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Author: gbump

Electric Motors Are About to Get a Major Upgrade Thanks to Benjamin Franklin

Wall Street Journal

Leading the effort to resuscitate Franklin’s concept for motors big enough to use in industrial applications is C-Motive Technologies in Middleton, Wis. It is a 16-person startup founded by a pair of University of Wisconsin engineers named Justin Reed and Daniel Ludois who spent years tinkering with electrostatic motors to see if they could be improved.

How Long Does Halloween Candy Last?

CNET

Yes, but not in the same way that perishable items such as eggs, chicken and produce do. When candy goes bad, it’s “almost always a physical (drying out) or chemical (lipid oxidation, flavor change) change and not microbial,” Richard W. Hartel, a food science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says.

University Presidents Should Not Silence Themselves

TIME

Hamas attacks and the Israeli response. Colleges and universities around the country are reconsidering their neutrality policies in the wake of such positions adopted by the University of Virginia, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Southern California, Harvard, Stanford, and many others. Schools are balancing, on the one hand, whether they put student rights or voices at risk when they take sides on controversial issues or whether they have a moral obligation to address societal wrongs.

When Does a High Become a Trip?

The Atlantic

Non-hallucinogenic, consciousness-altering experiences, like those reported to result from tabernanthalog use, sound far away from such mystical experiences, and more akin to how some people might feel after drinking a glass of wine or a strong cup of coffee. “Many of us are just filling our bodies with substances that cause acute alterations in consciousness of various degrees,” says Chuck Raison, a psychiatry professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

What we know: Fate of Texas death row inmate’s testimony before a state legislative committee is uncertain

CNN

“It’s the entire case, and that is Mr. Roberson’s case,” Keith Findley, professor emeritus with the University of Wisconsin Law School, testified before the Texas Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence last week. “When you have a prosecution, a conviction that rests entirely upon medical, scientific opinion, and it turns out that medical science is, at best, deeply disputed, you have a recipe for real problems.”

Saturday’s Multicultural Homecoming Tailgate and Watch Party will be “where all Badgers belong”

Madison365

“The Wisconsin Alumni Association is where all Badgers belong, and we’re excited to welcome alumni and friends back to campus for Homecoming,” Sarah Schutt, the chief alumni officer and executive director of WAA, tells Madison365. “We’re especially happy to support events and traditions that, for more than 10 years, have created meaningful spaces for alumni of color communities to connect and celebrate.”

To save monarch butterflies, these scientists want to move mountains

National Geographic

“If the monarch migration to this part of the world is to continue, both the trees and the monarchs will need to move,” says Karen Oberhauser, a biologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the study. According to Oberhauser, who studies monarch butterfly ecology, assisted migration could be a possible solution; however, whether it will work remains to be seen.

Man accused in brutal attack of UW-Madison student to change plea

WMTV - Channel 15

The brutal attack and sexual assault of a woman happened early the morning of Sept. 3, 2023, and left her fighting for her life. In the criminal complaint filed against Thompson, a Madison Police Department sergeant who was one of the first officers on the scene of the downtown assault described the victim’s injuries as “one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen.”

Meet the “Separated” Production Team

In 2007, he (Errol Morris) was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a graduate student at Princeton University and the University of California-Berkeley. He has received the Columbia Journalism Award and honorary degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Brandeis University, and Middlebury College.

‘Malicious’ texts sent to Wisconsin youths to discourage them from voting

The Guardian

In their letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and the non-profit organization Free Speech for People claimed that the text message had “targeted young voters aged 18-25” and “reached many voters who are part of the University of Wisconsin system”. Now, the letter alleges, “many students and other young voters are fearful that they will face criminal prosecution if they register and exercise their right to vote – because of a malicious, inaccurate text sent by an anonymous party.”

Why Political Text Blasts Targeting College Students Are Drawing Outrage

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Meanwhile, college students in Wisconsin, another swing state, allegedly received mass texts last week that advocates say could dissuade them from voting. The claim came in a Tuesday letter from a free-speech-advocacy group writing on behalf of Wisconsin’s chapter of the League of Women Voters, which supports expanding voting access but does not endorse specific candidates.

Watch Duty Wildfire Tracker Is the Hottest App of the Year

Bloomberg

According to the University of Wisconsin, almost one-third of US land is in the so-called wildland-urban interface and thus susceptible to forest fires, up from 29.5% in 1990. Meanwhile, people are spreading out; some 44 million US homes are now under threat from fire, up from 30 million in 1990, the data shows. Climate change is making those 72,000 communities more tenuous.

Tom Still: Tech, ’trep issues on campaign back burner, but should emerge over time

Wisconsin State Journal

Some say the federal government should be allowed to appropriate products patented by universities and developed with private money if the underlying research received any federal funding and if the products are deemed unreasonably priced. In patent law-speak, that’s called “march-in” rights. It would be a major departure from the bipartisan 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which was silent on what constitutes “reasonable” price and which has been credited with spurring innovation at major universities nationwide, including the UW-Madison. Erik Iverson, who leads the independent Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, has said the proposal “ignores years of input from experts” who have found “there is no legal justification to redefine march-in rights as a price-control tool.”

William M. Reynolds

Wisconsin State Journal

Bill served as director of the graduate program in school psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and held appointments as principal investigator at the Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development and as discipline chief of Psychology of the University Affiliated Program at the Waisman Center.

Carla Thompson Leskinen

Wisconsin State Journal

Carla dedicated a significant part of her career to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working in both the School of Agriculture and the Art Department.

Jack Cipperly

Wisconsin State Journal

He served as an Assistant Dean in the College of Letters and Science, working with students and staff for thirty­ two years, which seemed a job made in heaven for him.

The Real Reason You Shouldn’t Let Your Dog Stick Its Head Out the Window

Inverse

“The quick and dirty answer is that [we] discourage it,” Amy Nichelason, a veterinarian and clinical assistant professor of primary care services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, tells Inverse. She says it’s not difficult to understand why dogs might enjoy riding with their heads out the window. With their keen sense of smell, “it really is just like sensory overload,” Nichelason says. “It’s like me in the candy store.”