Dave Weimer, a professor of political economy at the UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs, has a new book called “Dog Economics” that dives deep into the costs and decisions associated with dog ownership.
Scientists studying viruses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently opened their lab door for a tour, looking to shine a light on their work after being targeted by a Republican bill.
When the paper came out, Jacquelyn Gill was working on her dissertation at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, studying the Pleistocene mammal populations of the Upper Midwest through the proxies of ancient pollen, charcoal and fungal spores.
Every first week in March, the state of Wisconsin celebrates Leopold Week, honoring the legacy of the esteemed conservationist, writer and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Aldo Leopold with events and demonstrations in the spirit of his land ethic.
His comments included a reference to a city plan that prioritizes lead service line replacement based most heavily on the area deprivation index, which ranks neighborhoods by “disadvantaged status,” according to the Center for Disparities Research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Year after year, the Bronx is ranked as the least healthy county in New York, coming in 62nd out of 62, according to County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a project of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that compares counties’ health metrics.
The fine print: 98 cities were surveyed, with data from the University of Wisconsin’s County Health Rankings & Roadmaps.
Guilherme Gainett, then a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was looking through a microscope at the embryo of a daddy longlegs when he saw it — or, rather, saw them.
The data is incomplete on how many crimes each year are committed by migrants, primarily because most local police don’t record immigration status when they make arrests. But the studies that have been done on this, most recently by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, show that in Texas, where police do record immigration status, migrants commit fewer crimes per capita.
The school, attended by some 1,100 students, is located in the Bronx, an area that ranks last in New York state for health outcomes and factors, according to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
UW study: Wisconsin ranked last out of all 50 states for the rate of business ownership among people of color.
Coercive control and financial abuse are often tied together. The vast majority of domestic-abuse cases also involve economic abuse, and finances are one of the main reasons a person stays with or returns to an abusive partner, as noted in a research brief by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Financial Security. The fact that your friend’s husband pushed her to give up her job is a bad sign.
“Many politicians, law enforcement personnel and ordinary citizens are nonetheless incensed because this person should not have been in the country and thus capable of committing a crime,” said Michael Light, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has published several studies showing undocumented immigrants are not more crime-prone than native-born Americans. “This view that the person’s undocumented status is an aggravating factor is also likely a reason why these crimes generate such strong responses.”
A study from a UW-Madison researcher published Monday in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters contends that walleye, one of Wisconsin’s most sought-after fish and one of its tastiest, are not only struggling to survive in warming waters; their reproduction is also being interfered with and has been “unable to keep up with increasingly early and more variable ice-off dates.”
The Badger Challenge surpassed $1 million in 2023 to fund cancer research and treatment right here in Madison. 100% of participant raised funds were awarded to 8 scholars working to move cancer research and patient treatment initiatives forward.
Andrea Samz-Pustol embodies Wisconsin Idea through impactful research.
Leopold, born in Iowa in 1887, received a forestry degree from Yale and began his professional career in 1909 with the U.S. Forest Service. In 1924 he became associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison and in 1933 the University of Wisconsin created a chair of game management for him. Leopold died in 1948 fighting a grass fire on a neighbor’s farm. The property is now part of the Aldo Leopold Foundation near Baraboo.
But what happens to the rest of the economy when remote workers come to town? A new paper from Hoyoung Yoo, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, looked at the impacts of the program on local residents.
A pilot study by Coad Thomas Dow of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues suggests that BCG injections can effectively reduce plasma amyloid levels, particularly among those carrying the gene variants associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. Although the sample size was small – just 49 participants in total – it has bolstered hopes that immune training will be an effective strategy for fighting the disease.
Professor Michael Draney debunks myths, explores spiders biology.
A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty found the most commonly reported use of Program A funding among providers participating in the study is for physical operating expenses, such as rent and utilities. This was followed by materials and supplies for enhancing the program and then payroll and benefits.
The gene for CIS was identified in 2010 by Jiang and his team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They have since worked at Michigan State University to modify this gene to prevent CIS from occurring.
Podcast interview with Provost Charles Isbell: As one of the leading research universities in the country, UW-Madison marshals more than a billion dollars in research money annually. And the way Provost Charles Isbell sees it, the university’s scale and its public service mission makes it the perfect place to be at the forefront of the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, where computer systems are emulating human cognition.
With a pro-boating industry bill apparently dead in the Legislature and after a more lake-protective proposal failed to muster support among the Republican caucus, the prospect is dim for any new, statewide wake surfing law to take effect this year in Wisconsin.
But a measure to bolster the science of the impacts of wake-enhanced boating could garner more favor. A proposal announced Tuesday by Republicans would task the University of Wisconsin System with conducting a study on the effects of wake boating.
Source: GOES imagery analysis by University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)
ELDER-CONNORS: UVM isn’t the only college doing this. Auburn University in Alabama and the University of Wisconsin received money from the same federal program that funds UVM’s work. Glenda Gillaspy at the University of Wisconsin says they’re setting up weather stations to help cranberry farmers time their harvests, which involves flooding their fields.
A pair of notable anniversaries in environmental circles are occurring this year, both owing to Aldo Leopold, hailed as the father of modern conservation and wildlife ecology who carried out much of his groundbreaking work while living in Wisconsin, where his legacy endures.
Gary Davey found out he had prostate cancer after a routine physical and blood test. After multiple treatments failed to get rid of his cancer, he enrolled in a phase 1 clinical trial with UW Health.
The latest Wisconsin Youth Risk survey revealed that LGBTQ+ students, particularly those identifying as transgender or questioning, often feel safer confiding in teachers and staff than in their own parents.
In a recently published study on the effects of visual art on emotions, interest and social media engagement, assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin’s Life Science Communications department Nan Li and a team of researchers discovered a positive correlation.
Conducted by the UW Survey Center and analyzed by UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, the survey went to around 3,500 people across the state. Researchers compared the responses of participants who have children under age 6 with those who don’t.
None of those findings are really “huge surprises,” said La Follette School professor Sarah Halpern-Meekin, who analyzed the results.
Transgender and LGBTQ+ youth are more likely to report unsafe school climates and mental health concerns than their cisgender, heterosexual peers, according to research by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
But then the journal Cell Stem Cell—always on my nightstand—reported that scientists at the University of Wisconsin had not only perfected a way to create brain tissue this way but could create brain cells that mimicked the behavior of real ones, and I knew that the breakthrough was real. Kudos to the Badger State scientists for figuring out that arranging the printed brain cells side by side, like a row of stick pretzels or a batch of linguine, would allow neurons to communicate just like those in a conventional brain.
Steve Vavrus, a senior scientist at UW-Madison and the state’s climatologist, said the weather is already causing economic impact, especially on the tourism industry in northern Wisconsin.
“They depend on snow and ice for skiing and skating and ice fishing and so forth,” Vavrus said. “There’s been closed snowmobile trails. There’s been winter festivals that have been canceled, unsafe ice conditions for fishing and so on.”
In Madison highly-regarded ice records have been kept on the city’s local lakes since the middle 19th century. The work is now conducted by the Wisconsin State Climatology Office at the University of Wisconsin’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
Includes interview with Dr. Tanya Schlam, a UW-Madison researcher, about how Wisconsin could improve its response to tobacco use.
Valentine’s Day reminds us to show our love to the important people in our lives. We usually declare our romantic love, but sometimes all the hearts and flowers remind us to express our love to others who are important in our lives as well. For a lot of us, this could mean our dogs. About half of U.S. households keep dogs as pets. Not only in word, but also in deed, many people express their love for their dogs not merely as pets, but as family.
Written by David L. Weimer is the Edwin E. Witte Professor of Political Economy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is coauthor with Aidan R. Vining of “Dog Economics: Perspectives on Our Canine Relationships” (Cambridge University Press 2024).
Written by Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a Professor of Public Affairs with the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Vaughn Bascom Professor of Women, Family, and Community in the School of Human Ecology.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center have done something that sounds like a science fiction movie. They’re the first to 3-D print living brain tissue.
A new study by the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention claims low-nicotine cigarettes and vapes are both solid substitutes for regular cigarettes.
The sounds of summer could be a lot louder this year depending on where you live in Wisconsin.
That’s because for the first time since Thomas Jefferson was president, two rare broods of cicadas will emerge at the same time. PJ Liesch, an extension entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said this event only occurs once every 221 years. “It’s something that is really unique and special for us,” Liesch said.
Whether you love beets or hate them, you probably haven’t given them as much thought as Irwin Goldman.
A professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Goldman is also former chair of the department of horticulture. The Goldman Lab there is even named after him. He and colleague Nick Breitbach spent decades trying to breed a better beet. Now the Badger Flame Beet is getting attention nationwide from growers and chefs as it becomes increasingly available.
The committee responsible for the report was co-chaired by University of Wisconsin Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and Robert E. Kahn professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University Edward W. Felten.
From the care of Wisconsin researchers to the International Space Station, a group of tomato plants rode on a rocket last week with the goal of brightening astronauts’ days — and their diets. But first the tomatoes are trying to find their own joy.
Growing without gravity is stressful to tomatoes, said Simon Gilroy, a University of Wisconsin-Madison botanist who runs a lab that studies plant development.
A scientific paper by UW-Madison researchers about a medicinal plant’s potential to treat prostate cancer was retracted last month after the journal said several images appear to be alike.
As detailed in the new issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a novel 3D-printing approach for creating cultures that grow and operate similar to brain tissue. While traditional 3D-printing involves layering “bio-ink” vertically like a cake, the team instead tasked their machine to print horizontally, as if playing dominoes.
We learn about a UW connection to experimenting with growing tomatoes beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Next we talk about the art of doing nothing in particular. Then we hear what to know about the rise of the respiratory virus RSV. And we explore the problems American parents face compared with those in other countries. Interviews with Simon Gilroy and Dr. James Conway.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are one step closer to understanding how and when cleft lip and palates form during pregnancy.
The discovery, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could mitigate the risk of the birth defect that affects about 1 in every 1,700 babies born in the United States.
Low-wage workers have found it especially hard to afford higher housing costs, even before a spike in prices in 2022, explained Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center (formerly COWS, a left-leaning think tank) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dresser’s research has found that increasing the minimum wage to $15 over the next five years would increase wages for one in seven workers in Wisconsin. That includes one of every four Black and Hispanic workers.
“It can tell us about the virus without us needing to stick anything up anyone’s noses or even know who was in a space,” said Dave O’Connor, a UW-Madison researcher involved in the surveillance. “Air sampling should be something that lots of schools bring on board to understand what the respiratory virus transmission risk is.”
Monitors have been at seven schools in the Oregon School District for two years, where air sampling last school year tracked flu and COVID-19 activity as reliably as student absences, rapid tests at school and regular tests from samples collected at home, UW-Madison researchers recently reported. That research was part of a UW study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that has analyzed respiratory illness at Oregon schools since 2015.
You can 3D print a lot of things that remain lifeless objects, but no one’s 3D-printed living brain tissue — until a team of scientists here in Madison did. And living means operating, growing, and a whole lot more.
“One example is planting corn when oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear,” notes an article on phenology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “You know that planting corn has nothing to do with oak leaves or squirrels. However, Native Americans made the observation centuries ago that the soil was warm enough to prevent seeds from rotting, yet it was still early enough to reap a suitable harvest if corn was planted at this time.”
University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-Madison) researchers have successfully 3D-printed brain tissue that grows and functions like a typical brain.“This could be a hugely powerful model to help us understand how brain cells and parts of the brain communicate in humans,” said Su-Chun Zhang, the study’s corresponding author. “It could change the way we look at stem cell biology, neuroscience and the pathogenesis of many neurological and psychiatric disorders.”
The grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund neuroimaging, particularly PET scans, to better understand Alzheimer’s and other dementias in living people. The hope is that by identifying how Alzheimer’s affects the brain, future researchers will be able to eventually prevent, slow or delay the onset of the disease and better treat its symptoms.
Elizabeth Emch studies Lake Wingra while doing outreach on winter salting around Madison through her master’s program in the Department of Limnology.
The team of faculty and students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Madison Technical College each day capture data from a series of weather towers spread across Antarctica, watching for shifts in weather and how it’s impacting the frozen land.
Near the start of a Jan. 23 presentation by the director of Wisconsin’s signature cancer research center, I asked those attending how many had family members who had been touched by the disease over time. Nearly every hand in the room went up.
That speaks to the insidious nature of a disease that in some ways remains a mystery to researchers such as those who work at UW-Madison’s Carbone Cancer Center. It also illustrates the need for continued progress in finding better approaches to prevention, diagnosis and therapy surrounding one of mankind’s oldest scourges.
These habits can only lead to negative physiological and mental effects and also can make wrestling more dangerous. A University of Wisconsin study, published in 2022 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, followed 67 Division I college wrestlers over seven seasons and found that a 1 percent loss in body weight correlated with an 11 percent higher chance of injury during competition.
The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, also found that dogs may be attracted to watch TV by the sound of a familiar song, voice or jingle.
Researchers with the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health found that there is likely a link between gut inflammation, changes in the brain, and declines in memory.
