The main trigger for the rapid expansion of gay marriage was a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that raised questions about all same-sex marriage bans, said Andrew Coan, a UW-Madison associate law professor.
Other speakers include UW-Madison professors Ken Mayer and Barry Burden
Skloot is professor emeritus of theater and drama and Jewish studies.
Quoted: Kenneth Mayer, professor of political science.
Quoted: Dr. Sam Lubner, an assistant professor of medicine at the UW-Madison?s Carbone Cancer Center, said there are several reasons for the projected spike.
Parabens are old-time chemical preservatives ? they were first introduced in the 1950s after bacteria-contaminated facial lotions caused a small outbreak of blindness. Today, they are used in a wide range of personal care items ? from cosmetics to toothpaste, as well as some foods and drugs.
Two University of Wisconsin, Madison scientists have put forward a new hypothesis on why we sleep. During sleep, they say, the brain weakens — not strengthens — the connections among brain cells to allow the brain to reset, and strangely enough, the result is better memory.
The work of University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of medicine Dr. Vince Cryns seems paradoxical at first: he looks for ways to kill cells to save lives.
“A low-wage job supplemented with food stamps is becoming more common for the working poor,” said Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality. “Many of the U.S. jobs now being created are low- or minimum-wage _ part-time or in areas such as retail or fast food _ which means food stamp use will stay high for some time, even after unemployment improves.”
?Research suggests that supply-side economics ? where a tax cut actually generates more revenue ? doesn?t really hold true,? said UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
In his annual BizTimes Economic Trends forecast for 2014, economist Michael Knetter expects the U.S. economy?s ?long and slow? recovery to continue, but he anticipates that the pace of that recovery will pick up this year.
Wisconsin?s finances are more than $900 million stronger through mid-2015 than previously expected, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported Thursday.
Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, reintroduced a bill this month to remove the prayer exception. That would help clarify that the state won?t permit parents to let children die through faith healing, said Alta Charo, a UW-Madison bioethicist.
The U.S. government?s official measure of poverty hasn?t changed much in 50 years: It?s still based on what it took to feed a family in the 1950s. There are new efforts underway to find a more accurate gauge of families in need. Interviewed: Chancellor Becky Blank. (Audio.)
Noted: UW doctor Janis Tupesis knows what happens to your body when it gets dangerously cold, and it isn?t good.
And governments use bonds to compete with neighbors for investment that creates jobs and tax base, said Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of public affairs and applied economics at the UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs.
As America continues to deal with the Target cyber-security breach that compromised the financial information of 40 million people, several IT security experts are pointing out that the technology exists to avoid such problems.
Donald Downs, a UW-Madison law, political science and journalism professor, said adding homelessness as a protected class could make it illegal to refuse to hire someone because he or she is homeless.
Noted: In contrast to today?s cop shows, the early programs were very pro-police, without much moral ambiguity, says Michele Hilmes, a University of Wisconsin historian of television and radio.
Dr. Sandi Sawchuk, a professor of veterinary medicine at the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, shared that all pets aren?t the same when it comes to dealing with the snow and cold.
Quoted: The diagnostic criteria for autism has changed dramatically, even in the last 20 years, explained Megan Farley, a psychologist at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Until the mid-1990s, there wasn?t an autism “spectrum” ? there was just autistic disorder. “It was this very strict type of diagnostic category,” Farley says. That captured the “classic” cases of autism, but people with more subtle signs of the disorder slipped by unnoticed until 1994, when Asperger?s syndrome was introduced. (Asperger?s syndrome is no longer an “official” diagnosis, and what used to be Asperger?s is now the mildest level of autism spectrum disorder.)
Jerry O?Brien, who directs University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Kohl Center for Retailing Excellence, says the spinoff of the Dodgeville-based company is something to be optimistic about.
Just like parents themselves, ?I think the professional community is really split? on the issue of children and screen time, said Heather Kirkorian, an assistant professor in the Human Development and Family Studies department at UW-Madison.
?If there is no snow on the ground, there is the potential for deer ticks to be active, any place in the state,? said Phil Pellitteri, UW-Madison entomologist and deer hunter. ?Usually it has to be somewhat sunny and about 40 degrees.?
Quoted: ?We?ve all wondered at times if high school determines who we become as adults, and now we have the empirical data to test that notion,? says Pamela Herd, an associate professor of public affairs and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The centerpiece of this year?s Thanksgiving dinner should be ?affordable.? Turkey prices are expecting to be stable, according to University of Wisconsin poultry expert Ron Kean. He says we should be paying about what we paid last year.
Mark Stephenson, a dairy economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said farmers have an incentive to shift milk to beverage production if it is consistently valued more than making cheese.
“The Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk are far wealthier than the Menominee. The Potawatomi are one of the wealthiest in the country,” said Richard Monette, director of the Great Lakes Indian Law Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “They should have gotten together to help the Menominee run the casino, not let Hard Rock in and debate portions of the revenue.”
That was the intriguing question Robert Enright, a professor of educational psychology at UW-Madison, brought to oncologists, nurses, social workers and others at a recent symposium at Monona Terrace.
The fact that people are being encouraged to donate samples from everyone in their family, including children, worries Pilar Ossorio, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Aili Mari Tripp, a UW-Madison professor of political science and gender and women?s studies, said that ?where women have never held a position such as governor, women may be perceived by the electorate as representing something new and may come to symbolize change, even fundamental change.?
Spinoffs often do well, said Jim Seward, executive director of UW-Madison?s Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance. ?Sometimes when you combine businesses, you end up with very complicated businesses and businesses that don?t necessarily belong together,? he said.
Noted: The three-day colloquium, organized and spearheaded by Dr. Jerlando F. L. Jackson who directs Wisconsin?s Equity & Inclusion Laboratory and holds the Vilas Distinguished Professorship of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is largely focused on highlighting successful program outcomes that offer solutions aimed at solving the series of problems that confront Black males in education.
Snuggle House backers have gone to pains to emphasize that the physical and emotional intimacy they?re selling does not include sex ? and there?s research suggesting that this won?t be a barrier to business success, according to UW-Madison sociology professor John DeLamater, an expert on human sexuality.
As UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden noted, there?s lots of time left for Burke to stake out positions, and the ?no promises? pledge may be more a matter of ?semantics.?
Ticks are a growing problem in Wisconsin, and a state expert says more of the parasites now carry Lyme Disease and other infections. UW-Madison entomologist Susan Paskewitz says the bugs are expanding their range and population across the state.
Last week, the United States once again walked up to the precipice of a debt default, and once again the world wonders why any country, much less the world?s largest economy, would endanger its financial reputation and thus its ability to borrow.
UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky also said that in Madison, more than a third of the break would go to owners of non-residential property. Weathy homeowners and those with vacation property also would benefit, he said.
A UW Madison economist says even the threat of default by the federal government will stress financial markets. Professor Menzie Chinn said, with U.S. Treasuries used as collateral for a lot of short term lending, edging up to the precipice of default is bound to lead to uncertainty.
As the partial shutdown of the federal government drags on, attention has shifted to the looming Oct. 17 deadline when the Treasury will be out of money, and unable to raise more unless the House of Representatives authorizes an increase in the debt ceiling.
Patricia McConnell, an expert on animal behavior, is not against hunting and even raises lamb for food. But the University of Wisconsin-Madison zoologist and author is appalled by what she regards as blatant cruelty to animals sanctioned and abetted by the state.
Although Kurt Squire, a professor of curriculum and instruction at UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, has done research with older students showing that pairing an iPad game about a concept with reading about that same concept improves understanding of the concept more than does pairing the reading with a diagram or picture about the concept.
?My opinion is the 350 number is the one people who simply don?t like wolves have seized upon,? said Timothy Van Deelen, a wildlife ecologist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is not on the committee.
“I think if you take the long run perspective, this is mostly much ado about not very much,” says Tom Oliver, a UW-Madison professor of population health sciences, who specializes in health care program administration. “Practically everybody who is eligible and wants coverage will be able to get it.”
Quoted: “We call this the currency enigma,” says Edgar Feige, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It?s hard to figure out where this currency is and why so much of it is out there.”
There are also thousands of local elections officials and what Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has called “an army of temporary poll workers.”
“When you get infested berries, they start to get soft and fall apart and weep,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri. Though some other berries have been affected in the state, he?s hearing the biggest outcry from raspberry growers.
Interviewed: David Noyce, professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory.
Rebecca Blank, new UW-Madison chancellor, noted recently that state support has slipped to 15 percent of overall UW-Madison spending. But, says Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris, with Walker in power, she and other UW officials must tread carefully: ?They can?t afford to take them on head-on.? (Also refers to research by Kathy Cramer.)
Quoted: ?It?s good to explore options early,? said Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director for the UW Population Health Institute. But you don?t have to enroll right away. ?Don?t panic,? Friedsam said. Also: ?I don?t think anybody really believes the program can be defunded at this point,? Friedsam said.
Noted: The fee that banks charge noncustomers to use their ATMs has risen by nearly a third since 2008. That those fee hikes coincide almost perfectly with the Federal Reserve?s massive push to depress interest rates is no coincidence, says Jim Johannes, director of the Puelicher Center for Banking Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: The farm bill is thus being held up by arguments over relief the cost of which is likely to fall anyway and which most analysts consider effective. Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that the number below the poverty line is 16% lower than it would be without SNAP. ?No other programme for the non-elderly does such a great job preventing poverty,? he says, ?or alleviating its weight on those who remain poor.?
Earlier this week Popular Science made news by stating this it will no longer allow comments on its articles. This decision was based in large part on a study earlier this year by UW-Madison Prof. Dominique Brossard and her team of researchers.
Popular Science is closing comments on its articles. Citing “trolls and spambots”, the 141-year-old American magazine has decided that an open forum at the bottom of articles “can be bad for science”.
UW-Madison economist Steven Deller says the changing points of reference leaves the average citizen confused about what to believe. ?When the Philly Fed?s indicators had Wisconsin consistently at the bottom they ignored it,? he says in an email. ?Now that Wisconsin is finally starting to catch up a little bit, they are all over it.?
Stephanie Salazar Kann, internship coordinator for UW-Madison?s College of Letters and Sciences, said that a lot of companies are watching and waiting to see the full impact of Fox Searchlight.
Quoted: ?They think of social isolation and cultural poverty,? said Timothy M. Smeeding, who heads the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. ?If you get further and further from the median, you get socially isolated.?
UW-Madison education experts also noted the limitations of the report cards, particularly that accountability scores correlate strongly with the percentage of low-income students in a school or district. ?This report card is limited in it can only use the data we have and we don?t have perfect data to do really good value-added assessments,? said Julie Underwood, dean of the UW-Madison School of Education. ?Just saying to a district you have a lot of high-needs students is not very useful.?
Brad Carl, researcher and associate director at UW-Madison?s Value-Added Research Center says the attention the scores attract alone make them important … Julie Underwood, dean of the UW-Madison School of Education, says the report cards were developed by state officials and legislators with the assistance of education experts as an alternative to No Child Left Behind.
Quoted: “My heavens,” said Julie Underwood, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s education school. “Yes, it?s better.”
