New strategy offers roadmap to limiting opioid prescription.
UW researchers highlight new strategy for reducing opioid usage
Badger Herald
Category: Research
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.
UW-Madison researchers set to forge ahead amid Trump uncertainty
Wisconsin State Journal
UW-Madison, along with hundreds of other universities, has research contracts with the federal government, especially in the areas of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense. UW-Madison health researchers get awards from its agencies, including the medical research powerhouse National Institutes of Health.
Mass shootings correlated with alcohol sale spikes, UW research finds
Badger Herald
Study could guide researchers toward healing-accelerating conclusions, researcher says.
School cell phone bans could be coming to Wisconsin
The Capital Times
Adolescents report better moods in the short-term when using their phones compared with not using them, according to a study last year by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers. However, the U.S. Surgeon General warns social media is a major contributor to a nationwide youth mental health crisis.
UW-Madison vice chancellor addresses concerns over federal communication agency pause
WISC — CBS Channel 3
Vice Chancellor Dorota A. Grejner-Brzezinska wrote in a statement that the impact that the university’s partners remains “unclear” and are “evolving rapidly.
What will UW-Madison scientists learn from hundreds of people vaping?
The Capital Times
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched a new study this month to reveal the lasting effects vaping may have on people’s hearts and lungs.
“Although e-cigarettes have been on the U.S. market for over 15 years and used by millions of Americans, we do not really understand their long-term health effects,” said Dr. James Stein, a professor of medicine at the university.
UW School of Medicine and Public Health given $5.7 million grant to explore effects of e-cigarettes on heart, lungs
Badger Herald
Students should be vigilant of cardiopulmonary health risks associated with vaping, researcher says.
Smith: DNR study finds CWD likely is reducing deer populations in southwestern Wisconsin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Seventy-five percent of CWD-positive deer necropsied were in poor nutritional condition, according to Marie Pinkerton, clinical professor of anatomic pathology at the University of Wisconsin.
‘Rising star’: EU made more electricity from solar than coal in 2024
The Guardian
“Policy and markets in Europe have enabled renewables to drive down the shares of both coal and natural gas,” said Gregory Nemet, an energy researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
Housing Inventory Report: Madison leads Midwest, Texas leads nation
Wisconsin Public Radio
From 2005 to 2023, Madison stands out as a top performer in the Upper Midwest in addressing the housing shortage, according to a new analysis. Yet, Texas has 15 cities out-pacing the nation in housing stock growth. Kurt Paulsen, a UW-Madison urban planner, examines the report and offers takeaways.
Proposed listing aims to keep monarch numbers from fluttering away
Wisconsin Public Radio
Karen Oberhauser, professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been studying monarchs since 1985. She noted the number of monarch butterflies varies widely from year to year driven mostly by weather conditions that have become more extreme due to climate change.
“What we want to do is make the ceiling, or the top of those fluctuations, higher than it has been,” Oberhauser said. “Right now, the population is so low that there’s a chance that, in any given year, a catastrophic event could send monarchs spiraling to a point from which they might not be able to recover.”
UW-Madison researchers identify oldest dinosaur in northern hemisphere
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Back in summer 2013, paleontologist Dave Lovelace took some University of Wisconsin-Madison students on a dig in Wyoming. There, they found an ankle bone in an area where fossils typically aren’t found.
The perfect storm: why did LA’s wildfires explode out of control?
The Guardian
Since 1990, more than 1.4m new housing units in California have been built in wildlife-urban interface areas, which have a higher fire risk, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As of 2020, they found, there were more than 5m housing units in these areas across the state. In Los Angeles, a real estate data company identified nearly 250,000 homes “with a moderate or greater wildfire risk”, according to a 2024 report.
How does alcohol cause cancer?
Live Science
“Both ethanol and acetaldehyde are carcinogenic and when they touch the lining of the mouth, throat or esophagus, that can cause cancer,” Dr. Noelle LoConte, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told Live Science in an email. Like ethanol, acetaldehyde can also disrupt DNA methylation.
Pet monkey jumps through drive-thru window and attacks Starbucks worker, AL cops say
Miami Herald
Aotus monkeys, a genus of nocturnal monkeys, are native to Central and South America, according to the University of Wisconsin’s National Primate Research Center.
Paleontologists discover new species of dinosaur in Wyoming
Men's Journal
Dinosaur fossils discovered by paleontologists working with the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been determined to be the oldest-known fossils, presenting evidence that the species was in existence millions of years before previously thought.
Rocks, crops and climate
Scientific American
For enhanced rock weather (ERW) to have a large impact by 2050, it will need to expand quickly, says Gregory Nemet, an energy scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Last May he and his colleagues published a study analyzing the combined potential of novel CO2 removal methods such as ERW, direct air-capture machines and the use of biofuels with CO2 captured from smokestacks. Between now and 2050 these methods need to grow “by something like 40 percent per year, every year,” Nemet says.
How California’s wildfires could lead to higher insurance costs for the rest of the country
Barron's
Expect more increases ahead. “If you are thinking about housing expenses, you probably shouldn’t rely on historical data on premiums and don’t assume that this is a high point that will be a flash in the pan,” says one of the paper’s authors, Philip Mulder, a University of Wisconsin professor of risk and insurance.
‘They would have been small, it would have been very cute’: UW-Madison researchers discover newest, oldest dinosaur in northern hemisphere
WISC — CBS Channel 3
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a completely new dinosaur in Wyoming, the oldest in the Northern Hemisphere. “I say: ‘I have a dinosaur,’ and people are very underwhelmed when I’m like, ‘and here it is!’,” Dave Lovelace said, taking the rock-sized ankle bone out of a box. “It’s one of the most important bones, probably that I’ll have ever found in my career.”
More Americans than ever are living in wildfire areas. L.A. is no exception.
The New York Times
Between 1990 and 2020, the number of homes in fire-prone parts of California grew by 40 percent, according to research led by Volker Radeloff, a professor of forest ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. By contrast, the number of homes in less-flammable areas — such as downtowns — only grew by 23 percent.
Climate change, high winds, extreme dry conditions the real reasons for Los Angeles fires
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
About one third of all houses live within a mile-and-a-half of a forest, grassland or another ecosystem, said Volker Radeloff, a professor at UW-Madison who investigates wildfire risk. Scientists call this zone the wildland-urban interface. Researchers at UW-Madison, along with Radeloff, have been tracking this population movement towards natural spaces.
After three collapsed mergers, Sanford CEO shares why fourth time’s a charm
Newsweek
Multiple health systems have abandoned merger and acquisition plans in recent years following FTC interference—but only about 1 percent of hospital mergers are flagged by the government agency, according to an April 2024 study from the University of Chicago, Harvard University, Yale University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That study—and others—associated health system mergers with rising costs amidst dampened competition.