In The News

Throughout much of 2013, a community of more than 50 chimpanzees living in Uganda’s Kibale National Park came down with a nasty and incredibly contagious respiratory illness. “It was completely unknown that rhinovirus C could infect anything other than humans,” senior study author Tony Goldberg, a professor in the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, said in a statement.

Data collected over the past ten years shows that one of every four cows struggles with lameness, defined as walking with a noticeable limp. "We need to do better than that," Dr. Nigel Cook, University of Wisconsin Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, said during the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin's World Class Webinar.

Five healthy chimpanzees in Uganda that died following a mysterious respiratory disease outbreak in 2013 were actually killed by a common human cold virus, scientists now say. The deaths in the small chimpanzee community followed an "explosive outbreak of severe coughing and sneezing," according to study author Dr. Tony Goldberg, a professor with the University of Wisconsin's School of Veterinary Medicine.

The end of the year is a time of holiday gift giving, and finding just the right gift can sometimes feel like an impossible task. But folks at an animal eyeball lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say that a gift they've just received, partly thanks to NPR, has made this the "best Christmas ever."

On calving day, cows will suddenly lose 20 to 30 grams of calcium to the udder for the production of colostrum, which is about two to three times the amount of calcium lost compared to the day prior to calving. This sudden and urgent demand for calcium sends the cow into negative calcium balance. “Most cows will revert back to positive calcium balance by six to eight weeks post-calving, meaning the calcium intake now equals or exceeds calcium outflow,” said Dr. Garrett Oetzel, DVM MS, professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

More than 3 years after imposing a moratorium on U.S. funding for certain studies with dangerous viruses, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, lifted this so-called "pause" and announced a new plan for reviewing such research. “This NIH decision allows us to move forward,” virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin in Madison wrote in an email.

A spate of sudden deaths among a community of chimpanzees in Uganda was caused by the common cold, passed on by humans. “This was an explosive outbreak of severe coughing and sneezing,” says Tony Goldberg, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine who studied the outbreak.

Continuing advances in canine cardiology are expanding the options for diagnosis and treatment of common heart ailments in dogs, including a recent study that demonstrated pimobendan's efficacy in delaying the onset of congestive heart failure. “These findings represent a huge leap forward in the treatment success experienced by most dogs,” said Rebecca Stepien, DVM, clinical professor of cardiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine.

In places like rural Uganda, where the line between humans and animals is diminishing, scientists like Tony Goldberg, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of epidemiology, search for new diseases.

Scientists working with chimps in Kibale National Park in Uganda have found that they can catch the common cold from humans -- and don't have any immunity. Many of the chimps developed respiratory problems -- and some died. Dr Tony Goldberg was lead researcher.