Written by Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Melissa Kono is a community development educator in Clark and Trempealeau counties for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension.
She said farmers use plastic sheeting to protect hay and silage from the elements in order to feed their livestock all winter. Some forms of these plastics include top covers for silage bunkers — think white tarp covering mounds of silage with tires holding the tarp down — long bags that hold long, skinny rows of silage and wrap for individual hay bales.
“Their other option for silage would be a silo and those are very costly to construct,” Kono said. “Having a silage pile makes it easier to access, especially if farmers don’t have a lot of space, or makes it more accessible to feeding animals, which helps cut down on time and cost. I just think because farmers are stretched so very thin these days, having plastics to use has probably made it more economical.”
Plants already pull significant weight in removing carbon dioxide from the air, but a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows there’s potential for plants to capture more.
The study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, also shows the potential to increase the amount of aromatic compounds — or the building blocks for certain biofuels and medicines — produced by plants.
Quoted: To Sanjay Limaye, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the landing itself was “astounding.”
With a newly-minted astronomy doctorate at the time, Creighton recalled a general feeling of relief. “We’re going to be able to move forward; the road has been set,” she said.
Quoted: “I view it as an incompetent circus from someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing. But I think it’s had real effects,” said Barry Burden, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center.
Those upstream emissions largely negate any climate benefit, said Morgan Edwards, an assistant professor of public affairs at UW-Madison who studies the impacts of energy use.
“We need to dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels across the board to address the scale of the climate crisis,” Edwards said.
Quoted: “The investigation has become a morass of competing lawsuits back and forth between different parties in the state and outside the state,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And those legal debates have sort of overtaken the substance of the investigation itself.”
Quoted: “Most people on the street would say when a term … expires, there’s an opening. The Supreme Court has said that commonsense understanding is not right,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said. The ruling “raises the question of why is there a term at all? Maybe we just say a person serves for life the way a U.S. Supreme Court justice does.”
Interview with Sara McKinnon, assistant professor of Communication Arts at UW-Madison.
Molly Wecker, a second-year medical student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had long planned to be an obstetrics-gynecology doctor in her home state. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling last week, the Rock County native is rethinking her plan.
Quoted: That is a concern shared among some health professionals, according to UW-Madison expert Jenny Higgins.
“We will see increases in maternal morbidity and mortality due to people being forced to carry to full term. We also know that compared to people who receive desired abortions, people who are denied abortions are more likely to stay in abusive relationships,” Higgins said.
It’s been more than a week since COVID-19 vaccinations were approved for kids ages 6 months to 5 years old, but some hospitals are still waiting to schedule appointments. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services is urging parents to be patient as vaccinators get up to speed on new guidelines.
Quoted: “I hadn’t heard much about the ban until quite recently,” said Jenny Higgins, a professor of gender and women’s studies and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “Folks didn’t really believe that overturning Roe was possible, or palatable, until recently.”
Quoted: “Life as we know it is as much an expression of the conditions on our planet as it is of life itself. We resurrected ancient DNA sequences of one molecule, and it allowed us to link to the biology and environment of the past,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison astrobiologist and study lead Betul Kacar.
The Jewish family can be considered the core of Jewish identity. At a four-day event, attendees can develop a rich understanding about the history and function of family in a Jewish context, according to organizers.
“In many ways, the Jewish story is a family story,” said Cara Rock-Singer, co-chair of the Greenfield Institute Committee. “There are so many different formations and meanings of family related to issues about how families function and work to produce and reproduce Jewish life.”
The 22nd annual Greenfield Summer Institute, which is part of the George L. Mosse and Laurence A. Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be held July 11-14, 2022, featuring the theme of “The Jewish Family across Time and Place.”
Quoted: Jenny Higgins, a professor and director of the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said their research has also shown an increase in birth rates in Wisconsin in recent years due to abortion clinic closures. Higgins said Wisconsin’s abortion ban will have devastating impacts on people’s health and wellbeing in Wisconsin.
“Either people will travel out of state to get abortion care in Illinois and Minnesota, for example, which will take significant time, money and logistical resources,” said Higgins. “Some people will self-manage their abortions here in Wisconsin … and then, of course, some people will not be able to access abortion care at all.”
Pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. James Conway comments on the new COVID-19 vaccines for children ages six months to five years.
Tiffany Green, a professor of health sciences, obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joins Live at Four to talk about what the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case means for Wisconsin.
Quoted: Wisconsin’s abortion ban makes the procedure illegal unless deemed medically necessary to save a patient’s life.
Abby Cutler, an OB-GYN on faculty at UW Health said that definition is impossible to pin down.
“Knowing when that line is, when does a patient, when does a mother or a future mother become sick enough or is in enough danger to require life-saving treatment immediately,” Cutler told Wisconsin Public Radio. “I think that’s a really difficult line. There is no line, really.”
Noted: Dr. Soyeon Shim assumed her current position as the Dean of the School of Human Ecology (SoHE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012. She has led SoHE’s All Ways Forward campaign and exceeded its campaign goal by 150% by raising $72 million, including 13 endowed chairs and professorships, a deanship, and 10 new graduate fellowship endowments. Dr. Shim’s scholarly research focuses on consumer decision-making and has won competitive grants totaling more than $1.5 million from federal agencies and private foundations. Dr. Shim has received numerous teaching, research, development, and leadership awards, both at the university and state/national level.
Quoted: Donated milk is a safe and nutritious formula alternative for families who aren’t able to supply their own milk, according to Dr. Anne Eglash, a clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eglash has long been a proponent of breastfeeding through her medical practice at UW Health, where she leads the healthcare system’s lactation clinic.
“We know that in the short-term, using donor milk for premature infants is a game-changer,” Eglash said. Donor milk helps stave off a type of gut inflammation that commonly affects infants born prematurely called necrotizing enterocolitis. The condition can lead to tissue death, forcing doctors to remove a large part of the baby’s intestinal tract.
“That has a huge impact on growth and development,” Eglash said, adding that when mother’s milk is unavailable, donor milk can also play a role in preventing other negative outcomes common among premature infants, including eye and lung disease and sepsis.
UW-Madison Professor of Wildlife Ecology Tim Van Deelen weighed in on what to do if you see a black bear. Likewise, he offered an opinion on whether the sightings were unusual for the region.
“Yes and no,” Van Deelen said. “The majority of the bear population is at the northern half of the state. Just like teenagers, young bears set out on their own.”
Quoted: Peter Carstensen, an emeritus law professor at the University of Wisconsin, said he was skeptical that the drivers would get traction with their claims that Uber and Lyft were illegally setting the price drivers could charge.
But Mr. Carstensen said a state judge might rule in the plaintiffs’ favor on other so-called vertical restraints, such as the incentives that help tie drivers to one of the platforms by, for example, guaranteeing them at least $1,000 if they complete 70 rides between Monday and Friday. A judge may conclude that these incentives largely exist to reduce competition between Uber and Lyft, he said, because they make drivers less likely to switch platforms and make it harder for a new gig platform to hire away drivers.
“You’re making it extremely difficult for a third party to come in,” Mr. Carstensen said.
Noted: Evidence about whether 48-hour waiting periods on gun purchases can reduce overall violence is mixed, as laid out in a Feb. 2, 2022 fact-check from PolitiFact Wisconsin examining a state Democratic lawmaker’s claim about a similar issue.
But recent studies have found a correlation between waiting periods and a reduction in suicide deaths specifically, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor John Gross told us.
Written by Ryan Owens, the George C. and Carmella P. Edwards professor of American politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Clean Lakes Alliance has been monitoring the Madison-area lakes for cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in an effort to provide season-ahead algal bloom forecasting. Blue-green algae was responsible for at least eight of the 22 beach closures last summer. Beaches have been closed by the public health department in recent weeks due to high bacteria readings, though all are open now.
Dr. Paul Block, an associate professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at UW-Madison, has been conducting research to gauge the predictability of Lake Mendota’s water quality and hopes to apply his research to other area lakes as well. His research is the basis for the algal bloom forecast in the lakes of Madison.
Quoted: Ron Kean is a poultry specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension. He said the influenza virus has historically died down in summer months, so bird enthusiasts are cautiously optimistic about the rest of the summer.
“We’re hopeful that we’re through this at least for now,” he said. “Especially a lot of the small producers, exhibition breeders, things like that, I think are quite excited to be able to go back to having shows.”
To human eyes, the night sky between the stars appears dark, the void of space. But X-ray telescopes capture a profoundly different view. Like a distant fireworks show, our images of the X-ray sky reveal a universe blooming with activity. They hint at yet unknown cosmic eruptions coming from somewhere deeper into our galaxy.
To help find the source of these mysterious X-rays, University of Wisconsin, Madison astronomer Dan McCammon and his team are launching the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter or XQC instrument. XQC will make its seventh trip to space aboard a NASA suborbital rocket. This time, XQC will observe a patch of X-ray light with 50 times better energy resolution than ever before, key to revealing its source. The launch window opens at Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre in Northern Territory, Australia, on June 26, 2022.
Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, said short of a natural disaster or technological failures, governors wouldn’t have good reasons to hesitate to certify an election.
“It’s worrisome,” Burden said of the candidates’ reluctance to promise to certify presidential elections. “Short of natural disaster or a calamity it’s hard to imagine any good reason for a governor not to simply go along and they should be proud to go along.”
“It’s a ceremonial role they get to have. It’s unique to that office, and governors all around the country are signing off on these certificates of ascertainment and sending them on to the National Archives for the electoral counts to happen in Congress. So there ought to be pomp and circumstance but no real discretion.”
Quoted: “Extended drought can lead to the total collapse of the photosynthetic machinery and it can take long time for the plants to rebuild their roots and internal mechanisms,” Vijai Pandian, a horticulture educator at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension, told Newsweek.
“This can cause long term impacts … and the drought effect symptoms often continue for [the] next few years,” he said.
Here’s what guests on the June 17, 2022 episode said about assessing firearm risk for patients with mental health needs, adverse effects of exposure to PFAS, the high risk of energy emergencies in the Midwest grid, and demand for human milk during the baby formula shortage.
Quoted: Heat-related deaths are often underreported, said Jonathan Patz, the Vilas Distinguished Professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“A lot of times you don’t see the underlying issue being heat, so it’s underreported,” Patz said. “A recent re-analysis of heat deaths in the United States finds that about 12,000 Americans die every year from heat waves.”
“When there’s a lot of humidity in the air, that daytime heating doesn’t dissipate at night as easily,” said Steve Vavrus, a senior scientist with the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research at UW-Madison. “It’s like putting a heavier blanket on us at night, and so we can’t cool off. That’s when we get into these somewhat dangerous conditions at times during heat waves.”
Quoted: Miscarriage management or removal of an ectopic pregnancy shouldn’t fall within even the strictest interpretation of the 1849 law, said University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Miriam Seifter. Still, she said that gray area could create a “chilling effect” on patients or doctors involved in care that could be construed as an abortion.
“It’s understandable that a lot of people would feel like they needed to proceed with caution and would be concerned about potential ramifications in a legal landscape that really hasn’t been clarified yet,” she said.
Wisconsin’s abortion laws are a “tangled set of provisions,” Seifter said, with a number of “outstanding legal questions about how to make sense of them.” She expects there will be ongoing debate about the state of legal abortion if Roe v. Wade is struck down.
People with metabolic disorders who require formula to ensure adequate nutrition are among those dealing with a months long shortage — the Waisman Center at UW-Madison is seeking to help source alternatives, even as such options can be stressful.
We see the term schizophrenia often, but what does a schizophrenia sufferer experience, and how can non-sufferers recognize the symptoms? UW-Madison Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry Diane C. Gooding will lead us through the complexities of a disorder that affects millions of people worldwide.
Noted: Adam Stevenson, clinical professor, director of the Frank J. Remington Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School, noted that people may confuse parole with what is now often called early release. The truth-in-sentencing law provided a sort of “clarity” to sentences, he explains, separating them into a clearly designated periods of time incarcerated and time under community supervision. For example, someone convicted of a felony might spend 10 years behind bars followed by five years on extended supervision. Parole, on the other hand, acts as a sort of floating date within the imposed sentence.
“A person who is on parole is out in the community in a similar fashion to a person who’s out on supervised release, or extended supervision,” Stevenson says. “There are different processes or different things that may apply if they do something wrong, or if something happens, but it’s a very similar type of situation. That is, they’re just following different rules and under supervision out in the community.”
Something was wrong with the foxes. That was what callers to the Dane County Humane Society in Wisconsin kept saying in April, as they reported fox kits, or young foxes, behaving in strange ways: shaking, seizing or struggling to stand. The kits, which were often lethargic and wandering by themselves, also seemed unusually easy to approach, showing little fear of humans.
Quoted: “Time is really of the essence here,” said Justin Boutilier, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Survival from cardiac arrest decreases by between 7 to 15% for every minute that you go without treatment.”
Boutilier describes obstacles to emergency response —such as traffic or difficult-to-reach rural locations — as “the perfect storm.” He has been designing a prototype drone that takes off as soon as someone calls 911.
“This is sort of like a perfect storm for a drone-based delivery system,” he said. “They’re able to, you know, remove the issues caused by traffic and things like that. So they’re able to get these devices there much quicker than an ambulance could.”
Quoted: “It is conspiracist thinking,” Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told PolitiFact. “They are interpreting data that confirms their preexisting conclusions. It’s a zombie claim; no matter how many times you kill it, it keeps coming back.”
Co-authored by Tova Walsh, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network and Alvin Thomas, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.
UW-Madison political science professor Kathy Cramer said candidates campaigning on codifying Roe — after the U.S. Senate failed in its latest effort to do so — won’t turn out many people who typically don’t vote. “People are pretty firmly on their side of the partisan fence, and the very few people still in the middle are unlikely to be moved by this issue,” she said. “The major factor will be turnout, and I just don’t think this issue is all that mobilizing for people who are not already dead set on voting.”
The “extraordinary heat” and humidity will stick around Tuesday and into most of Wednesday, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison atmospheric and oceanic sciences professor Jonathan Martin, but will only alleviate after a second round of storms late Wednesday night.
Quoted: While there is no strict definition of a supermoon, explained Jim Lattis, director of UW Space Place, it is a special astrophysical case that occurs within 24 hours of when a full moon is at perigee. In other words, the moon within a day of being at its fullest, and at a point in its path that is closest to Earth.
“The closest approach is going to happen roughly every 27 days. And a full moon happens every 29½ days,” said Jennifer Stafford, an astronomy graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So it’s not every month that we’re going to have a supermoon.”
There’s much to be said about Thursday’s January 6 committee hearings, and there will be more to be said following the hearings’ full sequence. But speaking as a historian, let me for now say this: Americans need to understand that what the terrorists at the Capitol did that day wasn’t the anomaly people think it was within the long history of the United States. The almost entirely white mob storming the halls of Congress operated squarely within a tradition of white mob terrorism that has deeply shaped specific parts of the country, and the whole of the nation itself.
Simon Balto is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
As temperatures rise and the seasonal migration of wild birds comes to a close, this year’s transmission of the avian influenza may be nearing its end, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
At UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, a vaccine for avian influenza is currently in the works to prepare for future outbreaks. Poulsen, however, said it may be difficult to vaccinate millions of birds and could potentially affect international trade.
Quoted: Bob Cropp, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said high demand for milk is what drove prices up in 2014. But he said this year’s record prices are due to farmers cutting back on production.
“Milk production for several months, starting actually the last quarter of last year, has been running below a year ago,” Cropp said. “Cow numbers have declined and production per cow has been below normal, so we have resulted in a tightness of the supply-demand situation.”
Quoted: Hart Posen is an expert on business strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business. He said he was surprised to see Kohl’s move forward with Franchise Group, Inc. because the holding company runs such a different set of retail businesses.
“There are two reasons one firm acquires another firm. One reason is they believe that the firm’s assets are undervalued, they think they’re getting a good deal on it,” Posen said. “More often than not what we would like to see in these situations is what we would call a strategic buyer — a buyer that brings specific assets or knowledge or expertise to bear — that we believe may add value within Kohl’s. And it’s not at all clear to me that this buyer is a strategic buyer in that sense.”
Quoted: “There’s this idea that whatever a patient wants, they should get,” says Pilar Ossorio, a bioethics law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and a scholar in ethics at the Morgridge Institute for Research.
Quoted: “When even a little bit of support is provided, or attention is provided, that there is such a backlash is a reminder to us of what trans and gender-diverse kids are facing every day in this country,” said LB Klein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in Title IX and LGBTQ+ health. “Folks are acting out in violence about basic names, pronouns and terms, and that’s politicized — trans and gender-diverse kids are not being political, they’re being politicized.”
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Collaborative for Reproductive Equity (CORE) says Wisconsin already restricts many aspects of abortion, including banning government-funded insurance coverage, limiting availability through family planning programs, requiring mandatory counseling, ultrasounds and waiting periods for medication and surgical abortions and gestational limits, among other restrictions.
“None of these restrictions are evidence-based,” says CORE director Jenny Higgins.”There’s no medical reason for any of these restrictions. So just on that alone, these restrictions should be seen as onerous.”
Quoted: According to UW associate law professor Miriam Seifter, the judges found a right to privacy based on precedents dating back to the late 19th century. The opinion concludes that the “mother’s interests are superior to that of an unquickened embryo,” regardless of whether that embryo is “mere protoplasm,” in the view of the physician, or “a human being,” in the view of the Wisconsin statute.
“Their policy differences are not great,” UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said. “They’re pretty much on the same page. If they got to office, their votes in the Senate would be pretty similar.”
According to UW associate law professor Miriam Seifter, the judges found a right to privacy based on precedents dating back to the late 19th century. But the impact of that decision is complicated, Seifter said. As a federal district court decision, it’s “not formally binding.” Instead, it serves as “persuasive authority” — and may seem less persuasive depending on the Supreme Court’s eventual ruling in Dobbs.
Quoted: “The Turnaway Study is brilliant,” said Jenny Higgins, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s an incredibly strong source of evidence and the study design is so fantastic.”
Inflation is a “sustained increase in the growth rate of the general price level,” Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics at UW-Madison, said in an email.
Quoted: Keith Findley, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that probable cause is a “relatively low evidentiary threshold.”
“Most prosecutors, even if there’s probable cause, will tell you they won’t prosecute unless they believe they have sufficient evidence that they could persuade a jury of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Findley said.
Quoted: Rob Yablon, University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and redistricting expert, disputes that.
“Even at that late stage, I do think it’s an exaggeration to say that there weren’t any other options that were available,” he said.
Yablon said the state Supreme Court could have taken more evidence or reconfigured the Milwaukee districts. They also could have drawn a whole new map. These are things courts do, Yablon said.
Quoted: “It is shocking that Wisconsin has the third-highest racial disparity in the country for
exposure to particulate matter, disproportionately killing black residents,” said Dr. Claire Gervais, a clinical associate professor with the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
“Doctors can only do so much. We must have better public policy to reduce industrial and transportation sources of fossil fuel burning,” Gervais said.
Quoted: Dr. Megan Moreno, a professor of pediatrics at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health and study lead, said their findings show just how important parents are when it comes to teens and technology.
“Parents serve as such role models, and I think that when kids are young, the role-modeling includes a lot of instruction and talking; and I think when teens are older, parents teach more through their own behavior than through their own words,” she said.
Anna Pidgeon, an avian ecologist and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, said the aggressive behavior is normal during the warmer months, calling it the “red-winged blackbird annual saga.”
