“I think we’ll learn a lot about what the capabilities of various A.I. protocols are from how well we can get them to generate material that’s of interest,” said Jordan S. Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is part of a team applying for an Exponentiating Mathematics grant. “We have no intuition yet about which problems are going to be hard and which problems are easy. We need to learn that.”
June 19, 2025
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Top Stories
Republicans float $80 million cut to UW System budget
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters Wednesday afternoon the Republican caucus supports a roughly $80 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System budget, saying the reform is needed to fix the “broken” process currently in place.
Republicans consider $87 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System in the two-year state budget
Republicans who control the state Legislature are considering cutting funding to the University of Wisconsin System by $87 million as they build a new two-year state budget that may require Democratic votes to pass.
Research
Mysterious ancient humans now have a face
John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the studies delivered a definitive answer to the question of the Harbin skull’s identity. “Mystery solved,” he said.
Madison has an ‘extraordinary asset’ to rebuild public trust in science
The Morgridge Institute for Research, or MIR, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has always been a bit of a mystery to me, and not just because the scientific research that goes on there exceeds my limited grasp of biology, chemistry and physics. (Or the fact that the building it shares with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, or WID, is at the nearly-impossible-to-navigate intersection of University Avenue, Campus Drive, North Randall Avenue and North Orchard Street.)
Trump cuts to NOAA, NASA ‘blinding’ farmers to risks, scientists warn
The effect on U.S. forecasting will be “like losing your eyesight: slow and torturous,” said Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin.
Americans who have grown up amid the “unheralded revolution” of ever-more-precise weather forecasts will find themselves in a world growing blurrier — even as the weather grows ever more volatile, Martin added.
Higher Education/System
Budget causes friction as Senate passes bills without funding attached
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said his caucus supports cutting $87 million from the UW system, but wouldn’t say if that’s the final proposal the budget committee will take up. The system has said it needs additional funding and Evers had requested $855 million in his proposal for it. Vos says Republicans want “reform” of the UW for the “broken process that we currently have.”
State news
Wisconsin legislators want tax cuts. How much would their plans save?
“The income tax proposals cost the state a fair amount of money, but it’s not a huge share of the state budget,” said Ross Milton, an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The flip side of that is that the impacts to any given household in Wisconsin in terms of how much money they’ll save on income taxes are pretty modest.”
Agriculture
‘We know what to do’: Wisconsin fairs continue bird flu testing requirements for cows
Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said the impact was disappointing last year, especially given the amount of work exhibitors put into getting an animal ready for show.
“I’m hoping that with one year of experience under their belt, they feel more comfortable to be able to submit that testing and make sure that we have robust cow classes in these shows,” said Poulsen, whose lab processes all of the avian flu samples taken in the state. “It’s part of our culture, and we missed that last year.”
Health
1 psychedelic psilocybin dose eases depression for years, study reveals
Very few long-term studies of psilocybin for depression have been conducted to date, said Dr. Charles Raison, a professor of human ecology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the research.
“They are very difficult to do because people drop out,” Raison told Live Science in an email. “But also because they go on all sorts of other treatments that obfuscate the degree to which any longer lasting benefits result from the psychedelic or because the participant got therapy or restarted an antidepressant.”
Business/Technology
Riots, police dogs and campgrounds. What to know about a batch of bills passed in the state Senate
Already, a group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Realta Fusion, a Madison-based nuclear startup, have developed a fusion device in Stoughton that creates the same kind of reaction that fuels the sun and stars. The process is much different than fission, the nuclear reaction that powers current nuclear reactors and the atomic bomb.
UW Experts in the News
Insect pests to expect, La Crosse’s The Nature Place, and efforts to save the Northwoods
We get an insect update from UW-Madison entomologist PJ Liesch. Then, we learn about a collaboration between a children’s book author and The Nature Place in La Crosse. And then, we talk about the resilience of the Northwoods with two leaders from The Nature Conservancy.
UW-Madison Related
Don’t fall in love with AI, and other life rules for graduates
I also studied my good friend Jason Gay’s recent commencement speech at the University of Wisconsin. He didn’t just talk in abstract, he showed proof. Next commencement season, we’re offering a WSJ columnist 2-for-1 deal. Steve Carell has nothing on us.