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article Fall 2016

HIV: The Master of Mutation

By Edwin Neumann Viruses have been around for eons — possibly close to 3.5 billion years, according to many scientists. Some viral proteins even predate the divergence of life into the three domains: bacteria, archaea (ancient bacteria), and eukarya (plant, animal, and fungus cells). These ubiquitous microbes, which are not classified under any of the domains, have […]

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article Fall 2016

Voting: There’s Not an App for That

By Eric Fleming Today, most people expect to be able to do anything and everything on their smartphone. Apple’s famous 2009 refrain “There’s an app for that” has quickly transformed from a selling point into an expectation. Almost every conceivable task has been moved to the internet, and subsequently to the mobile phone. People use […]

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article Fall 2016

The Twenty Percent

By Anastasia Montgomery Walking into an engineering class on the first day of a semester, I find it amusing to do a quick survey of my class, and without fail I find that only about 1 in 5 people are female. Depending on the class, that proportion can be much worse, as is the case […]

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article Fall 2016

One Thing “Lead” to Another: An Origin Story

By Mark Bodnar During childhood, just about everyone received an unfortunate nickname or two that they are quite glad to have left firmly in the past; and fortunately, time does have a certain knack for erasing things from memory. Today most people know Illinois as the Prairie State and Wisconsin as the Badger State. But […]

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article Fall 2016

A Closer Look at Optics

By Alex Chay On campus, professors are doing many different types of research. Some of these topics are consistent with what one thinks of when hearing the word “research”: mixing chemicals in test tubes or observing bacteria cells under a microscope. On the other hand, some professors are delving into topics that may baffle a […]

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article Fall 2016

Laser-Aided Machining: The Future of Manufacturing

By Chris Hanko There is definitely no shortage of groundbreaking research being done at UW-Madison, and the next breakthrough could happen in the heart of Mechanical Engineering. In Associate Professor Frank Pfefforkorn’s Laser-Assisted Multi-Scale Manufacturing Lab, major research is being done in the fields of materials science, manufacturing, welding and many others to ultimately grow […]

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article Fall 2016

Nuclear Fusion: Not Just Science Fiction

By Stephen Eick Energy is everything. Without energy, Earth would be a frozen hunk of rock meandering through space. Without energy, society would cease to exist as we know it today. Humans use water, the oil in the earth, the wind, the sun, and many other methods to generate this energy. Some methods harm our […]

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article Fall 2016

Preparing for Engineering

By Emily Morzewski Across the United States, students are underexposed to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, but Project Lead the Way is trying to fix that. Project Lead the Way is a nationwide organization consisting of six different programs, starting with grade school students and moving through high school. Within these programs, a […]

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article Fall 2016

Epic and its Takeover

By Krishna Patel As UW-Madison students begin to search for post-graduation job opportunities, many turn to the expanding medical software company, Epic, which is conveniently located here in Madison. Epic, the third-largest employer in Dane County, has placed great emphasis on recruiting graduates from UW-Madison. Not only does this growing company have the software to […]

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article Fall 2016

Where Should I Study Today?

By Hanwook Chung “When midterm season starts, it’s almost like a war!” says one of the engineering students who failed to find study spaces on engineering campus. As the home turf of more than 8,000 engineering students, the engineering campus could be one of the toughest places to found a good study spot when midterm […]