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Author: jplucas

He screens for ice cream

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

When it comes to ice cream flavors, Kim Premo has not only tasted a lot of them, he?s made them. Premo is vice president of research and development at Denali Ingredients LLC in New Berlin. He grew up on a farm in Columbus and obtained an undergraduate degree in food science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977.

Professionals Can Help You Navigate the Health-Care System

Wall Street Journal

Noted: The Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin Law School helps “clarify diagnosis and treatment options” and identifies “financing options” for those with serious or life-threatening conditions.

Posted in Uncategorized

Community college beats no college on path to 4-year degree, study finds

Inside Higher Education

Noted: The new research paper contributes to a touchy debate about the role of community colleges, a discussion that too often lacks nuance, said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a co-author of the study. She said the sector is too big and complex to draw much from examples of the ?average? student.

Do political conventions matter?

USA Today

Quoted: ?You can?t think about the last time you went to a convention and wondered what would happen. You don?t even wonder if there will be a rules fight or a credentials fight or even a platform fight,? said Byron Shafer, a University of Wisconsin professor. ?The convention is objectively less important.?

Arms and the Duck

New York Times

Quoted: ?You don?t mess with hunting and fishing because that?s part of who we are,? says Kathy Cramer Walsh, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who specializes in civic engagement. ?A lot of times, talk about regulating guns and ammunition is seen as the outside trying to change who we are.?

How Long Do You Want to Live?

New York Times

But another stem cell pioneer, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, believes that stem cell solutions will be a long time coming for more complex organs. ?We?re a long way from transplanting cells into a human brain or nervous system,? he said.

Board of Regents Okay UW-Madison Dairy Facility Upgrades

Wisconsin Ag Connection

A proposed $75-million remodeling project for the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Babcock Hall has receiving the blessing of the UW Board of Regents. Last week, the panel gave its approval to a plan that would provide half of the funding for remodeling and expanding the dairy research and teaching space and ice-cream and cheese-making facilities in Babcock Hall. The project also includes building a new livestock and poultry products laboratory.

Sensors for Brain Injuries May Help Future Athletes

New York Times

Noted: At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Thad G. Walker, an atomic physicist, uses optical magnetometry to monitor the magnetic fields of the beating heart rather than the brain. Professor Walker and his group have created small magnetometers that are an inexpensive alternative to superconducting devices now used to spot various heart abnormalities in a fetus.

Cordwood makes a comeback

Star Tribune

Quoted: William Tishler, a professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has traced some of the earliest cordwood structures back to the hardscrabble settlements of the mid- to late-19th century.

We could live longer, but most won’t

Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune

Dr. Richard Weindruch is a professor of gerontology and geriatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who can tell you off the top of his head that a French woman by the name of Jeanne Calment lived the longest life of any known human, 122 years.

Ghana Needs Political Commitment to Fight Slums

allAfrica.com

Researcher Jefferey W. Paller, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has carried out a one-year field work on slums in the Greater Accra Region, specifically in Old Fadama, Ga Mashie and Ashaiman, and observed that it required a strong political commitment to fight slums in the country, especially in the Greater Accra Region.

On the agenda: More autonomy for campuses

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As the University of Wisconsin begins to noodle out its budget for the next two years, it?s a good time to remind the state?s lawmakers – and the public – of some unfinished business that we hope is taken up in the next session of the Legislature: greater autonomy for the university.

Amid the firestorm in 2011 over a secretive plan to split off the Madison campus from the rest of the system, a very good idea was lost: giving all the campuses more control over their own affairs. More autonomy especially would benefit the Milwaukee campus, which educates more Wisconsin natives than any other and runs leaner than most other campuses in the nation.

Iowa research team investigating the roots of human self-awareness

Cedar Rapids Gazette

Carissa Philippi, who earned her doctorate in neuroscience at the UI in 2011, conducted a detailed self-awareness interview with Patient R and found he had a deep capacity for introspection, one of humans? most evolved features of self-awareness.

?During the interview, I asked him how he would describe himself to somebody,? says Philippi, now a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?He said, ?I am just a normal person with a bad memory.??

Forensic investigation needs more science

Nature

Noted: ACS president Bassam Shakhashiri, a chemist at the University of Wisconsin?Madison, has been a strong supporter of the Innocence Project, and he appeared with many of the speakers for the Innocence Project at a press conference on Monday. He told Nature that before the society could lobby Congress in favour of the bill, the board would need to approve a policy statement on the matter, but that he planned to speak to several of the governance committees that oversee the topics involved.

Middle class share of America’s income shrinking

Philadelphia Inquirer

Quoted: “The job market is changing, our living standards are falling in the middle, and middle-income parents are now afraid that their children will be worse off than they are,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor specializing in income inequality.

Hey girl, Ryan Gosling the feminist

Marie Claire

Ryan Gosling is a hero; he breaks up street fights in New York, saves British women from stepping into the paths of a speeding NYC taxis and, thanks to a few pro-women statements, has become not only a heartthrob but a thoughtul feminist.

Polls show Romney closing gap with Obama in swing states

Washington Times

Quoted: ?It makes sense that his addition to the ticket would have more effect in Wisconsin given that he represents one-eighth of the state in Congress, has connections to the state?s largest university, and is generally visible in the state,? said Barry Burden, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Loehmann?s Adds Personal Shopping in Chelsea

New York Times

Noted: She is barely 10 years out of high school, the Bullis School in Potomac, Md., where she worked at Tickled Pink, an offshoot of Lilly Pulitzer. She also attended a summer program at Parsons, where Tim Gunn was a mentor. In college, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she majored in fashion design, with a certificate in art history.

Stem cells: A culture war gone quiet

Salon.com

Quoted: Dominique Brossard, who studies public perceptions of controversial scientific topics at the University of Wisconsin, which holds many of the usable embryonic cell lines, said she was surprised the Republican Party platform would include language on stem cells in 2012. ?I was surprised to hear that they were going to add that issue because as far as public opinion is concerned, this is an issue that wasn?t really defined by party lines,? she told Salon.

Opinion: Scientists? Intuitive Failures

The Scientist

Scientists in the United States and Europe have long been concerned with how well the public understands science, writes Dietram A. Scheufele, Life Sciences Communication professor, but debates about how to best communicate science with lay populations are driven by intuitive assumptions on the part of scientists rather than the growing body of social science research on the topic that has developed over the past 2 decades.

Entrepreneurs gather in Madison for Forward Technology Festival

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Midwestern entrepreneurs and innovators are gathering in Madison for a 10-day event called the Forward Technology Festival.

The festival?s signature event – the Forward Technology Conference – will be held Wednesday at Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Experts will discuss starting companies, acquiring customers, raising capital and other topics.

What?s the Difference Between Games and Gamification?

MindShift

Noted: Outside of education, some call these ?reward, recognition and motivation programs.? And Alex Chisholm, executive director of the Learning Games Network, a spin-off from the MIT Education Arcade and University of Wisconsin, shared an equivalent perspective recently when he noted that saying you?re going to ?gamify? something in education means you?re applying game design principles to motivate and inspire learners.

Algal blooms hit South Korean rivers

Nature

Quoted: Jae Park, an environmental engineer at the University of Wisconsin?Madison, agrees. He says that a combination of plenty of sunlight and high levels of nutrients in the rivers, rather than slower flow speeds, is responsible for the the algal outbreak. In fact, the algae do not seem to thrive in water deeper than 3 metres, so by creating a number of deep reservoirs, the dams have helped to curb algal growth.

We dare you to take a real vacation

CNN.com

Quoted: “A lot of people are really busy because they take a little dose of family and then they want to back off,” says Joanne Cantor, a communications professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “You can see parents with teenagers and see teens going for their gadgets all the time. It?s a good thing, but not necessarily the easiest thing to devote more time to your family.”

Bill would limit growth of N.Y. dairy farms

Watertown, N.Y. Daily Times

Noted: Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has confirmed that this alternative will help dairy farmers turn a profit without also limiting New York?s opportunity to grow its dairy industry.

Armed with U.S. education, many leaders take on world

Washington Times

Noted: The University of Wisconsin, for example, counts among its alumni officials from Bangladesh, Jordan, Peru, Sri Lanka and Sweden. The University of Michigan has educated leaders in Antigua, Jamaica and Thailand.

Posted in Uncategorized

Charles Lobeck, 1926-2012

Columbia Daily Tribune

Dr. Charles C. Lobeck Jr. passed away Friday, July 20, 2012, in Green Valley, Ariz., where he had lived with his wife, Isabelle, since 2002. He joined the faculty of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1958 and served as chairman of the department from 1964 to 1974. He returned to Madison, Wis., in 1984 and served as Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the medical school. Charles became Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine in 1991.

Scientists in town for topics cosmic and microscopic

Philly.com

Quoted: “Baum tackled inherently controversial topics – global climate change, for instance, surging population growth, disease, violence and war and the denial of basic human rights,” said ACS president Bassam Shakhashiri, who is a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin. Baum will be among the panelists, as well as National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott, veteran science journalists Deborah Blum and Tom Siegfried, and Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann, whose recent book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, recounts his much-attacked research.

Sociologists examine patterns of student debt, gender and class

Inside Higher Education

Noted: Jason N. Houle, the author of the study and a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that the data show that for all of the concern about lower-income borrowing and higher income borrowing, there is a significant “middle class squeeze” issue that needs attention. And that squeeze starts at $40,000 in family income.

Posted in Uncategorized

Whooping cough on rise despite immunizations

Green Bay Press-Gazette

Quoted: Dr. Patrick Remington, a professor with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, suggests that whooping cough is on the rise because vaccination rates have declined, in part due to perceived concerns over vaccine safety and potential side effects.