There’s a certain kind of candy that instantly takes you back-not to Halloween or the movie theater, but to your grandparents’ house. It’s those shiny red-and-green strawberry candies that lived in a glass dish on the coffee table. Unwrapping one revealed a hard, glossy shell that eventually gave way to a soft, jammy center bursting with strawberry sweetness.
In a groundbreaking study that may redefine our understanding of chromosome stability and its link to certain devastating diseases, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have identified a critical new role for the human replication protein A (RPA).
So how can you tell when your favorite candy changes? I compared current labels on the packages of Mr. Goodbar, Rolo caramels, and Almond Joy with past ingredient lists using the crowdsourced database Open Food Facts, a U.S. Department of Agriculture ingredient database, and data compiled by Richard Hartel, a food science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who each year writes down ingredients in common chocolate bars for one of his classes.
Does Halloween candy expire? Yes, but not in the same way that perishable items such as eggs, chicken and produce do. When candy goes bad, it’s “almost always a physical (drying out) or chemical (lipid oxidation, flavor change) change and not microbial,” Richard W. Hartel, a food science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says.
The University of Wisconsin African Studies Program hosted a discussion Wednesday afternoon featuring UW Vice Provost and Dean of the International Division Frances Vavrus and other program directors. The discussion provided insights into the importance and future of international education amidst federal funding cuts.
As darkness fell over the state capital Oct. 25, Makeela Magomolla, Tayah Dean and George Whitney led a group of more than 40 people on the winding paths of UW-Madison’s Lakeshore Nature Preserve.
UW Health and UnityPoint Health-Meriter rehabilitation hospital to treat patients recovering from a stroke, neurological diseases or brain or spinal cord injuries is coming to Fitchburg.
A groundbreaking was held Thursday for the estimated $45 million inpatient facility, located at 5094 Greenmarket Place in Fitchburg, which is expected to be completed in early 2027. The 58,000-square-foot hospital will offer 40 private rooms.
Avian flu—otherwise known as bird flu, or H5N1—has spread to dairy cattle in several states across the country. The first confirmed case of the virus in dairy cattle was recorded in March 2024. Luckily, there have been no cases among cattle in Wisconsin.
As a prime dairy state, Wisconsin has implemented mandatory testing of milk entering the supply chain, and researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are actively helping to keep tabs on bird flu in dairy milk by testing samples.
Migratory birds are driving up avian flu cases across the country, reviving concerns about U.S. readiness to respond to outbreaks, especially during the government shutdown.
Republican lawmakers have introduced a package of bills aimed at preventing foreign adversaries from causing harm in Wisconsin, including new regulations for the University of Wisconsin, medical research and telecommunications technology.
If Wisconsin’s disappointing 2025 football season is prompting Badgers fans to drink, they are not doing it at the Camp Randall concession stands. Or at least not at the level that fans did so in 2024.
Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in both Jamaica and Cuba in the last two days, followed what has unfortunately become a familiar pattern for major storms in a warming world.
Microsoft, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton University, and the New Jersey AI Hub, announced a unique partnership with TitletownTech to accelerate scientific discovery.
This new model will combine the agility of a startup, the technology of a global company, and a university’s expertise.
The Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison appointed Ricardo Carrion Jr. as its next director on Oct. 23. Carrion will begin the role Nov. 3, 2025.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved a request from University of Wisconsin-Madison on Sept. 18 seeking an additional $13.5 million to make space for a cancer research project.
Originally budgeted at $48.5 million, researchers at the Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research found the new structure requires significantly more complex infrastructure, adding $13.5 million to construction costs. The building will support a cyclotron particle accelerator, [brief definition], and will be ready in 2027 according to UW-Madison’s request.
Professor, author and orator Brittney Cooper discussed the need to reframe narratives surrounding attacks on justice and recognize individual power in reforming systems rooted in oppression at her keynote speech at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center Saturday for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Gender and Women’s Studies 50th Anniversary Celebration.
Nearly 150 students attended The University of Wisconsin-Madison Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) rally against Israel’s violation of their ceasefire in Gaza Thursday on Library Mall.
Students from the Palestine Solidarity Committee, Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, Young Democratic Socialists of America and World Beyond War also attended the rally.
The University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty hosted a webinar Oct. 29. The webinar examined the effects of student loans and how they specifically target Black students and families, welcoming three experts to discuss a variety of effects impacting students.
University of Wisconsin dorms will require residents to register guests for a rate of $100 during Halloween weekend. To ensure students are abiding by the new registration fee, Wiscard and ID checks will continue to be performed at larger dorms to gain entry into the dorm buildings, and all dorms will be locked for the weekend.
UW Health broke its own record again this year with number of patients served and hired more than 1,200 employees, while also adding medical facilities.
The health care system cared for about 867,185 patients, hired more than 1,200 employees and reported an operating revenue of more than $6.3 billion over fiscal year 2025, which ran from July 1, 2024, through June 30, UW Health announced Wednesday.
UW-Madison has announced a swath of new programming intended to improve civil discourse across campus among students and faculty with differing viewpoints.
Starting in the spring, the “Wisconsin Exchange: Pluralism in Practice” initiative will bring in prominent speakers to talk about free speech and the value of having a diversity of opinions in a community, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said last week.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice says funding in the state would impact a Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction grant program that includes training new providers, increasing teleservices, and a UW-Madison program which trains 24 psychology graduate students to work in high-need high schools.
After suffering a cardiac arrest while performing on stage last year, local musician Rökker is speaking out regarding his efforts to provide Automated External Defibrillators to public spaces.
Rökker collapsed on stage at the Gamma Ray Bar, and with the help of bystanders, he was taken to UW Health.
People in Madison are working to help Jamaicans prepare as a Category 5 hurricane is hitting the islandon Tuesday.
Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica as a Category 5 storm. It’s currently tied for the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Atlantic. At least seven people have died from the hurricane.
Co-owners of Fya Syde Kitchen in Madison say they have been trying to stay in contact with their family, who are still in Jamaica, to make sure they know just how devastating this storm is.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison housing announced students who wish to have guests in dorms over the weekend will be required to register them and pay $100, a new Halloween weekend policy for guests.
Housing said the decision was motivated by safety issues around Halloweekend in past years. “Our goal is to maintain your safety and that of our community, and years of experience have indicated that Halloween weekend requires extra steps,” said Beth Miller, an assistant director of resident life in an email sent to all residents.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is in the process of laying off 31 employees and leaving an additional 156 positions vacant. Schools and colleges have cut back on supplies, travel and other expenses. Some libraries plan to shorten hours. And some deans are relying on other funding sources to maintain services and staffing.
Local pharmacies across the state are playing a bigger role in preventing people from dying from opioid overdoses, largely because of the work of a Madison-based program that started one year ago. The Wisconsin Opioid Overdose Response Center estimates it has brought more than 185,000 residents into contact with a variety of expanded services since launching last year.
Thinking about joining the growing number of people zipping around Madison on electric scooters? Know this: They are generally allowed anywhere you can ride a bicycle, though there are exceptions. Madison and UW-Madison police say there’s been a noticeable uptick in e-scooter use over the last one to two years, even as no business renting out commuter scooters has yet opened in the city.
The University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team announced Tuesday that a senior forward has been dismissed from the team.
Madison Fire Department responded to a second call in as many weeks from the UW-Madison campus after a dryer caught fire in the Gordon Commons at 770 West Dayton Street on Tuesday morning. The building’s automatic sprinkler system kept the fire from spreading until firefighters arrived around 4:50 a.m. to extinguish the remaining flames still burning inside the dryer.
A conservative student group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted a panel discussion on campus Oct. 15 highlighting growing tensions on college campuses over free speech, representation and political balance in the classroom.
Wisconsin Young Americans for Freedom’s panel, featuring current and former UW-Madison professors and state Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, examined how universities can preserve open debate while addressing concerns about a shrinking range of political views, especially in the aftermath of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s assasination at a college in Utah.
The time to pack away 2,000 sunburst chairs for the winter has come, and Wisconsin Union project engineer Joel Gerrits has the plan all laid out, broken down into five-minute increments.
“Here, if you look at the bottom,” Gerrits said, pointing to a printout he created. “That’s almost 3,000 pieces of furniture. It does take a long time to unload, and then stack, put them away, so it’s not like we just go there and dump them.”
UW-Madison has shuttered the equity and well-being department in its human resources office, which worked to retain LGBTQ+ and employees of color.
The university established the Office of Equity, Inclusion and Employee Well-Being in spring 2021 to offer consultation and promote inclusive policies and environments, with a focus on support for traditionally marginalized communities.
UW-Madison leaders want to hear a variety of viewpoints on campus.
A conference at the Monona Terrace in Madison focused on how to support caregivers for cancer patients.
Speakers at the annual Fall Cancer Conference touched on how families are impacted by cancer.
Kristin Litzelman, an associate professor at the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology, said family members of cancer patients may not recognize themselves as caregivers, so they may not realize they have access to resources to support them.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students explored Science Hall’s rumored hauntings in an interactive haunted house experience Wednesday hosted by the Nelson Institute Ambassadors in collaboration with Japanese Student Association (JSA) and Intermission Theater.
Starting in 2013, the annual Fright Night gives Science Hall a frightening makeover, decorating the building with cobwebs, skeletons, candles and spiders while giving visitors a spooky self-guided tour of the building to celebrate Halloween and the building’s history.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will host many free Halloween events around campus leading up to Oct. 31.
Starship delivery bots are already celebrating. Customized spooky robot themes are available now until Oct. 31, with personas of Count Snackula, Witchy Wheels, FrankenFeast, Hungry Haunter and Pumpkinbot available to choose. Robots will deliver speaking in-character.
UW-Madison is building a new cyclotron particle accelerator, aimed at making the university a leader in the exploding field of theranostics and nuclear medicine, expanding research into and treatment of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Charles Daniel (“Dan”) Cornwell was born in Williamsport, PA, on Dec. 27, 1924, son of John Gibson Cornwell, Jr., and Anna Moul Cornwell, the latter of Hanover, PA. Dan joined the Chemistry faculty of UW-Madison in 1952. His best-known research was a study of the iodine and chlorine resonances in the nuclear quadrupole resonance spectrum of crystalline alkali chloroiodides.
Dane County’s detoxification center has been a resource for police officers and sheriff’s deputies for nearly four decades. But at the end of 2025, without renewed talks between county officials and the company that runs it, that tool to handle the region’s intoxicated will be gone.
On Oct. 17, four police chiefs representing the Madison, Sun Prairie, Middleton and UW-Madison departments sent a letter to Dane County Executive Melissa Agard imploring her and county government to work out a deal to keep Tellurian Behavioral Health’s detox center open.
Originally published in the January 2024 print issue of Madison Magazine, Oloizia’s “All the Lonely People” is noted in “The Best American Essays 2025” among works selected by guest editor Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker. The reported essay explores potential solutions to the loneliness epidemic declared by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in May 2023. Oloizia experiments with tempering his own moderate loneliness through cuddle therapy, behavioral economics and a University of Wisconsin–Madison course on human flourishing.
UW-Madison presented a new initiative titled “Wisconsin Exchange: Pluralism in Practice,” aiming to encourage civil dialogue and connect students, staff and faculty in a polarized world, according to UW News.
Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin said in a statement that learning happens best when those from different backgrounds come together and the Wisconsin Exchange will recognize that by building off existing programs and offering opportunities for open conversations, according to the Wisconsin Exchange website.
The UW-Madison main campus includes over two dozen properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
There was only one name to know when it came to leading cheers at University of Wisconsin hockey games: Phil.
Phil Dzick, who spent decades organizing Badgers fans counting goals and asking for more at the Dane County Coliseum, the Kohl Center and LaBahn Arena, died Wednesday, a Wisconsin spokesperson said. He was 81.
Last year, a U.S. Navy veteran received a lung transplant at UW Health, giving him another chance at life.
David Peabody, a former anti submarine warfare technician, began his journey when he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2010. Years of declining health brought the Louisville native to Madison, where he was referred to UW Health and the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, one of only three VA hospitals performing lung transplants nationwide. Madison is home to the largest VA lung transplant program in the country.
Pop artist Alex Warren brought his Cheaper Than Therapy Tour to Madison Thursday night for the nationwide launch of Future Friends on college campuses. Future Friends, a new initiative merging live music, mental wellness programming and community action on college campuses, was created by Harris and Sabrina Schwartzberg, founders of Two Bridge and Corey McGuire.
The event opened with remarks from Schwartzberg, who thanked University Health Services for their support and emphasized the importance of mental health on college campuses.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison launched “The Wisconsin Exchange: Pluralism in Practice,” a campus-wide initiative aimed at promoting open dialogue and creating a campus atmosphere where “different points of view are both expected and respected.”
The initiative will streamline the university’s preexisting programs with new opportunities, emphasizing the value of diverse viewpoints and civil dialogue.
The viability of the Universities of Wisconsin’s remaining branch campuses must be reviewed one by one, system President Jay Rothman said Wednesday, amid the ongoing closures of the two-year institutions.
Luther Memorial Church on Madison’s Near West Side is asking the developer of a planned 15-story student apartment building to compensate it for what it projects will be lost output from the church’s new solar panels and damage to its century-old sandstone exterior by leaving the church covered in shadow for much of the day.
The University of Wisconsin athletic department’s policies around player welfare and mental health are set to be scrutinized. UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin has ordered a review of “programs and policies associated with the student-athlete experience,” athletic director Chris McIntosh said Wednesday at a meeting of the Athletic Board.
The Universities of Wisconsin this fall saw record in-state freshman enrollment growth but reported 8% fewer international students on campus amid federal pressures, including visa crackdowns, according to data released Wednesday.
UW systemwide enrollment is 164,626 students this fall, a slight increase of 190 students, or 0.12%, from last fall. The modest increase is higher compared to student count projections reported last month. That report suggested a loss of nearly 100 students, 0.05% decrease, credited to plummeting international student enrollment.
National Geographic photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and educator Ami Vitale explored ecological concerns, cultural traditions and questions of belonging Tuesday at the first lecture of the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
There’s more to the rings commemorating the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team’s eighth NCAA championship than there was for the first seven.
At the University of Wisconsin, the humanities department is stepping into the AI world with a new initiative. Backed by a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the College of Letters and Science is launching the Center for Humanistic Inquiry into AI and Uncertainty, according to the CL&S website.
Part of the shipment of food to be prepared for the next week’s University of Wisconsin football game arrived as usual at Camp Randall Stadium on a Thursday last year.
The collection was short in one product that in Wisconsin almost certainly would get noticed if concession stands ran out early: There weren’t enough brats.
It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Thursday, and class for the Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums program at UW-Madison is just getting started.
Program director Cassy Leeport, a descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, pulls up to a university parking lot and greets her student Cheyenne Woerman as she hops into the UW-Madison-issued minivan scented with cut sweetgrass ready for braiding.
University of Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh again put his support behind football coach Luke Fickell on Monday and vowed increased investment in the program.
In a letter sent via email to fans Monday morning, McIntosh said the football team hasn’t performed to the department’s expectations and while that’s frustrating, he believes in Fickell’s plan for the program.
Leslie Falcon, Citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and Ho-Chunk Educational Materials Director, speaks on the impact that UW-Madison students from the Tribal Libraries, Archives and Museums program have had on building the first Ho-Chunk library.
Born in Wisconsin in the 1960s, I was always taught that Wisconsin valued progressive ideas, transparency in government and above all our excellent education system. These ideals made Wisconsin special.
So it was very saddening to see the recent closing of yet another two-year campus in the Universities of Wisconsin System: UW-Plattville Baraboo Sauk County.
A group of UW–Madison students are fighting to stop cuts to the school’s American Sign Language program.
