Author: jplucas

Noted: Add high school reunions to the list of cultural familiarities forever altered by our hyper-connected lifestyle, says Catalina Toma, an expert on the psychological effects of technology who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

But Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin, says the FDA’s draft guidelines make clear that processed fat stem cells meet the same definition as prescription drugs. “You cannot sell that in the United States without it having been approved,” says Charo, who spent two years at the FDA as a policy adviser.

Quoted: Both candidates are likely to spend heavily, said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science and journalism professor Michael Wagner. “This is a race that is likely to break Wisconsin U.S. Senate records in terms of fundraising — both in terms of candidates and in terms of super PACs that will fund a lot of television advertising,” said Wagner.

Paula Kantor dedicated — and ultimately gave — her life to the pursuit of better lives for some of the world’s poorest and most marginalized people.

Before leaving the university, she recently had taught at several departments at UW-Madison.

Quoted: “A sloth just isn’t a sloth,” said Jonathan Pauli, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has studied sloths. “Two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths are quite different from each other.”

Quoted: Collaborating to manage exchange rates — another possibility — would also be problematic. As Charles Engel, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes, there is no agreed model upon which to determine the relative value of currencies. Add to that the immense political pressure that policy makers would face upon entering such negotiations.

Quoted: “I think B.B. King has influenced every musician who heard him,” says Craig Werner, a professor of African American studies at UW Madison.

Quoted: “It has been kind of a perfect storm,” said Marcia Van Wagner, an analyst with Moody’s, which in February revised the state’s outlook to “negative.”

Quoted: “That fits right in line with political science research that suggests when the incumbent is spending a lot of money it means they’re in trouble, which Feingold was in 2010,” said Mike Wagner, a professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has followed the two candidates for years.

Quoted: One of the first people to examine the question was atmospheric scientist Jim Kossin, of the University of Wisconsin and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Noted: Chris Kucharik is an agronomy professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kucharik said any slowdown in phosphorus reductions puts the state behind where it should be. “I mean phosphorus, nitrogen — these are known pollutants,” said Kucharik. “We really need to start making some headway on these problems. They’re not going to go away. And I think if we would have known what we know today 50 years ago, we would have been able to get on a better path.”

Laura Good of the UW-Madison Soil Science Department said a recent study in Dane, Green and Iowa counties — all in the Pecatonica River watershed — showed farmers can make significant reductions in phosphorus runoff.

Quoted: Robert Drechsel of the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism and Mass Communication agreed that Eramo, as a public official or figure, would have to prove Rolling Stone knew what it published was false and went forward with the story anyway.”It’s really a state of mind kind of thing and that’s really not easy to prove,” said Drechsel, dean of the school’s Center for Journalism Ethics.

Quoted: “After the last 15 years of being completely focused on studying tropical deforestation,” says geographer Holly Gibbs, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “these are the first policies I’ve seen lead to significant and rapid change.”

Quoted: Can a sheriff legally refuse to enforce a law? The answer is not as clear as it might seem, said Howard Schweber, professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Laws allow police to use discretion in deciding whether to charge a person in a specific case, but Schweber said that’s different from choosing not to cite anyone, ever, with a particular violation.

Noted: Last year, a joint study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, ASI and US-based Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta) and University of Wisconsin (Madison) stated that mud pack therapy on Taj had to become an annual feature in order to keep the Taj in pristine condition.

Quoted: “Selectivity has always existed. But now we’re living in different world,” says Dietram Scheufele, who specializes in science communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Facebook “is enabling levels of selectivity that have never been possible before.”

Quoted: “It is the kind of thing that usually most people don’t see so it is easy to think it doesn’t happen in your community, but it is a pattern that is happening everywhere across the country,” said William Powell Jones, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on the civil rights movement. “We are in a moment where there is a lot of heightened attention to it.”

Quoted: Still, in medical circles, doctors often refer to what’s known as the 72/72 rule: You can’t survive more than 72 hours without water or more than 72 days without food, said Sarah Van Orman, executive director of University Health Services for the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “We start to become really concerned about the physiological effects after 20 to 30 days,” she added.

Noted: Many of these folks are employed in fast food and retail, but they are also home health care workers, pre-school teachers and waitresses, said Sarah Halpern-Meekin, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who co-wrote “It’s Not Like I’m Poor,” a new book on struggling working families. Since their hours often fluctuate, many of these low-wage workers also are subject to great shifts in income each week.

Noted: “Frankly, people on both sides of the issue have been cherry-picking findings,” Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied gender disparities in education, told NBC News.