Judi Bartfeld is a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was not part of the study, but says research on SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, shows it does reduce food insecurity. However, studies to date have not shown a major improvement in what?s eaten.
Quoted: Fifteen years from now, lawmakers probably will be debating whether people should even be allowed to drive, said John D. Lee, a professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
May 2013 will probably not go down as Mark Jeffries? favorite month as CEO of youth fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch. Since he is not running for political office, Jeffries likely didn?t expect he was about to confront a PR firestorm over an interview he gave several years ago. (The story is by Rob Tanner, assistant professor of marketing for the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)
The recent revival in controversies surrounding dying honey bees has brought global attention to issues farmers, beekeepers, politicians and environmental campaigners have long been aware of. Honey bees are in danger. Honey bees play a critical role in pollinating the crops people eat and, as such are both part of the big business of agriculture and a big business in their own right. Bees are important, environmentally and economically.
Noted: ?As a whole, the books being published just don?t reflect who we are as a nation in terms of diversity,? said Megan Schliesman, a children?s librarian in the University of Wisconsin?s School of Education. The university?s Cooperative Children?s Book Center complies the annual statistics on the number of kids? books by and about people of color.”
Quoted: ?It?s usually calibrated to how the baby is doing,? said Norman Fost, professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. ?It?s not a fixed formula.?
Noted: The pungent, stinky, tear-inducing qualities come from a host of sulfur compounds in the onions, explained Dr. Irwin Goldman, a researcher and prof at the University of Wisconsin who?s wild about onions and agriculture and their relation to human health.
MILWAUKEE – A Wisconsin political expert says Margaret Thatcher helped pave the way for many of the controversial political changes we have been through recently in Wisconsin.
Noted: Caroline Levine?s essay ?The Shock of the Banal: Mad Men?s Progressive Realism? provides an especially apt description of how the show works to create a distinct relationship between past and present that?s neither simply nostalgic nor a celebration of how far we?ve come. The dynamic of “Mad Men” is, in her terms, ?the play of familiarity in strangeness? that comes from seeing ?our everyday assumptions just far enough removed from us to feel distant.? (Levine is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.)
Noted: The companies acknowledge that completion rates are a concern and that their platforms are still works in progress. And to observers such as David Krakauer, that is as it should be. ?There are two ways to make something new,? says Krakauer, a biologist who directs the Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin?Madison. ?You can design something that?s perfect on paper, and then try to build it. Or you can start with a system that?s rubbish, experiment and build a better one with feedback. That?s the Silicon Valley style ? but it?s also the scientific way.?
Quoted: “Maybe bioethicists have been a little bit too cavalier assuming that a mouse with some human brain cells in it is just your normal old mouse,” says Robert Streiffer, a bioethicist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Well, it?s not going to be human, but that doesn?t mean it?s a normal old mouse either.”
Quoted: UW-Madison professors Bob Drechsel and Donald Downs.
Quoted: Robert Glenn Howard of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political scientist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison who runs the Marquette University Law School poll
Charles Franklin, UW-Madison political scientist and director to the Marquette Poll, is featured.
Quoted: Ken Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: There may be more rationality behind my “impulse finds” than meets the eye. According to Professor Beverly Gordon of the University of Wisconsin?s design studies program, souvenirs “make concrete that which is ephemeral. There?s a drive, a compulsion, for humans to bring home something physical from these experiences.”
Quoted: Joanne Cantor, a professor emerita in communication science at the University of Wisconsin, called the study “really interesting,” in part because the researchers used an objective measure – cortisol – to compare gender-based reactions to bad news.
Quoted: ?Farmers can?t afford to buy as much grain and protein, and that affects milk production,? said Bob Cropp, an economist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who has been following the industry since 1966. ?In California, there?ve been some foreclosures and some sell-off of cows quite heavily. You?re going to see that in other parts of the country.?
Quoted: In a forthcoming book, ?Teenage Citizens: The Political Theories of the Young,? University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Connie Flanagan argues that Americans under 18 unfairly get the ?Summertime Blues? treatment from political scientists and other researchers: ?I?d like to help you, son, but you?re too young to vote.?
Quoted: Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the photo by itself was not too offensive but noted it could be exploited.
Quoted: “As a general rule, the campaign finance environment is very dynamic,” said Ken Mayer, a University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor who studies campaign finance. “Affected groups don?t just sit there and say, ?Game over.? They always adapt and continue exercising influence.”
Quoted: Although he?s concerned that myelination seen in mouse models might not ?scale up? to a disease as severe as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher in humans, Ian Duncan, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, describes the study as setting a precedent for translating animal research in stem cells to humans. If you could improve quality of life by targeting key areas of the brain with these cells, he says, ?that would be a huge advance.?
Quoted: Dietram A. Scheufele, a communications professor at Wisconsin.
Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, the director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Quoted: Heather Kirkorian, an assistant professor of human development and family studies a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has published studies on background television?s impact on both parent-child interaction and children?s play patterns, says “until now we could only guess at the extent of the impact in children?s day-to-day lives.” The new study “documents just how great the real-world impact may be, particularly for very young children.”
The season began early because of the mild winter and unseasonably warm spring weather, causing trees to bud and bloom and release pollen and mold much earlier, said Dr. Mark Moss at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Noted: The rises foreshadow expected price hikes in coming months for other food staples, such as meat, says Bruce Jones, a professor of agricultural economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dairy is affected quickly because cows immediately make less milk.
Is our hot, drought stricken summer due to climate change? A group of legislators and scientists are calling for policy actions, to reduce the risks associated with heat waves and drought ? events they maintain are likely to increase due to climate change. Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the UW-Madison Global Health Institute, said while scientists can?t conclusively show our hot spell is the result of climate change, trends are clear going forward.
Quoted: “This is a compelling study that adds to the existing research and leads us to one unequivocal conclusion, and that is that smoking in movies should result in an R rating,” says Dr. Michael C. Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research, in Madison. Fiore was not involved in the study.
Quoted: Steve Vavrus, a senior scientist in the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that while more research needs to be done, unusual conditions — including last winter?s ranking as the fourth-warmest in the U.S.; spring turning out to be the warmest since record-keeping began in 1895; and April marking the end of the warmest 12-month period in U.S. history — are harbingers of what?s to come if greenhouse warming persists.
When you get all choked up watching Fourth of July fireworks, save a little of that ooh-ahh emotion for chemistry and other scientific disciplines. Bassam Z. Shakhashiri knows all about this: He?s a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and is the president of the American Chemical Society. Shakhashiri is also an entertainer by choice, giving lectures and programs around the world that help better connect people with the often obtuse world of science.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule perhaps this week on the health care law President Barack Obama signed in 2010. Assistant law professor at University of Wisconsin Madison Andrew Coan says it could go either way, rather, many different ways.
UW?Madison paleoanthropologist John Hawks says we definitely evolved to eat meat, but ? in context with our modern diets and lifestyles ? that doesn’t mean it’s entirely good for us.
Interviewed: Walter Dickey, professor, University of Wisconsin Law School.
Noted: A team headed by Joshua Carter of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was examining such systems looking for examples with multiple planets. Astronomer Eric Agol of the University of Wisconsin suggested that the team use a different algorithm to analyze the subtle changes in brightness that are detected by Kepler, and the Kepler-36 pair popped up immediately.
We woke up this morning to the rarest of dates: February 29th – the odd, extra day that comes every four years, since there are apparently more than 365 days in a year. Interviewed: Jim Lattis. He?s director of the University of Wisconsin?s Space Place, an education and outreach center for the school?s Astronomy Department.
WORCESTER ? Political parties are as far apart as they have been in 100 years, and as a result there?s no overlap between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and presidential candidates have little incentive to appeal to moderates, a noted political scientist said last night. ?This polarization is deep in the American party system right now,? John Coleman told an audience of about 75 at Clark University.
Quoted: The “99 percenters” say they are rallying against the small sliver of people who control about one-third of the country?s wealth and about 20% of its income. Thus far, the anger against Wall Street and suspected wrongdoing has made little headway, but the Occupy Wall Street protesters have made an impact on the political discourse, contends William P. Jones, a 20th-century historian at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
It?s hard to tell what will come from the ?occupy? protest movement spreading across the nation, but a University of Wisconsin professor says it?s unusual and interesting. It started in New York City last month with groups of protesters camping out on Wall Street. While there was initially no specific stated goal or agenda, UW-Madison associate history professor William Powell Jones says participants seem to be moving the focus to issues of social inequality and corporate greed.
Quoted: ?We?re risking a new underclass,? said Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research and Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
As Diana Hess learned that airplanes had slammed into the twin towers in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, her first instinct was to cancel her classes for the day. But before she could, the University of Wisconsin education professor began receiving frantic calls from her students ? pleading with her to hold class as planned.
Many people think of the city lifestyle as unhealthy, associating it with noise, pollution, crime, dense populations, a fast pace, and high stress levels. But a new study seems to dispel those notions. Cities once infamous for pollution, crime, crowding and infectious diseases have cleaned up their act. A report published by the University of Wisconsin that ranks more than 3,000 counties nationwide against others in their states. “They may have more job opportunities,” says Patrick Remington, project director of County Health Rankings. “All these things come together to make urban areas and, in particular, suburban communities, healthier than their rural counterparts.” The report found that 48 percent of the healthiest counties were urban or suburban, while 84 percent of the unhealthiest counties were rural.
Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in income inequality, called the outlook for younger adults in the U.S. especially troubling.
Quoted: “Malaria used to occur regularly in Wisconsin and was sometimes called autumnal fever,” according to UW-Madison entomology Professor Susan Paskewitz, because the affliction was most common in the fall in 1800s Wisconsin.
The summer recalls of state senators have wrapped up. UW-Madison Political Scientist Barry Burden says one lesson learned is that public sector unions are active in the political process and when feel threatened, ?are pushing back.?
Quoted: Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is wary of reading too much into the results. “In 2012, particularly at the presidential level, the issues will be something else besides collective bargaining,” he said.
Quoted: Japan?s first emperor is also said to have been a farmer and could communicate with gods to secure a good harvest, according to Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin and author of ?Rice as Self.?
Quoted: The high failure rate for adjustable rate mortgages during the housing meltdown means that today the number of new home loans with adjustable rates is minimal — less than 5 percent of the market, according to Stephen Malpezzi, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin Business School who follows the housing market.
Quoted: “I don?t think we would see this level of effort if the parties didn?t think these races could go either way,” says polling expert Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: “That was a movement that was fueled by Twitter and Facebook,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “That morphed pretty readily into the recall efforts. Facebook and Twitter were used to collect signatures. The Democrats did a better job of that.”
Quoted: Ken Goldstein, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, said the amount of money flowing into the races is “extraordinary.”
MADISON (WKOW) — Experts say this is probably the most violent year of storms in half a century. That is not necessarily because there have been more storms but because those storms are hitting more populated areas. Greg Tripoli, UW-Madison Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences Professor, says there is a “perfect storm” of factors that explain what is happening.
Quoted: Jacqueline Hitchon, chairwoman of the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a London-born professor who has lived in the United States for 25 years. She said the royal family is a huge draw for tourism in Great Britain and the wedding is a major story for that nation.
Quoted: Not everyone was well off. Katherine Curtis, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specializes in demography and inequality, said blacks who returned to the states where they were born tended to have a higher poverty rate than those who went to other Southern states. One reason could be that they moved back for family, not economic opportunity, she said.
Quoted: “What needs to be done is monitor the radiation levels in the evacuation zone and spot-check individuals there,” said Paul DeLuca, a medical physicist who is provost of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: But Kris Olds, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin, says that Americans also have a lot to learn.
While major American universities ?may have the international networks in place to fund-raise, they don?t always have the broader knowledge base to assess political, economic and cultural risk,? he said. ?For example, administrative entrepreneurs, as I call them, are rarely forced to work with regional area studies experts who really know what is going on.?
Quoted: “If they don?t remove the heat, everything heats up and eventually melts,” said Michael Corradini, chairman of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: While social media does help enliven the recall efforts, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said that?s no reason to change the laws. While communication tools may help people become more aware of hot-button issues or get that collective knee to jerk, it still doesn?t replace real-world efforts.
Quoted: A city outside the U.S. is home to the most billionaires. Moscow is the home of the most billionaires, 79, topping New York?s 58. Last year, New York was home to more billionaires than any other city. Russia has 115 billionaires. Soaring commodity prices have been a big win for resource-rich Russia, says Timothy Smeeding, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
