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March 22, 2021

Top Stories

Pandemic, lack of spring break strains UW-Madison students’ mental health

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

While UW-Madison students are hopeful about vaccination efforts ramping up and spring weather arriving, many are still struggling to make online classes work while also worrying about their finances and health. This month marks the halfway point in a 14-week semester taking place almost entirely online and without a spring break, a schedule that students say is leading to burnout and in some cases damaging their mental health.

Research

UW study: Climate change linked to longer ‘dead zones’ in lakes

Posted on
WISC-TV 3

A newly published study done on Lake Mendota says climate change is linked to longer lasting dead zones. In the summer, lakes can settle into having two layers of water, a phenomena known at stratification. Warm water is lighter and sits on the top of the lake, while colder water sits at the bottom of the lake.

Campus life

Community

Arts & Humanities

How Wisconsin’s Charlie Hill Influenced Native American Comedy

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

After majoring in speech and comedy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he joined the American Indian Theatre Ensemble Company. He portrayed the Nez Perce trickster figure Coyote in a production called “Coyote Tracks.” The ensemble went on a six-week tour of Germany but infighting and an inability to receive regular payments led to the end of the troupe. When Hill returned to the United States, he began hanging out at new comedy clubs like Catch a Rising Star and the Improvisation in Greenwich Village.

Health

COVID-19 Precautions Have Cut The Spread Of Other Illnesses In Schools. What Can That Teach Us Going Forward?

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has reported zero deaths from the seasonal flu among kids since October, and a massive reduction in flu cases. University of Wisconsin-Madison pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Greg Demuri said respiratory syncytial virus, a common illness in infants and toddlers that’s one of the leading causes of hospitalizations in children, has all but disappeared this year.

Athletics

Business/Technology

At Pyran, Kevin Barnett is out to replace petroleum with plants

Posted on
The Capital Times

Today, Barnett runs Pyran, a 3-year-old startup providing plant-based materials to replace fossil fuels in plastics and paints. He subleases a lab space at University Research Park and runs a team of “young, scrappy chemical engineers … surrounded by some really good advisors,” including George Huber, the professor he once worked for, who co-founded the company.

UW Experts in the News

Just what is the BettyLab cooking up for girls?

Posted on
The Boston Globe

Home economists “saw that women could and should do more, but the way to get people to accept them was to do it in the domestic sphere,” says Rima Apple, historian at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Human Ecology. “What the home economists did was they took this sphere and they pushed it and pushed it out of the private and into the public,” she explains. “There were many leaders of the movement who thought this was a way to open a larger world for women but realized the social limitations and thought they could only do so much in one generation.”

Brown County Moves To Address Public Defender Shortage

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

In many cases, $70 per hour isn’t enough to cover overhead when attorneys are paying for their office space, supplies, insurance and more, said John Gross of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law. This year, the base rate for private attorneys who take on federal defendants is $155 per hour, he said.

Fox weather forecaster Dean turns into fierce Cuomo critic

Posted on
AP

Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said those situations aren’t comparable.

“It might be wise for us to take this out of the context of Fox News and ask whether the weather personality on our local station should be calling for the arrest of our mayor,” she said. “I think that would make people profoundly uncomfortable and justifiably so.”

Obituaries

Morris, Ann E. (Richardson)

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Ann worked at UW-Madison College of Engineering for 40 years, retiring in 2007. She was Program Manager Emeritus in charge of the admission and advising of transfer students at the College of Engineering.

Michael Fleet Fitzsimmons

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

A hard working man for 40 years, as a heat and frost insulator with Local 19, and UW Madison. His top priority was always providing for his family.

Marty, Lyle Witte

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Lyle worked in the Astronomy Department at UW-Madison, as an instrument maker for 25 years, starting in March 1964, and retiring in 1990, at age 67.

UW-Madison Related

New book from Jonathan Martin of The Weather Guys delves into the origins of modern meteorology

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison professor Jonathan Martin, one of the writers of the State Journal’s “Ask the Weather Guys” column, answers that question in his new book “Reginald Sutcliffe and the Invention of Modern Weather Systems Science,” which came out March 15. He’ll be discussing the book during a virtual event through Mystery to Me bookstore later this month.