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Category: Top Stories

Hurricanes are slowing down, and that’s bad news

Digital Journal

Several hurricanes appear to be moving more slowly, according to new research. This means they are spending increased time over land. This means more local rainfall and dangerous flooding.According to James Kossin, who works at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Center for Weather and Climate (University of Wisconsin–Madison), the speed at which hurricanes track along a paths is slower.

Facing UW-Madison’s Racist Past

Isthmus

Backstage at Memorial Union’s Fredric March Play Circle, members of the UW-Madison performance art collective Yoni Ki Baat were waiting to perform their annual showcase of songs, monologues and spoken-word poetry celebrating stories from women and nonbinary people of color.

UW-Madison Official: Local Communities Responsible For Own Alcohol Culture

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “The city council in Menomonie has looked at the situation downtown and decided it doesn’t fit within their morals. It’s not the standard they wish to see for their community,” said Julia Sherman, director of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project, part of the University of Wisconsin Law School. “It’s also very important for us to realize that every community in Wisconsin has the ability and authority to create its own alcohol environment.”

The Supreme Court decided not to decide Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case. But here’s why it will be back.

The Washington Post

On Monday, the Supreme Court surprised observers by deciding not to decide Gill v. Whitford, the high-profile case about partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin. Instead, the court remanded the case back to Wisconsin district court to give the plaintiffs “an opportunity” to provide better evidence about whether they had the right to bring the suit at all.

By Barry Burden and David Canon

The days are getting longer – but very, very slowly

The Guardian

As the Earth’s rotation gradually winds down, the moon moves further away. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stephen Meyers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Alberto Malinverno at Columbia University in New York calculate that over the past 1.4bn years the moon has drifted about 44,000km from Earth to a distance of 384,400km

Hurricanes Aren’t Moving as Fast as They Used to, and That’s Bad

Gizmodo

James Kossin, a scientist at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information in Madison, Wisconsin, says Harvey’s slow pace may be symptomatic of a troubling larger trend. His new paper, published today in Nature, provides evidence showing that the speed at which hurricanes move across the planet, a phenomenon known as translation speed, is slowing.

Falling short on time? Earth might have 25 hours in a day in the future

India Today

The study author of geoscience Stephen Meyers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explained the relation between Earth’s spin and the location of Moon as that of a spinning figure skater and his arms. The way skater slows down his spinning speed by stretching his arms out, the spinning speed of Earth is slowing down as the moon is distancing itself from the planet.

The Moon is causing days on Earth to get longer

Space.com

Using a new statistical method called astrochronology, astronomers peered into Earth’s deep geologic past and reconstructed the planet’s history. This work revealed that, just 1.4 billion years ago, the moon was significantly closer to Earth, which made the planet spin faster. As a result, a day on Earth lasted just over 18 hours back then, according to a statement from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How the Moon may one day give us 25-hour days

The Week UK

forgets memory cardResearchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have worked out that around 1.4 billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted 18 hours. “This is at least in part because the Moon was closer and changed the way the Earth spun around its axis,” the Daily Mirror reports.

The Moon Is Making Every Day on Earth Longer Than the Last, Study Shows

Inverse

The new study, co-authored by Stephen Meyers, Ph.D., a professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Alberto Malinverno, Ph.D., a research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, isn’t just about the moon. The researchers initially set out to find a way to accurately study the many phases that our planet has undergone since its beginning, both in terms of its geology and its place in the solar system.

The days are getting longer – but very, very slowly

The Guardian

If the day never seems long enough to get everything done, be grateful at least that times have changed. According to fresh calculations, a day on Earth was a full five hours and fifteen minutes shorter a billion or so years ago, well before complex life spread around the planet.

Moon to give us longer days

The Daily Express

Study author Professor of geoscience Stephen Meyers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out.”

Studies of space, hearing and DNA attract $1 million awards

AP

Three researchers share the neuroscience prize for studying how we hear: A. James Hudspeth of the Rockefeller University in New York, Robert Fettiplace of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Christine Petit of the College of France and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. They provided insights into how cells of the inner ear transform sound into electrical signals the brain can interpret.

CRISPR Gene-Editing Pioneers Win Kavli Prize for Nanoscience

Quanta Magazine

This year’s Kavli Prize for neuroscience was shared by James Hudspeth of the Rockefeller University, Robert Fettiplace of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Christine Petit of the Pasteur Institute in France. Hudspeth and Fettiplace made independent, complementary discoveries about how our sense of hearing arises from the conversion of vibrations of the tiny hair cells in the inner ear into nerve signals.

For love of country

Isthmus

Emmanuel Urey could not read until he was a teenager. He grew up in a tiny, impoverished and embattled village called Gormue in an isolated part of Liberia. Only when he and his family fled to Guinea to escape the civil war destroying his country did Urey finally have access to a school.

Locking the lab: Globalization raises concerns about research data security on campus

Capital Times

For the University of Wisconsin, with more than $1 billion annually in research revenue, steeped in a tradition of “sifting and winnowing” for the truth and dedicated to broadcasting its findings throughout the state and beyond, the challenge is to strike a balance between academic freedom and the realities of a connected but politically fractious world.

The 10 best cities for new grads starting out

MarketWatch.com

Madison is #1. Wisconsin’s capital has lots of young educated adults, in part because it’s home to the state’s flagship campus, the University of Wisconsin. Combined with its low unemployment rate and high percentage of workers in management, business, science or arts jobs, Madison vaults to the top. Though its median income for those 25 and older with bachelor’s degrees, $46,275, is average among other cities in the top 10, the median gross rent, $981, is relatively affordable. As a result, rent as a percentage of income, 25%, is among the lowest in the top 10, and about average for all cities in this analysis.

UW-Madison will partner with community to raise incomes of 10,000 Dane County families by 2020

Capital Times

On Wednesday afternoon, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that it was chosen as one of four universities across the nation tasked to achieve that goal, in partnership with the community, by 2020. They’re looking for creative ideas from throughout the community to build up the county’s middle class and hopefully narrow racial inequities.