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Author: knutson4

How Laura Albert Helped Make Election Day in Wisconsin Safer Amid the Pandemic

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American Association for the Advancement of Science

When public servants face a challenge, AAAS Member and newly elected 2020 AAAS Fellow Dr. Laura Albert finds solutions. Whether helping police tackle the opioid crisis, or assisting election officials in protecting voters during a deadly pandemic — which was one of her most recent feats — the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor uses mathematical models and analytics to recommend safe, economical and often innovative remedies.

Pressure grows on Biden for more ambitious student loan forgiveness

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MSN

Noted: Annika Kersten Wellman, a senior studying nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says she believes that the administration should at least go for a middle ground of $30,000 in federal loan forgiveness per borrower. That amount would be closer to the national average of student debt and “will help correct the inequity that is student loan debt,” she said.

Wellman, who said she was lucky that she didn’t have to take out loans for her education, supports student loan forgiveness as a way to address the disproportionate burden of education debt on people of color, something that Warren and Schumer have emphasized in their support of student loan forgiveness.

After getting placebo in vaccine trial, medical reporter opts for the real thing — and wrestles with his decisio

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Arriving in my inbox at 7:50 a.m. on Jan. 21 was an email that I anxiously had been anticipating. It was from the University of Wisconsin Madison doctor who is running UW’s clinical trial of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. I, along with 460 volunteers, had been making monthly appearances at UW Hospital to provide blood samples and to get two shots spaced a month apart.

Altered Vaccine Data Exposes Critical Cyber Risks

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The Wall Street Journal

Quoted: Dietram Scheufele, the Taylor-Bascom chair in science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that scientists already must counter misinformation on Covid-19 vaccines. Manipulated data only makes that job harder, he said.

“It’s probably the worst possible time to deal with something like this,” he said.

Republicans propose making vaccine available to everyone by mid-March, bar prioritizing prisoners

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Committee co-chairman Dr. Jonathan Temte of the University of Wisconsin-Madison agreed.

“Our recommendation should be based on the scientific evidence, the ethical pinnings, and the feasibility,” Temte said. “And on all three accounts, one would say, absolutely. If we are saying we’re going to punish these people yet again — because they are being punished for their crimes at this point in time — this constitutes kind of a double punishment and treating them very, very differently and I’m very uncomfortable with that.”

Milwaukee Common Council approves measure banning discrimination based on hairstyle

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The council also unanimously approved a resolution supporting the placement of a statue honoring Vel Phillips at the state Capitol building. “Trailblazer and former Milwaukee Ald. Vel Phillips achieved many ‘firsts’ in her career, including being the first African American woman to graduate from UW-Madison law school, first on the Milwaukee Common Council, first on the bench, and first in statewide office,” the resolution states. It also says the statue would be the first at the Capitol honoring a person of color.

Wisconsin Sees First Case Of U.K. Based Strain Of COVID-19

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WORT FM

Quoted: Dr. David O’Connor is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UW-Madison’s school of Medicine and Public Health, where he runs a lab studying viral infections. Speaking with WORT, O’Connor said it’s common for viruses to mutate as they find new hosts.

“The genetic material for the coronavirus is called RNA, and when RNA makes copies of itself, sometimes those copies are sloppy, and a mistake gets made,” O’Connor said.

The Associated Press and other news outlets have focused on the fact the B.1.1.7 strain appears to transmit between people more quickly than other strains. Dr. Thomas Friedrich, who studies diseases and immune systems at UW-Madison, shares this same suspicion.

“This variant does appear to be more contagious, more transmissible between people, about one and half times as transmissible as previous strains. So, that’s concerning to us because it means that virus might spread a bit easier, and might be a little harder to control,” Friedrich said.

The debate over whether to call Donald Trump a fascist, and why it matters.

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Vox

Quoted: Stanley Payne, a University of Wisconsin historian of Spain and author of A History of Fascism 1914-1945, agrees that Trump’s lack of coherent revolutionary fervor makes him fall short of fascism. “Never founded a new fascist party, never embraced a coherent new revolutionary ideology, never announced a radical new doctrine but introduced a noninterventionist foreign military policy,” Payne wrote to me in an email. “Not even a poor man’s fascist. Ever an incoherent nationalist-populist with sometimes destructive tendencies.”

How low-income people are spending their $600 pandemic stimulus payments

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The Philadelphia Inquirer

Noted:

It’s too soon for scholars to have studied how those in poverty have used their $600 stimulus checks. But in a study of the way Americans spent their first round of pandemic-related stimulus checks in April — many of those around $1,200 each — scholars from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Virginia showed that people spent a great deal of their allotment on food, helping to stave off hunger.

U OF I STUDY: Bears Like Baths, too

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Missoulian

Noted: Their study was published in “Functional Ecology,” a journal of the British Ecological Society, and involved a collaborative team of researchers from the U of I, Washington State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and U.S. Geological Survey. It looked at how the risk of heat stress from a warming climate might affect milk production in grizzly bears. It also investigated how bears respond, including their use of soaking pools.

Ashland County Will Ask Voters To Raise Taxes By Nearly $1M To Address Budget Woes

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Noted: If the county can’t increase revenues, board members would be faced with cutting funds for outside services provided by the Ashland County Aging Unit, Bay Area Rural Transit and the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ashland County board member Laura Nagro said they need to keep looking for ways to draw in revenue, hinting that it may be a tough sell during the COVID-19 crisis.

Sodium substitutions

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Meat & Poultry

Quoted: “In meat systems, permeate can be used to reduce the amount of sodium, enhance browning, protect color, mask bitter flavors and improve structure formation,” said Susan Larson, associate researcher, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for the US Dairy Export Council, Arlington, Va. “The lactose in permeate also provides a carbohydrate that could replace a portion of the sugar in a fermented sausage.”

Democratic Control Of US Senate Will Mean Changes For Wisconsin Senators

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Barry Burden, professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Johnson’s strong allegiance to President Donald Trump, as well as his position within the Senate majority and chairmanship of a powerful committee, positioned him squarely in the national spotlight.

“That combination has been really effective for him for the last several years and has given him a national platform,” Burden said. “And now he’s essentially losing all of that.”

Artist Vicki Meek’s Nasher Exhibit is a Profound Celebration of African Ancestry

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D Magazine

Noted: Meek knows a thing or two about the symbols and rhetoric associated with the African American race dialogue. She earned her MFA at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which she calls “the Whitest place in the world.” In the 1960s, the university was a hotbed of civil rights activism. By 1971, when Meek arrived on campus, the administration had purged the campus of “most of the so-called radical element,” she says. “And I had gone to that school because of the radical element.”

Black and Latina women carried the brunt of job loss in December

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PolitiFact

Quoted: Laura Dresser, an economist with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said prior economic declines were led by male-dominated fields, such as construction and manufacturing. The pandemic-driven decline, she said, has strongly affected areas – such as the restaurant and education industries – with a high number of women workers.

“And those jobs are low-wage jobs,” Dresser said. “They’re held disproportionately by women. They’re held disproportionately by people of color.”

If You Have These Conditions, Your COVID Vaccine May Be Less Effective

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Best Life

Noted: According to a Jan. 6 preprint of a study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, if you develop a fever while you have COVID, you may be immune to COVID for a longer period of time.

“Such an inflammatory response may be key for developing a strong anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody response,” according to the study’s authors. And if you want to stay safe, These 3 Things Could Prevent Almost All COVID Cases, Study Finds.

Who Was Leonard Schmitt, The Man Who Ran Against Joseph McCarthy?

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Noted: Schmitt was born on a Wisconsin farm and moved to Merrill with his family at age 11. He worked in a barbershop and played semi-professional baseball with the Madison Blues while attending school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Three years after graduating from law school in 1928, he became Lincoln County district attorney.

Some of Colorado’s conservative talk radio stations are turning down the volume on “rigged election” claims

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The Colorado Sun

Quoted: The motivation for the crackdown is “a combination of corporate pressure through fear of losing advertisers, and some sense of responsibility that this (insurrection) was a bridge too far,” said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The question is how sustained the corporate response will be,” Culver said. Currently, companies including AT&T, JPMorgan and Coca-Cola have paused their political contributions to the 147 Republicans who objected to certifying the election results, for instance. “Is it performative in the moment or will it last? It feels unlike any moment I’ve seen before.”

Wisconsin residents 65 and older could be in next phase of COVID-19 vaccinations

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: But fellow co-chairman Dr. Jonathan Temte, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said politics shouldn’t play a role in public health decision-making.

“It is our purview to make whatever we think is the best recommendation,” he said. “I don’t think it’s ethically acceptable to say we’re going to do congregate living but exclude the incarcerated, because by definition, that’s congregate living.”

Some Wisconsin hospitals are offering vaccines to staff who don’t take care of patients

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: In Florida, for example, a nursing home offered vaccines to members of its board and major donors, the Washington Post reported.

But that doesn’t seem to be the norm, said Ajay Sethi, an infectious disease expert with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said the top concern should be that no doses go to waste.

“It’s far better to get a shot in somebody’s arm than throw it out. Throwing it out is a complete tragedy,” Sethi said.

“If it’s happening to the point where the original plans are being abandoned, then I think that would be an issue,” Sethi added. “But I don’t think we’re at that stage right now.”

Quoted: “What we’ve heard more and more is that there are organizations that end up with unfilled slots in their immunization schedules who would like to reach out to members that would technically be in that next (rollout) group,” said Dr. Jim Conway, a professor of pediatrics at UW-Madison.

Juvenile killer released after serving 30 years of a life sentence

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The Public Interest Justice Initiative, a joint project between Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm’s office and the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, was launched in 2019 after the Remington Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School found that more than half the 128 inmates serving life sentences for juvenile offenses were from Milwaukee County.

‘Is it fair’? Wisconsin faces decisions on who will be next in line for COVID-19 vaccinations

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “The rollout has not gone real smoothly, and for as many doses out there, we’re not vaccinating very quickly,” vaccine committee co-chairman Jonathan Temte, the Associate Dean for Public Health and Community Engagement for UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said Tuesday about deciding who is included in the next phase.

“And the larger we make any particular group, the much longer it’s going to take,” he said. “One of the questions is how long do we put off some of those high-risk individuals.”

Masks Don’t Mask Others’ Emotions for Kids

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U.S. News

Children can still read the emotional expressions of people wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say.

“We now have this situation where adults and kids have to interact all the time with people whose faces are partly covered, and a lot of adults are wondering if that’s going to be a problem for children’s emotional development,” said study co-author Ashley Ruba, a postdoctoral researcher in the Child Emotion Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Despite Challenges, Wisconsin Farmers Projected To End 2020 With Higher Average Income

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Paul Mitchell, director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the forecast is slightly higher than last quarter’s estimate, partly because of a price rally for corn and soybeans seen around harvest time.

“Cash revenues, from soybeans especially, are up compared to where they were in September. It’s rare to have prices go up at harvest when everyone is bringing crops in,” Mitchell said

The 4 Steps That Will Increase Happiness, According To A New Study

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HuffPost

Quoted: “It’s a more hopeful view of well-being,” study researcher Cortland Dahl of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, a cross-disciplinary research institute, told HuffPost. “It’s the idea that you can take active steps that improve well-being, very much so in the way that you might take steps to improve physical health.”

WDNR: Plan Ahead if You Want to Plant Native Species in the Spring

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Spectrum News

Quoted: Some native plants are tied to the survival of a specific species. Like milkweed and monarch butterflies. Experts at UW-Madison say people planting milkweed in midwest have helped monarch populations survive.

“Basically right now we have thousands of people that are working to preserve monarch habitat, and i really think that without these efforts monarchs would be a lot worse off,” said Karen Oberhauser, director of the UW-Madison Arboretum.

Is Dairy Farming Cruel to Cows?

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New York Times

Quoted: “It’s really important that we don’t just anthropomorphize cows based on our human experience, but we do know that they can experience negative emotions like pain and fear that we want to minimize,” said Jennifer Van Os, an animal welfare scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “On the flip side, they can have positive experiences like pleasure, reward and contentment that we want to try to promote.”

‘I’m Really Happy This Is Happening’ ER Nurse Gets Coronavirus Vaccine

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Mariah Clark awoke on Dec. 16 to an exciting text message from her supervisor: She would get her first dose of the coronavirus vaccine the next day.

“I knew that we’d be among the first” to get vaccinated, said Clark, whose work as an emergency department nurse at UW Health in Madison puts her in direct contact with COVID-19 patients and elevates her to the top tier of people recommended for vaccination.

“I didn’t think I would be getting it quite so soon,” she said.

Consumer Demand For Butter, Other Dairy Products Remain Strong During Pandemic

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “Pandemic cooking is a real thing,” said Mark Stephenson, head of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Restaurants have used a lot of butter, but we’re seeing greater sales even going through retail now than we did the sum of retail and restaurants before that.”

Members of Congress send mixed messages on getting vaccinated

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ABC News

Quoted: Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin who consulted on guidelines for prioritizing the COVID-19 vaccine for the National Academies of Science, said showing confidence in the vaccine is good reason for elected officials to be vaccinated early in the process. This may be especially true for Republican leaders. A December poll from ABC News/Ipsos showed Republicans were four times as likely as Democrats to say they would never get the vaccine.

“The amount of vaccine hesitancy that has been created in the last 20 years, 25 years is profoundly disturbing and goes deep into our society. So it takes a long time to build up confidence for people, and people who are unsure,” Charo told ABC News.

Biden and the Underseas Cable: Underworld Massive internet cables may already be below water—but they can still drown.

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Slate

Quoted: Paul Barford, a University of Wisconsin computer science professor and co-author of a study on the effects of climate change on the internet, sounded less worried about cables sinking anytime soon, because of the financial interests of the telecoms firms involved with cables. But he still says planning now is important. From the get-go, “simply assessing what the current state of this infrastructure is would be something that the government could potentially motivate and potentially help to facilitate,” Barford said. And considering how “unbelievably expensive” these cables are, with costs running into “tens and hundreds of millions of dollars,” it would be a boon if the federal government poured in “funding to help facilitate new deployments or to harden current infrastructure.”

Forget fairness: Canceling all student debt makes great economic sense for America — here’s why

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Business Insider

Noted: In this week’s episode of “Pitchfork Economics,” Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein spoke with Fenaba Addo, an associate professor at University of Wisconsin Madison whose research focuses on racial disparities and student debt.

Addo points out that “approximately 45 million borrowers” owe more than $1.5 trillion in college loans. And while a few disingenuous pundits would like to claim that figure is largely made up of people spending above their means to attend overpriced elite institutions, the truth is that only six percent of student loan borrowers owe more than $100,000.

Medical schools see surge in applicants, thanks to “Fauci effect”

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CBS News

Noted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison, like others, has had a record number of medical school applicants. Dr. Mary McSweeney, assistant dean of the medical school, attributed the increase to a national sense of purpose.

“After 9/11 there was a huge increase in the number of young people going into the military. And now, we see a physician, Fauci nationally, and [Dr. Jeff] Pothof more locally, two physicians who are inspiring the next generation of young people to come and be part of the solution,” she told Channel 3000, a CBS affiliate in Madison.

The university’s medical school has received 6,400 applications for 176 spots this year, Dr. Sweeney said.

Bond Boom Comes to America’s Colleges and Universities

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The Wall Street Journal

Noted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison hasn’t been as fortunate.

Unlike most public universities, the flagship can’t issue debt of its own because of state statutes. It instead participates in the state’s issuance and refinancing of tax-exempt general obligation bonds. Campus administrators have been citing the pandemic in discussions with lawmakers this fall to press for the ability to issue bonds, said Laurent Heller, the school’s vice chancellor for finance and administration.

Among other pressures, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been hit by lost revenue related to room and board and its athletics program, whose 80,000-seat football stadium has been sitting empty since March. It has furloughed staff and made other cost cuts but still expects to have a significant budget shortfall in the fiscal year ending in June, he said.

2020 Staff Picks: Judge Nia Trammell makes history, brings a unique perspective to Dane County Circuit Court

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Madison 365

Noted: Trammell was born in southern Nigeria but considers herself a Madisonian after living the majority of her life here, she said. She grew up in the Northport Apartments on Madison’s north side before moving to the south side. She graduated from West High School and got her undergraduate and law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She said growing up as a Black child in Wisconsin she never visualized or envisioned herself as a judge. She is the first lawyer in her family and the first judge.

He’s served 30 years of a life sentence for killing a man at age 16. Prosecutors say he deserves to get out of prison now.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Torsrud could be the first of dozens of inmates serving life who might get out sooner. The Public Interest Justice Initiative, a joint project between Chisholm’s office and the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, was launched in 2019 after the Remington Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School found that more than half the 128 inmates serving life sentences for juvenile offenses were from Milwaukee County.

One of Grafton High School’s ‘most renowned’ graduates and his wife gave $750,000 for athletic facility improvements

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Ted Kellner, a 1964 Grafton High School graduate, and his wife, Mary, made the donation to the district’s Enhancing Our Future athletic complex campaign. While at Grafton, Ted Kellner was an All Conference athlete in football and basketball and a participant in track, baseball, National Honor Society and student council. After high school he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1969, a district news release said.