“(Nicotine) literally alters the makeup of the brain as it’s developing,” explained Chris Hollenback, the communications director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. “You have these receptors saying ‘more, more, more.’ When you’re under the age of 17, it’s easier to get addicted and harder to quit.”
Written by Dr. Jonathan Patz, the Vilas Distinguished Professor & John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute & Department of Population Health Sciences.
Claire Allen runs the office at UW-Madison every Tuesday from 10 to 4. She’s been staffing it for nine months as a housing counseling specialist.
“For a lot students, their first time renting is in college,” Allen said. “Lease questions, roommate conflicts, security deposit questions, options to end a lease if it’s not working out,” Allen said. “Questions about landlords not addressing repairs, that’s a big one.”
Although the pandemic exacerbated many of Wisconsin’s workforce issues, labor force participation has been steadily decreasing across the state since its peak in the 1990’s. Today, at the Regional economic Conditions Conference hosted by the Federal reserve Bank of Minneapolis, UW Madison economist Matthew Kures said the age of workers has been a large factor in the decline.
“We simply have fewer workers of working age and prime working age than we had a decade ago or two decades ago,” said Kures.
No longer tied to milking cows herself twice a day, Hinchley says both she and her dairy cows are happier with the robotic milkers operating 24 hours a day.
“It’s not necessarily something that you would have to do in order to stay in the dairy business,” said Chuck Nicholson, a UW-Madison professor of animal and dairy sciences. He noted only about 8% of Wisconsin’s dairy farmers have implemented the new technology, typically family farms that want to save on labor costs. “The labor shortage is definitely a key motivating factor.”
The first female UW-Madison faculty member to start a biotech business, Allen-Hoffmann left her role as CEO of Stratatech after the acquisition and has since retired from her subsequent role as vice president of regenerative medicine at Mallinckrodt. She did not respond to a request for comment.
“When many talk about ‘totaling a car,’ it is often taken to mean that the car is a total wreck and cannot be salvaged, certainly not driven. However, in the insurance world, ‘totaling’ is when the insurer declares the book/cash value (e.g., Blue Book Value) of the car just before the accident is less than the costs of covered repairs from the accident,” says Karen C.A. Holden, professor emeritus, Department of Consumer Science and Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin – Madison Institute on Aging.
Despite documented systemic barriers, a new UW-Madison study shows mothers with low incomes find the credit system in the United States legitimate. We speak with Sarah Halpern-Meekin and J. Michael Collins, two of the researchers.
UW-Madison professor and editor Nate Jung describes how students can approach using generative AI to improve reading and writing skills while remaining mindful of its limitations as a teaching tool.
Stem cell biologists are gaining new insight into the human brain — thanks to technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Randolph Ashton is the associate director of UW-Madison’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center and says they can use that research to screen for numerous conditions like spina bifida and autism; and, according to Dr. Ashton, RosetteArray technology could eventually help scientists develop more specific medical treatments – and perhaps even a cure. When it comes to medical ethics, he says his primary concern is the prohibitive cost of such treatment.
We assess several bills working through the Wisconsin legislature that would seek to reform predatory — yet legal — payday loan operations, including one that could cap interest rates, and another that would expand the definition of a “payday loan.” Interview with Sarah Orr, clinical professor and director of the Consumer Law Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Megan Moreno is a University of Wisconsin adolescent medicine physician and co-medical director of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. She often warns parents against romanticizing their own methods of socialization as adolescents over what their kids do to make and keep friends.
“I have a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old, and one thing I think a lot about is checking my own biases of how they’re supposed to be spending their time,” Moreno said.
Quoted: “There can be some ability to trace that, because each company would be producing, potentially, different types of PFAS that could be linked back to them,” said Steph Tai, a law professor and associate dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an expert on environmental law.
“There are companies out there lending to Wisconsin consumers at really just exorbitant interest rates. I mean, I’ve seen 400 percent, 300 percent APRs,” said Sarah Orr, director of the University of WIsconsin-Madison Law School’s Consumer Law Clinic.
“And although the repayment terms are more like an installment loan, they’re really just terrible financial traps for people,” Orr continued. “A person who gets one of these products really spells ruin. I don’t know any other way to express it.”
To improve their effectiveness, helmets worn by military personnel and sportspeople must employ a liner material that limits both. This is where researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison come in. Determined to prevent – or lessen the effect of – TBIs caused by knocks to the body and head, they’ve developed a new lightweight foam material for use as a helmet liner.
“In some sense we’re seeing a continuation of this tendency that we see at the national level, that whatever slow down there is coming, it keeps on getting pushed further and further into the future,” University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor Menzie Chinn said.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the first lab-grown chicken meat for commercial sale. It’s the first cell-cultivated meat to be approved in the country, and it’s grown from stem cells in a bioreactor—no slaughter required. We talk to Jeff Sindelar, a professor and extension meat specialist in the department of Animal Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about whether lab-grown meat could eventually compete with the factory-farmed meat that dominates the industry.
“If oil prices are going to stay at the levels that they are, then we can continue to see at least not an upward movement in gasoline prices, and that’s gonna allow us to have inflation continue to fall,” said Menzie Chinn, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Underage sales of nicotine products have more than doubled in Wisconsin since 2019, the year when the federal age for purchasing tobacco products was raised to 21. Wisconsin has kept the minimum age at 18 in spite of research showing that raising the smoking age reduces nicotine addiction. Dr. Michael Fiore, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, explains.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who studies technology in education said artificial intelligence holds promise in schools. David Williamson Shaffer is the Sears Bascom Professor of Learning Analytics at UW-Madison. He got into this work after being a teacher in the 80s and 90s.
“Graphing calculators and computers were just starting to come to the place where they were impacting the classroom, were a kind of change agent,” Shaffer said. “They were a way in which the old system was disrupted just enough that we had a chance to rethink a little bit about what we were doing.”
“The challenge that insurance companies face is that since they do not have the same information as drivers, they must set higher insurance premiums that consider the average risk of drivers,” says Jordan Van Reign, assistant teaching professor and MSPO Associate Director, Department of Agricultural & Applied Economics (AAE), University of Wisconsin–Madison. “If insurance companies could have the same information about risk as drivers, they could set individual insurance premiums that better match the risk of each individual. This would improve overall market efficiency by reducing overall rates and better matching rates to the risk of individuals.”
Nations were divided over whether to create a timetable for eliminating fossil fuels at the latest United Nations’ conference on climate change. We learn what happened from Sumudu Atapattu, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor attending the conference.
Patrick Remington, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said the rate of underage tobacco sales is going in the wrong direction.
“It’s more than just a minimal change,” Remington said. “To me, that would be cause to certainly redouble the efforts to vendors and sellers to comply with federal law.”
“Farmers would welcome warm and dry (conditions) to get out and have things planted in a timely fashion, but they need moisture in the soil for germination and early growth,” said Chris Kucharik, a plant and agrosystem sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Several companies say they’re close to achieving nuclear fusion that could be used as clean energy. Cary Forest, a physics professor at UW-Madison, explains why fusion is so difficult to achieve and whether commercial fusion is realistic.
People are generally staying in their homes longer, says Mark Eppli, director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin. In 1988, for example, “your average time in a house was 10 or 11 years.” Today, he says, it’s 20 years.
“That’s really long; inventory’s going to stay low,” Eppli says. “With high interest rates making housing all the less affordable…it’s going to keep people in their houses even more.”
“It’s a big deal to have that many logical qubits. A very remarkable result for any quantum computing platform,” says Mark Saffman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the new quantum computer greatly benefits from being made of atoms that are controlled by light because this kind of control is very efficient.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is opposing an economist’s application to trademark phrases that include the word “bucky.”
Ed Hirs, an expert on Texas’ power grid and a lecturer at the University of Houston, applied late last year to trademark “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Scientists have said the world needs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Energy expert Greg Nemet, a public policy professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said any new natural gas plants would guarantee fossil fuel emissions beyond that date, or they would need to be shut down early.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say new technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere must be developed faster to meet goals to reduce global warming.
Enter the steadying voice of Charles Isbell Jr., a nationally recognized expert in computing and AI who started work this summer at the UW-Madison as its latest provost.
If the UW-Madison were a private company, the role of provost might best be described as “chief academic officer.” It is historically the No. 2 position on campus behind the chancellor. Isbell is settling into that role across UW-Madison’s many colleges and schools, but he also brings a wealth of experience in what is one of the defining technological moments in a generation.
Someone who already has a “good credit score” likely already has several credit cards. With credit scores, sometimes it can be easy to constantly pursue perfection–a FICO score of 850. The reality is that a score of 720 or above will provide individuals with strong credit offers across the board. More cards is not always better. — Jonathon Ferguson, financial capability specialist, University of Wisconsin-Madison-Financial Education Division of Extension
One challenge to vertical farms moving into office and residential buildings comes from local zoning bylaws.
That’s why, across the country, some cities, including Boston and Cleveland are amending their zoning bylaws to support urban farming. Still, these changes depend on the type of agriculture and the resources available, said Alfonso Morales, a professor at the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture.
“They’re [cities] going to vary in the process by which people can start a farm, and the complexities, the number of permits, or licenses to pull,” Morales said.
A recent analysis from a UW-Madison professor finds that bottled water consumption is most prevalent among low-income women, signaling a distrust in household tap water. We speak with Manny Teodoro, an associate Professor in the LaFollette School of Public Affairs/Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.
Wisconsin produces almost two-thirds of the world’s cranberries. They have been harvested in Wisconsin for as long as people have lived here, said Allison Jonjak, cranberry outreach specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, who grew up on a cranberry marsh herself.
“This really represents America, and it happens to be harvested right before Thanksgiving,” Jonjak said. “Cranberries are ready right now, they’re emblematic of North America, and they go really well with most meats.”
Associated Bank confirmed Ernst was laid off due to restructuring but declined to comment further.
While his layoff may have felt egregious, employment law expert Alexia Kulwiec said that both in Wisconsin and across the country, with exception of Montana, employees are hired “at-will.”
“This means that an employer can terminate employment for a good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all, unless there are specific legal prohibitions or a contractual agreement,” said Kulwiec, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Why nuclear fusion? It doesn’t produce harmful long-term radioactive waste as a byproduct like nuclear fission, explained Gerald Kulcinski, director emeritus of fusion technology at UW-Madison.
Members of the UW Health nurses’ union delivered safety violation forms to the state health department last week, in an escalation after months of labor disputes between the system and the union. Two nurses with the union join us.
Dane County is home to more than 170 dairy farms, according to state records. It’s unknown how many provide housing to workers, but a recent statewide study on immigrant dairy workers by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School for Workers found that close to three-quarters of surveyed workers lived in employer-provided housing, typically on the farm
Nurses at UW Health submitted paperwork Thursday urging Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services to investigate concerns about patient safety.
It’s the latest escalation amid an ongoing labor dispute with the health care system, as nurses who are pushing for collective bargaining power raise alarms about the effects of under-staffing, employee turnover and worker burnout.
If a tenant were to receive a second five-day eviction notice for nonpayment of rent within the same leasing year, then a landlord can give a no-cure notice, but the resident must be given 14 days to vacate, according to Sophie Crispin, director of the Eviction Defense Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
A recent report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum shows Wisconsin households are shrinking at a rate slightly faster than the national average over the last five decades. We talk about some of the factors behind that trend with Kurt Paulsen, a UW-Madison professor of urban planning.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison kicked efforts to persuade the Legislature to come up with nearly $200 million for a new engineering building into higher gear Monday.
“I’m not recalling a newspaper or news outlets suing someone for defamation,” said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, an associate journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Nothing is leaping to my mind.”
“There’s a lot we still don’t know about consumer uses of these,” says Michael Collins, an expert in consumer and personal finance at the University of Wisconsin.
Take the case of Rufus Sweeney, a 4th-year medical student at UW-Madison and Oklahoma Choctaw. When he discovered his pre-diabetes condition, he turned to glucose monitoring apps in the market that recommended lifestyle changes, from diet adjustments to sleep tweaks. His breakthrough came when he prioritized physical activity over all other app notifications.
The labor market has started to loosen up. For instance, the number of job postings and quits has been trending down.
But even if the increase in wages is moderating, “it’s still at the moment, on a 12-month basis, faster than inflation,” noted Menzie Chinn at the University of Wisconsin.
Most models working at coarser resolutions can’t actually see simulated tornadoes, inferring them instead based on areas of air with a lot of spins. Atmospheric scientist Leigh Orf of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has taken advantage of advances in supercomputing to build 10-meter-resolution models that can directly simulate tornadoes. At this scale, turbulence comes alive, Orf says. His models reveal how small areas of rotation could combine to kick off a tornado. “It fully resolves non-tornadic vortices that merge together in ways that are very compelling, and I’ve never seen before,” he says.
Another $1 million NSF grant went to a next-generation agriculture consortium led by WiSys, which manages patenting and licensing for discoveries at University of Wisconsin campuses outside Madison and Milwaukee while operating “Venture Labs” in a handful of locations. WiSys hopes to win a Type 2 award to solve problems, from farm to table that could improve agriculture from business and environmental perspectives.
Steven Deller, the report’s author and an agricultural and applied economics professor at UW-Madison, said he attributes the state’s inability to return to the low poverty rates it saw in the late ’90s and early 2000s to a shift away from more highly-paid manufacturing jobs toward a more service-based economy, the state’s decline in unionization and a slow recovery from the Great Recession.
When Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, coined the terms “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets,” he couldn’t have predicted he’d end up in a legal battle with the University of Wisconsin and its iconic mascot, Bucky Badger. But according to a report from the Houston Chronicle that is exactly what is happening.
In an August presentation, Somesh Jha, a computer science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the technology could be a threat to cybersecurity and could be misused to spread misinformation.
For example, there’s already a “fine-tuned” AI that can write spam emails, he said. AI can also be used to create fake images and videos that look real, known as “deepfakes.” Jha said deepfakes could be used, unethically, during elections to sway public opinion.
“This is coming,” he said. “I can tell you that there are people (who) are really scared.”
Lola Loustaunau, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers, said that “it would really open the door for a lot of protections for workers” if OSHA consistently inspected small dairy farms that provide housing to immigrant workers.
“If they are politically interested in doing something,” she added, “it looks like they have all the basis to do it.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the partners behind the tech hub application, and contributes to the biohealth industry through academic research and providing an educated workforce through its medical physics, biotechnology and medical engineering programs.
In a statement, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said the university is thrilled to be part of the collaboration that helped secure the federal designation.
“Our culture of innovation and strong collaborative spirit, both within the university and across the state, make us well-positioned to make the most of this important opportunity,” she said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison clinical law professor Mitch said the price listed is likely less than what the homeowner would get by listing their home for sale publicly.
The fake check at the top of the ad appears to be one of the many marketing methods people are using to buy and then resell homes for profit, Mitch said.
“The idea is that sending out lots of letters or texts could be worth it if they get enough responses from people looking to sell,” he said.
Wisconsin on Monday was named one of 31 regional tech hubs by the Biden administration, a designation involving Madison companies such as Exact Sciences and Accuray that allows the state to compete for $40 million to $70 million to grow its biohealth industry.
“(The tech hub status) will help ensure that we continue to push forward innovation, economic growth and transformative advancements in healthcare,” said UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin in a statement.
Kurt Zimmerman, Senior Director of Biohealth Industry Partnerships at UW-Madison, said submitting their proposal took more than 18 months. Still, the hub is already focusing on how this potential funding will help Wisconsin to stand out as an emerging leader in the field.
Consortium members include GE HealthCare, Rockwell Automation, Exact Sciences Corp., Accuray, Plexus, Employ Milwaukee, Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Milwaukee and Madison area technical colleges, Milwaukee 7 and the Madison Regional Economic Partnership.
The tax credit provides the biggest benefit to families “who can afford to spend a lot on child care,” says Tim Smeeding, an economist and emeritus professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. The proposal doesn’t help people for whom the cost of child care is out of reach, he added.
