agriculture |
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In 1893 the College of Agriculture's emerging sciencebased approach to agriculture was emphatically demonstrated to farmers and Wisconsin citizens by the postmortem verification of a tuberculosis test for cattle. Organized by University of Wisconsin bacteriologist Harry L. Russell, the slaughter of the exceptionally fine University dairy herd verified the accuracy of the test to a doubting audience. Acceptance of the test helped pave the way to control of tuberculosis in animals and humans. Russell, who succeeded William A. Henry as dean in 1907, was known as the "Science Dean" because of his emphasis on research. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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The Land Ethic |
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The ideas of University of Wisconsin ecologist Aldo Leopold provided the intellectual and philosophical foundation for the discipline of wildlife ecology. His 1948 book of essays, A Sand County Almanac, gave form and voice to the land ethic that undergirds modern concepts of environmental sustainability. He fostered the idea that land is more than a commodity, that nature is a human trust, and that there is inherent value in wilderness and wild things. Through his land ethic and by advocating wilderness preservation, Leopold developed a philosophical blueprint for bringing human affairs into greater harmony with the natural world. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Treatment of Iron Deficiency Anemia |
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Biochemists in the 1920s conducted studies leading to improved understanding of the roles of minerals in animal and human diets. University of Wisconsin biochemists E.B. Hart, C.A. Elvehjem, and Harry Steenbock discovered that copper, in addition to iron, is necessary for making hemoglobin, a component of blood that carries oxygen from the lungs to tissues, and carbon dioxide from tissues to lungs. This led to the use of copper to treat iron deficiency anemia. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Understanding Immunity |
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In the mid1940s University of Wisconsin geneticist Ray Owen noticed a surprising fact about nonidentical cattle twins. Each twin had two kinds of blood cells, its own and those of its twin. In ordinary transfusions, such mixing of blood cells often leads to severe immunological reaction. Owen realized that when bloods are exchanged early in development, each twin somehow learns to tolerate the other's cells. This discovery of "immune tolerance" helped to explain how an organism can tell its own cells from foreign ones, and fueled a revolution in immunology. The nature of immune tolerance is central to studies of organ transplantation, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Vitamin D Production Ends Rickets |
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The discovery of how to produce vitamin D stands as a critical event in the history of vitamin research. In 1924, University of Wisconsin biochemist Harry Steenbock discovered that ultraviolet light converts an inactive material in food to vitamin D. Application of this discovery virtually eliminated rickets, a debilitating bone disease once common among children. Steenbock used the proceeds from his invention to originate and fund the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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College of Agricultural and Life Sciences |
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Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation |
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The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, incorporated in 1925, was created to make the discoveries of University of Wisconsin scientists available to the public. WARF patents return royalties to the University to support new research. The idea to create WARF came from UW biochemist Harry Steenbock, who had discovered a year earlier that the irradiation of food products would create vitamin D components thus preventing rickets and other bone diseases. Since that time, WARF has returned hundreds of millions of dollars of royalties and investment income to the University for research in all fields. Many academic institutions have now adopted the WARF model for technology transfer. |
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This historic marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation. |
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