Jay Rothman interview with WISC-TV on the state budget bill introduced this week by Gov. Evers.
Universities of Wisconsin president speaks on Gov. Evers’ State Budget Address
Channel 3000
Category: Research
How to channel anxiety as an emotional intelligence strategy
Forbes
In 2013, Researchers at University of Wisconsin put this idea to the test. They placed people in MRI machines and threatened to shock them at random. There were three groups of participants:
The researchers measured fear activity in each person’s brain. And they found something incredible in the third group. Participants’ brains were much less active. They could literally outsource their fear to their loved ones. That means your brain can offload negativity. Leaning on others in tough times is like taking ice cream scoops of negativity out of your brain. The EQ Strategy: Ask your friends and family for support. Don’t let fear of vulnerability hold you back.
In pursuit of the best protein bar
Wisconsin Public Radio
“We weren’t trying to design the best protein bar ever.” said Audrey Girard, who is an assistant professor in food science at the university. “We were trying to figure out how these protein bars harden so that someone else could take this, and then design the best protein bar ever.”
Finnish saunas are having a moment in Wisconsin
Wisconsin Public Radio
Arnold Alanen is a professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he researched the history of sauna structures. Alanen told “Wisconsin Today” that as a Finnish American, sauna has been a way of life for him from the beginning. He said he was first brought into a sauna as a very young baby, and then he caught on to the ritual when he was about 8 years old, living on his grandparents’ farm in Minnesota.
“The weekly sauna tradition was something that we did on our farm, just without interruption. We would do it every Saturday evening,” he said. “It became such an integral part of my life, as well as of our family.”
‘Heartbreaking to slow down’: UW-Madison researchers warn funding cuts would delay new treatments for cancer, more
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the nation’s top research institutions, are wary of potential cuts to funding under the Trump administration that they warn could slow their work and delay new treatments for cancer and other diseases.
Lab workers key to California’s bird flu response are poised to strike
The Washington Post
Since last summer, senior managers have hired technicians, and scientists from the University of Wisconsin and Cornell University have completed rotations at the lab, Ontiveros said.
U.S. dairy farmer says Trump’s mass deportation plan would put him out of business
CBS News
John Rosenow, a fifth-generation farmer in Waumandee, Wisconsin, owns more than 900 acres and over 600 dairy cows. He said about 90% of the work on the farm is done by immigrants.
Those immigrants include Kevin, who was born in central Mexico and crossed the U.S. southern border illegally when he was 18. Now 21, Kevin, who did not provide his last name during an interview with CBS News, is among the 11 million undocumented migrants living in the U.S. More than 10,000 of them work on Wisconsin dairy farms, according to a report by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Elon Musk is trying to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court
Mother Jones
In a University of Wisconsin study published in September 2017, 1 in 10 registered voters in Milwaukee County and Madison’s Dane County who did not cast a ballot in 2016 cited the voter ID law as a reason why.
UW-Madison receives $5.5 million federal grant to reduce synthetic fertilizer use
The Daily Cardinal
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers received a $5.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy on Jan. 10 to study methods to reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use in crops.
Study: Americans vastly underestimate public support for diversity and inclusion
PsyPost
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison became interested in this topic because they wanted to understand a puzzling contradiction. On one hand, many people express support for diversity and inclusion. On the other hand, discrimination and exclusion remain persistent problems in society. The researchers wondered if part of the problem might stem from inaccurate perceptions of what others believe.
The study, “Diversity and inclusion have greater support than most Americans think,” was authored by Naomi Isenberg and Markus Brauer.
Tom Still: NIH-funded research produces cures, treatments and jobs, even if it takes time
Wisconsin State Journal
Howard Temin was a UW-Madison scientist who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for his discovery of “reverse transcriptase,” which described how tumor viruses act on the genetic material of cells to make copies of themselves before integrating into the host genome.
UW-Madison research into life’s origins could help improve crop yields
Wisconsin Public Radio
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers is looking into how a better understanding of nitrogenase, and the origins of life on Earth, could help improve modern agriculture. And maybe even allow us to find life on other planets.
Robert Golden on NIH funding cuts and medical research at UW
PBS Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert Golden discusses impacts of a Trump administration action to shift National Institutes of Health rules for research funds.
Study: Guardian Caps do not reduce concussion risk for Wisconsin high school football players
Wisconsin Public Radio
Wearing a padded cover over a football helmet does not reduce the risk of concussions for high school athletes, according to a new study using data from Wisconsin.
The study was conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Orthopedics andRehabilitation during the 2023 football season. Its peer-reviewed findings were published on Jan. 28 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Shortsighted DOGE USAID cuts hurt Wisconsin farmers, weaken national security
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a key partner for USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab, helping train agricultural researchers around the world and research new seeds. In the past decade, Feed the Future has reduced hunger and poverty by 20 to 25 percent in targeted areas, with over 6 million producers newly using better agricultural practices in 2023 alone.
Of course, these innovations not only support communities abroad, but can also be put to use right in UW-Madison’s backyard to make farmers more resilient to increasing hazards such as heatwaves and extreme precipitation.
UW researcher warns that federal funding cuts could halt vital work
TMJ4
“We really rely on NIH funding,” Jon Audhya, a professor and associate dean at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said. “That reduction would have a huge negative impact on the institution. The university really couldn’t fill the gap.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Investigating the origins of life on earth, Racine’s working class history
Wisconsin Public Radio
The Keck Foundation awarded UW-Madison researchers a $1.3 million grant to research nitrogenase, an enzyme in part behind the origins of life on Earth. We talk with the head researcher of the project for a review of humanity’s understanding of life’s origins.
The relationship between the gut and brain has an effect on addiction, disease and behavior
Wisconsin Public Radio
Vanessa Sperandio, professor and chair of the medical microbiology and immunology department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has studied how the connect between the intestinal system and the brain — called the gut-brain axis — plays into addiction. Sperandio explained that E. coli, the bacterium famous for making people violently ill, always lives in our guts. She found that when there’s an overgrowth of E. coli, a person becomes more susceptible to cocaine addiction.
“If you have an expansion of E. coli … you enhance … cocaine addiction behaviors, cocaine seeking behaviors, cocaine administration behaviors,” she said.
There are countless examples of gut bacteria influencing our lives. Maggie Alexander, an assistant professor of medical microbiology and immunology at UW-Madison, is studying how the gut-brain axis affects autoimmune diseases, where the immune system attacks healthy parts of the body.
“There’s been this really strong connection of microbiota and autoimmune conditions,” Alexander said,
5 things parents should know – and do – to keep kids’ hearts healthy
American Heart Association
“Ideally, parents should think about their child’s heart health even before their child is born,” said Dr. Amy Peterson, a professor of pediatrics in the department of pediatric cardiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On YouTube, living vicariously through pregnancy announcements
Newsweek
“Social media may be playing a role in pushing the birth rate down, in part by promoting the perception that people should really only have children if they can give those children what we might think of as ‘Pinterest-perfect’ lives,” said Jessica Calarco, an award-winning sociology researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW researcher warns that federal funding cuts could halt vital work
TMJ-4
“We really rely on NIH funding,” Jon Audhya, a professor and associate dean at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said. “That reduction would have a huge negative impact on the institution. The university really couldn’t fill the gap.”
UW researchers highlight new strategy for reducing opioid usage
Badger Herald
New strategy offers roadmap to limiting opioid prescription.
Sterilization rate at Madison hospital doubled after abortion ruling, study finds
The Capital Times
The number of people who sought surgical sterilization at UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital in Madison more than doubled after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades-old abortion protections in 2022, according to a recent study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
Red-state universities push back against NIH funding cuts
Politico
On Monday, higher education groups joined an association of public universities with schools in states that supported Trump in last year’s election to file their own legal challenge that described $65 million in losses for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 70 percent reduction in funding for the University of Florida.
Why the NIH cuts are so wrong
Inside Higher Ed
These up-front losses generate much greater future value of nonmonetary as well as monetary kinds. Look at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, et al. in Table 22 above. The sector spent nearly $28 billion of its own money generously subsidizing sponsors’ research, including by subsidizing the federal government itself.
2 GOP state lawmakers pushing to advance nuclear energy in Wisconsin
Wisconsin Public Radio
Two Republicans who chair state legislative committees on energy and utilities say they want to bring more nuclear power online in Wisconsin in the coming years.
To start that effort, they introduced a resolution calling on the Legislature to publicly support nuclear power and fusion energy.
Study finds soft-shell helmet covers don’t reduce concussions for Wisconsin high school football players
Spectrum News
A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed that soft-shell helmet covers do not reduce concussions for Wisconsin high school football players.
Restrictions on CDC communications, Concerns about bird flu, An album inspired by Wisconsin’s landscape
Wisconsin Public Radio
We learn how new restrictions on communications by federal health agencies could affect public health. Then, we look at how the ongoing bird flu epidemic is affecting farmers and whether it could surge. Then, we talk with a pianist inspired by Wisconsin’s landscape.
A cosmic neutrino of unknown origins smashes energy records
Science News
“They hit the jackpot,” says Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and principal investigator of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. “We have been taking data with a much bigger detector for 10 years. We’ve never seen such an event.”
Tracking the progress of avian flu on Wisconsin farms
Wisconsin Public Radio
There is no human-to-human transmission right now, which is a good thing,” said Peter Halfmann, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine. “The one concern is that the virus likes to mutate.”
Wisconsin education leaders left confused about legality of Trump executive order on K-12
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“This executive order raises a lot of issues over who really controls public education,” said Suzanne Eckes, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor whose work focuses on K-12 legal issues and school policy. Public education has historically been a state and school board function, she said.
“Typically, the federal government isn’t saying, ‘You’re going to do this social studies curriculum, and you’re going to use this book, and everybody in the United States is going to learn about slavery or World War I or the American Revolution in this way,'” said Eckes, speaking from her perspective and not as a representative of the University of Wisconsin.
$900 million in Institute of Education Sciences contracts axed
Inside Higher Ed
“It basically literally means we are stepping back in time decades, that we are now gonna look at data on CDs, they’re gonna be mailed out across the country instead of stored securely in an online data platform,” said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies college access and success. “It’s gonna be a huge waste of my time and a huge waste of the department’s time to have to process all of these new applications.”
UW joins lawsuit against NIH funding cuts
Badger Herald
NIH funding cuts could severely impact future research at UW.
A federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration’s new NIH funding policy
NPR
“Cutting the rate to 15% will destroy science in the United States,” says Jo Handelsman, who runs the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “This change will break our universities, our medical centers and the entire engine for scientific discovery.”
Wisconsin joins lawsuit to block NIH funding cuts that UW says will harm patients, workers
Wisconsin Public Radio
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said the decision to cut National Institutes of Health funding, or NIH, will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.”
‘What a ripoff!’: Trump sparks backlash after cutting billions in overhead costs from NIH research grants
Fox News
The University of Wisconsin-Madison put out a statement arguing the new indirect cost cap will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and daily life-saving discoveries.” It added that the move will also “have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities.”
Map shows red states losing the most funding from NIH cuts
Newsweek
University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a statement: “This proposed change to NIH funding – UW–Madison’s largest source of federal support – will significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.
“In addition, these reductions will have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities, from undergraduates to Ph.D. and medical students. Medical innovation will be slowed, delaying the creation of new treatments, new technologies, and new health workers.”
NIH cuts could stall medical progress for lifesaving treatments, experts say
NBC News
Dr. Robert Golden, the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said indirect costs aren’t just administrative tasks, or “waste,” but the physical structures and equipment needed to do “top tier” research.
“I’ve been at several public institutions, including the NIH early in my career, and never saw waste to a striking degree,” he said. The NIH’s change, Golden said, “will have a profound significant impact on everything,” including utility charges, building out the laboratories where scientific experiments are done and finding cures for patients.
Egg prices continue to climb. How does Iowa grocery stores compare to other states?
Des Moines Register
It can take farms months to recover after an outbreak since most chickens don’t begin laying eggs until they are 18-22 weeks old, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin, other states win reprieve in cuts to medical research funding
Wisconsin State Journal
Afederal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump Administration cap on federally funded medical research that UW-Madison said Monday could cost the the university $65 million in already-pledged funds.
UW-Madison grad students ‘are very afraid’ of federal funding turmoil
The Capital Times
A federal judge last month blocked efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to halt the flow of billions of federal dollars. Wisconsin officials worried the freeze would have wide-ranging effects, including at the state’s flagship university.
Then over the weekend, the National Institutes of Health announced a “dramatic” cut in funding for some research expenses at UW-Madison and other institutions, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and other university leaders said in a statement.
UW System turns to business community to advocate for budget request
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The UW System is asking for roughly $855 million over two years from the state and urged support for that funding during a discussion with members of the Hoan Group, a private group of about 160 business and community members in the Milwaukee and Madison area.
UW-Madison says NIH funding cuts will delay ‘lifesaving’ research for cancer, Alzheimer’s
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the nation’s top research institutions, says National Institutes of Health funding cuts will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures” for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and more.
The sex mushroom hunters of Nepal
Bloomberg
“It’s really an amazing medicine that deserves more attention,” says Tawni Tidwell, a biocultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, where she specializes in pharmacological innovations in Tibetan medicine. Tidwell, who spent years studying across the Indian subcontinent, says the mushrooms don’t supercharge her sex drive—she just feels energized after taking them—but she has seen dramatic results in other people’s libidos. “Men report their erections are more functional, stronger and longer,” she says. “It works for women, too.”
‘It infuriates me’: why the ‘wages for housework’ movement is still controversial 40 years on
The Guardian
Callaci, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written a book, Wages for Housework, which chronicles the radical 1970s feminist campaign that argued for recognition of the economic value of domestic labour. In truth, she explains, it was a recipe for revolution, designed to smash capitalism and its underpinning myth that women just love keeping house so much they’ll do it for nothing.
‘Built to burn.’ L.A. let hillside homes multiply without learning from past mistakes
Los Angeles Times
People continued to move into fire-prone foothills and valleys. Between 1990 and 2020, the number of homes in the metro Los Angeles region’s wildland-urban interface, where human development meets undeveloped wildland, swelled from 1.4 million to 2 million — a growth rate of 44%, according to David Helmers, a geospatial data scientist in the Silvis Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
This first-of-its-kind plant discovery could help boost pantry-staple crop yields — here’s how it works
The Cool Down
Improving crop productivity is on the United Nations’ list of Sustainable Development Goals for the 21st century, and a recent discovery by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers may be able to help.
“For the first time, we realized that the effect of these photoreceptors is not everywhere along the stem and that different photoreceptors control different regions of the stem,” as Edgar Spalding, a professor emeritus of botany at UW–Madison, explained in the piece.
Abrupt shift in federal funding will jeopardize medical research, UW-Madison says
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison will experience significant disruptions to lifesaving research under the Trump administration’s new rules for federally funded medical research, officials said Saturday.
UW-Madison scientists weigh in on LA fires, explain university satellites that track them
The Daily Cardinal
Volker Radeloff, a fire expert and professor of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University Wisconsin-Madison, conducts research on wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs), which are fire-prone regions on the cusp between wildland vegetation, often woodlands or grasslands, and civilization. Nearly half of the world’s population lives in a WUI, and all of the areas that burned in the Los Angeles area belonged to a WUI, Radeloff said.
Wisconsin child care costs soar, but thousands miss out on state aid
The Capital Times
“If you’re eligible for a subsidy and there’s just no child care in your community, or no providers that accept subsidies, that’s going to make it a lot harder for you to actually participate in (Wisconsin) Shares,” Pilarz said.
The state’s providers could care for up to 33,000 more children if they had staff to operate at full capacity, according to a 2024 UW-Madison study commissioned by the Department of Children and Families. The study found nearly 60% of Wisconsin child care providers had unused space, including closed classrooms.
UW-Madison researcher wants to improve the Hmong experience in Midwestern nursing homes
Wisconsin Life
Medical anthropologist Mai See Thao, an assistant professor in UW-Madison’s Department of Anthropology and Asian American Studies, researches what life is like for refugees long after they’ve resettled in a new place.
Lessons learned from the push for new UW-Madison engineering building
The Capital Times
Ian Robertson is excited construction will soon begin on a new engineering building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He wonders, though, what could have been possible if the facility had been built faster.
Trump Orders Could Drain Millions From Universities, but Few Protest Openly
The New York Times
During a Faculty Senate meeting that was streamed online on Monday, Jennifer L. Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, urged professors to “hold off” on optional expenses so the university could help ensure that “you’re making smart choices.”
“The transition has created for us an enormous amount of uncertainty, combined with fast-moving and changing information,” she said. “It’s generated some potentially quite significant threats to important aspects of our mission, as is true for our peer institutions nationally.”
Trump’s federal aid freeze could hurt Head Start, health centers, more
The Capital Times
Baldwin toured the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy Monday morning to learn about opioid treatment efforts — programs that could be halted by the president’s funding freeze.
“The work being done here will save lives,” Baldwin said, “and that’s why I’m sending a loud and clear message that the president cannot cut off funding for vital programs like these.”
Trump administration hasn’t defined DEI research it wants to cut, UW-Madison chancellor says
Wisconsin State Journal
There’s a significant problem with the federal government’s efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion in research, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said Monday: the federal government has not defined what exactly it means.
UW-Madison pauses some spending amid federal funding uncertainties
WKOW-TV 27
The university announced a pause on any uncommitted expenditures, including purchases, hiring, and out-of-state travel. In a memo from Provost Charles Isbell and Vice Chancellor Rob Cramer, it was stated that no new obligations on existing federal awards would be created, meaning hiring on federal funds is currently on hold.
UW-Madison, researcher respond to federal funding concerns
WKOW-TV 27
Administrators at UW-Madison sent out a memo that said all federally funded research activities at the university will continue and students and employees supported by federal funding should continue their normal activities.
UW-Madison urges staff to tread carefully with federal funds, amid Trump’s skepticism
Wisconsin State Journal
Provost Charles Isbell, who oversees all academic operations, and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Rob Cramer offered guidance in a letter to UW-Madison vice chancellors and college deans.
Federally funded research should continue at UW-Madison despite uncertainty, administrators say
WKOW – Channel 27
Researchers at UW-Madison whose work is federally funded should continue as normal, administrators said Tuesday, after a day of confusion about how an executive order from President Donald Trump freezing some federal funding would affect organizations and programs across the country.
Erik Iverson is shepherding 100 years of innovation
Madison Magazine
As the CEO of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Iverson is the head of a nonprofit that brings cutting-edge discoveries to the market.