beer

More Than Beer and Cheese: Why Wisconsin Has Always Been Good Ground for Science 

Posted on by Elise Johnson

Challenging Assumptions About Innovation

When people talk about places where science and technology tend to flourish, a few names surface almost immediately. Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle, Houston. Cities associated with density, competition and speed.

For many people outside the state, Wisconsin still collapses into a short list of associations: beer, cheese, cold winters, maybe a football team. Biotechnology rarely makes that list.

That hesitation usually has less to do with science itself and more to do with assumptions about where innovation is supposed to live. National Wisconsin Day, celebrated February 15, is a good moment to look past those assumptions and consider what Wisconsin has quietly offered for a long time: an environment and culture that is well-suited for scientific advances.

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Brewing Immunity: The Vaccine Beer Experiment

Posted on by Sara Millevolte

What if a vaccine didn’t come in a vial or a syringe, but in a pint glass?

It’s the kind of question that sounds hypothetical–something meant to provoke discussion rather than describe a real experiment. And yet, it’s one that a virologist claims to have taken seriously enough to test in his own kitchen.

Since publicly sharing his experiment and preliminary results, the idea of “vaccine beer” has drawn fascination, skepticism and no small amount of discomfort from across the scientific community.

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Do Mosquitoes Have a Taste for Beer?

Posted on by Shannon Sindermann

Festival season is here—and apparently, mosquitoes got tickets too.

If you have ever been the person in your friend group who ends a summer concert covered in large, itchy welts while everyone else goes home bite-free, you are not imagining things. Some people really are mosquito magnets.

Mosquito bite

A new study, aptly titled “Blood, Sweat, and Beers,” set out to uncover what makes certain humans irresistible to mosquitoes. But instead of a sterile lab or a rainforest expedition, this experiment took place at one of the Netherlands’ biggest music festivals; Lowlands, a three-day party with 65,000 attendees, questionable hygiene and plenty of beer. In other words: the perfect breeding ground for this science experiment.

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