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Category: Research

How Facebook does (and doesn’t) shape political views

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The Verge

And despite valid concerns from many of the researchers involved, in the end Meta did grant them most of the independence they were seeking. That’s according to an accompanying report from Michael W. Wagner, a professor of mass communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who served as an independent observer of the studies. Wagner found flaws in the process — more on those in a minute — but for the most part he found that Meta lived up to its promises.

Some Wisconsin employers say finding seasonal help was easier this year than last 2 summers

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Wisconsin Public Radio

That comes as the state’s labor force participation rate — a measure of people working or looking for work — among teens aged 16 to 19 declined from 66.5 percent in 2000 to 56.5 percent in 2022, according to research from the University of Wisconsin-Extension. That still exceeded the national rate in 2022 of 36.8 percent among teens.

The problem with kids’ content on YouTube

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Wisconsin Public Radio

We talk to an expert on early childhood media consumption about the potential harms of unregulated kids’ content on YouTube, and what parents need to be aware of. We also talk to a PBS Wisconsin education engagement specialist about what outreach is being done to help kids and parents make healthy media choices.

‘Barbie,’ a feminist film about toxic masculinity and gender equality, is marketed as politics-free pink fluff

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MarketWatch

And yet 35% of the audience were men. What gives? “The current level of uncertainty and turbulence and anxiety accounts for part of that crossover among genders,” said Nancy Wong, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “People associate ‘Barbie’ with a more comfortable, simple and stable time in their lives.”

Wisconsin’s paper mills are famous, but its paper converters are just as crucial. Here’s why

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The Post-Crescent

While paper converters often go overlooked, they play an important role in both Wisconsin’s paper industry and its economy, according to a recent study from the Wisconsin Paper Council and University of Wisconsin titled, “Adding Value to Our Economy – Paper Conversion in Wisconsin.” More than 145 paper converters operated in Wisconsin in 2022, according to the study.

That number gets bigger a lot faster if you factor in companies that use paper along with plastic and other types of products, Scott Bowe, a professor and wood products specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in the May 31 episode of the Wisconsin Paper Council’s “The Paper Files” podcast about the study.

The heat index is soaring: Are you feeling more depressed?

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“It’s been proven that protracted hot weather can make people depressed,” said Dr. Charles Raison, who has done research on heat intolerance and summer-related depression. “It seems as if the system that modulates body temp also modulates mood.”

Raison, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said people with mental illness often have trouble with thermal regulation. “From our data, we know that people with depression tend to run body temperatures higher than average, and they don’t sweat as much. So being depressed could set you up to not be able to tolerate heat well.”

Psychedelics might revolutionize therapy. What happens if you remove the trip?

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Vox

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, anesthesiology professor Matthew Banks is tinkering with something in between leaving the trip alone and anesthesia: What if you let people have their full-on psychedelic experience, but then erase their memory of the trip altogether? Do you need to remember a trip for the benefits to stick?

From cheese tasters to product testing, the Center for Dairy Research continues innovating industry

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CBS 58

For 37 years, the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) has helped innovate the dairy industry.

“Cheese-making has been around, there are lots of different guesses right now, but probably somewhere in the region of 8000 years,” CDR and University of Wisconsin Madison Professor of Food Science John Lucey said.

The women behind the Manhattan Project that Nolan’s new film ‘Oppenheimer’ completely ignored

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Business Insider

Joan Hinton was a physics graduate student at the University of Wisconsin when she was tapped for Los Alamos. She worked on a team building the first reactor able to use enriched uranium as fuel. Hinton also witnessed the Trinity Test. Just weeks after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski, killing more than 200,000 people, Hinton drove physicist Harry Daghlian to the hospital after he was exposed to a lethal amount of radiation from a plutonium core. He died about three weeks later.

Misinformation, disinformation: A guide to sort fiction from reality

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The Capital Times

Other imposter content commonly takes the form of websites or social media accounts, said Mike Wagner, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wagner is the lead investigator for the NSF-funded research project in which Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times are participating. “We’ve had misinformation since we’ve had information, and we’ve had people sharing things that aren’t true since they shared things that are true,” Wagner said.

New businesses emerge with a novel answer for depressed Madisonians: ketamine

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The Capital Times

Leading that revolution is the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which in August opened the Transdisciplinary Center for Research in Psychoactive Substances, expanding upon clinical psychedelic studies that have been on campus for seven years. The UW School of Pharmacy is also home to the nation’s first master’s program in psychoactive pharmaceutical investigation, where researchers are studying ketamine’s effects on the brain.

Long-unfunded Wisconsin State Climatology Office boosted by USDA grant

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Wisconsin Public Radio

For the first time in a decade, the Wisconsin State Climatology Office is receiving government funding. A USDA grant will focus the office on rural needs, particularly those of farmers. We talk to Steve Vavrus, the Wisconsin State Climatologist and a senior scientist for the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Center for Climatic Research at UW-Madison, about this and funding for a statewide network of weather stations.

New research and therapy development at UW Carbone Cancer Center

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Wisconsin Public Radio

According to Newsweek, the UW Carbone Cancer Center is listed as the top cancer hospital in Wisconsin for 2023. We learn about the hospital’s latest work, including prostate MRI’s and proton therapy. Interview with Dr. Joshua Lang, associate director of translational research, and Dr. Nataliya Uboha, an oncologist and faculty leader for Cancer Therapy Discovery & Development, both at the UW Carbone Cancer Center.

Opinion | New data show a dire forecast about incarceration rates didn’t come true

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The Washington Post

It might help to achieve that progress if the new Demography study, co-authored by sociologists Michael Massoglia and Michael T. Light, both of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, had provided an account of exactly why incarceration generally, and Black male incarceration in particular, has declined, but such explanations lie beyond the scope of their research.

Wisconsin schools that went remote for longer saw expanded gaps in graduation rates

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Wisconsin schools that had a longer period of virtual or hybrid learning during the pandemic saw graduation rates rise among wealthier students and fall among those at an economic disadvantage, a new study found.

The study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published in the journal Educational Researcher, analyzed data from 429 public high schools in the state during the 2020-21 school year and two years before then.

Child care dilemma squeezes Wisconsin workers, parents

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The Capital Times

While demand for child care is high, supply is limited and likely to decrease further. A March report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty showed that more than 60% of providers planned to increase tuition, while 32% were considering leaving their jobs or closing their centers if Child Care Counts did not continue.

UW-led team of astrophysicists identifies invisible ‘ghost particles’ in Milky Way using AI

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Astrophysicists have long predicted that the Milky Way is a source of ghostly particles called neutrinos, but haven’t been able to detect them. Until now.

In a new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a massive detector at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory finally caught a glimpse of high-energy neutrinos being emitted from within the Milky Way.

Sexual Violence Has Longer Lasting Health Effects Than You Think

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Prevention

A surprisingly wide range of medical conditions are being shown to be linked to sexual violence. Many may not appear until years after the events. Cancer is one such condition. “A history of abuse may increase a woman’s risk of and susceptibility to cancer,” a review article by researchers at the University of Wisconsin concludes. Cervical cancer is the most prevalent type linked to abuse, and some studies find more breast cancer in survivors (other research does not support this finding). One possible mechanism: heightened immune and inflammatory factors brought on by chronic stress that have been tied to cancer growth, the researchers note.

Wisconsin home prices have more than doubled over the last decade

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Wisconsin Public Radio

The median home price in Wisconsin has more than doubled over the last decade, as supply has failed to keep up with demand after homebuilding slowed during the Great Recession. That’s according to new data from the Wisconsin Realtors Association, or WRA, and a new report from the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

Steven Deller, professor of agricultural and applied economics at UW-Madison, authored the report. He said many were hoping to see downward pressure on prices in response to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, but that hasn’t happened yet. Deller said high mortgage rates have had a modest effect on demand for homes, but a greater influence on those who currently own a home to postpone older couples from downsizing or young families upsizing, keeping some homes off the market.

“The normal churn in the housing market, the new supply of housing or the increase of existing homes going on the market is actually dropping a little bit more than the decline in demand,” he said.

Neutrinos from the Milky Way finally detected

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Popular Science

In 2013, IceCube detected the first cosmic neutrinos. In the years since, they’ve been able to narrow neutrino sources down to individual galaxies. “We have been detecting extragalactic neutrinos for 10 years now,” says Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the IceCube collaboration.

Astronomers Just Detected An Important High-Energy Particle In the Milky Way for the First Time

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Inverse

“We now hope to have established the multi-messenger techniques that will allow us to pinpoint the cosmic ray sources in the galaxy which, arguably, represents one of the oldest problems in astronomy,” Francis Halzen, IceCube principal investigator and physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, tells Inverse.

In a First, Scientists See Neutrinos Emitted by the Milky Way

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Scientific American

IceCube had already definitively detected neutrinos streaming in from outside the Milky Way, but it couldn’t be said with certainty that any of them came from within the galaxy, says Francis Halzen, lead investigator of the project and a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This was rather strange, considering the proximity of the Milky Way’s disk (in fact, our solar system is embedded in it) and the high likelihood that neutrinos form there.

The ‘Forbidden Planet’ That Escaped a Fiery Doom

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The New York Times

Melinda Soares-Furtado, a NASA Hubble fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies planetary engulfment, called the study an “exciting” example of the “unexpected properties” revealed in star-planet interactions. She suggested that future research about the system involve experts on blue stragglers, a class of luminous stars that are thought to be formed by stellar mergers.

Tricky survival tactics of the flu virus uncovered in new study

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New Atlas

The two main viruses that cause the flu — influenza A and B — have existed for centuries and, although some antiviral advances have been made, these bugs have proven extremely difficult to eradicate. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) have identified at least one secret to the success of influenza A, a finding that might arm researchers with another way to combat it.

Stuck for years without funding, Wisconsin’s state climatology office is now ‘open for business’

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

As part of a $9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin’s state climatology office will get $1.25 million over four years to reinvent itself. The goal is to raise the profile of the office and make it the go-to spot when people want weather and climate information, said Steve Vavrus, who became the state climatologist this year and heads up the office. Vavrus, also a senior scientist at UW’s Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research, had worked with the office frequently in past years.

Study finds ticks could possibly spread chronic wasting disease

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Wisconsin Public Radio

As part of the study, lead author Heather Inzalaco, a post-doctoral researcher at UW-Madison, gave blood with CWD-positive material to ticks in a lab. She found that the ticks both ingested and excreted CWD prions.

“They were taking it up, simultaneously eliminating some of it in their frass, which is just a fancy word for tick poo,” Inzalaco said. “So it was in both places.”

These ‘super agers’ could help UW find key to keeping memory sharp

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Wisconsin State Journal

Like others 80 and older who have superior memories for their age, Frantz is in a study of super agers at UW-Madison. Through cognitive tests, blood tests and MRI scans, the participants could help researchers identify biologic, behavioral, environmental and socioeconomic clues to keeping memories intact — and avoiding Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia — well into advanced age.

Opinion | Expanding our understanding of mental health challenges

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The Washington Post

Andrew H. Miller at Emory University and Charles L. Raison at the University of Wisconsin, among others, have demonstrated a relationship between inflammatory processes and clinical depression. Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is characterized by multiple neurologic and psychiatric symptoms and is thought to be caused by an overactive autoimmune response attacking a specific neuronal receptor site.

‘So much left to learn’: UW-Madison researchers contribute to discovery of ancient human burial site

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are part of an international team working to understand the discovery of an ancient burial site created by early human ancestors.

UW-Madison anthropology professor John Hawks was part of the group that first found the bones in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa in 2013. The team, led by paleoanthropologist  Lee Berger from Johannesburg, first published the discovery in 2015. They released three new scientific papers this week detailing what they’ve discovered about the two locations of remains within the narrow passages of the caves.

1 Quick And Surprising Tool To Boost Your Performance Under Work Stress

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Forbes

There is a direct link between self-compassion and happiness well-being and success. The more self-compassion you have, the greater your emotional arsenal. Studies from the University of Wisconsin show that meditation cultivates compassion and kindness, affecting brain regions that make you more empathetic to other people.

What Does Good Psychedelic Therapy Look Like?

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New York Times

Noted: Twenty years of research has standardized the dosage of the drugs used in clinical trials, but the therapy part has not received similar scrutiny. Instead, therapists’ work is often based on tradition rather than empirical evidence, said Dr. Charles Raison, the director of clinical and translational research at the Usona Institute in Wisconsin and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin.

‘If this decline continues, they’ll be gone’: Project works to boost monarch population

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Wisconsin Public Radio

What started in a lab in the 1990s has evolved into a mass volunteer effort to track the monarch butterfly. Karen Oberhauser was a professor at the University of Minnesota when she and her students started collecting data on the monarch butterfly population in 1996. The next year, they started recruiting volunteers to help what became the international Monarch Larva Monitoring Project.

Earlier spring algae blooms tied to tiny invasive species, UW-Madison researchers say

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Toxic blue-green algae is blooming on lakes months earlier than in previous years. UW-Madison scientists studying Lake Mendota think that’s a lingering result of infestations of tiny invasive species, zebra mussels and spiny water fleas. Interview with Trina McMahon, a professor of bacteriology, and civil and environmental engineering at UW-Madison.