Skip to main content

Author: jnweaver

4 women from UW-Madison’s rowing team will compete for gold at Paris Olympics

Wisconsin Public Radio

The old joke about rowing, Lauren O’Connor said, is that it’s the only sport to have roots as a form of corporal punishment.

“You could go to prison, or you could row on the boats that were taking people across the ocean and doing this really, really hard labor,” she said.

O’Connor, who is from the village of Belleville — population 2,591 — is one of four women from the University of Wisconsin-Madison who will be competing in rowing at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Even if they didn’t apply, some Wisconsin students to get admission offers from UW schools

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Incoming high school seniors, check your inboxes: You may have just gotten into college without even applying.

Ten of the state’s public universities will send acceptance letters starting next week through a new “direct admissions” program. Eligible students at participating schools will be automatically admitted to universities based on their grades and coursework at the end of their junior year, essentially bypassing the traditional application process.

Inspired by Doritos as a child, a UW-Madison scientist cracked the secret of no-melt ice cream

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wicks created ice cream that doesn’t melt even after four hours at room temperature. While her concoction isn’t ready for consumption, her work could change the way we eat, store, and transport the beloved dairy treat.

People in assisted living are getting sicker. Wisconsin isn’t ready to keep them safe.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Barbara Bowers, a long-term care researcher and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, said she is “astounded” by the medical complexity of the people in assisted living today.

“They look a lot like, 10 years ago, the people in nursing homes,” she said.

What really happens when you donate to charity at checkout? You asked, we answered

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“I just always wondered: Does the money really get where they’re telling me it’s going?” Grimm asked Public Investigator. “Do they get a tax break?”

The short answer is yes and no.

Yes, the money customers donate at the cash register does go to the appropriate organization or cause, said Ross Milton, assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and tax expert.

“Assuming that they are following the law,” Milton added. And no, businesses can’t receive a tax break for donations raised by customers, Milton said. If the donations aren’t made with the business’s money, it can’t collect the tax benefits, Milton explained.

What to know about Kamala Harris, coconut trees and ‘Brat Summer’

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It used to be that mainstream news media would develop narratives about who candidates were, and those narratives shaped attitudes about the candidates. But social media has upended that model, according to Michael Wagner, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We have two candidates who use social media well, but in different ways: Trump uses it to get attention. Harris uses it to shape attitudes,” Wagner said.

Climate change needs action. UW survey shows even Republicans want that.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Co-authored by Morgan Edwards, an assistant professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. She also leads the Climate Action Lab and holds an affiliation with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Zachary Thomas is a graduate student in UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and member of the Climate Action Lab.

UW-Madison one step closer to harnessing the power of the sun through fusion research

Wisconsin Public Radio

For the first time, a fusion device at the University of Wisconsin in Madison has generated plasma, inching one step closer toward using nuclear fusion as a a new source of carbon-free energy.

The university’s physicists and engineers have been building and testing the device at a lab in Stoughton for the last four years, which is referred to as the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror or WHAM. The magnetic mirror device became operational on July 15.

UW scientists break new ground on nuclear fusion, which could be the future of energy

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists has taken a major step toward creating a clean, reliable and powerful source of energy.

Four years in the making, it is part of a broader approach to using nuclear fusion energy that, unlike existing nuclear technology, does not create large amounts of radioactive waste.

‘Entirely unprecedented’: Biden’s exit, Harris’ rise scrambles race in Wisconsin

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“In the short run, I think it trips up the Republicans, who have had a really wonderful week (with the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee),” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.”(Biden’s) age, his feebleness, his mental capacity, those were the things that the public had major concerns about. … that’s now gone as an issue.”

‘Twister,’ ‘Twisters’ and the actual practice of storm chasing

NPR

Alum Robin Tamachi: So the first time I went out storm chasing was in 2001. I was in college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the time. And we went out in a van for a week to the Great Plains to just observe storms and document them and collect whatever data we could using kind of some basic handheld instruments. Well, I’ll tell you, I learned more about meteorology in that one week on the road than I did in the previous, you know, three to four years in the classroom.

Do Wisconsin Democratic delegates have to vote for Biden? Your delegate questions answered

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“It seems like Biden has released (the delegates from their pledges). He didn’t say that formally, but they’re also not formally bound to him,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Democrats fight to retain ‘Blue Wall’ following RNC in Milwaukee

Chicago Tribune

Wisconsin has remained a closely divided state that gets an outsized share of attention from the national political parties, evenan outsized share of attention from the national political parties, even as other once-purple states have tipped more reliably in one direction — Colorado toward the Democrats and Ohio toward Republicans, for example.

“I don’t think there’s been another state that has stayed at that kind of knife-edge point for so long,” said Barry Burden, a political science knife-edge point for so long,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

 

Members of Wisconsin football team visit camp for kids

WKOW

Members of the Wisconsin football team made a stop at the Salvation Army of Dane County’s day camp.

Team members played games with the kids. Cornerback Amare Snowden says the goal is to give back to the greater Madison community.

The Badgers will open their 2024 season on Friday, August 30 when they take on Western Michigan at Camp Randall.

Wisconsin women’s basketball assistant ‘speechless’ after realizing Power 5 dream

Wisconsin State Journal

Coaching at the Power Five level has been on Fro Jerro’s radar ever since she began coaching career over three decades ago.

Opportunities to make the jump from the mid-majors and personal matters never seemed to coincide, however.

When the University of Wisconsin women’s basketball team was in search of a new assistant following the departure of Tiffany Morton in late April, Jerro felt compelled to make another push.

UW-Madison chancellor pay to top $1 million in 2025

The Daily Cardinal

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved chancellor pay raises and bonuses for student retention in a closed session meeting Monday.

The new compensation plan will see UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s current $811,512 annual salary increased to $892,663. She will also receive a philanthropic bonus of $150,000 for staying at UW-Madison through mid-2025 and $50,000 for each year she stays afterward until June 2029.

State committee considers future of Universities of Wisconsin

WKOW

A committee convened by the state Legislature met Thursday to set the scope of its work evaluating changes to be made to the Universities of Wisconsin.

The Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System is a bipartisan group of legislators, business representatives, educators and government officials. They represent a cross section of the state stakeholders in public campuses.

Wisconsin sees promise in ‘housing first’ support of domestic violence survivors

Wisconsin Watch

“It opens up a whole new world of possibilities,” said Kate Walsh, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and part of a team assessing the effectiveness of the statewide pilot project.

The UW-Madison team is gathering survey data from 68 housing recipients across the program’s nine pilot sites. More than half of the participants across the nine sites reported a reduction in exposure to domestic violence and higher satisfaction with their living situations, according to preliminary findings.

How Hmong women in Wisconsin are tackling domestic violence in their communities

Wisconsin Watch

Lo would ultimately escape the abuse and get back on her feet with help from The Women’s Community, Inc., a Wausau-based nonprofit that serves domestic violence and trafficking survivors. Her life would come full circle years later. She would go on to earn a master’s degree in social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before returning to Wausau to help Hmong women through challenges like she faced.

2 cranes try their hand at parenting despite species difference

Wisconsin Public Radio

Anna Pidgeon, an avian ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said cross-fostering is used in many different ways among domestic and wild species. In this case, a common species chick — a sandhill crane — is raised by a vulnerable species — blue cranes — to help them gain parenting skills.

“Figuring out how to work as a pair, as coparents, is something that just like in humans or other species where it takes two, they get better with time and with practice,” Pidgeon said.

Winds from black holes are speeding up, UW-Madison study says

The Daily Cardinal

Eight years and 130 observations: that’s all it takes to prove the winds coming from supermassive black holes have accelerated.

Led by University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Astronomy Professor Catherine Grier and recent graduate Robert Wheatly, a team of researchers compiled years of data to find that quasars, the cores of galaxies where supermassive black holes are messily feeding, are emitting winds that are speeding up over time. This research may mark the first step in understanding how black holes communicate with the galaxies they’re in, according to Grier.

UW-Madison professor and PhD candidate counter white-nose syndrome

Channel 3000

The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced Thursday one of its professors, along with a PhD candidate, have made scientific gains in studying how a type of invasive fungus kills North American bats.

UW said Prof. Bruce Klein and PhD candidate Marcos Isidoro-Ayza worked to shed light on the mystery of how the fungus initiates infection and causes “white-nose syndrome,” which has devastated several North American bat species over the years. The pair discovered how the fungus covertly hijacks cells at the surface of bats’ skin.

The dairy farm of the future could employ robotics

Wisconsin Public Radio

Dennis Hancock is center director at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center, which will administer the new facility in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. He said part of the decline in Wisconsin dairy farms can be attributed to workforce shortage and a possible solution is replacing some of the workforce with technology.

“One of the ways to save smaller farms, in my opinion and those that have actually made the conversion would agree, is through the use of robotics,” Hancock recently said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “Robotics are quite expensive, but they do save a lot of labor.”

Wisconsin farmers face profitability challenges with wet weather and soggy field conditions

Wisconsin State Farmer

“We had the warmest February on record and our soil moisture was down to 16% in some areas. And now we’ve gone from one of the most severe deficits to one of the most severe surpluses (of moisture) in just a couple of months,” said Kevin Jarek, University of Wisconsin Division of Extension Crops and Soils educator for Outagamie County. “In my 25 years with Extension, this is unbelievable.”

Just how ‘horrible’ is Milwaukee’s crime? A look at the midyear stats.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“When people talk about crime and the proliferation of crime among some communities rather than others, there often is an attempt to explain it very simplistic,” said Alvin Thomas, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s more than just that. There’s racism. There’s the historical impact of racism and race, and how that affects policy, how policy impacts access to resources, impacts access to social mobility, impacts where people live, what kind of schools people go to, the perception of any kind of personal agency, the ability to rise beyond where you’re born.”

Joint Finance Committee releases aid for communities losing 2-year UW schools

Wisconsin Public Radio

Communities that have lost a two-year Universities of Wisconsin branch campus will be eligible for up to $2 million in grants.

The state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved releasing $20 million to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation for a grant program to assist communities in redeveloping shuttered campuses.

Marquette, Wisconsin go head-to-head in Celebrity Softball Slam benefiting charity

TMJ-4

Tickets are on sale now for the Celebrity Softball Slam, pitting long-time rivals Marquette University and University of Wisconsin-Madison against each other.

Celebrity players include Brian Butch, Travis Diener, Chucky Hepburn, Steve Novak, new Badgers football player Darrion Dupree, Marquette soccer player Molly Keiper, and Oconomowoc native, UW Softball player Molly Schlosser.

Lawmakers approve money for biohealth tech hub, communities affected by UW shutdowns

Wisconsin Examiner

The state budget committee on Tuesday approved the release of $27 million for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to cover grants aimed at creating a regional tech hub and to help communities affected by UW shutdowns. The committee also approved money for the Department of Corrections to cover the costs of youth who are serving adult sentences.

Study finds foam on Wisconsin rivers and lakes has higher PFAS levels than waters below

Wisconsin Public Radio

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that naturally occurring foams on state waterways have PFAS levels as much as thousands of times higher than waters that lie below.

The findings are part of a new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. She said the PFAS concentrations in foam were “jaw-dropping.” Samples of foam collected from Lake Monona showed PFAS levels up to roughly 328,000 parts per trillion.

A rural church’s vision: Be essential to the whole community, focus on more than just Sundays

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Whether a church is involved in the broader community is a predictor of its success, said Steven Deller, a professor of applied economics and an expert in rural economic development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Congregations that are internally focused and closed off to new ideas and newcomers are “going to struggle,” Deller said.

“Is this the kind of community that the common response is, ‘Well, you’re not from here, so you don’t understand?'” Deller said. “That kind of attitude can be the kiss of death.”

New bonuses approved for UW leaders, pushing UW-Madison chancellor pay past $1 million

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor will earn more than $1 million by the end of this coming school year.

The UW Board of Regents created a retention bonus system for its chancellors in a closed-door meeting Monday with no public discussion or vote. The board also approved pay boosts for eight of the 13 chancellors to bring their compensation closer to peer universities.

A judge ruled parts of Act 10 are unconstitutional. What comes next

Spectrum News

Professor Michael Childers specializes in labor education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said he thinks the likelihood of the case going to the Wisconsin Supreme Court is all but guaranteed.

“This finding — if it was allowed to stand — would, in essence, remove the changes to collective bargaining laws and allow for the provision for all the public sector workers to again collective bargain similar to all the private sector workers in Wisconsin are able to do,” Childers said.

‘I’m staying in the race’: A defiant Joe Biden rallies support to his campaign in Madison

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

James Tinjum, an engineering professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison who said he had concerns about Biden’s energy levels during the debate, was reassured Friday. He said he has faith in Biden’s ability to “get things done” and noted concerns about Trump’s age, as well. Trump turned 78 last month.

“He had more confidence, more strength in his voice and a positive message that I’m looking for,” Tinjum said.

Defiant Biden tells Wisconsinites ‘I’m staying in the race!’

Wisconsin Examiner

Olivia Saud, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who came to the rally at Sherman Middle School to see Biden in person, said she watched the debate and “I understand the concern.”

“I also understand the concern of Trump being president,” she said, adding, “I’m one of those people who subscribes to anything that’s blue I’m going to vote for at this point.”