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Students weigh choice to travel home as Thanksgiving nears

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Daily Cardinal

“We’ve been expressing concern for several weeks now, along with local and state leaders, about the continuing spike in COVID-19 cases in Dane County and throughout Wisconsin,” Director of News and Media Relations Meredith McGlone said of the ongoing spike in campus cases. “It is unfortunately not surprising that we are also seeing an increase in positivity rates on campus, although our rates continue to be below the surrounding community.”

Navy-Memphis football game postponed due to coronavirus

Posted on
Washington Post

The situation is certainly not unique to Navy. The SEC is dealing with outbreaks at several programs, and 10 Football Bowl Subdivision games were either canceled or postponed this past week. The University of Wisconsin has canceled two games and reported 27 active cases last week. Sports Illustrated reported that there has been a 14.7 percent postponement/cancellation rate for games this season.

The U.S. has absolutely no control over the coronavirus. China is on top of the tiniest risks.

Posted on
The Washington Post

“Surfaces can occasionally be a source of transmission,” said Dave O’Connor, an expert on the genome of the virus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “They do not appear to be a major, or the major, source of transmission in areas where the virus is already endemic. If you have otherwise eradicated the virus, such as New Zealand or this region of China, vigilance will be required to prevent reintroductions by both goods and travelers.”

Democrats Lose Ground in State Legislatures, Despite Biden’s Win

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US News and World Report

Much the same occurred in Wisconsin, says University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Barry Burden.”Biden won the state by a narrow margin and only shifted the vote about a point and a half from 2016,” Burden says.

“Such a small change did not produce significant shifts in the state legislature, where districts have been drawn to prevent it from responding to movement in the popular vote.”

Charles Darwin’s hunch about early life was probably right

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BBC Future

One researcher whose work is compatible with a pond environment is Lena Vincent of the University of Wisconsin-Madison – although she prefers to keep an open mind. She is trying to create sets of chemicals that copy themselves as a group. The simplest example would be a pair of chemicals A and B, where each has the ability to make the other, so A makes B and B makes A. Such a pair of chemicals would be able to self-replicate, even though neither could do so alone. In practice the sets of chemicals are more complicated than that, but the principle is the same.

Grassland 2.0 Aims to Replace Soy and Corn Farming with Perennial Pasture in the Upper Midwest

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Civil Eats

“We’re shedding farms,” Randy Jackson remarks grimly one autumn day over video conference. A professor of grassland ecology in the department of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jackson points to the fact that a record 10 percent of dairy farms in his state of Wisconsin shuttered in 2019, another milestone for a local economy that led the nation in farm bankruptcies last year.

“There’s no new information”: Political expert breaks down executive order issued by Gov. Tony Evers

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NBC-15

Ryan Owens is a UW-Madison professor of political science. He’s also the director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on public leadership.“There’s an expression in politics that you don’t say something unless there’s something to say and surprisingly there was nothing to say here,” Owens said. “This is his first major public address on the issue so I think this in fact had a place in the spotlight.”

Ballot clerks asked for help. Lawmakers didn’t act. Disinformation followed.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

David Canon, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he believes a two-day head start in pre-processing absentee ballots is reasonable. Such a measure would have allowed Wisconsin to finish counting absentee ballots almost simultaneously with in-person votes, staving off now-rampant claims of voter fraud occurring in the middle of the night. “You would have been done by 8 p.m.,” Canon said. “For sure it would have taken care of the problem.”

Students show up to oppose budgeting for more police officers downtown

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Daily Cardinal

Students on campus and off registered in numbers to speak against Amendment 10, a proposal made by Ald. Harrington-McKinney of Dis. 1 and Ald. Henak of Dis. 10 to accept a grant to create the “Downtown Entertainment Zone team,” which would amend the Police Department-Police Field budget. If added to the budget, the amendment would create four new police fficer positions and reclassify one police officer position to a Sergeant.

Indigenous candidates’ wins in Congress give hope for change

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Washington Post

And while it’s not easy to ignore Indigenous lawmakers if they’re sitting across the table, they often can be pigeonholed, said Richard Monette, who teaches federal Indian law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I think that, in the end, the scale tips toward being more good than bad,” said Monette, a former chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. “That’s fair to say, but I will say this is complex.”

‘We don’t want to repeat what happened’: CDC joins in probe of Badgers COVID-19 outbreak

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW researchers are analyzing the viral samples to determine whether there was one point of introduction that led to the spread or if the outbreak included multiple clusters of the virus. That could take weeks to find out because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now involved in the analysis of the outbreak.

Wisconsin DHS Encouraging Health Providers To Enroll In COVID-19 Vaccination Program

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Dr. Jonathan Temte, associate dean for public health and community engagement at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health, sits on a state subcommittee planning for the eventual COVID-19 vaccine distribution. He said there are numerous people in Wisconsin working hard to come up with the fairest and most ethical approach to distributing a COVID-19 vaccine to those who are at highest risk and those performing essential functions.

Health Experts Warn Against Basketball During Coronavirus. High Schools Are Playing It Anyway

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The Wall Street Journal

A study by University of Wisconsin researchers—which had been featured on the National Federation of State High School Associations website—asserts that high school sports in Wisconsin haven’t led to an increase in Covid-19 infections among high school athletes. But Robert N. Golden, Dean of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health, said the views of the study’s lead researcher don’t represent the opinions of the university, that the study hasn’t been peer-reviewed and that its design has limitations. “High schools across the country are working to make the best decisions they can regarding the health and safety of their athletes, and we do not believe this report should play a major role in shaping their decisions,” Dr. Golden said.

How to start recovering from election anxiety, according to mental health experts

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Washington Post

Simple self-care practices can be easily integrated into your daily routine, said Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, noting that you can listen to a guided audio practice while you’re doing chores. “You literally don’t need to take a single extra minute out of your day,” said Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry.

Covid Infections in Animals Prompt Scientific Concern

Posted on
The New York Times

Tony Goldberg, a veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the head of the Kibale EcoHealth Project, said that he has seen the devastation wrought by respiratory diseases among chimpanzees. A deadly outbreak in 2013 at the reserve turned out to be the result of human rhinovirus C, the most common cause of the common cold worldwide. Until then, it had never been seen in chimps.

UW-Madison investigating after video shows employee on motorcycle drive through group of protesters

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison spokesperson Meredith McGlone confirmed that the motorcyclist seen in the video is Rich Yaeger, senior power plant operator at the university. “UW-Madison is investigating this incident and will take appropriate action when the investigation is complete,” McGlone said “We won’t have further comment until the investigation is done.”

Inside UW Hospital’s growing COVID-19 unit, patient fates are uncertain

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Wisconsin State Journal

As of Friday, 57 COVID-19 patients were at the hospital, including 16 in intensive care, quadruple the volume from six weeks earlier. If Wisconsin’s coronavirus surge doesn’t turn around, the hospital may soon have to place infected patients in pre-op waiting areas or operating rooms, said Dr. Jeff Pothof, chief quality officer for UW Health.

‘Live, work and play’: Housing, hotel, offices, food and more proposed for University Research Park

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Wisconsin State Journal

The research park is teaming with the Mandel Group of Milwaukee on an ambitious, multi-phase project with 400,000 square feet of new construction, including housing, a hotel, lab/office space, food hall, climbing gym and parking. It marks a major evolution for the 250-acre park, now characterized by modern labs and office buildings surrounded by green spaces and parking lots.

Know Your Madisonian: Retired UW professor plans socially-distanced 100th birthday party

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Wisconsin State Journal

Born Nov. 10, 1920, VandeBerg’s story begins in rural northwestern Wisconsin where he grew up the fourth of five children. He graduated from UW-Madison and taught for a couple of years before becoming a UW Extension agent. VandeBerg eventually earned the nation’s first doctoral degree in Extension Administration. He held a number of leadership positions during his 38-year career with UW Extension.

Why Wisconsin football has canceled games due to COVID-19 while other Big Ten teams play on

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Wisconsin State Journal

While hope remains UW can get its season back on track after this disruption, frustration with the Badgers’ situation is evident in the Big Ten Conference. UW canceled games against Nebraska and Purdue, which not only denied those teams’ players one of their limited opportunities to play this season, but also kept the nearly 100 healthy UW players off the field.

Smith, Hall Manks

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Wisconsin State Journal

Hall transitioned to the Badger munitions factory in Baraboo, Wis., as a plant manager for two years, until finding his true career calling in human resources and management training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Q&A: Dr. Shanda Wells suggests healthy boundaries with loved ones this Thanksgiving

Posted on
The Capital Times

With the COVID-19 pandemic adding an extra layer of anxiety during a contentious presidential election, this year’s holidays feel even more complicated than they did in 2016. Dr. Shanda Wells understands. Wells is a clinical psychologist on faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The pandemic has been hard for everyone, she said. 

Wisconsin football’s COVID-19 outbreak slowing, active cases down to 14

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Wisconsin State Journal

According to a release from the program Saturday morning, the Badgers have had two individuals, one player and one staff member, test positive in the past four days, a significant decrease from the past two weeks. UW has had 17 student-athletes and 13 staff members test positive for the virus since Oct. 21. But this week marked the first time the program has gone a day without a positive test since the outbreak began.