Ancient bright stars known as “blue stragglers” likely increase their mass by stealing fuel from companion stars, astronomers in Wisconsin said.”These blue, luminous stars should have used up their hydrogen fuel and flamed out long ago. Yet they are still here,” said Robert Mathieu, an astronomer with the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Q. Why did the snow look blue after the recent snow storm?A Many people noticed the blue color in the snow during Decemberâ??s first big snow storm. The blue color was particularly seen in the air spaces in the piles of snow at the end of driveways created by the snow plow.
Quoted: As Dr. Sandra Sawchuk, an instructor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine put it, “Pets have gone from the barnyard to the bedroom.”
Neil Lerner, director of UW-Madisonâ??s Small Business Development Center, offers these tips for people who want to start their own business.
Quoted: â??When Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert, decorated a Christmas tree in Windsor Palace in 1848, it was widely reported in popular American publications,â? says Jim Leary, professor and director of the Folklore Program at UW-Madison. â??Well-to-do, fashion-minded Americans soon followed suit, with rural and working-class folks not that far behind. By 1856, President Franklin Pierce gave the Christmas tree official sanction when he had one decorated in the White House.â?
The most memorable steps Prince Moody has taken during his five seasons with the University of Wisconsin football program didnâ??t come at Camp Randall Stadium, even though he felt the rush of adrenaline from that pregame sprint down the tunnel more than two dozen times during his career.
Sophomore running back John Clay has been in a festive mood lately. He has been wearing a green no-contact jersey for so long during University of Wisconsin football practices, the coaches started teasing him about it.
Itâ??s easy to pick out the most enduring headline of the past decade where University of Wisconsin sports are concerned.
After a strong start, University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielemaâ??s bowl record has taken a hit over the last two years.
University of Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez was no different than many of the football teamâ??s fans coming into this season.
From Belleville to Baghdad, Waunakee to Waikiki, Monroe to Madrid – Bucky Badger is running around the world. In addition to Madisonâ??s annual Crazylegs Classic, the Wisconsin Alumni Association is planning to help coordinate satellite events in other cities where there is interest.
If youâ??re a parent, you may want to consider getting a Facebook page in the new year. Thatâ??s advice from Kathleen Culver, a professor at UW School of Journalism & Mass Communication. â??I really do encourage all of the parents . . . of children in their teens or younger, anyone who has a person living in their home who has a Faceboo account, you should also have a Facebook account, because you need to know how it works,â? says Culver.
The collapse of Dubaiâ??s overheated economy has left the outposts of Michigan State University and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the United Arab Emirates struggling to attract enough qualified students to survive.
The college football recruiting has picked up for several Coast players during the holiday season. St. Stanislaus quarterback Dylan Favre is scheduling official visits to Oklahoma State, Southern Miss and Wisconsin for next month.
Quoted: Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said many people in the West had been clinging to the misguided notion that Chinaâ??s economic development would quickly lead to political liberalization. â??Itâ??s clear that what matters most to the Chinese Communist Party is the survival of the regime and their monopoly on power,â? he said.
Quoted: “His legacy can be summed up in one word: inspiration,” said Darold Treffert, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin medical school who advised the makers of Rain Man and who was close to Peek for the past 20 years.
Noted: Hamersma and Carolyn Heinrich, a University of Wisconsin public affairs professor, studied occupational records, wages and earnings for 5,877 Wisconsin workers between 1995 and 2004.
Four University of Wisconsin campuses, including Oshkosh, will not be completely energy independent by 2012, Gov. Jim Doyle acknowledged last week about his 2006 re-election pledge. But even if our lame duck governorâ??s credibility is off the grid, Oshkosh has made notable progress. Which begs the question of why politicians feel the need to make such grandiose pronouncements only to have them fall flat.
Noted: Last week, Science acknowledged the furor, publishing online an â??Editorial Expression of Concernâ? in which the journalâ??s editor-in-chief, Bruce Alberts, notes that â??serious questions have been raised about the methods and data presented.â? â??It was just so obvious the chemistry was flawed,â? says biochemist Laura Kiessling of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, editor-in-chief of ACS Chemical Biology.
Noted: Looking at a couch on a furniture retailerâ??s Web site, you probably take no conscious notice of the green-patterned wallpaper behind the couch. Yet, Deborah Mitchell, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said one study showed that green is associated with money, and got subjectsâ?? neurons firing in a way that made them sensitive to the cost of the item.
Quoted: The arts, moviegoing and sporting events are all in the same precarious boat now because “people have more options than they ever did before,” said Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A home near federally protected land may sound like paradise. But researchers at UW-Madison have compiled what may be the most comprehensive look at the threat of housing development in rural areas.
An experimental influenza drug can protect mice against H5N1 avian influenza better than the preferred drug Tamiflu, researchers reported on Monday. The drug, called T-705 or favipiravir, is made by Fujifilm Holdings Corp (4901.T) unit Toyama Chemical Co. It works differently from Tamiflu and Relenza and seems to work at lower doses, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
News of the University of Wisconsinâ??s slang term “Coastie” exploded over the weekend with a song called “Whatâ??s a Coastie” quickly going viral on Youtube. A “Coastie,” as explained in the song, is an out-of-state student who wears East Coast fashion and is a “rich Jewish girl.”Â
Itâ??s not that depressed people canâ??t feel good, itâ??s that they canâ??t hang on to that feeling, a new study claims. The novel notion upends previous beliefs that depressed people donâ??t even start out with positive emotions, and that they have no or little response in the areas of the brain related to good feelings.
“This tells us that a consideration of positive emotion is as important, if not more important, in understanding depression,” said Richard Davidson, senior author of a study appearing online Dec. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
We all know that states have “official” animals, birds, and flowers. Until I did a little research, I didnâ??t know that there were also state insects, amphibians, and reptiles. For example, the state insect of New York is the ladybug, Missouriâ??s reptile is the three toed box turtle, and the official amphibian of Washington is the Pacific chorus frog. However, recently Wisconsin has taken this naming of living things a step further. Americaâ??s Dairyland, whose state dance is the polka, has been in the news lately because there is a bill before the state legislature to name a State Germ.
The Champs Bowl Game is getting closer and University of Wisconsin Badger football fans are making their travel plans. The Wisconsin Alumni Association said ticket sales for this bowl game against the University of Miami are up from last year when the Badgers played Florida State.
Seated in Section 1, Row 48 at the north end of Camp Randall Stadium Nov. 14, Joe Mooney focused the binoculars he brought for this specific reason at midfield.
It was Parents Day when the University of Wisconsin football team played Michigan and, as a friend of Nick and Cindy Maragos, Mooney sensed he was about to see something he would never forget when they joined their son, Chris, during the ceremony.
Quoted: â??What they hear is some notions â?? some accurate, some distorted â?? about what Democrats are trying to do,â? said Charles Franklin, a polling expert at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Noted: Eugene Van Tamelen graduated from Hope College in 1947, received a doctorate from Harvard University in 1950, and joined the University of Wisconsinâ??s chemistry faculty that year. He quickly rose to full professor and was Wisconsinâ??s Homer Adkins Professor of Chemistry at the time of his move to Stanford University in 1962. He chaired Stanfordâ??s chemistry department for several terms.
Although not ranked No. 1 yet, one University of Minnesota team recently made the most impressive move of any top 20 school in the country.
Noted: Many private institutions, such as the University of St. Thomas, have slightly shorter semesters and wrapped up their finals last week. But the last exams at UW-Madison begin at 2:45 Wednesday, by which time snow and gusty winds could be hampering travel to Minnesota.
Madison Police officers thanked four citizens who helped them catch a robber Monday.Police say a UW-Madison student who was on his way to class, a UW Credit Union customer, a woman who was driving her car, and a local bicyclist, all conspired to catch the robber.
Discarded food would be collected and turned into energy under a proposal announced Monday by Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk. The project would be one of the first in the United States to use municipal food waste to generate energy, according to Troy Runge, director of the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative, a state-funded program based at the UW-Madison.
An experimental new drug could be more effective than existing drugs against swine flu and bird flu, a UW-Madison researcher found. The drug, T-705, or favipiravir, was previously found to be effective against swine flu, or H1N1. Now Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist at the university, has shown that the drug protects mice against bird flu, or H5N1.
Is your favorite radio station Twittering? Does your local newspaper have a Facebook page?Kathleen Culver with the UW School of Journalism & Mass Communication says newspapers, TV news â?? and even radio stations â?? have come up to speed, considering most popular social media sites didnâ??t even exist a few years ago.
A University of Wisconsin program seeks to solve local poverty problems by offering those with past problems a chance at free higher education. The program, known as the “Odyssey Project,” is a free college humanities course for adults near the poverty level that is funded by UW grants and donations. Every year, 30 students go through the program and continue on to other area schools.
Arthur Stanley Goldberger died on Friday, Dec. 11, 2009, at Select Specialty Hospital in Madison just after his 79th birthday. Art was a preeminent economist who taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1960-1999.
Orrin L. Helstad died on Dec. 11, 2009, at the age of 87. In 1961 he became a faculty member at the UW Law School where he served at various times as teacher, researcher and administrator until his retirement in 1990.
Gordon M. Garnett, M.D., age 86, passed away peacefully on Dec. 13, 2009. He was an Assistant Clinical Professor for the UW Medical School for 40 years, enthusiastically teaching medical students and residents the science and art of practicing medicine.
Lyle B. Frank, age 96, of Middleton, formerly of Ironton, passed away on Friday, December 18, 2009. He worked for the University of Wisconsin for 15 years as a custodian in the dormitories retiring in 1978.
The University of Wisconsin is looking for a new menâ??s soccer coach. Todd Yeagley, who was hired exactly one year ago Friday, is leaving to take over at Indiana, two sources familiar with the situation told Wisconsin Soccer Central.
Junior quarterback Scott Tolzien has proven he can take a hit this season. He can also take a joke. Tolzien has impressed his University of Wisconsin football teammates with the way he has hung in the pocket, calmly delivering the ball on time before absorbing a hit.
The pace of construction in the University of Wisconsin System is creating a growing to-do list of maintenance projects and nowhere near enough money to get the work done. â??We need to start thinking about this long term,â? said state Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah. â??And if weâ??re saving money on other projects, we should think of a way to utilize that money.â?
Todd Yeagley spent only one year away from Bloomington. The son of 31-year coach Jerry Yeagley returns as the programâ??s third coach, as announced by IU Athletics today.
In this economic climate, weâ??d forgive some of the 576 graduates who will participate Saturday in winter commencement exercises at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for being a little reluctant to leave college for the work force.
Quoted: Charles O. Jones, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin, put it this way: â??Dick Neustadt, the greatest of presidential scholars and now deceased, had a principal rule: always be attentive, in making a decision, to the effects of that decision on your prospects for future power. The point being that if you are going to set a deadline then youâ??d better meet it. Otherwise, the judgment will be that you made a mistake.â?
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has filed a lawsuit against the University of Wisconsinâ??s medical school and its supporting foundation.
Gov. Jim Doyle has distanced himself from a campaign promise that four University of Wisconsin campuses will be energy independent by 2012 after determining it was not practical as proposed.
The Big Ten Network plans to honor the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s signature anthem, “On Wisconsin!”
Q: Why donâ??t we forget how to ride a bike?
A: Theory holds several clues to support the oft-heard phrase â??just like riding a bike.â?Riding a bicycle is what motor control experts tend to refer to as a â??continuous task,â? compared to discrete tasks with definite endings (like turning a key to start your car). Peter van Kan, kinesiology professor at UW-Madison, said research has laid out three reasons why bicycle riding feels like second nature.
President Barack Obama spoke at Wright Middle School in Madison last month and urged our nation to make improving K-12 education a national priority.
A company that partially demolished UW-Madisonâ??s Ogg Hall before getting fired shouldnâ??t get around $1.8 million from the state, according to a recommendation from the State Claims Board.
Noted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison enforces a similar policy. Four students died from alcohol-related causes during the last school year. Since then, officials have revised their policies, said Ervin Cox, assistant dean of students. Wisconsin students only face formal disciplinary action for off-campus drinking incidents when they result in a trip to the hospital, an assault occurs, previous disciplinary history is on record, or alcohol was provided to a minor who needed medical care.
One state lawmaker continues to push for strict legislative oversight of the UW Board of Regentsâ?? power to condemn and acquire land under eminent domain. Milladore Democrat Amy Vruwinkâ??s bill would ensure the board is accountable for its actions and the property acquisitions really are for the public good.
Old Man Winter pushed the NCAA Division III title game back by five hours, but he couldnâ??t stand in the way of the Warhawk football team.
Both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Edgewood College held Winter Commencement ceremonies on Sunday. UW- Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin spoke at the UWâ??s graduation. Chancellor Martin said she believes grads are well-prepared to face the hiring world. She says their education was one of the best investments theyâ??ve made.
A coalition of groups led by UW Health calls this weekâ??s passage of tougher drunk driving measures a good first step. Lisa Maroney with the All-Wisconsin Alcohol Risk Education coalition, or AWARE, says the drunk driving legislation is good â?? but does too little to deal with first offenders. â??Itâ??s an important first step,â? says Maroney. â??Is there more to be done? Yes.â?
Cardinal and white, say hello to the red, white and blue. When the United Statesâ?? womenâ??s hockey team takes to the ice in Vancouver for its Winter Olympic Games opener against Feb. 14 against China in Vancouver, there will a distinct University of Wisconsin flavor.
Former Wisconsin coach and now the universityâ??s athletic director Barry Alvarez said: “Weâ??re irrelevant for the last three weeks of the football season because weâ??re not playing.”Â
