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Category: Research

Concussions linked to academic struggles in UW-Madison students

Wisconsin State Journal

“This is a very important time of their life, where they’re growing independent, making career decisions and planning a future,” said Traci Snedden, a UW-Madison assistant professor of nursing leading the research. “If their academic experience is affected because of their cognitive deficits, there potentially could be long-term ramifications.”

Study Questions Effect of Performance Funding

Inside Higher Education

A growing number of states — 35 so far — have created performance-based funding models that tie portions of appropriations for public colleges to outcome measures such as degree production or student graduation rates. A new research paper examines results of performance-funding formulas in Ohio and Tennessee, which are home to two of the most established of such policies. Advocates also cite the two states has having particularly sound approaches to performance funding.

‘IceCube’ telescope could solve ‘alien’ FRB signals

Daily Mail Online

They have mystified astronomers for decades. Fast radio bursts or FRBs are ephemeral but incredibly powerful radio bursts from space, which some have dubbed ’alien signals’ – and astronomers admit they know virtually nothing about them. Now, a new neutrino telescope could help uncover the mystery.

IceCube helps demystify strange radio bursts from deep space

Space Daily

“It’s a new class of astronomical events. We know very little about FRBs in general,” explains Justin Vandenbroucke, a University of Wisconsin-Madison physicist who, with his colleagues, is turning IceCube, the world’s most sensitive neutrino telescope, to the task of helping demystify the powerful pulses of radio energy generated up to billions of light-years from Earth.

These satellite photos show just how bad the situation is in Puerto Rico

CNN.com

To get an idea of how dire the situation is in hurricane-battered Puerto Rico, take a look at these before-and-after photos of the island.The images, from a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite [and the UW–Madison Cooperative Institute of Meteorological and Satellite Studies], offer aerial views of the US commonwealth.

Wisconsin Strict ID Law Discouraged Voters, Study Finds

New York Times

WASHINGTON — Nearly 17,000 registered Wisconsin voters — potentially more — were kept from the polls in November by the state’s strict voter ID law, according to a new survey of nonvoters by two University of Wisconsin political scientists.

Far-off galaxies are firing rare high-energy cosmic rays at us

New Scientist

Noted: Other telescopes have also been looking at the extreme universe of high-energy particles by searching for highly energetic neutrinos and gamma rays. “The energy density in the extreme universe observed in cosmic rays, in neutrinos and gamma rays turns out to be the same,” says Francis Halzen at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the principal investigator of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. “This may point at common sources and not be an accident.”

UW-Madison ‘Kindness Curriculum’ Nurtures Emotional Awareness In Preschoolers

Wisconsin Public Radio

UW-Madison’s Center For Healthy Minds is providing its “Kindness Curriculum” to preschool teachers. Thousands of teachers have requested the curriculum, including Sesame Workshop. The researchers at the Center For Healthy Minds consulted on kindness episodes for the 47th season of “Sesame Street” premiering Sept. 18 on Wisconsin Public Television.

Planting crops by plane; new method for area farmers

WISC-TV 3

Noted: Farms in DeForest, Waunakee, Sun Prairie and Fitchburg are participating in a project to help clean up Dane County lakes. Around nine farms are partnering with Dane County land and water resources department, UW-Extension, Yahara wins, and the natural resources conservation service.

What’s the buzz? Officials helping to strengthen bee populations in Dane County

Wisconsin State Journal

Bees aren’t necessarily welcome at picnics and outdoor events, but they are essential for pollinating crops worth millions of dollars to the Wisconsin economy. To that end, UW-Madison and UW-Extension staff in Dane County are working with the Dane County Environmental Council to increase bee education and get the most out of bee-friendly land use and development.

Fire on the mountain: 2 forests offer clues to Yellowstone’s fate in a warming world

New York Times

What will happen to the forests of Yellowstone if a changing climate means not only old forests burn, but young ones, too? That’s what (former UW graduate student) Brian Harvey and his colleague, Monica Turner, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, are here investigating. Yellowstone’s recent fires offer a rare natural experiment to see how forests regenerate after burning and reburning at short intervals.

UW lab urges hunters to test deer for CWD

Wisconsin Radio Network

The UW-Madison lab that checks deer carcasses for chronic wasting disease says new scientific research shows the importance of testing. Keith Poulsen at the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, says it would be a mistake to not get your deer tested for CWD this fall.

Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Jose: View from Space

TIME

We can now watch Irma and Jose’s stunning fury nearly in real time. Researchers and engineers at the Space and Science Engineering Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison stitched together daytime and nighttime imagery for a full, composite picture of the storms, made available to TIME.

Hawks: Renewed excavations in the Rising Star cave

Medium.com

ur team is underground this month in the Rising Star cave system, in South Africa. Project leader Lee Berger and I, along with several other team members, are doing periodic updates from the site on Twitter and Facebook, with hashtags #Homonaledi, #LesediChamber, and #DinalediChamber.

This Wisconsin floor has some powerful potential

Big Ten Network

Well, if you liked reading about this innovative source of green energy, then you might want to check out University of Wisconsin-Madison engineer Dr. Xudong Wang’s equally astonishing triboelectric nanogenerator, or TENG, technology.

Marshfield study: Kids raised on dairy farms less likely to get allergies, rashes

Wausau Daily Herald

A study of rural children in the Marshfield area suggests that kids raised on dairy farms are much less likely to suffer severe respiratory illnesses, allergies and chronic skin rashes, according to the University of Wisconsin.

Christine Seroogy, associate professor of pediatrics, and James Gern, professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, worked with researchers at the Marshfield Clinic on the study.

Next wave breeding

Isthmus

Inside the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery, Madison chef Tory Miller stands over a tiny bamboo serving boat, concentrating as he pipes a dollop of bearnaise to finish off a bite-sized dish.“Tomato,” he says, almost reverently, placing the specimen in front of a hungry dinner guest. But it’s not your standard grocery-variety (or even garden-variety) fruit — it’s from a special breeding line developed as part of UW-Madison’s Seed to Kitchen Collaborative.