Earth’s vegetation is changing as quickly now as it changed at the end of the ice age 10 to 15 thousand years ago according to research in part out of the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has joined an international effort to create a pandemic prevention institute aimed at helping researchers, public health officials and governments respond quickly to future pandemics.
Mary Thurber, clinical instructor in zoological medicine at UW-Madison and Vilas’ primary veterinarian, said zookeepers continue to take precautions around animals potentially at risk of contracting COVID-19, including wearing facemasks.
Quoted: In many states, the basic requirements for becoming a police officer are lower than they are for other professions, according to Jirs Meuris, assistant professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin’s school of business.
“You need 1,500 [hours of training] to become a barber, on average — you need years of trade school to become a plumber or electrician,” he said.
Quoted: “It could radically change the meaning of the text,” Prof. Howard Schweber from UW-Madison’s political science department said. Unless the legislature could overturn the partial veto with an unlikely two-thirds majority vote, that would be the law.
Quoted: A legal expert who spoke with FOX6 News said he understands why the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made the ruling it did.
“The victim here can’t force the prosecutor to prosecute,” said Ion Meyn, an assistant law professor at UW-Madison.
Meyn also said he disagrees with former Castor’s decision to not bring charges against Cosby in 2005.
“So at that time, she wanted to move forward when the evidence was as fresh as possible, to go through with the civil litigation. That makes sense,” Meyn said.
Quoted: “Pocan has been is kind of taken up the mantle that Baldwin had kind of started in the House,” said Dave Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And he’s been really active in the Equality Caucus in the House and played a key role in helping get that passed through the House.”
The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health is recruiting volunteers for a Phase 3 clinical trial of a treatment aimed at stopping Alzheimer’s disease even before the first symptoms of memory loss.
Noted: Zoo veterinarians injected the bonobo in the hip with medication to render him unconscious. Then, Schroeder and a colleague, Kyle Bartholomew, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, injected Qasai with two additional medications, Lidocaine and Propofol.
Quoted: The Maricopa County review “does not meet the standards of a proper election recount or audit,” said an evaluation of the ballot review by Trey Grayson, former Republican Kentucky secretary of state, and Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.
Quoted: While it may seem there are more of the pesky biters this year, it’s not clear if the number of ticks is higher this year than other years, said PJ Leisch, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison insect diagnostic lab.
“It’s my overall impression that it’s rather variable depending on where you are in Wisconsin,” he said. “In some areas, ticks are having a good year, in other spots, it’s typical levels.”
Quoted: “I think it’s clear it’s a contributing factor. What we don’t know is how large,” said Noah Williams, director at the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy at UW-Madison. “It is the one piece which is most amenable to policy change.”
“That doesn’t gain us anything on the deficit that we had accumulated, but these plants need it now,” UW-Madison’s agronomy professor Christopher Kucharik said. “This was actually a really good stretch for them.”
Quoted: “It’s more contagious than the viruses that have come before, and it’s a little bit slippery so immune responses don’t work quite as well against it,” said Dave O’Connor, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s very rare to find a fossil like this, with a face in good condition. You dream of finding this stuff.”
JOHN HAWKS, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, speaking about the discovery of a massive skull that is at least 140,000 years old. Scientists said it could be a new species of ancient human.
Quoted: It’s the worst drought in nearly a decade according to Jerry Clark, Agriculture Agent for Division of Extension, UW-Madison, Chippewa County.
“I think the rain we received over the last week has alleviated some of the drought stress and the crop are small enough yet especially for corn and soybeans that if this drought occurs in another month where we get high temperatures and start to run out of moisture, that is when we will definitely start to see the hit on the yield side locally,” Clark said.
Gloria Ladson Billings, UW Madison School of Education professor emerita and early critical race theory researcher, speaks to its origins alongside UW La Follette School professor emeritus John Witte.
Quoted: “While it is too early to determine the cause, it is definitely not too early to worry about how building and other infrastructure will be impacted as the flooding from sea-level rise worsens, and whether there is a plan to modify and sustain these buildings or whether they should ultimately be abandoned and removed,” Andrea Dutton, a geoscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and former associate professor of geology at the University of Florida, wrote in an email.
Quoted: Zeroing in on individual concerns such as these is exactly what it will take to have any hope for change, explains Dietram Scheufele, a professor of science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Misinformation About Science in the Public Sphere,” published this spring by the National Academy of Sciences.
Research shows that we must reach people where they are at in terms of gut-level beliefs and first acknowledge their fears rather than preach science, Scheufele says. And having a trusted messenger is key to leading the way toward bringing people back to reality and on that path toward making good choices.
Quoted: “We were very surprised,” says Timothy Gómez, professor of neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the new study. “We were expecting this to be all mTOR.”
Quoted: “With the polarization of our politics, there are fewer states in which you have truly competitive elections at the state level,” said political scientist David Canon, a congressional scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And we’re also seeing a tighter connection between presidential results and Senate results.”
Noted: In a study commissioned by the Asian Development Bank in 1999, British engineering consultancy Sir William Halcrow & Partners Ltd called the then-proposed Lower Sesan 2 dam “unattractive” due to its marginal financial viability. The study also expressed concerns about the “extremely heavy environmental and social impacts”, in the words of Ian Baird of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Written by Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else.”
Quoted: Christelle Guédot is an associate professor of entomology at UW-Madison. She says establishing more habitat for pollinators could help them out.
“So having more habitats for them, and more connectivity between those habitats, and not have, like, islands of habitat for pollinators, would really help in bringing those populations – not necessarily back to where they were, but improving in their abundance and diversity,” says Guédot.
Quoted: “The FCC target for these is 25mpbs, which is sufficient for most applications. However, we are far from that in most places,” UW-Madison computer science professor Paul Barford says. “And, it’s not just about up/down speeds, it’s also about where there is still zero connectivity and about the reliability of connectivity in deployed areas. Many things must be considered.”
She was studying athletic training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when she met the athlete who would change the trajectory of her career.
Now a 34-year-old assistant professor at UW-Madison’s Department of Kinesiology, Mosinee native Julie Stamm was an undergraduate then, in the midst of the clinical portion of her studies — working with a high school football team, getting hands-on training in treating athletic injuries.
“We had a lot of concussions that fall, probably seven or eight just in preseason camp,” Stamm said.
Quoted: It’s intriguing that stone tools usually associated with H. sapiens were found with such distinctive-looking fossils, says paleoanthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who did not participate in the new research. “That’s not a smoking gun proving there were close interactions between Nesher Ramla Homo and Homo sapiens, but it’s very suggestive.”
Quoted: “Even though it has been politicized in the last year, I think people generally recognize that if you put a physical barrier between you and someone else, then there’s a lower risk of spreading germs in a community,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and associate professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: This suggests that butterflies as far north as Scandinavia are affected by habitat in countries like Chad and Nigeria. “It’s brilliant, really,” said Karen Oberhauser, a monarch expert and professor of entomology at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who was not involved in the study. “Until you know this, you’d never think that, ‘Wow, what’s going on so far away could have an impact.”
Quoted: Prof John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the idea of a new lineage of humans was “a provocative claim”, because skulls can look similar even among distant relatives. The skull being Denisovan was a good hypothesis, he added, though he was less keen on a new species name. “I think it’s a bad moment in science to be naming new species among these large-brained humans that all interbred with each other,” he said. “What we are repeatedly finding is that the differences in looks didn’t mean much to these ancient people when it comes to breeding.”
Quoted: “It’s a beautiful thing,” said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s very rare to find a fossil like this, with a face in good condition. You dream of finding this stuff.”
Quoted: John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison agrees. “My opinion is that… this is more than likely Denisovan.”
Noted: Regardless of the specific cause of your hamster’s hair loss, your veterinarian will be your best ally in coming up with a strategy to tackle the problem. Christoph Mans, DVM, a clinical associate professor of zoological medicine at the University of Wisconsin, said that in some cases deep skin scrapes are necessary for a diagnosis. Finding the cause can be important in case there’s a serious health problem at play.
Deb Fitzgerald sits down with Steve Vavrus, Sr. Scientist at the Nelson Institute at UW-Madison, to talk about climate change and what’s in store for Wisconsin in general and Door County’s specifically. They also discussed what’s causing climate change, and some ways people can change their behaviors to reduce their carbon footprints.
Noted: The law Motley is using — Wisconsin statute 968.02 — is similar to a John Doe proceeding, but it is technically not the same thing, according to Keith Findley, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Findley said the law is essentially used as a check on the court system. Findley also said statute 968.02 means a judge has more discretion when it comes to filing charges. Under 968.02 a judge “may” file charges if they find probable cause.
Quoted: The state’s field crops are in fairly good condition, but are behind schedule considering the early planting accomplished by farmers this spring, said Shawn Conley, a soybean and small grains specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension.
“In southern Wisconsin and even northern Wisconsin, it was a record planting time frame this spring,” Conley said. “I had a lot of farmers in southern Wisconsin have all of their crops in by May 1. I talked to a farmer of 40 years and that’s never happened.”
Quoted: One interpretation of that data, said economist Noah Williams of the conservative Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is that “fraud detection basically dropped to near zero” in 2020.
“We had a huge explosion in claims in 2020, but the actual cases in the state that were referred for fraud fell,” Williams said. “We don’t know how big the problem is, but … I wouldn’t have expected the absolute number of cases to fall.”
Quoted: “It compounds on itself,” said Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “When you’re dry, you get warm. When you’re excessively warm, you tend to build and strengthen the anticyclone, which encourages continuation of clear skies, which in turn encourages a lack of precipitation, which makes it drier, which makes the incoming solar radiation more able to heat the ground.”
Quoted: Doug McLeod, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said conflict can indeed be threatening, especially to smaller cities, and that the national attention that Wausau is receiving would “disappear into everything else” in a city like New York or Chicago.
“(Conflicts) can be more divisive, they can raise tensions in smaller communities,” said McLeod, who studies social conflicts and the mass media. “Those communities might look for scapegoats to place blame, (and) it’s often the person coming in from outside — like a journalist from New York.”
Quoted: “The spotter sensor is a basketball-sized, solar-powered yellow buoy that will be anchored,” said Chin Wu, a lead researcher from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The GPS drifter tracker looks rather like a red post floating upright in the water. It will be drifting with the current. We’d appreciate it if the public would allow the equipment to operate.”
Quoted: “Previous evidence has shown that sleep may influence the development or progression of Alzheimer’s disease in various ways,” Barbara B. Bendlin, PhD, the study’s author from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said in a statement. “For example, disrupted sleep or lack of sleep may lead to amyloid plaque buildup because the brain’s clearance system kicks into action during sleep. Our study looked not only for amyloid but for other biological markers in the spinal fluid as well.”
Quoted: “It’s really a litmus test for a world view right now,” said Christine Whelan, clinical professor at University of Wisconsin’s School of Human Ecology. “If you have been vaccinated, you trust in the science. You have sort of a proactive approach and you believe in public health and research.”
Quoted: “Mind you, it’s a difficult thing to do, and to do well,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at UW-Madison.
Stephenson said farmers often make about $20 per hundredweight (cwt) for milk. By selling the cheese instead of the milk, they can get somewhere closer to $100 cwt for their milk.
“Sure, there are additional costs along the way, but potentially the income stream is bigger,” Stephenson said. “But there are a lot of ways it can go wrong.”
Gloria Ladson-Billings, a UW-Madison education professor emeritus and one of the first scholars to introduce the idea in the 1990s, said Republican rhetoric purposely twists the intent of critical race theory, which does not argue that one race is superior to another but that white privilege perpetuates inequities. “This particular movement at the legislative level is a red herring, a way to gin up fear,” Ladson-Billings told the State Journal in an interview. “It’s a political move, a way to rally the troops.”
Noted: Comments from Kurt Paulsen, Kris Olds and Paige Glotzer.
Noted: John Hawks is an expert in paleoanthropology, genetics, and evolution. He is also professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Keith Findley co-founded the Wisconsin Innocence Project, and was the co-director for years. Now he teaches on criminal law, evidence and wrongful convictions at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“One of the things that innocence advocates have noticed over the years is that not always, but sometimes, prosecutors, when confronted with very powerful evidence of innocence, go to great lengths to try to preserve the convictions,” Findley said. “Including making plea offers that are essentially so good that it’s hard to turn them down, even for an innocent individual.”
Quoted: Amaya Atucha is a fruit crop specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension. She said the hot and dry conditions over the last few weeks have put stress on everything from strawberry plants to apple orchards.
“Plants in general use water mostly to be able to control temperature. So the warmer it gets, the more water they need to be able to cool down,” Atucha explained.
Cole Lubinski manages the UW-Extension’s Langlade Research Station, which supports the state’s potato industry. He said his area has gotten enough moisture so far this year, but farms in the Central Sands have had irrigation systems running around the clock.
“Vegetable crops, they’re considered a high-moisture crop, so it’s very crucial to keep proper soil moisture levels,” Lubinski said. “When you have weeks like last week where there was a lot of heat and you get put on electrical (peak) control, where you can’t run your system if it’s run by electric, then you’re going hours without water for your crop.”
Quoted: Simone Schweber, Goodman professor of Education and Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said such comparisons are not rare — likely because there are few events that trigger such universal agreement.
“The Holocaust is still, and deservedly so, a very powerful moral paradigm, and it may be one of the few large-scale events that we all agree, on the political spectrum, that it’s awful,” Schweber said.
UW-Madison agronomy and environmental studies professor Chris Kucharik details how limited rain and hot weather are contributing to drought conditions across southern Wisconsin.
Quoted: Kurt Paulsen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison expert on housing affordability, said little headway has been made in increasing Black homeownership, which stands at 44 percent nationally compared to 74 percent for whites.
“Nationwide, the Black homeownership rate is still not where it needs to be, and in some ways, has not significantly improved since the 1968 Fair Housing Act,” Paulsen said.
Kacie Lucchini Butcher is a public history project director at UW-Madison who researches housing inequity. Butcher emphasized the alarming implications of low Black homeownership rates, including the ability of such families to build intergenerational wealth.
“If homeownership continues in the way that it does, and if access to housing continues in the way it does, we are just going to see a continued exacerbation of wealth inequality and of poverty. One of the best ways to fix this is to get everybody housing.”
UW-Madison professor Kris Olds, an expert on urban planning and gentrification, said housing affordability remains a huge problem across Wisconsin, especially in Madison.
“One of the problems in Madison is so much of it (housing) is allocated to single family zoning districts, and it’s quite expensive to access that,” he said.
Paige Glotzer, assistant professor of history at UW-Madison and author of a book on the history of housing discrimination, said bias still permeates the housing market in sometimes inconspicuous ways.
Quoted: Joe Lauer, an agronomist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, acknowledged that farmers are anxious about the dry weather, but said that he’s not concerned … yet.
“One of the characteristics of a record-breaking year (for corn) is a mini-drought during the months of May and June,” he said. Lauer explained that a dry spring allows farmers to plant without fighting wet fields.
If you are worried about your garden or lawn, horticulture educator Vijai Pandian from the UW-Madison Extension has some tips to mitigate drought stress on landscape and garden plants.
Mark Eppli, director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at UW-Madison, said the current climate is unlike anything he’s seen in three decades of studying the real estate market.
Written by Sarah Halpern-Meekin, an associate professor at La Follette School of Public Affairs and the School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Eva Vivian’s passion for health equity continues to change lives in her community and for that, the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging (WIHA) recognized her work with the 2021 Healthy Aging STAR Award for Health Equity at a recent virtual ceremony.
The award – one of five presented in conjunction with the 2021 Healthy Aging Summit on June 4 – recognizes and honors individuals that improve health, wellness and access to care in communities throughout Wisconsin.
Dr. Vivian is a professor in the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy and president of African American Health Network (AAHN), where she pushes for equity in underserved communities, with a specific emphasis on diabetes.
Southern Wisconsin is pushing through an unseasonably dry summer. While the arid, hot days may be uncomfortable for those of us in Madison, it could spell financial trouble for the region’s farmers.
For more, our producer Jonah Chester spoke with Christopher Kucharick, professor of Agronomy at UW-Madison.
Noted: Today, guest host Karma Chávez spends the hour with Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, a longtime educator and early proponent of critical race theory in the classroom. They talk about what CRT is and isn’t—and why the GOP’s strategy may backfire and ultimately encourage a new generation of students to bring critical inquiry to their study of history.
Gloria Ladson-Billings is the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and faculty affiliate emeritus in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the author of The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (Jossey-Bass, 1994), Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms (Jossey-Bass, 2001), and many journal articles and book chapters, including “Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education?” (1998).
Quoted: That the decision to get a COVID-19 vaccine often includes a political dimension is a predictable result of the policy response to the pandemic as it unfolded over an exceptionally tumultuous period in American politics, according to Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s not surprising that people’s attitudes toward vaccination can line sometimes with political beliefs because the disease has been discussed in those arenas,” Sethi said.
National polling conducted over spring 2021 has shown eagerness for the vaccines among Democratic voters, while Republican voters have indicated tepid enthusiasm, with a distinct difference between men and women. But simple partisanship doesn’t tell a complete story about who is open to getting vaccinated.
“It’s even more pointedly about the Biden-Trump difference,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at UW-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.
Burden noted that voters’ preference in the 2020 presidential election “is far more predictive [of their vaccination views] than a person’s race, or age, or income, or just about any other thing that might be asked in a survey.”
Dr. Jeff Pothof, UW Health’s chief quality officer, joins the call at the end to encourage everyone to get their shot.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison System Board of Regents named epidemiologist Dr. Malia Jones as one of three recipients of the 2021 Academic Staff Excellence Awards. The award, which recognizes staff members and academic programs based on superior performance and creative, personable approaches to education, presents winners with a $7,500 cash prize. It is the highest honor the UW System can bestow upon their academic staff.
