MADISON, Wis. â?? A former employee at a University of Wisconsin-Madison power plant claims in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that she was sexually harassed.
Amy Gabel of Janesville claims in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Madison she was retaliated against after she rejected sexual advances from plant superintendent John Loescher.
Gabel claims she faced constant discrimination and unfavorable work conditions as the only female employee at the Walnut Street Heating Plant.
Not so long ago, when parents sent their children away to college, their biggest fears probably were of the rowdy party and failing grades variety. That paradigm was shattered last spring when a troubled student at Virginia Tech shot and killed 33 people, including himself, in a rampage that started in a dormitory and continued in an engineering classroom building.
At least two major campuses within the University of Wisconsin system â?? Madison and Green Bay â?? are using the Virginia Tech tragedy as an opportunity to improve their own campus security measures in the event of a shooting or natural disaster.
University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema’s staff is going to look dramatically different next season â?? and that’s even before offensive coordinator Paul Chryst decides whether or not he is leaving for Purdue.
University of Wisconsin junior cornerback Jack Ikegwuonu has elected to enter the NFL draft and will not return for his senior season, ESPN.com reported Monday.
Cellectar, a UW-Madison spinoff company developing products that light up cancerous tumors and shrink them, is getting a big financial boost.
Topography also affects where fog congregates, as it tucks into low elevations or lingers on hills, said Jonathan Martin, chairman of the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
The days when students had to trek across campus to get professors’ help during “office hours” may be slipping away.
Harvard University computer science professor David Malan has launched “virtual office hours,” allowing students to chat via text or microphone in live, online help sessions.
Madison – The University of Wisconsin football staff will have at least two new faces next season and it appears the defense will be without one of its top playmakers, cornerback Jack Ikegwuonu.
Defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz, according to sources, has been fired. Offensive line coach Bob Palcic has left the staff to become the offensive line coach at UCLA under Rick Neuheisel, his longtime friend. And, Ikegwuonu has decided to enter the 2008 National Football League draft.
Quoted: “Basically, it probably does not matter what pregnant or lactating women eat,” said Dr. Frank Greer, an author of the report, professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin and chairman of the AAP Committee on Nutrition.
Quoted: Denise Teves, an assistant professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, said cells that line the arteries of the heart have vitamin D receptors. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to a proliferation of smooth muscle cells in those blood vessels, which, in turn, can lead to blockages and stiffness in arteries.
Morris Davis, economist in the department of real estate and urban-land economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and until 2006 a staff economist at the Fed, is one of the authors of a study that finds homes overvalued compared to rents. He addressed questions about the study in this article.
Let me start by providing some other background information on why the rent-price ratio for housing â?? which is like the dividend yield for housing as an asset â?? is a useful metric. (Subscription required.)
In a world without uncertainty and with constant growth, the dividend yield of an asset has the simple expression of r-g, where r is the discount rate on future dividends and g is the growth rate of dividends. Thus, if the dividend yield falls, either the discount rate r has fallen or the expected growth rate of dividends g has increased or both.
Cellectar’s technology, based on research done by a University of Wisconsin-Madison team led by radiology professor Jamey Weichert, uses fat-like molecules to deliver radioisotopes that can either destroy malignant cells or enable imaging equipment to locate them.
On Monday morning, the hands of 20 University of Wisconsin students pushed up one wall of a house that will be nearly completed by weekâ??s end.
The ninth annual Putnam Habitat for Humanity Blitz build is on, said Jim Melfi, Putnam Habitatâ??s executive director.
Student volunteers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Milwaukee are escaping subfreezing temperatures to help one Palatka family realize their dream of home ownership, he said.
Madison, Wis. – New stem cell lines that are derived from a promising new technique should be housed and distributed by the WiCell Research Institute, says Carl Gulbrandsen, president of WiCell.
According to a report in the Appleton Post Crescent, Gulbrandsen has told the National Institutes of Health that WiCell would like to house and distribute the new cell lines. WiCell, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, already is home to the National Stem Cell Bank, which now has 17 of the 21 existing embryonic stem cell lines that receive federal funding.
The Legislature’s first vote on a statewide smoking ban is scheduled for next week, and apparently there’s enough support on the Senate Health Committee to pass the measure.
Doctor Pat Remington of the UW Population Health Institute is urging lawmakers to ignore opposition from the Tavern League. He says this is an example where leadership in the state needs to the interests of the public, not the interests of the industry.
Donald E. Williams, age 81, passed away on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2008. Don worked in the Personnel Department at UW-Madison.
There are no absolutes about 2008, only educated guesses from people with varying degrees of education.
Here are some from your classic “C-minus” student.
Dr. Benjamin Brooks, whose neurological diseases research lab was shut down four years ago by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, is leaving UW-Madison for North Carolina.
Madison – University of Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema avoided losing offensive coordinator Paul Chryst to the NFL after the 2006 season.
Now, less than a week after UW closed its 2007 season with a loss to Tennessee in the Outback Bowl, Bielema appears in danger of losing Chryst to Big Ten Conference rival Purdue.
Four Madison area hospitals reported that they received 54 victims of the pileup, including UW Hospital, Meriter Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital and Stoughton Hospital, WISC-TV reported.
UW Hospital officials said that the crash victims in the most critical conditions were taken there. They said that they received eight total victims between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., with one listed in critical condition and seven listed in serious condition as of 6 p.m.
Officials said that the hospital’s multi-victim trauma and emergency plans both went into effect, which called for more staff to treat the victims.
“Every hospital, including this one, drills emergency plans,” said UW Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Brunette. “We drill our plan at least twice a year so that people know where they’re expected to be, how they’re expected to behave and what duties and tasks they’re expected to perform.”
When the candidates come to Wisconsin, they should be prepared to detail their positions on farm and energy policies, protection of the Great Lakes, support for education and the research conducted at universities such as UW-Madison, water and air quality regulation so important to Wisconsin tourism and industry, and more.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political science professor.
Quoted: UW-Madison School of Business professor Jim Seward.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — What to do about college students who drink heavily on Thursday night? Put a price on their heads.
University of Iowa officials are so concerned about binge drinking among students, they’re offering departments extra funds to hold more classes on Fridays. The spur for that? A study that found early Friday classes reduced heavy drinking the night before.
Only around 1,400 classes are held on Fridays, compared with about 2,400 on Mondays through Thursdays. Because professors often schedule classes between Monday and Thursday, many students are free to make merry on Thursday night and recover Friday, thus allowing them to get drunk again that night.
Like Hamlet contemplating the skull of poor Yorick, John Hawks sees a lot more than most of us when he peers at a skull, something he does frequently. In fact, it ‘s his job.
Badger Watch, a voluntary neighborhood watch network that spans the UW-Madison campus, started back in 2002 in just four buildings and now has more than 700 volunteers in more than 30 buildings campus-wide. Most are faculty and staff members but students are also welcome to participate.
It could just be the best public college you’ve never heard of, with prices so low that it’s a steal even for out-of-state students.
SUNY Geneseo, a small liberal arts college in western New York, boasts top students, a scenic campus, strong programs in both arts and sciences, and new dorms with — drumroll, please — washers and dryers on every floor. It adjoins a historic village with killer quaintness and puts students within 30 miles of Rochester, a major college town.
UW-Madison is ranked 19 for in-state and 23rd for out of state.
Quoted: “In short, the biggest genetic threat to society may not be infertility but fertile old men,” says University of Wisconsin in Madison geneticist James F. Crow.
Quoted: “In the future, objects are going to be interacting amongst themselves,” said Alfonzo Gutierrez, the Associate Director of the RFID Lab at University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.
Quoted: Kathy Glass, a scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Food Research Institute, agreed. The “natural” tag, she added, “is more of a marketing gimmick than anything else.”
The Iowa caucuses ended Thursday with Mike Huckabee in the lead for Republicans and Barack Obama ahead of fellow Democrats, but UW-Madison professor David Canon says the presidential race is far from over. Canon says several candidates were close on the heels of both candidates, and that could stretch out into other states in the coming weeks. If that happens, Wisconsin could play a pivotal role in deciding who eventually wins the primary race.
Mequon – Weeks after his partially burned body was found in a New Mexico ditch, a memorial service for 22-year-old Michael J. Mowers will be held today in Mequon with his family, and with investigators knowing little more now about the University of Wisconsin-Madison student’s death than they did then.
Mowers’ body was discovered Nov. 21 in a culvert near a construction site in Las Cruces, N.M., by a woman walking her dog. But it took police until Dec. 7 to identify the body, using a national employment fingerprint database.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in Japan reported last month they were able to turn human skin cells into stem cells, which holds promise for medical breakthroughs because they can become virtually any kind of cell.
If perfected, the technique could alleviate ethical concerns surrounding the field because it doesn’t involve destruction of days-old human embryos.
MADISON, Wis. — An adult oncology nurse who worked at the University of Wisconsin Hospital for her entire career is retiring after decades of serving the public.
Nancy Joliffe, 64, who works in the Paul Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center, is retiring after 43 years of wearing her signature white nursing cap and uniform at UW Hospital.
An institution of sorts at UW Hospital ended Friday afternoon. Longtime nurse, Nancy Jolliffe, wrapped up her 43-year career.
Jolliffe began working for UW on September 7, 1964. For most of her career, she has worked in oncology, including her last 13 years with UW’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. She said it was the patients who motivated her to come to work every day. “The patient continuity that develops when you work with these folks, is very very special,” said Jolliffe. It’s those patients, through good times, and bad. They’re not always happy times. But they’re special.”
Donald J. Tremaine, age 82 of Fennimore, died on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007. He worked for many years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a custodian, retiring in 1989.
Adeline M. Siekert, age 90, passed away Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007. Adeline was a cook under Carson Gulley at the University of Wisconsin supporting the Navy during World War II.
Harold W. Helwig, age 69 of Dodgeville, died on Friday, Dec. 21, 2007. Early in his career, Harold worked for Madison Newspapers, Gisholt Machine, Company and UW- Madison.
Betty Ann Russo, age 61, died on Friday, Dec. 21, 2007. Betty spent over a decade working as both a clinical pediatric nurse in Milwaukee and as an instructor at the UW-Madison School of Nursing.
Patricia Ann (Hogan) Ploc, age 86, of Madison, passed away on December 25, 2007. Pat retired from the University of Wisconsin – Extension Conference Centers in 1992.
Madeleine C. Macho, age 85, passed away on Monday, Dec. 24, 2007. She worked as an administrative assistant for the Ag. Econ Dept., CALS, UW-Madison.
Charles F. Curtiss, age 86, passed away on Monday, Dec. 24, 2007. He was a professor of theoretical chemistry at the University of Wisconsin for 41 years.
Frank C. Larson, MD, age 87, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, died on Christmas Day. He was a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Medical School from 1951 until his retirement in 1989.
Dr. Henrik A.L. Hartmann, age 87, died on Friday, Dec. 28, 2007. He was a professor of pathology at UW Hospital with a specialty in neuropathology research.
On nearly every college campus there is a professor whose lectures are legendary.
These professors not only inform but also enlighten. And they do so in such an entertaining fashion that their popularity among students is unmatched.
Lee Dreyfus was like one of those professors.
In fact, he was one of those professors in the 1960s and 1970s at UW-Madison and UW-Stevens Point. But he made a more historic impact later, with the same insightful and colorful manner, in a very public life as governor from 1979 to 1983 and then as newspaper columnist and elder statesman.
Q. Why do our eyes expand and shrink according to the light?
Submitted by Nikki Lee, eighth grade, Cherokee Middle School
A. We encounter a huge range of light levels, from dark moonless nights to the glaring noon sun. But our eyes only work within a limited range – too much light and the light-sensitive cells in our eyes are overwhelmed; too little light and the cells are not stimulated.
“He was everybody’s grandfather, just so personable,” said Dennis Dresang, a UW-Madison political science professor. “There’s no way in the world you could get angry with this guy.”
Edward A. Fitzhugh, age 65, died on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007. Ed worked for the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Planning and Construction Department for 36 years before his retirement in 1999.
Leroy J. Ayers, age 95, of Black Earth, died on Sunday, Dec. 30, 2007. He worked building highways and doing road construction, farmed, worked as a carpenter, and retired after working as a custodian at UW-Madison.
Daniel W. Hildebrand, age 67, passed away on Monday, Dec. 31, 2007. Dan earned a B.S. degree (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1962 and a L.L.B. (Order of the Coif; Editor, Wisconsin Law Review) in 1964 from the University of Wisconsin. He had more than 40 years of legal experience, with a major focus in appellate work as well as in all areas of business and professional litigation, and professional ethics matters. He also taught courses in federal jurisdiction and professional responsibility at the UW Law School for many years.
Frank Rickey, age 93, passed away on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2008. Frank worked for the UW-Madison Painting Department from 1948 until his retirement in 1976.
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin is losing its only specialist in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Dr. Benjamin Brooks, a renowned ALS researcher, said he is leaving the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics after 25 years of work, WISC-TV reported.
He told WISC-TV he is headed to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., where he will be director of an ALS research center. He will leave University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics sometime in the middle of February.
http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_7874144
LOS ALAMOS, N.M.â??Aftershocks from earthquakes can happen minutes, hours or even days after the sound waves that radiate from them pass, but the cause of the delay remains a mystery, a group of researchers said.
In a letter that appeared Thursday in the science journal Nature, Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher Paul Johnson and his colleagues show how energy can be stored in certain types of granular materials like those found along fault lines worldwide.
Johnson said the experiment conducted with the help of researchers at the University of California-Santa Cruz, the University of Wisconsin, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington has helped confirm that earthquakes are periodic events and that sound can disrupt them.
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Home prices could fall “considerably” over a number of years as a benchmark ratio of rents to prices slowly returns to its long-run average, according to a new study.
“If the rent-price ratio were to rise from its level at the end of 2006 up to about its historical average value of 5 percent by mid-2012, house prices might fall by 3 percent per year,” two Federal Reserve Board economists and a University of Wisconsin professor said.
The surveillance cameras and electronic locks are the only hints that a visitor has reached the border of a scientific frontier. Behind these laboratory doors a few blocks from Columbia University in Manhattan is a research enterprise quarantined by federal law because, for many people, it poses a moral hazard.
Inside, a technician adjusts a microscope and a cluster of human embryonic stem cells — with the potential to develop into the body’s many cell types — springs into view, blurred only by politics, ethics disputes and conflicting beliefs about the beginnings of life.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.
Close your eyes and think of someone who has hurt you. Let all the anger, hurt and resentment you feel for that wrongdoer bubble to the surface. Seethe, shout, savor it. Feel your heart pounding, your blood boiling, your stomach churning and your thoughts racing in dark directions.
OK, stop. Now, forgive your offender. Don’t just shed the bitterness and drop the recrimination, but empathize with his plight, wish him well and move on – whether he’s sorry or not.
University of Wisconsin psychologist Robert D. Enright, the guru of what many are calling a new science of forgiveness, calls this final step “making a gesture of goodness” to a wrongdoer. It’s the culmination of a process that, he says, “you’ve got to be able to see through to the end.”
The new year opens with one of the greatest breakthroughs in medical science since Ian Wilmut used cells from an adult sheep to clone Dolly the lamb in 1996. Human stem cells, which for all intents and purposes are identical to the highly prized but controversial ones harvested from human embryos, now can be made from adult skin, without using embryos or eggs. Separate research groups headed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin unveiled the technique in late November. A third group, from Harvard, confirmed that work barely a month later. It seems the path to curing diseases like diabetes, Parkinson’s, and many inherited disorders has a shortcut. In fact, stem cell pioneer Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., just showed that a mouse version of these cells cures mice with sickle cell anemia.
The new Waukee High School mascot was unveiled at the Dec. 21 girls’ and boys’ basketball games.
The idea was born two years ago, but a variety of delays forced the school to put the Warriors’ mascot on hold.
