“You had all these birds that were just raring to go, but they’ve been held up with this weird September and October with temperatures way above normal,” said Stan Temple, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife ecology professor and avian expert. “You had this huge pack of birds takeoff.”
A new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined the contents, organization and behavior of midbodies to gain a better understanding of what they do in the body.
“People thought the midbody was a place where things died or were recycled after cell division,” said Ahna Skop, corresponding author of the study. “But one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. A midbody is a little packet of information cells use to communicate.”
Once considered by many “the height of medical progress,” according to Jenell Johnson, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of “American Lobotomy,” the lobotomy “ought to remind us to be humble about the limits of our knowledge in the present.”
The procedure, Johnson stressed, was “a kind of brain damage” that involved separating the connection between the parts of the brain that control executive function and emotion.
Kasey Keeler is an author and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin. She is an enrolled citizen of the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians and descendant of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
Barry C. Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the latest fights over the state’s Supreme Court made clear that the line that once separated the justices from partisan politics had “completely disintegrated.”
“The kind of bare-knuckles politics that has defined the state for the last 15 years has now bled its way into every aspect of state political life, including the judicial branch,” he said.
John Gross, an associate clinical professor for the UW-Madison law school, said Pleasnick’s swift release from jail is not out of the ordinary.
“While people may be unnerved by the fact he was in the Capitol building with a firearm, it is still classified as a misdemeanor,” Gross said. “It’s not a felony offense.”
UW-Madison is home to the first collegiate glass program in the U.S. It turned 60 in 2022, and the glass program is kicking off a year-long celebration called Glass Madison, starting this month. October features six gallery shows on campus, all open to the public.
Sandra Stuttgen, a former veterinarian and current agriculture educator for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, said the new requirements are a part of the federal agency’s efforts to address how animal use of common drugs is contributing to the global problem of antibiotic resistance.
“As humans, if we have a condition where we need antibiotics, we want them to work,” she said. “They’re trying to protect the antibiotics that are of human significance, so it’s the drugs that humans and animals share.”
Amanda Gevens, potato and vegetable pathologist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, said potatoes are already generating heat heading into harvest through a process called respiration. If weather conditions raise the temperature of the tubers even further, that can make it difficult for farmers to properly cool them down for storage.
“There may not be adequate cooling air available to get control of this heat load,” Gevens said in an email. “Refrigeration is a great option to cool potatoes at harvest, although the system must have the capacity to handle the high heat load and fresh air also must be provided to purge carbon dioxide.”
Education researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have secured a federal contract to open and operate a national center to combat growing mental health concerns in K-12 schools.
David Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, said that although “there may be a handful of other (similar) cases around the country, it’s a relatively new area.”
The ruling does not set a binding precedent for other courts in Wisconsin, Schwartz said. While the ruling could be referenced in other cases, no other court is legally obligated to follow it.
Interview with Amy Williamson, associate director of the University of Wisconsin’s Collaboration on Reproductive Equity.
Michael Notaro, who lives in the area and is director of the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research at UW-Madison, said it’s important to protect the city’s urban tree cover.
“My general recommendation for city decision-making is to preserve and expand urban tree cover in Madison,” he said. “Anytime planning can be performed with minimal tree loss is a good thing.”
PJ Liesch is the director of the Insect Diagnostics Lab at UW-Madison. He said the insects leave behind a sticky sap material that can lead to the growth of bacteria and fungi.
“There are some pretty significant agricultural concerns for things like grapes, hops and fruit trees. … But on most other plants, it’s probably not going to kill them, but it can be a significant nuisance issue,” Liesch said.
Column by Barry Burden, professor of political science and the director of the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison.
This time of year, yellow jacket wasps can be a bit ornery and aggressive. PJ Liesch, manager of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab, said there’s a good reason for that.
“To put it shortly, they’re basically ‘hangry,'” he said. “They are really hungry this time of the year because they’re running low on food.”
Republicans who are skeptical about the 2020 election have argued that hand-counting ballots is the way forward. Barry Burden, a professor of political science at UW-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center, explains when hand-counting makes sense — and when it actually makes results less accurate.
UW-Madison professor of urban planning Kurt Paulsen, who studies affordable housing, agreed that Madison’s onerous residential development-approval process is a factor in Madison’s shortage of rental units and lack of affordable residential units.
“Democrats don’t have much to gain within the state by redrawing the congressional districts,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison and director of the school’s Elections Research Center, wrote in an email. “Doing that would, at most, tilt one or two more of the eight districts in the Democratic direction.”
UW-Madison law professor Rob Yablon and Derek Clinger, an attorney at UW-Madison’s State Democracy Research Initiative, have also said Protasiewicz doesn’t have to recuse herself and that impeaching her would be a “blow to the principle of judicial independence.”
UW-Madison urban planning professor Kurt Paulsen said there needs to be a remedy to both the vast income disparity and housing discrimination and segregation.
The change isn’t unprecedented and stems from a case in the 1960s, according to Michael Childers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Workers.
“What they’re basically saying now is that, if any unfair labor practice has is found to have occurred after an employer asks for an election, then they don’t need to have the election. The union will just be recognized and bargaining should commence,” he said. “That absolutely could have some impact on unions being formed in the private sector.”
Access gaps, economic adversity and school segregation in Wisconsin lead to racial disparities in educational outcomes, with efforts growing to expand learning options for diverse groups of students.
On Friday, Alliant Energy announced that they had received a $30M federal grant to build a CO2-based energy storage facility in Columbia County, Wisconsin—the first of its kind in the US, and the first ever on this scale. We talk with Mark Anderson, director of the Thermal-Hydraulics Laboratory at the UW-Madison, about what the new technology means for the future of renewable energy storage in the state and beyond.
Barry Burden is a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said the bill’s “chances are not great because there isn’t much legislation that has much likelihood of success in the Legislature today.”
Tom Owenby, the associate dean for teacher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the reading bill demonstrates a renewed commitment to supporting students across Wisconsin in being able to read proficiently, which is a goal everyone shares.
Scheufele is a professor of life sciences communication, Brossard is a professor and chair of life sciences communication, and Newman is an assistant professor of life sciences communication — all at UW-Madison.
“It’s predictability that local election officials crave,” said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden. “They want to know what the rules are, what resources they have and when the elections are happening, and then their job is to execute them. And that becomes a much more difficult job if things are changing.”
Robert Yablon is an associate professor of law and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at UW-Madison. Derek Clinger is a senior staff attorney for the initiative at UW-Madison.
Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, noted Iowa has used their model for decades and that there has never been a map that has had to be subject to amendment.
“The effort to remove Wolfe appears to be almost entirely partisan and not based on facts about her actions or authority,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Elections Research Center. “Trump supporters in particular who distrust Wolfe have blamed her for many things over which she does not actually have responsibility.”
“The best evidence that we have to date shows no deterrent effect of where gun violence happens in schools or where weapons are brought to schools… Similarly, when a shooting does happen in a school, those shootings, actually, on average have been more deadly in schools with police,” said Ben Fisher, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who recently reviewed dozens of studies on the effects of police in schools.
Ryan Owens, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin who ran for attorney general as a Republican in 2021, defended the calls for Protasiewicz’s recusal, arguing that she was too explicit about her policy views during the campaign.
“Candidates who are running for justice shouldn’t go to the levels that she did when campaigning,” he said. “In the short term, it might gain you votes, but in the long term, you put the court’s credibility at risk.”
Wisconsin job numbers reached a record high in July, at more than 3 million. However, a new report from COWS – High Road Strategy Center says beneath the bigger picture is a troubling decline of women participating in the workforce, falling below 60% for the first time since the late 1980s. Laura Dresser, associate director at COWS, dives deeper into the report’s numbers.
UW-Madison political scientist Howard Schweber said Republicans would be much less competitive in Wisconsin if the maps were redrawn.
“A threat to the gerrymander is an existential threat to their hold on power,” Schweber said.
UW Professor of Social Work Kristen Slack will hare her research into programs designed to prevent child maltreatment. She’ll discuss her work with coordinating services and benefits and detail improved strategies for preventing child neglect.
Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at UW Health, said concern about outbreaks grows when vaccination rates drop below 90%. That’s because no vaccine is 100% effective, and some people can’t get vaccines.
Quoted: Adrian Treves, a predator-prey ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who sits on Peer’s board, said no proper studies exist on whether the hunts protect livestock. Rather, more studies have been conducted on how the kills affect populations of caribou, moose, elk and other wildlife, and a 2020 meta analysis of available science found little evidence that they increase populations.
Research shows two much bigger factors in herd health are weather and habitat, Treves said, but hunts are still pushed by state game agencies because “hunter perception is a big part of it, and their attitudes are typically negative toward predators”.
Quoted: Among cats, an increase in vocalization, meaning more crying or howling — an obvious and frequently reported sign. “With cats, there is excessive vocalization and disorientation and changes in interaction with humans or other animals, such as hissing and swatting,” said Starr Cameron, clinical associate professor in small animal neurology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, who studies cat dementia. “Some cats are up all night and vocalizing. They go outside the litter box or can’t find it.”
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison population geneticist Aaron Ragsdale, who wasn’t involved in the research, says the study raises some very intriguing questions about human evolution during a time period from which both genetic and fossil data are relatively scarce. “I am eager to see if their results are replicated using other methods,” Ragsdale says.
Quoted: “The federal due process standard is viewed as setting a really high bar for recusal,” said Rob Yablon, a professor and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Quoted: The question signaled to candidates that climate change is something young conservatives take seriously, said Dominique Brossard, a professor and chair of the Department of Life Sciences Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The fact that they did ask the question at a Republican debate for the primary, that there was a young conservative on video — that already tells you that this is an issue that has made the public discourse in a way that’s not a fringe issue,” Brossard said.
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter fills us in on a state Senate public hearing this week — filled with debunked claims of 2020 election fraud — to discuss reappointing Meagan Wolfe to be administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. State Attorney General Josh Kaul has said the proceedings are illegal under Wisconsin law. Then David T. Canon, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, analyzes the situation, and this instance of the governing style of Republican legislative leaders.
Recent research from the Wisconsin Paper Council examined the often-overlooked role of the state’s paper converters in the state’s paper industry. Scott Bowe, a professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains what paper converters do and why they’re booming in Wisconsin.
As kids head back to school, we take a look at the politics of school lunch, including compensation issues among school lunch workers, parental involvement with school meals, and the role of farmers in school lunches. Interview with Jennifer Gaddis, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Society and Community Studies at UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology.
“It is really revolutionary,” said Roseanne Clark, a clinical psychologist and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s postpartum depression research treatment program.
Written by Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, distinguished professor and John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Steven Running is professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences at the University of Montana.
“The concern is, could that cause a very similar spike epidemiologically, with more spread, more hospitalizations, more death?” said Ajay Sethi, professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It doesn’t have to replicate what we saw the last time (with omicron), … but it certainly is on everybody’s mind.”
A research team at the UW-Madison is using drones to study erosion along Lake Michigan. We hear from the lead scientist about methods to track where eroded soil ends up and how the research might prevent more shoreline loss.
New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that talking through a PVC tube can alter the sound of someone’s voice enough to trick these types of systems.
Kassem Fawaz, an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, led the research. He said this type of voice identification security is becoming popular for applications like banking. So, he wanted to test its limits.
The promotion of civil discourse is one of the most urgent actions the La Follette School can take going forward.
Co-authored by Susan Webb Yackee is a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Curt S. Culver is the non-executive chairman of MGIC Investment Corp. and its principal subsidiary, Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC), the nation’s leading private mortgage insurer. He is a founding member of the La Follette School’s Board of Visitors.
Victor Jew, a University of Wisconsin–Madison senior lecturer in the Asian American Studies department, said bubble tea is a “pan-ethnic phenomenon.”
It “speaks to a key idea in Asian American studies that you have all these different communities and histories and groups — they can find common ground, which is that pan ethnicity, that decision to identify an umbrella away as Asian American.”
Richard Keller, professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said social isolation is the greatest risk factor for dying of heat stroke.
“Especially if they’re living on their own in marginal conditions without access to air conditioning and without access to a steady social network, they can often find themselves with no one to help if they find themselves in crisis,” Keller said.
“We are a nation with many resources, and yet, generic medications across the board, and things like infant formula, are resources that some of our citizens don’t have access to because we haven’t really built the policies to ensure that there would be access,” said Kari Wisinski, chief of hematology and oncology and palliative care at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Medicine.
“As a physician, I believe that these deaths are almost completely preventable,” said Bill Kinsey, a physician and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Until we determine as a society the importance of a human right for people to work in healthy situations, we are going to see continued illness and death in this population.”
“The whole thing is unusual. It’s unusual that the elections commissioners themselves would divide, three to three, on whether to reappoint the administrator,” said Barry Burden, an elections expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So there’s a kind of a legal ambiguity now that didn’t exist before. But it seems to allow Megan Wolfe to stay in her position beyond her term, something that probably wouldn’t have been possible a year ago.”
Ketamine has emerged as a therapeutic option for treatment-resistant depression and other mental health conditions. We talk to Cody Wenthur, an assistant professor at UW-Madison’s School of Pharmacy and director of the school’s new Psychoactive Pharmaceutical Investigation master’s program, about how it works and why ketamine clinics have popped up across Wisconsin.
Andrea Dutton, a professor of geology and sedimentologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is leading international research on climate change. Her work focuses on studying fossilized corals to track changes in sea level. It’s helping scientists better understand the impact of rising temperatures.
“A lot of what I do is reconstruct past sea levels during warm periods so that we can understand how high sea level gets as temperatures rise and how quickly those ice sheets retreat,” Dutton said.
A new school year is quickly approaching. We check in with Dr. Emily Ruedinger, a pediatrics expert from UW-Madison, about how to best prepare children mentally and physically.
Noted: Wisconsin is known for having tight elections. According to the UW-Madison’s Elections Research Center, the margin between two front-runners in Wisconsin is often less than 1 percent in four of the last six elections between 2000 and 2020. Only two wins, from former President Barack Obama, stood out as sizable wins for a candidate, according to the director of the research center, Barry Burden, per USA Today.
