Category: Health

“One of the things that you can see as a symptom of cyanide poisoning is someone having difficulty breathing,” said John Berry, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This happens very quickly.”

Berry said cyanide, which used to be in rat poisons because of its potency, can be combined with other substances to form gasses or salts that can dissolve in water. He also pointed out that cyanide is extremely difficult for someone outside of a research lab to get their hands on.

Very few long-term studies of psilocybin for depression have been conducted to date, said Dr. Charles Raison, a professor of human ecology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the research.

“They are very difficult to do because people drop out,” Raison told Live Science in an email. “But also because they go on all sorts of other treatments that obfuscate the degree to which any longer lasting benefits result from the psychedelic or because the participant got therapy or restarted an antidepressant.”

China’s divorce rate for 2024 has yet to be announced by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics, but Yi Fuxian, a Chinese demographer and senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the United States, expects it to hit 2.6 per 1,000 people, against a low of 2.0 during the Covid-19 pandemic. This compares with the most recent rates of 1.5 in Japan and 1.8 in South Korea.

Dr. Ajay Sethi, a professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Journal Sentinel in May he worries changes in federal guidance may encourage adults who were already on the fence about the COVID-19 booster to skip it.

“ACIP has been, across the entire world, the paragon of good, solid, well-thought-out, evidence-based vaccine policy. I hate to say this. We are heading in the direction of U.S. vaccine policy becoming the laughingstock of the globe,” said Dr. Jonathan Temte, former chair of the ACIP and a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Federal vaccine recommendations matter not just because the public pays attention to them, but because it can affect which vaccines insurers decide to cover, said Patrick Remington, emeritus professor at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health.

Dr. Dominique Brossard, chair of the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said social scientists are worried the federal policy changes could instill more distrust in science more broadly.

“My concern is that if you start with (existing distrust in science) and giving doubt about these specific vaccines … does that instill a doubt about all the vaccines? So, is it opening the door or building that hesitancy?” Brossard said. “The whole context is definitely breeding ground for doubt and that we need to closely watch.”

At a time when gender-affirming care in Wisconsin is under fire, providers at a speech clinic are helping transgender clients find their voice.

“Our voice is [an] external representation of us,” Maia Braden, a speech-language pathologist at the UW Speech and Hearing Clinic told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “Anytime our voice doesn’t match who we feel we are, it can be extremely distressing.”

“Ideally, if it’s not a huge challenge, trying to see (the) use of thumb sucking or pacifier use stop by 18 months is a good thing, but I wouldn’t get too worked up about it if it was still happening at age two, maybe even three,” said Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who is also a pediatrician and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Early Childhood.

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health OB/GYN Dr. Ryan Spencer explains the difficulties that arise when fewer obstetric providers are available to serve mothers in a community.

Dr. Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin, an expert in China’s demographics and prominent critic of that country’s one-child policy, has been digging into the details of China’s population claims — and what he has found is not good.

For starters, Yi believes that China’s population is overestimated by at least 130 million — more than one-third of the U.S. population. In a recent monograph, Yi details the many discrepancies buried within China’s current and past census data.

According to Cortland Dahl, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, a mindful body scan is a powerful way to ease chronic stress and mental rumination. You can do this simple mindfulness exercise while lying in bed.

“Bring attention to each part of your body, starting with your head and moving slowly down until you reach your toes,” he told HuffPost. “Pay attention to the sensations you notice in your body with a sense of warmth and non-judgmental curiosity. This activates the brain network critical for self-regulation and inner balance. It’s also a great way to de-stress and let go of all the tension that builds up in our busy lives.”