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May 19, 2025

Research

Wisconsin is at the center of emerging scientific field with answers to ‘nature vs. nurture’

Wisconsin Public Radio

With the study of social genomics — or sociogenomics — scientists argue that genes and environment truly coexist and influence another throughout a person’s lifetime.

University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor Silvia Helena Barcellos said social genomics really just got started roughly 10 years ago, around the same time that scientists decoded the human DNA sequence and began to better understand it.

Elissa’s journey: A young mom’s relentless battle for life after colorectal cancer hit

USA Today

As Elissa and Russell said their vows, Xu and Cain were working to build HistoSonics, the company they’d formed in 2009 with Tim Hall, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and J. Brian Fowlkes, a professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at U-M.

Their company created the Edison System, a device with a robotic arm that delivers precision histotripsy treatments using a specialized, high-powered ultrasound transducer through a tub of water.

Higher Education/System

Packers, Bucks and some of Wisconsin’s biggest businesses wade into UW funding debate

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Nearly 800 business leaders and organizations have signed a letter urging state lawmakers to increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System.

The letter pulls a page from UW-Madison’s playbook. The university in 2023 gathered signatures from dozens of business leaders who supported an engineering building Republicans held up in the previous state budget and shared their support in a statewide campaign.

Campus life

State news

Wisconsin commemorates 50th anniversary of Hmong resettlement

Wisconsin Public Radio

Mai See Thao, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that these resolutions are “long overdue.”

“Recognizing Hmong-Lao veterans is really important because they have never received the kinds of recognition that they’ve needed, given the fact that they supported the U.S. as proxy soldiers,” she said.

Health

When should your child stop using a pacifier?

CNN

“Ideally, if it’s not a huge challenge, trying to see (the) use of thumb sucking or pacifier use stop by 18 months is a good thing, but I wouldn’t get too worked up about it if it was still happening at age two, maybe even three,” said Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who is also a pediatrician and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Early Childhood.

Business/Technology

I joined Meta during its ‘year of efficiency.’ I used 4 strategies to get promoted and grow my salary by $300,000 in 2 years.

Business Insider

In the summer before I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had the opportunity to intern with Meta. I loved the scale of the projects the company worked on, and I returned to the company full time as a software engineer in 2023 — Meta’s “year of efficiency.”

UW Experts in the News