Skip to main content

Author: jplucas

Effective cold treatment possible in 5 years: Study (CanWest News Service)

Posted on
Vancouver Sun

Scientists are boldly predicting we may soon have to stop complaining that if we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we cure the common cold?

Researchers have cracked the genetic code for all 99 known strains of the human rhinovirus, the virus that accounts for the majority of human cold infections.

“That’s why we’ll never have a vaccine for the common cold,” lead author Ann Palmenberg, professor of biochemistry and chair of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in announcing her team’s work.

Brand Loyalty and the Financial Crisis

Posted on
Wall Street Journal

Quoted: Many things influence why embrace or reject particular brands, says Aric Rindfleisch, a marketing professor with Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our relationships with brands can be deeply psychological and rooted in our personal experience with a company.

UW Won’t Issue H1N1 Numbers

Posted on
WISC-TV 3

University of Wisconsin-Madison officials are defending their decision not to release any specific number of H1N1 flu virus cases.

Dr. Sarah Van Orman, executive director of UW Health Services, said issuing case numbers regarding the so-called swine flu would be largely inaccurate since there are too many factors to consider. Instead, UW officials are focusing its resources on managing the virus’ outbreaks.

Crews Respond To Fire At UW Engineering Hall

Posted on
WISC-TV 3

Madison fire crews responded to a report of a fire at Engineering Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus Thursday night.

UW-Madison police confirmed there was an active fire just after 8 p.m. Thursday at the building near Camp Randall Stadium.

Posted in Uncategorized

Police: 2 Arrested In Battery Of UW Safe Walk Employee

Posted on
WISC-TV 3

University of Wisconsin-Madison police said that two men have been arrested in connection with the battery of a UW-Madison student employee Wednesday night.

UW-Madison police responded to the area of Park Street and Johnson Street at about 11:57 p.m. Wednesday for a report of a battery.

Speak Now, or Forever Hold Your Copyrights!

Posted on
Inside Higher Education

A number of higher education institutions have assigned Judge Denny Chin some reading for Tuesday.

Chin, the federal judge who is presiding over Authorâ??s Guild et al. v. Google, Inc., has been inundated with letters and amicus briefs in advance of the September 7 deadline for participants in the class action to opt out of a settlement over the company’s controversial Google Books project that has received preliminary approval from the court. A handful of the documents have come from professors, university libraries, and advocacy groups.

Most — including the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Abilene Christian University, the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, the United States Distance Learning Association, and the United States Student Association — have written in support of the settlement.

Library Groups Step Up Criticism of Google Settlement (Library Journal)

Posted on

The University of Wisconsin at Madison, like Michigan a partner library, wrote in support, stating, â??[a]s a contributor to the project for several years, UW-Madison is familiar with the concerns expressed about the settlement and the project overall. We remain supportive, however, of this settlement as a unique compromise providing mutual benefits to the named parties and interested groups that could not be obtained through advanced litigation.â?

UW student is beaten near campus

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

A UW student is beaten near campus.

It happened just before midnight near the intersection of Park and Johnson Street.

Police say Nathaniel Angelo Showers was arrested for drunk driving Showers, along with Yusef Wafford, are tentatively charged with substantial battery.

Fire fighters respond to fire at UW Engineering Building

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

Fire causes $20,000 in damage on the UW-Madison campus Thursday night.

City of Madison firefighters extinguished a fire in the Engineering Research building at 1500 Engineering Drive. The fire caused approximately $20,000 damage to a small office and its contents.

Posted in Uncategorized

On Campus: UW-Madison’s health clinic seeing more flu patients

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison’s student health clinic is seeing more patients than usual for this time of year with flu-like symptoms, according to university officials.

The university has ramped up its efforts to prevent and control an outbreak of influenza, especially in light of concerns about H1N1, or swine flu.

Dorm room shortage at Wisconsin colleges

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Thousands of college students have been moving onto University of Wisconsin campuses across the state. But hundreds more canâ??t, due to housing crunches.

The UW-Eau Claire housed most of its student body on campus. But nearly 230 students, including 66 freshmen, will stay in two local hotels. Thatâ??s due to a higher than expected number of upper classmen returning to the dorms. UW-Eau Claire housing director Chuck Major says thereâ??ll still be dorm staff and services for the hotel students. Major says it really does resemble a residence hall on campus.

Meanwhile, Paul Evans of UW-Madison housing says theyâ??re in a crunch too, but expect relief soon. Evans says historically, the university has always had to turn away students in the hundreds it was unable to house. UW-Madison got approval in the state budget for two new residence halls that will include 560 beds. The first dorm is scheduled to open in 2012. (Eighth item.)

Science Fair

Posted on
USA Today

â??Muskrat Loveâ? may have been a hit in the 1970s, but â??Cotton-Top Tamarin Affiliativeâ? doesnâ??t have quite the same Top-40 potential — unless you happen to a primate. The “song” — part of a collaboration between a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and a musician — certainly got some Wisconsin-based Cotton-Tops, small monkeys normally found in the forests of northern Columbia, going.  The researchers described how music could influence the monkeyâ??s behavior in a study published in this weekâ??s Biology Letters journal.

New college rankings focus on public service, social mobility

Posted on
USA Today

Public universities fare well in Washington Monthlys annual college rankings, released today. “Unlike the U.S. News & World Report rankings â?¦ our goal is to determine what colleges and universities are doing for the country â?? by improving social mobility, producing research and promoting public service,” says editor Paul Glastris.

From the report: Of 11 members of the Big Ten Conference make our top 75.

Gow notes challenges raised by â??fâ?? words

Posted on
La Crosse Tribune

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow had an unorthodox start to his annual all-university address.

“My parents told me not to use the ‘f’ word in polite conversations and certainly not at events like this,” said Gow. “That word is furloughs.”

Madison, Wis., names the lawn flamingo its official bird

Posted on
Los Angeles Times

30 years ago, a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison students played a prank that’s remembered fondly — by some, at least — in Madison to this day.

The students — members of a group called the Pail and Shovel party, which ran UW’s student government at the time — planted more than 1,000 pink plastic flamingos on the grassy expanse near the dean’s office. (Interestingly, the student government’s president at the time was Jim Mallon, who went on to become executive producer of TV’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”)

UW starts school mindful of H1N1

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

Students and faculty on the UW campus have one more thing to think about as school starts: H1N1.

Monday, UW leaders sent a memo to staff and students, reminding them to be proactive in preventing the spread of the virus. Click here for more information on what they’re doing to be proactive.

It’s not just introductions and summer recaps in UW classrooms this year.

State health surveyors could be knocking on your door

Posted on
Madison.com

Surveyors will begin knocking on doors this month to update the stateâ??s health report card.

The program continues the work of the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin, or SHOW, which began collecting health data in 2008. SHOW is conducted through UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health.

UW System payroll upgrade will cost up to $81 million

Posted on
Madison.com

It will cost up to $81.4 million to upgrade UW System’s aging payroll and benefits software system under a new estimate by System officials, an effort that has been marred in the past by cost overruns and failure.

UW System President Kevin Reilly will ask the Board of Regents next week to approve a multi-year plan to implement the project, which he said would allow the System to update a computer program that was first installed in 1975 and is at risk of breaking down.

Commercial Biopharma in Wisconsin: The next big step

Posted on
Wisconsin Technology Network

The University of Wisconsin, Madison, is one of the countryâ??s leading centers of public biopharmaceutical research, and the campus has spawned dozens of spinout companies based on University research. For this, the citizens of Wisconsin should be grateful; and, even more so, hopeful.

Music Written For Monkeys Strikes A Chord (NPR Morning Edition)

Posted on

Music has great power to alter our emotions â?? making us happy or sad, agitated or calm. Psychologists have tried in vain to figure out why that happens. Now, a composer says he’s has a clue. And he got it by writing music not for humans, but for monkeys.

David Teie plays cello with the National Symphony Orchestra and even on occasion with the heavy metal band Metallica. He’s also a composer.

Survey reveals US fares poorly in child welfare (AP)

Posted on
Mail and Guardian (South Africa)

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, who heads the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Poor Kids in a Rich Country: Americaâ??s Children in Comparative Perspective, said Americaâ??s troubles stem from a flawed mix of government spending and not enough help for the working poor.

Monkeys are heavy metal fans

Posted on
Daily Mail (UK)

They have wild shaggy manes that are perfect for tossing about and are known to bite the heads off rodents.

Unsurprising, then, that tamarin monkeys are big heavy metal fans.

When a group of cottontop tamarins were played a variety of types of music, from classical to jazz, only the songs by hard rock bands such as Metallica caused them to react.

Music made for monkeys

Posted on
MSNBC.com

Music may have charms to “soothe the savage breast,” but that doesn’t mean the same music that soothes humans will charm other species. Monkeys, for example, aren’t much affected by human music.

To find out whether any kind of music could affect a monkey’s mood, a musician and a primatologist created tunes tailor-made for cotton-top tamarins. They report that the experiment worked – but the melodies are unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

Letter: Kudos to UW for declining beer ads

Posted on
Madison.com

Bravo to UW-Madison for ending their advertising contract with MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch InBev. That decision puts the university and state in a position to deal more effectively with alcohol abuse.

Ending this advertising contract for the radio broadcasting of UW sporting events caused the UW Athletic Department to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. However, now the department has advertising space to sell, which gives businesses the opportunity to be good corporate citizens.

UW-Madison Hikes Campus Parking Rates

Posted on
WISC-TV 3

Parking officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said they have no choice but to raise parking rates on campus as they try to keep up with costs and the university puts up more buildings.

New parking ramps are part of a campus master plan to conserve space and keep employee parking stalls capped at 13,000, but both those things will continue to mean higher parking fees for visitors and staff alike, WISC-TV reported.

Campus parking rates increased Tuesday. That includes parking meters, which increased a quarter to $1.50 an hour.

Posted in Uncategorized

On Campus: UW-Madison to send tuition bills by e-mail

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The days of getting a college tuition bill in the mailbox will soon be gone.

UW-Madison is transitioning to a system of sending tuition bills by e-mail, rather than snail mail. Students and parents can also pay the bills online, see immediately when their payment has gone through, and view a real-time balance.

New safety rules proposed for medical helicopters (AP)

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday urged the federal government to impose stricter controls on emergency helicopter operators – an issue that has gained attention since three people died in a UW Hospital Med Flight crash in May 2008.

The NTSB recommendations urge the Federal Aviation Administration to, among other things, require medical helicopter operators to install flight data recorders, autopilot systems that can help solo pilots and night-vision systems that help navigate in the dark – something the Med Flight helicopter that crashed in La Crosse last year didn’t have.

H1N1 Creeps Onto Campuses

Posted on
Inside Higher Education

A summer of anticipation and worst-case-scenario planning has given way to a new academic year of inevitable illness as the H1N1 flu virus appears at colleges and universities across the nation.

As many institutions ratchet up to full capacity with students, faculty and staff returning for fall classes, campuses from Kansas to California and just about everywhere in between are beginning to report handfuls to hundreds of cases, mostly among students. Though itâ??s still too early to predict how widespread and severe H1N1 will be this fall and winter, administrators are taking cues from state governments and the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services in anticipating outbreaks much larger and more dangerous than those seen among students during the spring and summer.

Early Pomp and Circumstance

Posted on
Inside Higher Education

For an increasing number of college administrators, hosting an opening convocation ceremony is not just tradition for traditionâ??s sake; many believe the ritual can improve student retention.

The University of Vermont, for example, introduced a new convocation ceremony two years ago as part of a comprehensive effort to boost first-year retention and graduation rates. The revamped ceremony stands in stark contrast to the fairly modest and sparsely attended event of years past.

Lorrie Moore on Her 11-Year Journey to â??A Gate at the Stairsâ??

Posted on
New York Times

Lorrie Moore had just begun working on what would become her new novel, â??A Gate at the Stairs,â? when she told one interviewer that she was writing a book â??about hate.â?

Later she recalled telling someone else that it was a novel about chores.

Since 1984 Ms. Moore has taught creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Options for high textbook costs

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

UW campuses are again swarming with students, many of whom are feeling the pinch of textbook prices. There are ways students and administrators are trying to ease the financial burden a little.

At the UW-Madison, students are holding a â??book swapâ?. They man a table covered with laptops, scraps of paper, and tall stacks of books.

The UW system says on average, college students shell out $900 a year on books. UW-Madison sophomore Jonah Zinn says the book swap lets students sell books for about 30% more than what theyâ??d get from the campus bookstore, and buy them for 35% less than the retail price, which saves them $300 to $400. (First item.)

Obituary: Stanley Ivan Dodson

Posted on
Madison.com

Stanley Ivan Dodson passed away on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009. Stanley was a Professor of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin from 1970 until his retirement in 2008.

Obituary: Irwin A. Goodman

Posted on

Irwin A. Goodman passed away on August 30, 2009, and Madison mourns the loss of one of its most caring and generous citizens. Along with his brother, Robert D. Goodman, Irwin was instrumental in establishing a long list of facilities, and programs that serve our community.

Cutting Calories: Monkeys That Eat Less Live Longer

Posted on
Voice of America

A study of monkeys over a twenty-year period suggests that eating less may extend life and prevent disease. American researchers said they believe their findings could apply to people as well. Their study was published in the journal Science.

Richard Weindruch of the University of Wisconsin in Madison and his team did the research. They tested the effects of calorie restriction in seventy-six rhesus monkeys over twenty years.

Cheryl Anderson column: A love of the Lord and of song drives Ethan Cook of Appleton

Posted on
Appleton Post-Crescent

Ethan Cook has musical goals he’s yet to achieve. But the 20-year-old Appleton native â?? known on stage as American Fiction â?? also has a loftier ambition.

Currently a junior at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Cook is majoring in religious studies and wants to become a pastor.

“I think I’ve realized a true calling that really I feel is transcendental, and it doesn’t matter with this whole music thing,” he said. “(Music) is a huge part of my life, but I mean this is a greater part of my life

People like Lorrie Moore are the only people here (Salon)

Posted on

Lorrie Moore is that rare bird of America, a fiction writer who has found success writing short stories as opposed to novels: Her acclaimed 1998 “Birds of America” became a bestseller, one of just a few short-story collections in the past dozen years or so to resonate with consumers as well as with book critics.

Don’t Stand So Close to Me

Posted on
ScienceNOW

Quoted: The study is “a novel piece of research” that is the first to identify a neural source of personal space in people, says Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Itâ??s also part of a growing series of studies that underscore the importance of the amygdala in human social interactions,” he says.

Red light technology geared to stop collisions

Posted on
WKOW-TV 27

A UW-Madison safety expert said new techonology holds promise of reducing red light violations and the danger they cause.

The technology is geared for situations, similar to Rep. Fred Clark’s red light running earlier this month. Clark (D-Baraboo) was cited for a red light violation after his SUV entered a Madison intersection and slammed into a bicyclist and significantly injured him. The collision was captured by a Madison metro bus on-board camera, with the tape first shown on WKOW-TV Friday.

Sigma Chi faces reduced sanctions

Posted on
Badger Herald

The University of Wisconsin Sigma Chi fraternity will face reduced sanctions this fall after the punishment levied for one of two violations committed during the spring semester was dropped by the Offices of the Dean of Students.

Unemployment leveling off

Posted on
Wisconsin Radio Network

A new report shows some signs of hope with Wisconsinâ??s unemployment trend. Since April the rate of unemployment has leveled off after steady decline, according to the Center on Wisconsin Strategyâ??s Job Watch. COWS Associate Director Laura Dresser says nationally heavy months of jobs loss from September to March affected industries including manufacturing, financial services and retail.

Obituary: Jean Marie Cuta Backes

Posted on
Madison.com

Jean Marie Backes, nee Cuta, age 56, passed away on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009. She was a member of the OT Department at UW Hospital in Madison and held similar positions at other hospitals as well.

Zimmermann family offers to settle lawsuit (Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune)

Posted on

The Zimmermann family, of Marshfield, has offered to settle their lawsuit against Dane County and all defendants alleging the wrongful death of their daughter, Brittany, for $150,000.

In the offer filed Tuesday in Dane County Circuit Court, the estate of Brittany Zimmerman, Jean Zimmermann and Kevin Zimmermann each seek $49,999 to dispose of the suit. The suit alleged negligence by the county, county executive and a 911 dispatcher in responding to a call from Brittany, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, before she was murdered at her downtown apartment.