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November 15, 2021

Top Stories

Mandates drove up COVID-19 vaccination rates at Wisconsin colleges and universities

Wisconsin State Journal

The University of Wisconsin System early this year came out against a mandate, a stance that frustrates some students and staff who believe a requirement would not only provide a much safer environment for working and learning but also increase overall vaccination rates. The System instead requires unvaccinated students to test regularly. It has also incentivized students to get the shot by offering $7,000 scholarships to 70 vaccinated students enrolled at a campus that reached a 70% vaccination goal by Oct. 31. At UW-Madison, which did not participate in the incentive campaign and does not have a mandate, 95% of the student body is vaccinated, far and away the best outcome statewide among responding campuses that followed neither route.

Research

Campus life

Two candidates make it as finalists for Chief Information Security Officer position at UW

Badger Herald

Two finalists, Jeffrey Savoy and Damon Armour, have been selected for final on-campus interviews for the chief information security officer position. Savoy previously served as the interim chief information security officer at the University of Wisconsin Office of Cybersecurity, and Armour was the director of information security and risk and assurance at North Carolina State University.

State news

Crime and safety

Athletics

UW Experts in the News

Explainer: Could jury weigh lesser charges for Rittenhouse?

PBS NewsHour

Adams said prosecutors most likely will seek second-degree versions of the intentional homicide charges. Such charges could apply if jurors determined that Rittenhouse sincerely believed his life was in danger but used an unreasonable amount of force, University of Wisconsin-Madison criminal law professor Cecelia Klingele said. Second-degree reckless endangerment could apply if jurors found that he put someone in harm’s way but did so without showing utter disregard for human life, she said.

Law professor discusses Kyle Rittenhouse trial with closing arguments set to begin Monday

CBS News

Closing arguments are set to begin Monday in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial. Prosecutors and defense attorneys were in court Friday hashing out the details for next week’s jury instructions. Rittenhouse is accused of killing two people and injuring a third during a protest against police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. Steven Wright, a University of Wisconsin Law School professor, joined CBSN to discuss the proceedings.

California and Colorado Bypass CDC, Recommend Boosters for All Adults

Business Insider

“We have a choice as we look into the winter,” David O’Connor, a pathology professor at the University of Wisconsin, recently told Insider. “Down one path, we have being reluctant and living with waning immunity, living with cases and the problems that brings with it. Down the other path, we have something that looks more like Israel, where a large fraction of the population is highly protected from being infected in any way with Delta. I don’t know why you would choose the first path when the second path is right in front of us.”

How Pearls Obtain Their Remarkable Symmetry

Smithsonian Magazine

While pearls lack carefully planned symmetry that keeps brick buildings in order, pearls will maintain symmetry for 20 layers at a time, which is enough to accumulate consistency over its thousands of layers. In a way, the pearl “self-heals” when defects arise without using external scaffolding as a template, comments Pupa Gilbert, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the study, to Science News.

Can lucid dreaming help us understand consciousness?

The Guardian

“There’s a grouping of higher-level features, which seem to be very closely associated with what we think of as human consciousness, which come back in that shift from a non-lucid to a lucid dream,” says Dr Benjamin Baird, a research scientist at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And there’s something to be learned in looking at that contrast.”

Kenosha hopes for calm as Kyle Rittenhouse trial nears end

NBC News

John Eason, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said closing arguments and the verdict will be a pivotal moment for America.

“I think the mood in Wisconsin, not just Kenosha, is that they’re over the whole racial awakening. All signs are this is going to be the case that vindicates white people,” Eason said, adding: “If the peak of the country’s social justice reckoning was George Floyd, then this is the pendulum swinging back. This is the tipping point back.”

Boom cycle: Economic recovery, home deliveries fuel demand for recycled materials

Wisconsin State Journal

Each year the world produces about 100 million tons of this multilayer plastic, which can’t be recycled with traditional methods, said George Huber, a professor of chemical engineering at UW-Madison who is developing techniques to separate those layers with solvents. “Plastics are a very complex chemical material,” Huber said. “There’s not one easy way to recycle all plastics.” As a result, only about 13% of consumer plastic actually gets recycled, Huber said. The rest ends up in landfills, incinerators and the ocean.

Watch now: Alliant Energy puts finishing touches on $670M natural gas plant

Wisconsin State Journal

When burned for fuel, natural gas releases roughly half as much carbon dioxide as coal and a tiny fraction of pollutants like sulfur and mercury. But the production and transportation results in release of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas, negating most of the environmental advantages. “It’s a little better, but not much,” said Morgan Edwards, an assistant professor of public affairs at UW-Madison who studies the impacts of energy use.

Obituaries

Ragotzkie, Robert A.

Wisconsin State Journal

After running the Marine Studies Institute on Sapelo Island, Ga., for five years, he moved the family back to Madison, where he began his teaching career with the UW Department of Meteorology. His work as a scientist and teacher took him to remote areas of the earth, including Antarctica, where he studied lakes in dry valleys, and the Northwest Territories of Canada, where there was more lake research to be done.

Jaeger, James W.

Wisconsin State Journal

He taught in UW zoological courses for several years and was a researcher in the Porter Lab for 30 years until his retirement in 2006.

Martin, David W.

Wisconsin State Journal

David graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a doctorate in meteorology in 1968 and had a successful career as a research meteorologist at the UW Space Science & Engineering Center for over five decades.

UW-Madison Related

Ways To Verify Knowledge Transfer And Skills When Training

Forbes

Though the world’s first distance learning institution was established in 1906 by the University of Wisconsin, the first learning management system was developed only in 1924 when Sidney L. Pressey invented the first “teaching machine.” Learning management systems have since gone through significant improvements and during this evolution and the arrival of e-learning courses to verify skills, the most integral part of a learning ecosystem has been forgotten, and instead, we began focusing on course completions.