The Lost Worlds Revisited team has been reflecting on a bumper twelve months of palaeontological discoveries. Overwhelmed with choice, we also asked on Twitter for other people’s favourite fossil finds of 2017. So here is a combination of those fossiliferous suggestions, alongside some of our personal favourites. Enjoy!
The University of Wisconsin-Superior Faculty Senate late Friday announced a majority of its members have voted “no confidence” in university administration, in the wake of a decision earlier this year to suspend more than two dozen academic programs.
The end of the year is a time of holiday gift giving, and finding just the right gift can sometimes feel like an impossible task. But folks at an animal eyeball lab say that a gift they’ve just received, partly thanks to NPR, has made this the “best Christmas ever.”
Dozens more selective colleges and universities have joined a pact to recruit more students from low-to-moderate income families, nearly tripling the total that launched the effort a year ago. The group includes UW-Madison.
The University of Florida makes a promise to its applicants: All essays they submit will be read at least twice.
The project began in the fall of 2016, and although it’s only in the first year of a 3- to 4-year monitoring effort, the project — which is an expansion of an existing project between the National Park Service and University of Wisconsin-Madison to monitor the wildlife of the broader Apostle Islands — has already discovered some interesting differences between the islands, he said.
Noted: Richard Lankau, who teaches plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, co-authored a recent study on this in the journal Functional Ecology. “This weapon if you will, it’s not useful when you’re competing with other members of your own species,” he says.
Noted: The endangered species listing was first proposed to the Obama administration in 2016 by a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison ecologists and others who petitioned for the plant’s protection. Don Waller, the petition’s author and a professor of botany, told Science Daily that collectors snatching plants from their habitat was draining the population.
Noted: “There seems to be more momentum on the Democratic side this time around, than some of Ryan’s earlier elections,” Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me. “Ryan has an albatross around his neck as part of an unpopular government in an unpopular party under an unpopular president, and any reasonable Democratic opponent is going to get some mileage out of that.”
Quoted: “Right now, in machine learning, you take a lot of data, you see if it works, if it doesn’t work you tweak some parameters, you try again, and eventually, the network works great,” said Loris D’Antoni, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who is co-developing a tool for measuring and fixing bias called FairSquare. “Now even if there was a magic way to find that these programs were biased, how do you even fix it?”
Noted: Richard Lankau co-authored a recent study on this in the journal Functional Ecology . “This weapon if you will, it’s not useful when you’re competing with other members of your own species,” says Lankau, who teaches plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
MADISON, Wis. — The governing body for USA Hockey may be based in Colorado Springs, but its soul resides here, where the pillars of University of Wisconsin hockey energized the Olympic and Paralympic movements. And now, with the absence of N.H.L. players echoing the era when college players populated the American roster, the Badgers will have an outsize influence in the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea.
The federal government announced on Tuesday that it is lifting a three-year moratorium on funding controversial research that involves genetically altering viruses in ways that could make them more contagious, more deadly, or both — and that critics say risks triggering a catastrophic pandemic.
More than 3 years after imposing a moratorium on U.S. funding for certain studies with dangerous viruses, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, today lifted this so-called “pause” and announced a new plan for reviewing such research. But federal officials haven’t yet decided the fate of a handful of studies on influenza and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) that were put on hold in October 2014.
Noted: The scientists now leading the various components of NRMN are still trying to digest news of its possible deconstruction, and their response to the pending solicitations. “We have not even had a chance to talk as a group yet,” Christine Pfund, a cell biologist at the University of Wisconsin inMadison who leads NRMN’s mentor training core, wrote in an email. “Lots to discuss after the holidays.”
Faculty, alumni and students, even prospective students — more than a dozen of them — lined up behind University of Wisconsin-Superior Chancellor Renee Wachter to address the Superior City Council on Tuesday night.
Noted: “All in all this makes sense to me, and it’s what I would predict,” says Nancy Keller, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who was not involved in the study. “It’s nice to have a solid piece of [research] out on this.”
Anne Massey announced Monday that she would resign — after only one semester in office — as dean of the business school at the University of Wisconsin, The Wisconsin State Journal reported.
Noted: “That crowds out older films,” says David Bordwell, a film historian at the University of Wisconsin. “They’re going to have less and less motive to highlight the classics in their catalogs.” That threatens the economics of film history. “How many restorations of old films will there be?” he asks. “How many foreign titles?”
Listen, it would be easy to make a joke about how so many of us know little about the world and its history from before we were born…
Life on Earth is, at the very least, about 3.5 billion years old. That’s what researchers at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin–Madison have determined through analysis of microscopic fossils found in a rock in Western Australia.
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have helped confirm that tiny fossils detected in an Australian rock are the oldest fossils ever found.
A pair of resolutions are under consideration by local government officials, challenging plans to suspend 25 University of Wisconsin-Superior programs and place 15 others on suspension warning.
The Republican-backed tax overhaul is headed for final floor votes in Congress without some of the measures that would directly target higher education. Notably, a proposed tax on tuition waivers for graduate students and other college employees is no longer in the compromise legislation. But a high-profile tax on the investment earnings of some of the largest college endowments stayed in the bill.
A proposal to tax some large private college endowments made it into the final version of a tax reform bill agreed to by House and Senate negotiators last week. The provision matches the more modest proposal included in the Senate tax bill passed this month, rather than a House proposal that would have affected many more institutions. But many college leaders have said the tax is bad policy and sets a dangerous precedent.
Last summer’s Pew Research Center and Gallup surveys showing sharply declining public support for colleges and universities — especially among Republicans — seriously rattled higher education leaders.
The most incredible and uplifting and inspiring football season of my life began in a way that I would’ve never expected. It started with a scream.
Since its launch four years ago, a University of Wisconsin-Madison program has been working with students, faculty, and staff at the school to turn their ideas into startup companies.
Republican leaders in both the House and Senate announced Wednesday they had reached a preliminary agreement on their comprehensive tax overhaul, with final votes on the bill expected next week.
Noted: The exercise was part of the Kindness Curriculum, developed by the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in which preschoolers are introduced to a potpourri of sensory games, songs and stories that are designed to help them pay closer attention to their emotions.
Noted: “Each country has its own barriers,” said Dr. James F. Cleary, director of pain and policy studies at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school and a member of the commission that produced the Lancet study.
About 20 protesters dressed in Halloween costumes stood in front of the Yellowjacket Union on the University of Wisconsin-Superior campus Saturday to address recent program suspensions.
Thierry Cruvellier is the only journalist in the world who has attended and reported on all of the major post-Cold War International Criminal Court tribunals, including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Cambodia, as well as national justice efforts in Colombia and the Balkans. He is a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this year, teaching a course on international criminal justice.
MADISON, Wis. – With family gatherings, shopping and holiday parties, this can be a very joyful season. But the holidays often include a lot of stress, which can put a damper on the joyful parts. Some of the stress is unnecessarily self-inflicted, says Christine Whelan, a clinical professor in the Department of Consumer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology.
There are no reliable data on the number or rate of hate crimes in the United States, according to the investigative news nonprofit ProPublica. The organization has collected several dozen self-reports of alleged incidents of hate and bias in Wisconsin — most of them unconfirmed — since November 2016 when it began soliciting tips as part of its Documenting Hate project. The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is among more than 100 news outlets and other groups participating in the project.
Few sectors of the economy have been hit harder in the proposed overhaul of the federal tax code than higher education. The legislation calls for new taxes on graduate students and the endowments held by wealthy institutions, and the elimination of several student and family tax benefits.
Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman—well-known for his 1995 book “Emotional Intelligence”—spent almost two years combing through more than 6,000 academic studies on meditation with a team of researchers to sort through the hype and discover the real benefits. He wrote about his findings in a new book, “Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain and Body,” which he co-authored with Richard J. Davidson, a neuroscientist who directs a brain lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Superior students are planning a peaceful protest outside the Chancellor’s Ball today to oppose the university’s recent suspension of more than two dozen academic programs in October.
When we look for LiveBIG stories, we look for people who create innovation, impact and inspiration in the fields of science, the arts or philanthropy. Most projects check at least two of those boxes, some even check four, but University of Wisconsin alum Rachel Rose’s work behind-the-scenes on the new Star Wars films checks all of them.
Noted: “The hope is that by providing a patch of tissue which already beats and contracts, instead of just individual cells, the body’s built-in programming will take over and assimilate it into the heart as if it was already there,” says Tim Kamp, professor of regenerative biology, who builds heart patches at the University of Wisconsin.
Noted: “The supermoon is a made-up term,” said James Lattis, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s not an astronomical term, there’s no technical definition of it.”
Noted: “There are not many techniques, even though we’ve been working on this for 3,000 years. So whenever anyone comes up with an authentically new way to do things it’s a big deal, and Minhyong did that,” said Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
A supermoon is when these two cycles match up, and we have a full moon that’s near its perigee. The result is that the full “super” moon appears slightly larger and slightly brighter to us in the sky. This occurs about one in every 14 full moons, Jim Lattis, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin Madison, notes.
Noted: Kathleen Culver, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the mistake would give fresh ammunition to Mr. Trump and other conservatives who have attacked the credibility of news organizations, especially those that have reported negatively on the administration.
Noted: City staff will also get assistance on this work from academics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and partners of the “Green Tier” sustainability program.
Is there a robot in your future? That and other questions related to robotics and artificial intelligence are the focus of the next Science On Tap Wednesday in Minocqua. WXPR’s Ken Krall spoke with Dr. Bilge Mutlu, associate professor of computer science at UW-Madison. He leads a research program that builds human-centered methods and principles for designing robotic and other interactive and intelligent technologies…
When the University of Wisconsin class of 2014 jumped around on graduation day, they left campus with memories to last a lifetime.
Jose Rosas wishes congressional leaders would visit the Medical College of Wisconsin to see valuable research unfolding in labs — research such as new ways to target cancer cells with therapies that only kill the bad cells.
College leaders are bracing for major changes to the nation’s tax code that could weaken their financial footing by undermining charitable giving and placing new tax burdens on institutions with valuable endowments.
The proposed update to the Higher Education Act introduced in the House Friday would allow colleges to refrain from investigating sexual assault allegations while a criminal inquiry is under way if police or prosecutors request such a delay.
Forty-three U.S. students were awarded the 2018 Marshall Scholarship, the largest class of scholars since 2007, according to the British Embassy. The list includes Phoenix Rice-Johnson, University of Wisconsin— Madison, King’s College London.
Robin Mittenthal, the former advisor for the global health certificate at the University of Wisconsin, died this weekend in an accident at his farm.
Miami and Wisconsin are heading to the Orange Bowl as their end-of-season consolation prize.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Madison police say two armed intruders entered a home near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and hurt one of the residents over the weekend.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin didn’t get rid of the drug entirely, says Karin Zuegge, an anesthesiologist and the University of Wisconsin Health medical director of sustainability, but like Kaiser Permanente, they saw a significant drop in desflurane use after starting an education campaign.
Noted: Barbara Wolfe, a professor of population-health sciences at the University of Wisconsin, explained to me that this is what economists call an income-inequality hypothesis: Your health is influenced not only by your own level of income, but by the level of inequality where you live. Sociologists have described a similar socioeconomic-inequality hypothesis: As socioeconomic disparities grow, overall health metrics decline.
When it comes to the Nurse family, Sarah isn’t the first name that comes to mind.
The Great Lakes Evaporation Network project was started in 2008 with funding from the U.S.-Canada International Joint Commission. The project continues to operate through funding from NOAA, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Colorado, and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
There is no telling how many of the eighth-graders in Jonathan Taylor’s class fulfilled the dream laid out in an assignment to describe where you see yourself after high school.
Dr. Rachel Salk, along with researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that adolescent women receive depression diagnoses about three times as often as young men do. This gap narrows in the 20s and 30s, but women are labeled “clinically depressed” at nearly twice the rate of their male counterparts.
