John A. Lucey, professor of food science at UW-Madison and the director of the Center for Dairy Research, reported that national sales numbers for natural cheese curds have steadily increased to around $52 million in 2021. However, fresh cheese curds are still predominantly purchased in the Midwest.
The university announced the ranking change Monday alongside an announcement that it had spent a record-breaking $1.7 billion on research for fiscal year 2023, a 13.7% increase over the prior year. UW-Madison’s growth outpaced the national increase of 11.2% spent on university research and development, bringing the national amount spent to $108.8 billion.
High levels of PFAS have, as a result, plagued Lake Monona, with a University of Wisconsin-Madison study finding the lake’s foam had the highest concentration of PFAS in the state.
“The people that struggle with milk can drink raw milk,” she says. Her claim isn’t in line with a study by John Lucey, a professor of food science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which found “no obvious reason why raw milk could assist with lactose intolerance.”
But a pair of researchers at UW-Madison hope to close that decades-old knowledge gap through a study in which they’ll inject 17 people with small doses of both kinds of methamphetamine to see how the “D” isomer present in illicit meth metabolizes in the body and whether that changes when the “L” isomer, the kind in nasal sprays, is present.
The lab is seeking participants to study the effects of psychedelics on the conscious mind.
“Many of the unsolved problems in particle physics and cosmology are deeply intertwined,” write physicists Fernando Marchesano, Gary Shiu and Timo Weigand in the 2024 Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science. String theory may provide the path to solving those problems.
The flight path to these experiments began when a research team led by Iowa State’s Shan Jiang, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, and Hantang Qin, formerly of Iowa State who’s now an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wondered if their ink and printer technologies would work in the zero gravity of space.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated the law prevented 4,000-11,000 Milwaukee and Dane county residents from voting in the 2016 presidential election.
“The survey data shows just how strongly people feel about abortion policies,” said corresponding author J. Michael Collins, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
“We try to extrapolate from these other worlds how quickly planet formation might have taken hold in the early solar system,” says Melinda Soares-Furtado at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Researchers in the Genetics-Biotechnology Center at UW-Madison published a study in September, raising concerns over issues found in AI-assisted genome-wide association studies and offer new statistical methods for improvement.
“We tend to think that early life is somehow simpler, less sophisticated … but I don’t think there’s any reason to think that,” said Betül Kaçar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who wasn’t involved in the research. “A complex ecosystem, to me, sounds more realistic.”
An economic analysis shows Wisconsin’s agriculture industry is pulling in more revenue in recent years but employing fewer people.
The report, titled “The Contributions of Agriculture to the Wisconsin Economy,” is published every five years. The newest survey found the industry earned $116.3 billion in revenue in 2022, the latest data available. That is a 10.9 percent increase from 2017. However, the numbers are nuanced, Steve Deller and Jeff Hadachek, co-authors of the report out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
In fact, there are many ways to measure emissions from meat production. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has outlined several methods, including the use of respiration chambers, which capture the gasses animals release during breathing, and the SF6 technique, a more advanced method where a tracer gas is used to measure methane emissions directly from livestock.
When it comes to determining the role that lakes play in global carbon cycling, those estimates are often drawn from summer data. Just using that small subset of data creates errors in estimates of atmospheric interactions and other downstream effects, said Hilary Dugan, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Department of Limnology.
Co-author Adam Fitch of the University of Wisconsin at Madison said the “Skiphosoura represents an important new way to study the evolutionary relationships between pterosaurs and how this lineage evolved and changed.”
Now, new studies say retailers’ charging efforts may well be paying off: One peer-reviewed study by researchers at Boston University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison published this year looked at the impact of nearly 1,600 Tesla Supercharger stations in more than 800 U.S. counties and found a 4 percent increase in monthly visits for retailers within 200 meters of chargers after they were installed. The effects were most pronounced for retailers within 150 meters. The researchers also found a 5 percent increase in spending.
UW-Madison researchers are studying the effects of Delta 8 and Delta 9 on driving performance, with the help of the University’s driving simulator. Delta 8 and 9 are hemp derived products that can produce a high feeling.
Despite these advancements, GWAS studies have their limitations, which scientists have tried to address with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). However, in two studies published in Nature Genetics, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison identified pervasive biases these new approaches can introduce when working with large but incomplete datasets.2,3
Nuzzo also pointed to a recent study published in Nature, led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, an H5N1 expert at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, that showed the virus that infected the first reported dairy worker in Texas had acquired mutations that made it more severe in animals as well as allowing it to move more efficiently between them — via airborne respiration.
That’s not to say respiratory spread is impossible, though. Two recent studies in ferrets—one by researchers at the CDC, and one led by a researcher from the University of Wisconsin-Madison—raised that possibility. The researchers isolated the bird flu strain that sickened the first person infected in the current outbreak and tested how infectious it was among ferrets. Although it wasn’t as contagious as the seasonal flu, the bird flu virus was capable of spreading among ferrets by droplets, the researchers found.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are gearing up to administer set levels of delta-8 and delta-9 THC to people in a pilot study, and place them in a driving simulator.
In Wisconsin, only 17 percent of 2,769 people surveyed last December support a hunting season on sandhill cranes. That’s according to a study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and funded by the International Crane Foundation. The organization has said crop damage by cranes should be solved by other means, saying a hunt wouldn’t have any significant benefit for farmers.
After years of studying the deleterious effects of climate change on human health, a Wisconsin professor has come to view his work as less about devastation and more about hope.
“The health benefits of a low-carbon economy are so enormous.” Dr. Jonathan Patz recently told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
Katherine Cramer’s influential book “The Politics of Resentment” was published in March 2016 — just eight months before Donald Trump won the presidential election for the first time and ushered in a new era of American politics.
The book got national attention for the way it homed in on the urban-rural divide. Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, based the book on years of having conversations with people across the state in cafes, pool halls and other community spaces.
Efforts to combat climate change and shift to renewable energy have accelerated under policies and regulations put in place by President Joe Biden’s administration. Even so, it hasn’t been enough to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, according to Greg Nemet, energy expert and public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re on track, but we need to really start pushing harder to get the adoption of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind power, heat pumps and all those things at a faster rate,” Nemet said. “I think what we’re looking at now is probably almost definitely slowing down.”
Morgan Edwards, assistant professor of public affairs at UW-Madison, said the slowing of emissions reductions may not be immediately evident in Wisconsin as much as they will in the long run. “We’re locking in long-term climate impacts that we’re going to see for decades to come,” Edwards said. “That’s things like more extreme weather events, warmer winters, more irregular farming seasons, which is a big deal across the country, but (also) in this state where we have a lot of agriculture.”
But some people are biased against female presidential candidates. In 2017, a study found that about 13 percent of Americans were “angry or upset” about the idea of a woman serving as president. In an experiment that same year using hypothetical political candidates, Yoshikuni Ono and Barry Burden, political scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, found that voters punish female candidates running for president by 2.4 percentage points. This means that a hypothetical female candidate would get, say, 47 percent of the vote, rather than 49.4 percent if she were a man.
As you spend time with people close to you, don’t be afraid to lean on them for social support. Research shows that you can literally outsource your negative emotions to those you’re closest to, minimizing their impact. In a groundbreaking study at the University of Wisconsin, researchers put people in MRI machines and threatened to shock them at random. There were three groups of participants: People who were alone. People who held the hand of a stranger. People who held the hand of a loved one.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.
A 2023 UW-Madison survey of Wisconsin dairy farmers found that nearly 40% of farms have at least one foreign employee; other studies have estimated that immigrants account for up to 90% of the labor force in the dairy industry.
In 2018, a study out of UW-Madison that analyzed bat poop found that little brown bats in Wisconsin were eating 17 different types of mosquitoes, including nine that carry West Nile virus. The same study found the DNA of 24 different agricultural pests in the poop — lending validity to the estimate that bats save Wisconsin farmers hundreds of millions of dollars per year on pesticides.
A research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison produced high-resolution images of RSV structure, important for RSV treatment options and vaccine development.
New research has found that communities with more women-owned or -operated farms have higher rates of business creation, lower poverty rates and a longer average life expectancy.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Steven Deller is a co-author of the research first published in January. Deller and colleagues argue that the reduction in rural poverty is particularly important.
NOAA Climate, Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow presents how warming factors change in the Arctic, North Atlantic, their global impacts.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation will give nearly $160 million to UW-Madison in grants to support research, with $15 million specifically aimed at further developing the university’s artificial intelligence enterprise.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, UW-Madison was an international leader in the first renewable energy to produce electricity for the public — hydropower. During some of those years, the Wisconsin River was known as the hardest working river in the world because it produced so much electricity.
Wisconsin sees dozens of species of small beetles this time of year, including ladybugs, but one is particularly prevalent: the multicolored Asian lady beetle, according to P.J. Liesch, director of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.
“The [Asian lady beetles] are the ones that folks are really seeing a lot of at the moment,” Liesch said. “Those particularly beetles are very active, flying around and coming to structures because they’re looking for sheltered wintering spots.”
Another AI model, developed by NOAA and the University of Wisconsin, has shown skill in predicting the rapid intensification of hurricanes, an area where global AI models have struggled.
The letter says the change has the potential to reduce prices at the pump without harming the environment. There’s room for debate on both fronts. Newsom’s letter cites a UC Riverside study that found E15 wouldn’t increase nitrous oxide emissions, but a 2022 University of Wisconsin-Madison study found that the blend increases upstream emissions.
Wisconsin is home to the third largest population of Hmong Americans in the United States. But a new case study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows for the aging members of this community, there’s a gap in their quality of life in nursing homes.
“This work is also personal, right?” And for medical anthropologist Mai See Thao, the study conducted with researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa was work that felt nostalgic—and not in a good way.
“Growing up in Wisconsin, my grandmother and my aunt went through the nursing home experience,” Thao, who is ethnically Hmong, said. “My aunt was actually doing very poorly because she was restricted to eating only the nursing home food. And so she was starving a lot of the time as well as my grandmother.”
Research from the University of Wisconsin showed that the spoils of working longer have accrued to those who need it the least. If you are healthier and wealthier, you are more likely to keep working.
To get on top of — and feel less toppled by — mood changes, it’s helpful for caregivers to remember that those shifts are caused by changes in the brain, said Dr. Nathaniel Chin, a geriatrician and associate professor in the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“They’re no one’s fault,” he said, and recognizing this can help you “feel less upset at your loved one.”
Even if local officials in Wisconsin wanted to let non-citizens vote on local races or proposals, it’s not clear whether current state law would allow that change, according to analysis from the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“Courts in other states have reached divergent conclusions about whether provisions akin to Wisconsin’s current constitutional text allow municipalities to authorize local noncitizen voting,” the analysis noted.
A review from the nonpartisan State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School concluded that the Wisconsin ballot measure “will not have any immediate practical impact on voter eligibility,” since existing law already prohibits noncitizen voting in federal and state elections.
For a good number of people antidepressants have been a blessing, at least at the beginning of treatment, said Dr. Charles Raison, a professor of psychiatry and human ecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.
“I always start by saying, ‘Thank God, we have them.’ Many people can say, ‘Wow, I was pulled out of a pretty deep hole,’“ said Raison, who is also the director of the Vail Health Behavioral Health Innovation Center in Colorado where psilocybin is studied.
“We are in a generally heightened state of stress caused by events around the world,” said neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where research on Tibetan Buddhist practitioners found that meditation literally changed their brains.
UW Health has been navigating a five-year research effort involving 37 Alzheimer’s disease centers around the country. The first 2,000 participants enrolled this fall.
“This study is definitely a trailblazer in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research,” said Ozioma Okonkwo, professor of medicine at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the UW Department of Medicine.
The goal of archaeologists and anthropologists today is, in some way, to bring back Aztalan, and that’s what host Norman Gilliland does during his conversation in University Place Presents Aztalan: A Place of Mystery with guest Sissel Schroeder, a professor of anthropology and archaeology and certificate advisor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Leading the effort to resuscitate Franklin’s concept for motors big enough to use in industrial applications is C-Motive Technologies in Middleton, Wis. It is a 16-person startup founded by a pair of University of Wisconsin engineers named Justin Reed and Daniel Ludois who spent years tinkering with electrostatic motors to see if they could be improved.
Elizabeth Wright, a UW-Madison professor of biochemistry, said the new images of RSV’s structure will support preventing and slowing infections in the future. Wright runs the research lab that created the new images.
Six male nurse sharks live in a tank inside a laboratory on the UW-Madison campus. Originally from the Florida Keys, the sharks were moved to Wisconsin to help fight human cancer.
“It’s an experimental dream,” said Judith Kimble, a nematode researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The more we do with it, the more of a wonderful dream it becomes.”
A previously elusive ambush predator insect is seen frequently in Wisconsin this year, entomologist PJ Liesch tells us.
Although less popular than local television and some other forms of media, local radio generally gains strong trust from those who listen, according to Mike Wagner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism and mass communication researcher and professor. In Wisconsin, during the 2016 election, radio stations were airing around 200 hours of conservative talk every day, according to one UW-Madison study.
Sykes’ WTMJ show was Walker’s primary connection to a statewide audience, according to Lew Friedland, distinguished journalism and mass communication professor emeritus and researcher at UW-Madison. “Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker,” Friedland said, calling Sykes “one of the top three most important political actors” at the time.
While employers can help, they alone cannot save the day, Schmidt said, referencing figures from a recent report by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It found that if the providers surveyed could operate at full capacity — many cannot because of staffing shortages — they could serve a total of 33,000 more children. To fill those slots, the state would need roughly 4,000 more early childhood educators, Schmidt said.
Interview with Jessica Calarco, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Interview with Jennifer E. Gaddis, an associate professor of civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of The Labor of Lunch. She is an advisory board member of the National Farm to School Network.
Divided Americans are often described as living in different media bubbles, so for this story University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism students listened to several radio hosts across the political spectrum to report on just how different those bubbles are.
According to the University of Wisconsin, almost one-third of US land is in the so-called wildland-urban interface and thus susceptible to forest fires, up from 29.5% in 1990. Meanwhile, people are spreading out; some 44 million US homes are now under threat from fire, up from 30 million in 1990, the data shows. Climate change is making those 72,000 communities more tenuous.
