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Author: jnweaver

State’s pension system doesn’t need tinkering

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

When it comes to state retirement systems, Wisconsin has the best in the nation, according to one key observer. The Pew Center on the States says that Wisconsin alone out of the 50 states has set aside enough money to meet its promises to public workers. That?s a good reason for the administration of Gov. Scott Walker and other state officials to leave well enough alone as they study the state system. The state Department of Employee Trust Funds and the Walker administration are expected to issue a joint report soon assessing the $77 billion pension funds for both state and local workers and recommending changes. While other states have moved toward 401(k) plans like those offered by private businesses, we think the Pew report and other consistent measures of the Wisconsin pension system?s health suggest that isn?t necessary here. In other words, why fix what?s not broken?

UW football: How would Badgers have fared in four-team playoff?

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Madison.com

CBSSports.com college football blogger Matt Hinton takes a look at how the past six college football seasons would have played out under the new four-team playoff, as opposed to the BCS system. He?s got the University of Wisconsin football team making the playoffs in 2010, but falling short in 2006 and 2011. So, the question for Badgers fans: Would they feel any better about the last six years, having lost (hypothetically) in the four-team playoff in 2010, as opposed to back-to-back losses in the Rose Bowl?

UW hockey: Vetter’s living her dream

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Madison.com

While she bides her time between Olympic pursuits Jessie Vetter is giving back to the community. One of the most decorated and accomplished athletes in University of Wisconsin history, Vetter is hosting a benefit golf outing at University Ridge Friday that?s designed to benefit American Family Children?s Hospital in Madison. “It?s always been a dream of mine to have my own golf tournament,” Vetter said. Like her goaltending career with the UW women?s hockey team and beyond, this one looks like a winner.

Best seats in the house: Pediatric patients to view fireworks from UW rooftop

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Capital Times

Kids who are patients at American Family Children?s Hospital will get the best seats in the house to watch the Rhythm and Booms fireworks show Saturday night ? from the roof of a building at UW-Madison. More than 400 patients and family members have been invited to a rooftop party at the Pyle Center so they can watch the Midwest?s biggest fireworks display, shooting off at 9:30 p.m. Saturday night from Warner Park.

M.M. “Bill” El-Wakil

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Madison.com

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. – Mohamed El-Wakil, age 91, a resident of Madison for nearly 60 years, died June 10, 2012, in Walnut Creek, Calif., where he had moved in 2005. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1921. He graduated from the University of Cairo in 1943 and was awarded a scholarship in mechanical engineering to study in the U.S. but was not allowed to travel until after World War II. Egypt sent him to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned a Ph.D. in 1949. In 1952, he joined the faculty of UW-Madison. He continued to teach in the Departments of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering until he was 80 with the exception of 4 1/2 years in the 1980s when he served as Chairman of Engineering and Computer Science at American University in Cairo.

Mary Kay Baum?s latest and greatest cause

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Capital Times

Mary Kay Baum, former Madison School Board member, former mayoral candidate and steady campaigner across the decades for economic and social justice, always has a cause. And she always has something to teach us. Now, she?s teaching us new ways to think about and respond to Alzheimer?s.

Paul Stauffacher: Title IX spelled end of America’s one true sport

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Wisconsin State Journal

On Saturday?s front page headline “Title IX at 40,” the subtitle “the unintended side effect” would better have been titled “the intended not-so-side effect. “Title IX destroyed the great American pastime at UW-Madison and for those who recognize baseball as our one true American sport.

Toxic algae found in Lake Mendota near Memorial Union

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Capital Times

Swimmers and shoreline users are being warned to be careful along the Lake Mendota shore after toxic algae was discovered in the water. Toxic blue-green algae blooms have been spotted on Lake Mendota near the Memorial Union and Hoofers, according to a news release from UW-Madison. The cyanobacteria in the algae blooms can cause very serious health risks, said Public Health Madison and Dane County. Warning signs have been posted in the shore area.

Report on hiring outside contractors 8 months late; state says it will be public soon

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Wisconsin State Journal

Gov. Scott Walker?s administration has not filed its annual report on the hiring of outside contractors to perform services for state agencies, eight months after the deadline set by state law. The Department of Administration is required to file the report, which is scrutinized by public employee unions and others, by Oct. 15 each year….The unusual delay was caused by the University of Wisconsin System, which did not turn in its portion of the report until last month, DOA spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said Wednesday. “We do anticipate the report being finalized and made public very soon,” she said.

Century-old rescue service patrols Lake Mendota

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WKOW-TV 27

This month alone, authorities are investigating four possible drownings in Dane County. Things can turn dangerous quickly on the water, but a unique rescue agency that?s been on patrol for more than 100 years is there when needed. Hidden between buildings along the shores of Lake Mendota, the UW Lifesaving Station has been a safety net for boaters and swimmers for decades.

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On Campus: Grant to help UW researchers test biofuels for Navy

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Wisconsin State Journal

A new grant will help researchers at UW-Madison test a new class of diesel biofuels for nautical use. The Engine Research Center in UW?s College of Engineering received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to help develop a method of testing hydro-treated vegetable oil for ship and submarine engines. Rolf Reitz, director of the Engine Research Center, said the center?s six professors and a group of graduate students will work to develop a computer model that can accurately predict how certain blends of these fuels will perform in maritime engines.

UW-Madison doctoral candidate charged with possessing child pornography

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Wisconsin State Journal

A doctoral student in education at UW-Madison was charged Monday with 10 counts of possessing child pornography that was allegedly discovered on his home computer and his cellphone. A criminal complaint against Jay A. Babcock, 31, also alleges that he admitted to taking an “up skirt” cellphone picture of a young girl who is the classmate at a Fitchburg elementary school of another student whom Babcock was studying as part of his graduate school program.

Campus Connection: UW?s Saupe loses battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia

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Capital Times

UW-Madison researcher Kurt Saupe died Saturday at the age of 50 following a battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, according to this UW School of Medicine and Public Health news release. I got to know Saupe during the late summer of 2009 and wrote this article about his efforts to battle the disease, which included receiving a new immune system via a stem cell transplant from a donor in May 2008. Although this blood cancer is relatively curable among children, for middle-age adults ALL is extremely rare and very lethal. Saupe also used stem cells in his research, with the university reporting he most recently was working on creating a stem-cell patch for damaged heart tissue -? work that likely will be published posthumously.

Campus Connection: Joint Big Ten/Ivy League project to study athletes’ head injuries

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Capital Times

Those within the Big Ten Conference and Ivy League are pooling their significant research and athletic resources in an effort to better understand head injuries. The two conferences ? which represent 20 institutions that are home to nearly 18,000 student-athletes ? announced last week a collaborative effort that?s designed to produce a broad set of data for researchers, athletic trainers and team doctors on the incidence and health impacts of concussions and other head trauma.

Dennis Helwig, UW-Madison?s assistant athletic director for sports medicine, notes that getting the various institutions to agree to a single protocol for the project will be the key to the initiative. ?If you can do that, instead of 20-some institutions gathering different data on concussions, you can now have all of them collecting the same information in the same way,? says Helwig, who has worked at UW-Madison since 1975.

Pew Center: Wisconsin’s pension fund strongest

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WISC-TV 3

MADISON, Wis.- Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to receive high marks for its public employee pension system. The Pew Center on the States report says only Wisconsin has enough money set aside to meet its current obligations for pensions. The “solid performer” ranking is for fiscal year 2010. That?s before Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature required public employees to contribute more to their pension.

Campus Connection: NCAA cracking down on teams that don?t make the grade

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Capital Times

The announcement isn?t going to silence all of the NCAA?s many critics. But after years of tough talk without meaningful action, it appears college sports? governing body is gradually getting more intentional about ensuring athletic programs take academics seriously. The NCAA announced earlier this week it has barred 15 teams — including the perennially powerful University of Connecticut men?s basketball program — from postseason play due to poor academic performance.

?When a university as prominent as Connecticut is sanctioned due to low rates of academic progress, it?s a signal to all universities that the NCAA is serious about this and that colleges need to ensure that their students are making academic progress,? says Adam Gamoran, co-chair of the UW Athletic Board’s academics and compliance committee, and the director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.

Executive Q&A: Boldt’s Gus Schultz says Kohl Center is a career highlight

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Wisconsin State Journal

Gus Schultz has been working for The Boldt Co. on Madison-area construction projects since before the state?s largest general contractor opened an office in the city. Schultz, 46, joined Boldt in 1990. He was based in the Milwaukee area until a permanent office was opened in Madison in 1998, but he had a hand in many important local building projects before that, starting with expansion jobs at St. Mary?s Hospital and including the construction of the Kohl Center, which opened in 1998 and remains among his favorites.
Boldt is involved in three major jobs (on campus): the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, the Charter Street heating plant conversion and the expansion of Memorial Union and its shoreline restoration.

Weeklong class prepares participants to cash in on their billion-dollar idea

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Wisconsin State Journal

Starting a business is not the usual course of action for a budding doctor, pharmacist or scientist. But a UW-Madison program is trying to change that. Nearly 70 graduate students attended the weeklong Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Bootcamp at Grainger Hall last week, setting aside academics to learn the basics of the business world. “We?re trying to teach creativity, generating ideas, and different applications for their research,” said Dan Olszewski, director of the UW School of Business? Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.

On Wisconsin: Tiny chapel in Iowa County celebrates sesquicentennial

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Wisconsin State Journal

In 1957, after years of dwindling membership, the church was closed, with the exception of the occasional funeral, according to church history. Nine years later, Robert McCabe and Clay Schoenfeld, two UW-Madison professors with ties to Hyde, helped form the Hyde Community Association and bring the shuttered chapel back to life. McCabe and Schoenfeld each studied wildlife ecology and purchased land near the chapel. McCabe bought his in 1963 for hunting and fell in love with the area. “He wanted to become part of a community,” said Maureen McCabe, his widow.

Chris Rickert: UW System’s new ‘flexible degree’ a good start

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Wisconsin State Journal

The announcement last week of the University of Wisconsin System?s new “flexible degree” is a worthy start. The program, to be rolled out over the next year, will allow students to learn online at their own pace and provide college credit for proving they?ve mastered skills learned at work. It?s about time the public education establishment started really shaking up the standard high school-to-college-to-career path. Economists and education-reform types have been saying for years that a changing world requires changing education models.

After 40 years with Title IX, level playing field is reality at UW

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Madison.com

Title IX has put down deep roots in every college athletic department in the nation since it became the law of the land 40 years ago Saturday, but few have experienced the growing pains quite like the University of Wisconsin. The legislation that mandated equal opportunities for women in higher education ? including athletics ? went into effect when President Richard Nixon signed the bill on June 23, 1972. Since then, millions of women have come to schools such as UW and shared in a revolution as student-athletes.

Q&A: Scott Spector recruits engaged progressives to become candidates

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Capital Times

Scott Spector is attempting to remake progressive politics in Wisconsin. A native of Oceanside, New York, Spector, 31, became politically active as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison over a decade ago, as a representative in student government as well as the campus director for New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley?s unsuccessful presidential campaign.

Author Somerville’s dark, bright river

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Wisconsin State Journal

?This Bright River? opens with a scene set in a State Street bar on a frozen night in January. Two unnamed men share a few drinks before the night takes a terrifying turn. ?This?ll be interesting,? says one of the guys. Indeed. Author Patrick Somerville sets a chilling tone right out of the gate, a chill due not only to the winter temperatures but also to the nameless characters engaged in immediate, baffling violence. Somerville, 33, is a UW-Madison graduate who teaches in the master of fine arts program at Northwestern University.

Curiosities: Why do gravel roads made of limestone get so much harder?

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Wisconsin State Journal

A. Limestone is abundant in Wisconsin, and it?s the material of choice for the surface of gravel roads, and the base for roads paved with asphalt or concrete. Limestone contains calcium carbonate, often with a mixture of magnesium carbonate. When chunks of limestone abrade against each other, small particles called “fines” are created, said Craig Benson, chair of the departments of civil and environmental engineering and of geological engineering at UW-Madison.

Ask the Weather Guys: What is a flash flood?

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Wisconsin State Journal

A. A flood occurs when water flows into a region faster than it can be absorbed into the soil, stored in a lake or reservoir or removed in runoff or a waterway into a drainage basin. A flash flood is a sudden local flood characterized by a great volume of water and a short duration. It occurs within minutes or hours of heavy rainfall or because of a sudden release of water from the breakup of an ice dam or constructed dam.

Doug Moe: For sale, your own island, for $29.5 million

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Wisconsin State Journal

There is a private island for sale off the west coast of Florida between Sarasota and Naples ? yes, the asking price is $29.5 million ? that was originally inhabited by an Oshkosh native who made his fortune in Madison….The scientist referenced by the (Wall Street) Journal was Charles Burgess, who graduated from UW-Madison in 1895 and taught chemical engineering there from graduation to 1913, when he resigned to devote his energies to a private laboratory he’d started in Madison in 1910. Early on, Burgess’ lab produced batteries for Madison’s French Battery Co., soon to be renamed Rayovac.

Swim across Lake Mendota cut short; rescue team pulls man out of water

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Capital Times

A young man was rescued Monday morning from the waters of Lake Mendota after trying to swim across the lake, just a few days after a young man drowned in the lake. The Madison Fire Department Lake Rescue team was called to the shoreline of Lake Mendota at about 5 a.m. Monday, after a woman called 911 to report her boyfriend was in the water and was struggling to get back to shore. The rescue team went to 140 Iota Court, just east of the UW-Madison campus.

No injuries reported in Lake Mendota boat fire

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Capital Times

No one was injured in a boat fire on Lake Mendota Tuesday night, authorities reported. “The UW-Madison lifesaving boat and the Maple Bluff Fire Department boat were dispatched to the scene and assisted in getting the boat to the dock,” said Fire Department spokeswoman Lori Wirth in the release.

Pension tension: Retired state workers fear future payments will be squeezed

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Capital Times

Ron Biendseil spent 25 years in public service, most of it as coordinator for the Dane County Youth Commission. While with the county, Biendseil worked to curb teen violence, reduce alcohol and drug use and generally improve the lives of young people. In other words, hard work for a good cause. Now retired, Biendseil counts on a monthly payout of $1,500 from the Wisconsin Retirement System to supplement his Social Security income. But Biendseil and thousands of other current or retired public employees in Wisconsin are worried about their financial future ? and with good reason. Employee pensions are the latest target of small-government advocates looking to cut taxes and reduce spending.

UW study responsible for much of what scientists now know about sleep

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Wisconsin State Journal

Sleep apnea ? repeated pauses in breathing during sleep ? is much more common than previously thought. The condition increases the risk of high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, cancer and death. Losing weight and exercising can offset it. People who sleep too little or too much, regardless of whether they have sleep apnea, are more likely to be overweight. Those and other findings about sleep are common knowledge among scientists today thanks to Don Chisholm, Mary Ellen Havel-Lang, Paul Minkus and more than 1,540 other participants in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study.

Ask the Weather Guys: What is the summer solstice?

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Wisconsin State Journal

A: The summer solstice (in Latin, sol, ?sun,? and stice, ?come to a stop?) is the day of the year with the most daylight. The first day of the astronomical Northern Hemisphere summer is the day of the year when the sun is farthest north (on June 20 or 21). In 2012, this occurs on June 20 at 6:09 pm CDT. As Earth orbits the sun, its axis of rotation is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees from its orbital plane. Because Earth?s axis of spin always points in the same direction ? toward the North Star ? the orientation of Earth?s axis to the sun is always changing.

Campus Connection: No resolution following Adidas-UW mediation

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Capital Times

Adidas and UW-Madison appear no closer to coming to any sort of an agreement over a long-simmering dispute tied to the apparel giant?s refused to help pay some 2,700 Indonesian workers about $1.8 million in legally mandated severance pay. Officials representing both Adidas and UW-Madison met with a mediator last week in an effort to remedy the ongoing situation. But Vince Sweeney, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for university relations, said in a phone conversation Monday that the ?dispute has not been resolved.?

Former UW-Madison student sentenced to 12 years for distributing child porn

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Wisconsin State Journal

A former UW-Madison student who faked a mental illness in order to escape punishment for child pornography distribution was sentenced Monday to 12 years in federal prison. From the time of his arrest in 2010 until pleading guilty in November, Matthew P. Hendrickson, 23, of St. Cloud, Minn., had blamed his downloading and extensive sharing of child pornography on visual and auditory hallucinations. Hendrickson was expelled from UW-Madison in fall 2010.

Donald J. Wuebbles and Jack Williams: Wild Wisconsin weather demands action

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Wisconsin State Journal

At coffee shops, truck stops and around backyard grills, many people are asking the same question: As the climate changes, can we expect more of this? The answer: Yes. There is a strong probability that climate change is influencing certain extreme weather events. Along with other leading scientists at Big Ten universities, that?s what we know. We?re not alone. Insurance industry leaders think so, too, and they have been meeting with U.S. senators to call for action.

Donald J. Wuebbles is a professor of atmospheric sciences as well as electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois. Jack Williams is director of the Center for Climatic Research Geography at UW-Madison.

Meet the chef: Charlie Jilek

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Wisconsin State Journal

Age: 25. Executive chef at: UW-Madison University Club, 803 State St., which is open to the public. How long have you been at the restaurant? Since November 2007. How long have you been cooking? Since I was 14.

Ralph Armstrong sues state over rape, murder convictions that were overturned

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Wisconsin State Journal

Ralph Armstrong, whose convictions for the 1980 rape and murder of a UW-Madison student were overturned, filed a $58 million federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of Wisconsin on Friday seeking compensation for about 30 years behind bars for the convictions. Armstrong filed the lawsuit by mail from his prison cell in New Mexico, where he is serving a sentence for a parole violation for earlier criminal convictions in that state in the 1970s.

Tech and Biotech: gener8tor looks to grow new Wisconsin tech firms

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Wisconsin State Journal

Madison is getting a new tech business accelerator: gener8tor. Its goal: To provide money and mentoring to young tech companies early on, before they?ve gotten any other outside investment, and give them a running start, said Joe Kirgues, a co-founder of gener8tor. In fact, two of gener8tor?s organizers, Kirgues and Joel Abraham, were with 94Labs. Joining them in the new project are Dan Armbrust, president of Granite Microsystems, and Troy Vosseller, founder of Sconnie Beer and co-founder of Sconnie Nation.?We got together and decided we wanted to work to help startups in the state,? said Kirgues, a Milwaukee native and a UW-Madison law school graduate.

Cashing in on cropland: farmland prices are on the rise

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Wisconsin State Journal

In Dane County, prices rose 7.6 percent to an average $5,851 per farm acre from 2010 to 2011 ? according to a study by the UW Center for Dairy Profitability ? and by 11 percent between 2006 and 2011. The center also found farmland values statewide rose 6.7 percent in 2011, to $3,475, and by 31 percent over the past six years in south-central Wisconsin, or from $3,739 to $4,902 per farmland acre. ?Agricultural land values have continued to be a bright spot in the otherwise weak real estate market,? said A.J. Brannstrom, a farm management specialist who does the center?s annual farmland surveys.

Experts: Farmland price boom unlikely to bust

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Wisconsin State Journal

After housing prices soared in the first half of last decade, they came down with a crash in the second half. That?s what many bubbles do, eventually. So what?s to stop the same thing from happening to rapidly rising farmland prices? Is this another unsustainable bubble, waiting to pop? Economists and farm specialists say no.

….UW-Madison agricultural economist Bruce Jones agreed a crash in farm values was unlikely. The circumstances are different, he said, from both the housing market scenario and the devastating farm crisis of the 1980s ? which was the last time farmland values dropped deeply for an extended period.

Curiosities: Can wild animals become obese?

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Wisconsin State Journal

A: It happens all the time, but almost all the time it?s on purpose. “It really depends on the type of animal,” said Keith Poulsen, a large animal veterinarian at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. “It?s very rare for birds to be obese, because they couldn?t fly anymore. “But plenty of animals end swimsuit season by gorging on anything they can find.

Madison360: From the rubble, a new kind of Democratic leader is needed

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Capital Times

The first few days featured Republican gloating and Democratic finger-pointing, but now — two weeks after the recall vote — two mega-themes have taken shape that will resonate in Wisconsin politics for years. First is what to do about the apparently unprecedented antagonism that exists between people who live in the same communities, the same neighborhoods, even the same households. On talk radio and in Internet comments, that antagonism seems to border on hatred.

Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin

What would potential changes to pension system mean for current and future retirees?

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Wisconsin State Journal

Dropping out of the Wisconsin state pension system could be tempting to some government employees, but experts say it would cloud their future financial well-being while potentially undermining a pension fund ? now one of the country?s strongest ? by reducing participation. Some critics of public employee pensions, however, say workers should have more options to make government employment more attractive, while opponents of government spending say the state system is too costly because it collects $1.5 billion in tax-funded employer and employee contributions annually.

UW takes Spanish-language science event to Warner Park

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Wisconsin State Journal

A UW-Madison event geared toward promoting science in the Latino community is moving to Warner Park this year. Explorando las Ciencias is an annual event that features hands-on, bilingual scientific exhibits geared toward children and parents who may be Spanish speakers, according to UW-Madison News. This year?s event is scheduled for 2-10 p.m. June 22 at the Warner Park Community Recreation Center on the city?s North Side.

Wave of public employee retirements ebbs

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Wisconsin State Journal

The wave of public sector retirements that occurred last year after Gov. Scott Walker introduced sweeping collective bargaining changes hasn?t carried over into 2012, though the number of retirement applications is still up from 2010. There were 4,552 retirement applications in the first four months of this year, according to the Department of Employee Trust Funds. That?s down from 7,876 last year, but up 12 percent from 4,063 in 2010.

More early college classes welcome

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Wisconsin State Journal

It?s a small yet significant step toward boosting Wisconsin?s brain power. High school students across the state will have more access to college coursework by 2013, the state Department of Public Instruction and University of Wisconsin Colleges announced this week. Some of the UW courses will be offered online at high schools. Others will be taught by high school teachers with oversight from college professors. And here?s the cool part: The new classes will count toward high school and college diplomas at the same time. It?s called “dual enrollment,” and it?s something Wisconsin needs more of ? individualized instruction using technology to help control cost.

Campus Connection: Finalists for dean of UW School of Veterinary Medicine named

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Capital Times

UW-Madison announced Tuesday that four finalists have been named for the position of dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, and two of those people currently work on campus. The four finalists were identified by a 17-member university search committee, which has spent the past five months finalizing the list of candidates to replace Daryl Buss, who has served as dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine the past 18 years. In the coming weeks, the finalists will be interviewed by campus leaders and meet with faculty, staff and students. Each candidate also is to give a public presentation on ?Challenges and Opportunities for Schools of Veterinary Medicine in the 21st Century.?

Posted in Uncategorized

UW football: If Devin Smith were healthy, would Badgers have gone undefeated?

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Madison.com

Did Devin Smith?s broken foot cost the University of Wisconsin football team a shot at a BCS title? Badgers coach Bret Bielema hinted strongly that was the case during a radio interview Wednesday on ESPN Madison radio?s “Jump Around” program. Smith, a cornerback, suffered a season-ending broken left foot against Oregon State in the second game of the season, his redshirt junior year. At the time, it was known to be a big setback. But when the Badgers? shot at an undefeated season ended on consecutive losses at Michigan State and Ohio State in which the secondary was burned for touchdowns in the closing seconds, Smith?s loss was magnified.

Chris Rickert: Science push can’t neglect the ‘soft’ side

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Wisconsin State Journal

I can?t open the paper lately without reading about how the American economy is doomed unless we get more kids into the so-called STEM fields ? science, technology, engineering and math. On Tuesday, it was news touting five University of Wisconsin System campuses who are taking part in a nationwide science and engineering initiative led by a group of university and private sector bigwigs who want to boost the United States? competitiveness.

….”Skills and methods associated with the humanities aren’t soft, despite the convention of referring to them as such,” said Sara Guyer, director of the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities. “The importance of the humanities … is not just about empathy or imagining others, but it is about deepening our real understanding and fostering rigorous, critical analysis.”

Campus Connection: Earth nearing critical ?tipping point? due to human influence?

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Capital Times

Jack Williams admits to being a bit uneasy with some of the headlines generated by a report he contributed to that was published last week in the journal Nature. ?Earth could reach devastating ecological tipping point by 2025,? blared a Slate.com post about the report.

?Some of the media reporting has fallen squarely into the angle of,’We’re going to die’– which is not my perspective and the point of the article,? says Williams, UW-Madison?s Bryson professor of climate, people and environment in the department of geography and the Nelson Institute?s Center for Climate Research. ?But there is a real but difficult-to-quantify risk of reaching and passing tipping points in the global ecosphere, and we are calling attention to that risk.?

UW-Madison opens office in China

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Daily Cardinal

A UW-Madison delegation traveled to China Monday where it opened the UW-Madison Shanghai Innovation Office, which will function as an outpost for the university?s growing commitment to enhance educational opportunities in China. The delegation is made of up UW-Madison representatives, including interim Chancellor David Ward along with other state and business officials. The group worked in conjunction with members of Minhang District of Shanghai to celebrate the opening. China is the third most-popular location for students studying abroad at UW-Madison and opening the office will allow for increased study abroad and internship opportunities, according to Kerry Hill, the Communications Coordinator for the Division of International Studies.