Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, leveled the criticism Wednesday in a letter to UW-Madison professor Kenneth Mayer, who is teaching “The American Presidency” this semester. The first lecture took place Tuesday.
January 24, 2019
Top Stories
Research
How to stay focused
Noted: Creativity can benefit from distraction too. Jihae Shin, now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has found that when people played Minesweeper or Solitaire for 5 minutes before coming up with new business ideas, they were more creative than those who didn’t play.
You can’t control what you can’t find: Detecting invasive species while they’re still scarce
Jake Walsh, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Most of the 10,000 ships lost to the bottom of the Great Lakes in wrecks over the past 400 years are still lost – hidden somewhere in 6 quadrillion gallons of water. Finding anything in a lake is a lesson in humility, so life as a freshwater biologist is always humbling. If we can’t account for huge steel freighters, imagine the challenge of finding a single tiny organism.
Mosquito-fighting bacteria
Most of the candidates discovered to date have been based on plant products. But now, in an article published in Science Advances, University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Mayur Kajla and his colleagues have discovered that chemicals produced by the bacterium Xenorhabdus can deter multiple mosquito species from feeding. And they do it with equivalent – or better – efficacy than DEET
Higher Education/System
How Politics Are Reshaping the College Presidency
A board has a responsibility to a university, one that can be corrupted when political ideologies are introduced, Harris said. “That fundamentally damages a university, and that can take generations to recover from,” he said. He pointed to the damage that politics have done to the University of Wisconsin system as an example.
America’s top universities unplug from China’s Huawei under pressure from Trump
The University of California at Berkeley has removed a Huawei video-conferencing system, a university official said, while the UC campus in Irvine is working to replace five pieces of Chinese-made audio-video equipment. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, are in the process of reviewing their suppliers.
Campus life
From the belly of the beast
For its fifth annual social justice conference, UW-Madison’s School of Social Work wanted to hear from people who know the social work system better than anyone: those who have grown up in it.
Agriculture
Diversity and efficiency go hand-in-hand in nature, health, and on the farm
Diversity simply means “a range of different things.” It was not long ago when our Wisconsin farms, while largely centered on dairy production, were typically also home to chickens, hogs, and sheep. These other enterprises may have been minor, but they provided a level of insurance when dairy proved less than profitable.
Downtrend in milk prices
Quoted: “Exports as a percentage of U.S. milk production have been climbing,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Every major downturn in the U.S. all milk price corresponds to times when export growth has been off trend or down.”
Downtrend in milk prices
“Exports as a percentage of U.S. milk production have been climbing,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Every major downturn in the U.S. all milk price corresponds to times when export growth has been off trend or down.”
Community
DreamUp Wisconsin finalists selected, strive for prosperous Dane County
After serious deliberation, the DreamUp initiative successfully narrowed down to three proposals aimed at boosting and strengthening Dane County’s middle class.
Arts & Humanities
Naughty auteur: A new series at Arts + Literature Lab presents videos of George Kuchar
Noted: James Kreul, founder and curator of Mills Folly Microcinema (and an Isthmus contributor), was also inspired by Kuchar, whom he met while attending UW-Madison. “Meeting George was a transformative moment for me, and began my journey exploring experimental film and video art,” says Kreul.
Madison’s black pioneers: An oral history collection captures the good times and bad
Noted: Simms is the editor of Settlin’: Stories of Madison’s Early African American Families, a collection of oral histories published late last year by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. Simms, 74, grew up in Madison, attending the city’s public schools and later UW-Madison, where she received three degrees, most recently a doctorate in educational administration. She is 15 years younger than her sister, Delores Simms Greene, whose oral history is included in the collection. The age gap proved pivotal to how their respective lives unfolded.
PHOTOS: Mike Leckrone recognized by Gov. Evers
The acknowledgement came at the end of the State of the State address.
Health
FDA Pushing for Over-The-Counter Sales of Naloxone
Noted: “Expanding naloxone access increases opioid abuse and opioid-related crime, and does not reduce opioid-related mortality. In fact, in some areas, particularly the Midwest, expanding naloxone access has increased opioid-related mortality. Opioid-related mortality also appears to have increased in the South and most of the Northeast as a result of expanding naloxone access,” wrote Jennifer Doleac, PhD, Texas A&M University, and co-author Anita Mukherjee, PhD, University of Wisconsin.
How noise pollution affects your mental health – Triggers anxiety, reduces learning and other effects on body
According to a child psychologist from the University of Wisconsin Madison, noise can act as a hindrance in the learning abilities of a child, especially a language. Constant background noise can lead to reduced ability of understanding words that the child already knows, and also of learning new ones.
The person they were meant to be
Noted: Things are slowly changing at the institutional level, says Mel Freitag, diversity officer and associate clinical professor at the UW–Madison School of Nursing. Today’s incoming students have been raised with more evidence-based and anecdotal education about gender identity, and they’re pointing out the gaps in class, a phenomenon known as “upteaching.”
Opinion
Tom Still: Research fuels UW
The annual report by the National Science Foundation on research and development spending by U.S. colleges and universities confirmed what many people already know: The UW-Madison is a powerhouse when it comes to attracting R&D dollars.
The shutdown is Trump’s ultimate attack on American intellectual life
Today marks day 33 of the government shutdown. Some 380,00 government employees are furloughed, and an additional 420,000 are required to work without pay, with many of them pressed to find temporary jobs, start GoFundMe pages or hawk their personal possessions.
Business/Technology
U.S. universities unplug from China’s Huawei under pressure from Trump
Noted: The University of California at Berkeley has removed a Huawei video-conferencing system, a university official said, while the UC campus in Irvine is working to replace five pieces of Chinese-made audio-video equipment. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, are in the process of reviewing their suppliers.
UW Experts in the News
Report: Lots Of Access To Pre-K, But Quality Sometimes Lacking
Quoted: “Particularly in large urban areas they can’t afford to have a class that low,” said Graue, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Research in Early Childhood Education.
How to Stop Rogue Gene-Editing of Human Embryos?
Quoted: In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, recommended a “comprehensive ecosystem of public and private entities that can restrain the rogues among us.”
Evers Walks Back Comments As Legislature’s Attorney Says He Can’t Stop ACA Lawsuit
Quoted: Howard Schweber, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said it could be up to the judicial system to decide the dispute.
How low-income parents are working to to help their children with autism
That means the needs of an untold number of children aren’t being met. It also has serious ramifications for research, because it can skew estimates of autism, says Maureen Durkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “It means that the prevalence of autism is probably even higher than we’re measuring.”
Obituaries
Remembering Erik Olin Wright
Erik Olin Wright, a University of Wisconsin–Madison sociologist and former president of the American Sociological Association, died from acute myeloid leukemia on January 23, 2019. He was 72.
Van Fleet, Rudy
Rudy spent 26 years with the University of Wisconsin Extension as a farm management agent in Columbia County
UW-Madison Related
With a towering natural bridge, Pier County Park is worth a detour in the Driftless Area
Noted: Ableman’s Gorge State Natural Area, on Highway 136 north of Rock Springs, features a nearly mile-long L-shaped cliff of quartzite and sandstone. Nearby is Van Hise Rock, a 15-foot monolith named for geologist and former president of UW-Madison Charles Van Hise, who used the rock to demonstrate how rocks change when mountains are formed.