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These Scientists Are Giving Themselves D.I.Y. Coronavirus Vaccines

New York Times

There is a long history of scientists openly testing vaccines on themselves and their children, but in recent decades it has become less common, according to Susan E. Lederer, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. What’s ethically and legally acceptable for testing and distributing your own medical product varies by institution and by country.

UW Health, UW-Madison School of Medicine to test new COVID-19 vaccine

WISC-TV 3

UW Health and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine will enroll about 1,600 people over the next eight weeks at University Hospital to be part of a study on whether an investigational vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca can prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

UW, UW Health picked to help run COVID-19 vaccine

NBC-15

“Our entire team has been working diligently for months to bring this important clinical trial to our state, and now Wisconsinites have an opportunity to be part of solving this crisis,” chief clinical research officer at UW Health and SMPH Betsy Nugent said.

UW Health, University of Wisconsin to test new COVID-19 vaccine

Madison365

UW Health and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health have been selected as one of the first clinical sites in the country to study whether an investigational vaccine developed by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca can prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Police and Race in Kenosha, Beyond the Jacob Blake Shooting

Time

“Midwesterners don’t understand their history of racism, and so these things seem surprising. They seem to come out of nowhere or be new when they’re really a reflection of who we’ve always been,” says Christy Clark-Pujara, associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Department of Afro-American Studies. “It’s not terribly surprising to me what happened in Kenosha.”

Hurricane Laura’s rapid intensification is a sign of a warming climate, scientists say

The Washington Post

Jim Kossin, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Wisconsin, says the warm ocean waters and exchange of heat between the ocean and atmosphere, plus the lack of dry air or strong upper-level winds, created an ideal environment for Hurricane Laura to rapidly intensify all the way to the Louisiana coastline.

Kenosha shooting victims Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum are remembered

The Washington Post

“It’s like a funhouse mirror,” said Cecelia Klingele, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “People look at the same facts and have wildly different reactions. It is troubling because when people are having such different reactions, I guess tragedies like this shouldn’t be a surprise. People are afraid of each other and that is a situation that creates danger for everyone.”

Big Ten mulls Thanksgiving, other football start dates

Wisconsin State Journal

One of the many options being considered at the conference level has the football season for the University of Wisconsin and the rest of the Big Ten starting around Thanksgiving, an earlier start date than the spring-semester dates that had been previously discussed.

UW reopening isn’t responsible — Joan Downs

Wisconsin State Journal

Letter to the editor: There are vast numbers of such cautionary tales across the country. Why not heed these warnings, rather than put the campus and the community at risk of a potentially fatal disease?

Clifton, Kelly Hardenbrook, Sr.

Wisconsin State Journal

After his PhD in Zoology/Endocrinology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (’55,) postdoctoral work in Boston was followed by a faculty position at the UW as a Professor of radiation biologist / cancer researcher in 1959, a job he held under various titles until his retirement in 1997.

Tom Still: Economy is tied to education

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank, in a blog statement published Wednesday, detailed the steps being taken on campus to allow a “hybrid” reopening — some live classes, some online — and defended the plan as best for students. “Having students on campus and providing in-person instruction, where feasible, provides a better set of educational opportunities for students lacking suitable technology or spaces to effectively study at home,” Blank wrote.

Protesters hold Justice for Jacob Blake march in Madison

NBC-15

Nearly one week after a police officer in Kenosha shot Jacob Blake, protesters in Madison marched for justice Saturday afternoon, marching from UW-Madison’s Library Mall to the Wisconsin Department of Justice building. The DOJ’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is investigating Blake’s shooting.

The Problem with Implicit Bias Training

Scientific American

While the nation roils with ongoing protests against police violence and persistent societal racism, many organizations have released statements promising to do better. These promises often include improvements to hiring practices; a priority on retaining and promoting people of color; and pledges to better serve those people as customers and clients.

Bruce Arians questions effectiveness of protests; DeMaurice Smith responds

The Washington Post

Athletes today aren’t necessarily risking life and limb by staging protests — if anything, NFL players are sparing themselves some harm by canceling practices — but according to a professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, their platforms give them “a unique role to play” in effecting change.

“Their protest reaches ordinary people in the United States and worldwide,” Linda Greene said via email Thursday. “Their protest also touches and concerns the multibillion dollar interests of coaches, franchises, and media and other corporations, including advertisers, who depend on their labor.”

A tiny fish takes on its predators—and wins, transforming the Baltic coast

Science

The work also stands out because it documents such a widespread and lasting ecological shift, adds Steve Carpenter, a limnologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. More typically, researchers have observed such shifts in a single location, often a lake, showing how dominance swings back and forth between two species as temperature changes or fishing becomes more intense, he says. The new results “show that regime shifts can spread among connected habitats and transform an entire coastline rather rapidly.”

Tropical storm Laura damage, flooding, and other impacts on the ground: What we know

Vox

These warmer-than-average waters are, in part, the result of climate change. A new study published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a group of NOAA and University of Wisconsin Madison researchers found that from 1979 to 2017, the odds that a given tropical cyclone would become a Category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane increased about 8 percent per decade as the planet has warmed.

Is it possible to rid police officers of bias?

BBC Future

Patricia Devine, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who led the study, poses a situation in which a tall, young black man is walking on a college campus. “A student might assume he’s on the basketball team,” she says. In this situation Devine suggests if people check the assumption, they will likely realise there is no evidence other than the stereotype.

Bucs Coach Bruce Arians rips protests, prompting an inspiring response from NFLPA head

The Washington Post

Athletes today aren’t necessarily risking life and limb by staging protests — if anything, NFL players are sparing themselves some harm by canceling practices — but according to a professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, their platforms give them “a unique role to play” in effecting change.Mets GM apologizes for criticizing MLB commissioner as Mets, Marlins stage silent protest“Their protest reaches ordinary people in the United States and worldwide,” Linda Greene said via email Thursday. “Their protest also touches and concerns the multibillion dollar interests of coaches, franchises, and media and other corporations, including advertisers, who depend on their labor.”

Jennifer Gaddis on the History and Politics of School Food

Edge Effects

But how was this critical food provisioning infrastructure established? Who are the workers that make it possible? And where should it go in order to advance a more just food system? These are the questions Dr. Jennifer Gaddis seeks to answer in her 2019 book The Labor of Lunch.

Dr. Gaddis is an assistant professor of Civil Society and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In this conversation, we discuss the politics of participatory research, the centrality of racial justice organizing to the success of the food movement, and the stunning connections between school food and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and uprisings against white supremacy in the United States.

Republicans, like the Democrats last week, lean into Wisconsin’s battleground status

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison journalism professor Mike Wagner said Democrats appear to be trying to win back some of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but shifted to Trump in 2016. Trump’s narrow Wisconsin victory four years ago was aided by the fact that Clinton received nearly a quarter-million fewer votes than Obama did four years earlier.

Online panels Thursday to focus on anti-racist schools, virtual learning

Wisconsin State Journal

The first event, which requires registration, is hosted by the UW-Madison School of Education’s Professional Learning and Community Education department, or PLACE, and Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. The 3 to 5 p.m. discussion on anti-racism in schools is the first in a “Real Talk for Real Change” symposia series that will continue through the fall.

UW-Madison launches COVID-19 dashboard to track coronavirus on campus

WISC-TV 3

According to the dashboard, which was last updated Tuesday, the university has conducted 3,006 tests since testing began on Aug. 6. Thirty-six people have tested positive. Of those 36 people, 33 of them are students and 3 are employees. An additional 87 students and eight employees have tested positive at an off-campus testing site.

UW-Madison launches campus COVID-19 dashboard

WKOW-TV 27

The site will be updated every day with information on the number of tests performed on campus, the percentage of campus tests that are positive, positive cases identified both on and off of campus, and cumulative data. Updates will happen by 2 p.m.

Many Tulsa Massacres: How the Myth of a Liberal North Erases a Long History of White Violence

National Museum of American History

However, African Americans have long known that they have deep roots in all regions of the United States. As the African American Bishop Richard Allen wrote in 1829, affirming that Black people belonged:See the thousands of foreigners emigrating to America every year: and if there be ground sufficient for them to cultivate, and bread for them to eat, why would they wish to send the first tillers of the land away? . . . This land which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country.

Christy Clark-Pujara is Associate Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is the author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island. Her current book project, Black on the Midwestern Frontier: From Slavery to Suffrage in the Wisconsin Territory, 1725 to 1868, examines how the practice of race-based slavery, black settlement, and debates over abolition and Black rights shaped White-Black race relations in the Midwest.

What Aldo Leopold Taught Me About Nature

Book Riot

Aldo Leopold wore many hats in his life. A writer, professor, member of the forest service, and conservationist, his development of what is called land ethics, or ecocentrism, continues to influence modern environmentalists today. Leopold, who spent time working for the Forest Service before a professorship at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was an early proponent of a holistic approach to wildlife conservation that trumpeted biodiversity and a need for humans to understand the impact they had on the land around them. As a professor, he worked to create the UW Madison Arboretum, which continues to work on restoring original Wisconsin landscapes today.