Mark Johnson calls this the best time of the year.
It’s winter break on the University of Wisconsin campus, a time that most of the student body heads home and recharges for the second semester. The break is a favorite of the Wisconsin’s women’s hockey coach because it is the one time all season that his players can lock in and devote all of their energy to the game.
With the fall semester drawn to a close and a new year on the horizon, University of Wisconsin-Madison professors in departments ranging from math to English are reflecting on their favorite reads of the year.
They shared with the Cap Times the best books of 2022 — a diverse array of topics and genres, including social justice, animal studies and Slavic science fiction.
Quoted: Mark Markel, dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, said many vets are no longer willing to work the brutal hours they did in the past.
“If veterinarians used to work 70 hours a week or 80 hours a week, and now they’re working 40, we’ve got a workforce shortage by almost half — even if we’re seeing the same number of patients,” he said.
As we head into the new year, UW Health facilities are getting some new names.
This is being done to make the names more intuitive and help patients and their families better able to find their way around, according to a release from the hospital system.
Quoted: Said Daniel Weix, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin: “Butane lighters don’t burn very cleanly. Like a candle, they will deposit soot onto things.”
And the ice can melt without generating visible droplets.
“The ice can go directly to the vapor phase and so the person holding the flame does not see it,” he said. “Another explanation is that the melting part that becomes water is drawn into the porous snowball – much like the syrup that is poured onto a snow cone that one enjoys in the summer – so you don’t see it.”
