The Obama administration over the weekend unveiled the revamped college information website it created instead of its original plan to rate colleges, releasing a trove of new federal data about the nation’s colleges and universities.
Quoted: “In environments that are sunny and moist but nutrient-poor, the capture of prey can give plants a real competitive advantage,” said Thomas Givnish, a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Carnivorous plants thrive in open bogs; in damp, fireswept sand; by roadside puddles; in the leached mud of a mountainside — bright, sodden spots where competitors are negligible, the insects gullible, and nutrients alone limit plant growth.
trio of cavers squeezed through a tiny chute in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa two years ago, emerged into a chamber, and spied a skull that appeared to be very, very old. Based on that discovery, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and a team of scientists on Thursday introduced the world to Homo naledi, a strange new hominid species.
In groundbreaking new research published on Thursday, a new species of human relative has been discovered in South Africa. The findings, published in the journal eLife and reported in the October issue of National Geographic, detail the new species, known as Homo naledi, which was found in a remote cave chamber that also contains many other bones yet to be investigated.
You’ve probably heard that our family tree got a new member on Thursday. Homo naledi, a primitive, small-brained member of our genus, made itself known in a big way when cavers stumbled upon a mass grave left by the species.
By day, Suzy Favor Hamilton was a three-time Olympian making celebrity appearances.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison Political Science Professor Barry Burden said part of the reason Walker has fallen in the polls so sharply is because Donald Trump has effectively demoted the rest of the GOP field.
I moved to Madison in the fall of 2001. I was an 18-year-old freshman who was excited to go to class, ready to make new friends and worried about fitting in with Madison’s alcohol-heavy culture. I adapted to the alcohol culture really fast.
Over the past two years, an international team of scientists has discovered more than 1,500 mysterious fragments of bone in a tiny cave in South Africa. Thursday morning, the team announced that the fossils are from a new species of ancient human that is believed to have lived 2 to 3 million years ago: Homo naledi.
Scientists in South Africa welcomed a new species into the human family tree this morning. Its name: Homo naledi. It’s slim and stands at under five feet tall with feet and hands similar to humans and a brain a third the size of ours, according to researchers.
Scientists are still trying to figure out how a changing climate affects walleye and other species of fish. Most don’t expect the walleye to be a winner. As global climate change continues delivering warmer temperatures and heavier rains to Minnesota, lakes and their inhabitants will feel it. “One of the places you expect climate change to make a big difference is in changing the mix of species that do best in a lake,” said John Magnuson, director emeritus of the Center for Limnology — the study of inland waters — at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Dear colleagues — I need the help of the whole community,” palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger posted on social media on 6 October 2013.
Two universities in Wisconsin are among the best colleges in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report.
A Wisconsin bill that would limit the research use of fetal tissue from abortions is gaining momentum, over the protest of scientists who say the measure would stifle progress in disease research. The bill, approved today by a committee in the state assembly and expected to win the support of the full assembly this fall, is the first in what many predict will be a series of battles waged at the state level against the distribution and use of fetal tissue.
Lee Berger put his ad up on Facebook on October 7th, 2013. He needed diggers for an exciting expedition. They had to have experience in palaeontology or archaeology, and they had to be willing to drop everything and fly to South Africa within the month. “The catch is this—the person must be skinny and preferably small,” he wrote. “They must not be claustrophobic, they must be fit, they should have some caving experience, climbing experience would be a bonus.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor John Hawks was recently one of the leaders of an expedition to South Africa that uncovered a new species of hominin called Homo naledi.
For University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Alia Gurtov, a very pivotal morning in her life started like any other: Wake up, check Facebook.
When an amateur caver and university geologist arrived at Lee Berger’s house one night in late 2013 with a fragment of a fossil jawbone in hand, they broke out the beers and called National Geographic.
A newly discovered early human ancestor could have used tools and may have even figured out how to bury its dead, scientists said Thursday — a find they said was “unlike anything that we have seen” in the fossil record.
Researchers in South Africa discovered extensive remains of a previously unknown humanlike species in a subterranean boneyard, highlighting an early offshoot of humankind and raising questions about the origins of ritual burial and self-awareness, the scientists announced on Thursday.
Acting on a tip from spelunkers two years ago, scientists in South Africa discovered what the cavers had only dimly glimpsed through a crack in a limestone wall deep in the Rising Star cave: lots and lots of old bones.
A trove of bones hidden deep within a South African cave represents a new species of human ancestor, scientists announced Thursday in the journal eLife. Homo naledi, as they call it, appears very primitive in some respects—it had a tiny brain, for instance, and apelike shoulders for climbing. But in other ways it looks remarkably like modern humans. When did it live? Where does it fit in the human family tree? And how did its bones get into the deepest hidden chamber of the cave—could such a primitive creature have been disposing of its dead intentionally?
The two amateur cavers had to feel their way along the cave’s winding passages, crawl on their stomachs through an opening less than 10 inches high, ascend a jagged wall, cross a narrow ledge dubbed the “Dragon’s Back,” and make a 400-foot descent, sideways, through a vertical crack before finally arriving at the prize: a 30-foot-long chamber probably between 2 million and 3 million years old.
Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of an unusual human-like creature that lived long ago. Exactly how long ago is still a mystery — and that’s not the only mystery surrounding this newfound species.
Years before he was thrust into the spotlight for his controversial proposal to ban research using tissue from new abortions, Andre Jacque walked away from a career in medical research over concerns that later prompted his bill.
Noted: But the variety also allows for the audience to tailor their late-night TV rituals — a new and useful wrinkle, University of Wisconsin Madison media and cultural studies professor Jonathan Gray said.
Quoted: “You can’t have an extension agent go to every village in every country. It’s impossible,” says Emilia Tjernström, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who studies the ways that small farmers pick up new information.
Noted: For University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Chris Williamson, the outcome of the emerald ash borer invasion is absolutely certain.
On the pale gold walls of University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt’s office are a black-and-white photo of an ultrahigh vacuum surface science chamber and framed strip charts of an auger electron spectroscopy and x-ray photo electron.
Noted: Two of the researchers doing this work are Erica Halverson, an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Kimberly Sheridan, an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at George Mason University.
In the new study, geochemist Aaron Satkoski of the University of Wisconson-Madison and his colleagues turned to the Manzimnyama Banded Iron Formation, a 3.2 billion year-old sequence of red and pink-striped rocks that hails from a site in South Africa, just east of Johannesburg.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison fundraising challenge has exceeded expectations, with an endowment fund generating almost $250 million for professorships and chairs.
Biomedical researchers use fetal tissue in their quest to treat diseases. Sometimes they use older cell lines, other times fresh tissue. The bill an Assembly committee will vote on Wednesday would let Wisconsin scientists use the older lines, but it would become a crime to use new fetal tissue or to sell it.
Going to college today is a very different experience than it once was. The cost has soared, and the great recession cut into many of the assets that were supposed to pay for it. This week All Things Considered is talking with young people — and in some cases their parents — about the value of school and about their choice of what kind of college to attend.
So far, Bruce Harreld, the newly named president of the University of Iowa, has made one decision that faculty members have applauded. Harreld, whose selection was opposed by faculty leaders and many other academics, said he would not seek the position as tenured professor that the Iowa Board of Regents offered as a possibility.
A $200 million gift to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will help to attract and keep top-quality faculty, and has grown larger and faster than expected. UW alumni John and Tashia Morgridge put up $100 million dollars last year and urged UW supporters to match it. They figured that would take up to three years, but it only took seven months to raise an additional 125-million.
The University of Iowa Faculty Senate, for the second time in nine years, issued a vote of “no confidence” Tuesday in the Iowa Board of Regents, the latest escalation in a contentious presidential appointment.
You know your friend who knows, just KNOWS with absolute certainty, that the fit guy in your office is 100% gay, just by looking at him and analysing his *vibe*? They are wrong. Well, maybe. The fit guy in your office might be gay. But your friend is wrong about her always spot-on sensor for homosexuality, aka the gaydar. Because science has just proved that gaydar is not a thing.
A new study suggests that ’gaydar’ — the sixth sense by which many insist they can just tell that someone they meet isn’t heterosexual — is bad in two big ways. For starters, it doesn’t work. But more importantly, the concept of gaydar may be pretty harmful. It may — big surprise here, guys — just be an excuse to revel in harmful stereotypes about LGBTQ people.
A record-shattering gift to help recruit and retain world-class faculty has grown to be worth a quarter-billion dollars thanks to urgent and strong support from alumni, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is poised to announce Tuesday.
The largest-ever gift to UW-Madison has turned out bigger than expected.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison fundraising drive that began last fall with a $100 million pledge has generated a quarter of a billion dollars, university officials announced Tuesday.
Common Core standards have been a political flash point since they were introduced and implemented. Some believe they’re an unwanted government intrusion into local control of schools, while others say nationwide standards are necessary to ensure a quality education across the country. Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at UW-Madison, falls under the latter category.
Facing what is sure to be a difficult retention season, given this year’s battles over the future of higher education funding and tenure in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin at Madison is today announcing the results of a massive donation-matching campaign aimed at recognizing top faculty members with endowed chairs.
Some lower-priced public universities are fine with introducing limits on student debt. The amount graduate students are allowed to borrow is “a little outrageous right now,” says Susan Fischer, who oversees financial aid at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Others say graduate students should be trusted to understand how to manage their financial obligations. “They know what they are doing,” says Jonathan Burdick, vice provost for enrollment at the private University of Rochester. “People are not as dumb as the public dialogue seems to think they are.”
The sounds of On, Wisconsin! will be booming out of Irving Schools Stadium on Friday night.
We’ve all heard people say they have a ’gaydar’. It is the alleged ability to know whether someone is gay or straight based on their appearance.
Two days after faculty members peppered J. Bruce Harreld with questions about his qualifications to run a major research university, Iowa’s statewide Board of Regents named him on Thursday as president of the University of Iowa.
It’s the first day of September and with temperatures in the mid-80s, campus feels like an oven. Freshmen lawlessly stream across the intersections, heading to the Chancellor’s Convocation at the Kohl Center. About 7,000 students were invited to the welcoming ceremony.
A lab at the center of a longstanding controversy about dangerous virus research has engineered heartier influenza viruses that could streamline vaccine production. The researchers contend that their findings may help bring future pandemics under control faster—but the study also demonstrates the risk of curtailing so-called gain-of-function (GOF) studies, in which viruses are made more transmissible or more pathogenic, the researchers argue.
A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents should talk with their children about the dangers of alcohol by age 9. Julia Sherman of the Wisconsin Alcohol Project talks about the report, and why early communication with kids about alcohol is important.
One month ago, six Planned Parenthood clinics allowed women to donate aborted fetus tissue for medical research. Now, there are just two that do — a sign that the future of the programs could be in serious jeopardy.
In the early 2000s, JoAnne Robbins was considering turning her research on swallowing disorders into a company.
UW System president Ray Cross and several members of the UW Board of Regents listened to the concerns and feedback from local healthcare professionals during a listening session on Tuesday.
“Where are the eyes in an autonomous vehicle?”– John Lee, a University of Wisconsin professor and expert in driver safety on the Google self-driving car and concerns that it can’t interact with other drivers by making eye contact.
In the spring of 1990, Scott Walker, then a senior at Marquette University, decided to leave college before finishing his degree. A job in finance had opened up at the American Red Cross in Milwaukee, and Mr. Walker, now the governor of Wisconsin and a Republican candidate for president, leapt at the opportunity. “Certainly, I wanted an education for more than a job,” he has since said, “but my primary purpose was to get a job.”
Quoted: But even that might not be enough, says Jason Vargo, who studies urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and led the recent study on bicycle deaths. He says society also needs to change the definition of what a road is to implicitly include bikers.
Quoted: The way humans often deal with these situations is that “they make eye contact. On the fly, they make agreements about who has the right of way,” said John Lee, a professor of industrial and systems engineering and expert in driver safety and automation at the University of Wisconsin.
Also reviewed: Various Artists, “Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937-1946” (Dust-to-Digital/University of Wisconsin Press, $60). This fascinating, important book, four-CD and DVD compiles field recordings made in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Just in time for the new school year, today guest host Mike Wagner talks with UW professor Robert Asen on his new publication, “Democracy, Deliberation, and Education,” on the difficult decisions school boards have to make the democratic process behind it.
