Tomorrow is University of Wisconsin-Madison’s demisemiseptcentennial anniversary as the University of Wisconsin System’s flagship campus celebrates its 175th anniversary. To honor the milestone, the university will be holding a free celebration with music, fireworks, and of course, free ice cream.
“For the past 175 years, UW–Madison has been a place where extraordinary ideas become life-changing realities, where we honor traditions of the past while also continuing to propel Wisconsin forward,” says Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. “In the year ahead, we’ll celebrate many of the people, events and important advancements that have made UW–Madison one of the most respected institutions in the nation.”
Interview with Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at UW Madison, about why it’s so hot, and what this means for our climate.
While paper converters often go overlooked, they play an important role in both Wisconsin’s paper industry and its economy, according to a recent study from the Wisconsin Paper Council and University of Wisconsin titled, “Adding Value to Our Economy – Paper Conversion in Wisconsin.” More than 145 paper converters operated in Wisconsin in 2022, according to the study.
That number gets bigger a lot faster if you factor in companies that use paper along with plastic and other types of products, Scott Bowe, a professor and wood products specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in the May 31 episode of the Wisconsin Paper Council’s “The Paper Files” podcast about the study.
Written by Chris McCahill, managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s been proven that protracted hot weather can make people depressed,” said Dr. Charles Raison, who has done research on heat intolerance and summer-related depression. “It seems as if the system that modulates body temp also modulates mood.”
Raison, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said people with mental illness often have trouble with thermal regulation. “From our data, we know that people with depression tend to run body temperatures higher than average, and they don’t sweat as much. So being depressed could set you up to not be able to tolerate heat well.”
University Health Services in fall 2020 started its own mental health response team called the co-responder program. The University Police Department contacts Health Services for calls related to mental health, and the team will send two counselors to join UW officers at the scene.
Sarah Nolan, director of UW Mental Health Services, said that program has made a big difference on campus but is challenged by limited hours of service: from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Yellow perch, rainbow trout and tilapia are just a few of the fish farmed for food in Wisconsin. We break down the aquaculture industry and take a tour of a fish farm. Interview with Sharon Moen, an outreach specialist for the Sea Grant Institute at the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.
Shawn Conley is a soybean and small grain specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said many farmers who just finished harvesting winter wheat brought in quality grain. Conley said soybean fields are also doing OK, but they’ll need at least an inch of rain per week until September to reach their best yields.
“If we don’t get rain, we’ll start seeing a yield hit on the soybean side of things,” Conley said. “Corn is a different matter. I think we’ve already started to see some corn yield losses out there.”
According to the MPD statement, someone who lives at the fraternity house, which is in the 200 block of W. Lakelawn Place, called police about a stranger watching television in the living room. Officers arrived around 11 p.m., found the man still there, and took him into custody.
That’s a problem, said UW-Madison assistant professor Dr. Christopher Nicholas, who researches how psychedelics and other psychoactive compounds can be used to treat addiction, trauma, chronic pain and depression. “Trauma doesn’t discriminate … and those who are suffering often don’t have the resources to pay for ketamine,” Nicholas said.
On Tuesday, the University of Illinois revealed former University of Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard would join head coach Bret Bielema’s staff in Urbana as a Senior Football Analyst.
Considering those factors, Madison needs to build its way out of the housing crisis, experts said. That means building units at all price points to stabilize rent prices, said Kurt Paulsen, urban planning professor at UW-Madison.
“It’s a hard sell, but it works,” Paulsen said. “Housing is mostly a private business. We cannot force a developer or a landlord to provide low-cost affordable housing.”
The economic impacts of the proposal could be significant because parents typically buy baby items right before and right after birth, which is around the time that parental income falls the most, said Jessica Pac, a UW-Madison assistant social work professor.
“If you spend $100 per month just on diapers, and you remove this 5% sales tax, that would be $5 per month, which alone amounts to $60 per year,” Pac said. “But then when you consider all the items covered in the proposal that are purchased in the same time period, it would modestly offset expenses in the first few years of life.”
Gavin Dehnert, emerging contaminants scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped write the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ statewide PFAS standards in drinking water. He told the Cap Times the bill provides much-needed funding for testing and cleanup efforts in both public and private water sources.
“Before we can actually remediate it, we have to know where it is,” Dehnert said. “This does a pretty good job at saying, ‘OK, here is where the PFAS are. Let’s find out where the PFAS are so we can go about doing our best to remediate it.’”
Noted: It also educates people and prevents schools from making mistakes like one experienced last year by Bang’s son, who was stopped from walking in his Evanston Township High School graduation ceremony because of what he was wearing. Miskobinis, who is now a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said the day after the graduation ceremony, the school’s dean and dean of students hand-delivered his diploma and apologized for what had happened.
