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June 8, 2020

Research

The Milky Way’s giant gas bubbles have been spotted in visible light

Posted on
Science News

For the first time, scientists have observed visible light from the Fermi bubbles, enormous blobs of gas that sandwich the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. The newly spotted glow was emitted by hydrogen gas that was electrically charged, or ionized, within the bubbles. Astronomer Dhanesh Krishnarao of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and colleagues described the finding June 3 in a news conference at the American Astronomical Society virtual meeting and in a paper posted at arXiv.org on May 29.

Borsuk: On the education front, one way to move from anger to action would be to make sure all youngsters are proficient in reading

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: I read this past week an article in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change by McKenna Kohlenberg, a Milwaukee area native who is in the home stretch of getting both her law degree and a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It uses Madison as a case study in what Kohlenberg calls the “illiteracy-to-incarceration pipeline.” She cites research that 70% of adults who are incarcerated and 85% of juveniles who have been involved with the juvenile justice system are functionally illiterate.

“Literacy strongly correlates with myriad social and economic outcomes, and children who are not proficient by the fourth grade are much more likely than their proficient peers to face a series of accumulating negative consequences,” Kohlenberg writes.

Maps show ZIP codes with highest percentage of people at risk of severe complications from COVID-19

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “We found substantial variation across communities in the proportion of people who had these risk factors for severe complications,” said Maureen Smith, a physician and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “That finding suggests that matching community with the right resources needs to take into account that communities are different.”

The information compiled by UW researchers can help identify potential hot spots, said Jessica Bonham-Werling, director of the Neighborhood Health Partnership Program, which prepared the reports, at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. That in turn can help public health and other officials make decisions on where to allocate resources, from testing and contact tracing to community services, such as delivering groceries.

Higher Education/System

Campus life

Crime and safety

A Wauwatosa police officer is under investigation for his third fatal shooting in five years

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Mensah worked for less than two years at both the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department before he was hired by Wauwatosa police in January 2015.

Mensah was the subject of one citizen complaint while on the UW-Madison police force, but his supervisors determined he had acted appropriately. A student said Mensah unnecessarily drew his Taser when officers responded to break up fights at a fraternity’s dance party, records show. Mensah did not fire the Taser.

The complaint was not upheld after other officers and witnesses described the chaotic scene and the student who filed the complaint did not return voice messages. The phone number eventually was disconnected.

Agriculture

Community

Black Lives Matter protests continue peacefully Saturday night at Capitol

Posted on
Badger Herald

Since Friday, the group of previously unaffiliated youth activists organizing the protests officially created an organization, which they’re calling Impact Demand. Impact Demand will help organize future protests and work with other community organizations to create policy change in Madison, Co-Creator and University of Wisconsin rising sophomore Ayomi Obuseh said.

Health

Fitness Machine Technicians Opens First Location in Wisconsin

Posted on
Patch.com

Don and Traci both attended Kaukauna High School. Don received a degree in Economics from University of Wisconsin – Madison as well as a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh and Traci earned a degree in Family & Consumer Relations from University of Wisconsin – Madison. Prior to their new venture together, Don worked in the financial services sector for a Fortune 500 company and Traci worked in the health insurance industry as a business analyst.

Opinion

UW Experts in the News

How K-Pop Fans Are Supporting Black Lives Matter

Posted on
The Atlantic

But by 2018, young Harry Styles fans were exerting pressure from the bottom-up: They started bringing Black Lives Matter flags to his concerts and urging him on Twitter to recognize the cause, wrote Allyson Gross, a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in a recent paper on how fans identify with celebrities and view them as representatives for their values. They were guiding him toward action, hoping “to mobilize his image for their own political purpose,” she argued. (The pressure campaign was largely successful.)

UW-Madison Related

Strictly Discs in Wisconsin, in a Pandemic: ‘I Try to Remind Myself Everything is a Small Step Towards Progress’

Posted on
Billboard

Q: How things are going out in Madison right now? What have you seen and experienced over the past week?

A: As you alluded, up until today we’ve had five days of peaceful and powerful protests downtown, largely on the Capitol Square. The first three nights of those were followed by some violence and looting of businesses that are also located close to the Capitol. There’s a retail street that connects [the University of Wisconsin–Madison] campus with the Capitol called State Street. It’s an automobile-free street, and that’s where most of the looting and damage to property has taken place.