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Category: UW Experts in the News

The CoronaVirusFacts Alliance expands again: Meet our team of selected researchers

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Poynter

The team of researchers was selected in a two-round process. In the first part, the IFCN staff analyzed each proposal to make sure all the requirements were fulfilled. Then a committee composed of three professors — Lucas Graves, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Steen Steensen, professor at OsloMet; and Bente Kalsnes, associate professor at Kristiania University College — evaluated the approved proposals and selected the top submissions. The winners came out of this group.

Native Americans Crossed the Pacific Long Before Europeans

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The Scientist Magazine

“It always made sense that this kind of contact might have happened, but demonstrating that it did happen is a different kind of thing,” says John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who did not participate in the study. With the addition of this genomic analysis, “we’re getting to the point where we can find evidence of some kinds of events that were invisible from an archaeological standpoint, and that’s exciting because it means that we now open another window into understanding human interactions and human contacts,” he adds.

Republican, Democratic state conventions display differing attitudes toward COVID-19

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Wisconsin State Journal

“I think it still presents a substantial risk,” said Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious disease expert at UW-Madison. “Even though we’re a state that has relatively low rates certainly compared to the South and Southwest, the bringing together of people to a lot of different areas is really where you run the risk of introduction and then re-introduction of virus into particular communities.”

Facing a world clamoring for help with COVID-19, scientists are changing how they work

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, worries there is so much pressure to produce positive results that conditions are ripe for cutting corners. She notes, for example, that in an emergency where people are suffering, there can be resistance to having control groups that don’t get an experimental treatment in a study.

“But it doesn’t work scientifically,” Ossorio said. “It doesn’t produce good enough data that you can actually have any confidence that the test intervention is safe or effective.”

“We have this real brick and mortar view of how clinical research had to happen, and I think COVID has really challenged that,” said Betsy Nugent, the director of clinical trials development for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Health.

Song Gao, an assistant professor of geographic information science at UW-Madison, was among the first to study and map how people’s mobility changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, Buttenheim and Malia Jones, an epidemiologist at UW-Madison, launched “Dear Pandemic,” a social media group that communicates the latest COVID-19 research.

“The world is just going to be different,” Jones said, “Getting to the point where there’s hopefully a vaccine that’s effective is going to take enough time that I think science will change.”

Farmers’ milk prices rising, easing dairy farm losses, but for how long?

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “The sharp drop in May was the result of the COVID-19 virus shutting down schools, universities, restaurants and food-service which caused a big drop in the sales of milk, cheese and butter,” Bob Cropp, a University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension professor emeritus, wrote in a recent column.

Which mask is best? UW engineering professor studies how droplets escape from face coverings

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin-Madison engineer Scott Sanders usually spends his time figuring out how gases and particles behave in combustion engines.

But Sanders has turned his expertise to determining how a different type of particle, one that has sickened millions around the world, moves from human mouths covered with masks.

Coronavirus forces scientists to change while searching for vaccine

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USA Today

Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, worries there is so much pressure to produce positive results that conditions are ripe for cutting corners. She noted that in an emergency when people are suffering, there can be resistance to having control groups that don’t get an experimental treatment in a study.

How can I get my child to wear a mask? If I’m sick with COVID, how long do I need to quarantine? Experts answer your questions

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “A mask that is not covering the nose will not stop a person infected with SARS-CoV-2 from contaminating the air in front of them when they exhale. Similarly, a mask covering only the mouth will fail to prevent an uninfected person from inhaling contaminated air. Since it does not take a lot of virus particles to cause infection, a partially worn mask may not be effective enough. This reminds me of when I see people wearing a bicycle helmet without buckling the strap or wearing it so loosely that it doesn’t cover the front of their head. The intention might be there, but there is a higher risk of head injury following an accident if the helmet is unable to do what it is designed to do.”

— Ajay Sethi, PhD, MHS, associate professor, Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Six months of coronavirus: the mysteries scientists are still racing to solve

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Nature

With government and industry pumping billions into vaccine development, testing and manufacturing, a vaccine could be available in record time, say scientists — it just might not be completely effective. “We might have vaccines in the clinic that are useful in people within 12 or 18 months,” Dave O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told Nature in May. “But we’re going to need to improve on them.”

Report: Voter Participation Declining In Wisconsin, Civic Health Measures Mixed

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Wisconsin Public Radio

The new “Civic Health in Wisconsin” study by the Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison represents the first time civic engagement data has been tracked statewide, said Mary Beth Collins, the center’s director and one of the study’s principal authors. It looks at data on Wisconsinites’ connectedness to their communities using a range of measures, from volunteerism and voting to the amount of time spent with neighbors and friends.

Are High Water Levels a Result of Climate Change?

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Door County Pulse

While many people are scrambling to combat flooding and damage to infrastructure, climate scientists are working to find out what has been causing the latest rise in lake levels. According to Jack Williams, a UW-Madison geography professor and climate-change expert, it’s the billion-dollar question.“We can’t yet definitively say,” Williams said. “What we know is that we are seeing increasing temperatures and variability of rainfall, which are both known to be caused by climate change.”

Nearly 800 people have died from COVID-19 in Wisconsin. Here’s what we are learning so far.

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Halfway through 2020, 786 people in Wisconsin died prematurely, unexpectedly, and separated from family,” said Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “COVID-19 will be a leading cause of death in Wisconsin for 2020. We have not had a new leading cause of death in Wisconsin or the U.S. since HIV/AIDS.”

Public health officials shut down indoor service for bars in Madison following surge of cases

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

At risk is University of Wisconsin-Madison’s plan to welcome students back to campus this fall. Jeff Pothof, University of Wisconsin Health chief quality and safety officer, said if local health officials don’t try to stop the spread of the virus in Dane County, in-person instruction could be called off. “If we’re unable to get on top of this current spike and it continues to accelerate, we may be in a position where it won’t make sense to be holding in-person classes,” he said. “It becomes a risk that most of us shouldn’t be taking with our children.”

Both the city and UW-Madison have similar orders in place to ensure people are distancing properly, which will be especially important come late August when the university’s 30,000 students return to campus. “We have been and will be working to ensure people are abiding by the campus order when they are on campus property,” Marc Lovicott of UW-Madison’s Police Department, said. “We have and will issue citations for blatant and/or multiple violations.”

Report: Wisconsin has student-to-teacher racial, ethnic gap

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Associated Press

“It is important for white children to see people of color as being knowledgeable and authoritative,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, a teacher educator who most recently was on the faculty at UW-Madison. “The stuff we are seeing happening in our streets today is, I think, a direct result of young white people saying, ‘I was never really taught to value these people’s lives.’”

Anger Management for an Angry Time

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Wall Street Journal

If you decide to use your anger, choose something you can control. “Anger is a very energizing emotion—think of it as the opposite of procrastination,” says Evan Polman, an associate professor in the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Remember that anger can give you courage. Use it to ask for a raise, get involved in a cause you care about or get up the nerve to have that difficult conversation you’ve been putting off.

Why we should explore Venus before Mars

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Mashable

Not so fast. The Pioneer probe sent to Venus in 1978 detected traces of methane in that CO2-filled atmosphere. Methane is a rare chemical to produce without life acting as some kind of intermediary. “People tried to explain it away and they couldn’t,” says Sanjay Limaye, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a former chair of NASA’s Venus Exploration Analysis Group.

Biden’s low-key strategy vexes Trump, but in-person campaigning beckons

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AFP

“I don’t see how that’s sustainable through the fall election,” professor Barry Burden, director of the Election Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told AFP.”

There will come a point where Biden will need to be a physical presence on the campaign trail, if only to reassure voters he is a real person, in good health and ready to serve.”

Coronavirus Is a Crisis. Might It Also Narrow Inequality?

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The New York Times

Scholars are brimming with ideas to construct a more generous safety net on a permanent basis, bolstering everything from Medicaid to child care support. Timothy Smeeding, a professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, suggests that the federal government pick up the entire tab for Medicaid, which it now shares with the states.

The Garlic Will Tell You When It’s Time

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The New York Times

Today, wild garlic is found only in parts of Central Asia, but it may once have grown wild from China to India, Egypt and Ukraine, according to Philipp W. Simon, a research leader at the Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Research Service and a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s department of horticulture. From those ancient beginnings, garlic has traveled the globe to become one of the world’s most important vegetable crops.

Black Americans Are At Higher Risk For Alzheimer’s: Here’s Why

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Oprah Mag

Among other things, chronic stress contributes to inflammation and vascular disease, and can even directly damage the brain’s neurons. “This can lead to a slew of health issues, including atrophy in areas of the brain that are key for memory and cognition,” says Megan Zuelsdorff, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing investigating the mechanisms underlying cognitive health and dementia disparities.

Olas de calor de alta letalidad

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El HuffPost Life

El historiador Richard Keller ha escrito Aislamiento letal, una investigación sobre la ola de calor de París de 2003. Le he preguntado por aquella tragedia porque anticipa los dramas climáticos que desgraciadamente están por venir.

Giant Squid, 13 Feet Long, Washes Ashore in South Africa

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The Great Courses Daily

“The basis of the deep pelagic food web is actually detritus raining down from the surface waters and filtering down through the water and being scavenged up by all of these different organisms, [including] zooplankton that are living down there scavenging phytoplankton and then being consumed in turn by different larger organisms than that,” said Dr. Harold J. Tobin, Professor of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “We also have many organisms called amphipods. They’re in the same family as krill, and they’re a very, very common zooplankton.”

For Milwaukee Dads, Help Figuring Out Fatherhood

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U.S. News and World Report

Quoted: It’s not unusual for men to struggle after the birth of a child, says Tova Walsh, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied fathers and parent-child relationships. There are financial pressures, expectations to try to meet and lifestyle adjustments to make.

In the history of family services, fathers have been overlooked and neglected, Walsh says, with sometimes clinical consequences. “Paternal depression is underrecognized,” she says.

People probably caught coronavirus from minks. That’s a wake-up call to study infections in animals, researchers say.

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Washington Post

Quoted: For the time being, researchers say cats should be a focus, because studies have found they are highly susceptible to the coronavirus and because they are common pets and roam freely in many places. In a study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists infected cats with the virus and found that those cats could infect other cats. No felines showed symptoms, but the amount of virus they shed in nasal swabs was similar to that shed by some humans, said co-author Peter Halfmann, a University of Wisconsin virologist.

“If a human can transmit to a human with this amount of virus being shed, it’s definitely possible for a cat to transmit to a human,” Halfmann said.

Dinosaur diaries: Fossilised stomach contents reveal a dinosaur’s last meal

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Natural History Museum

Noted: A new study published in PLoS ONE by David Lovelace and team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison used a series of climate models and predictions of body temperature to investigate the biology of some Late Triassic dinosaurs. They investigated the small theropod Coelophysis bauri and large prosauropod Plateosaurus engelhardti during the hot, dry global greenhouse conditions that prevailed at that time.

‘This is shocking to me’: A voter ID case that could rattle Wisconsin’s fall election has been on hold for more than 3 years

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Robert Yablon, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who specializes in election law, called the case “a true outlier.”

“Seventh Circuit cases rarely sit for even one year after oral argument, much less three,” he said by email.

“The judges’ internal deliberations are confidential, so it’s impossible to know for sure what’s happening behind the scenes. The judges may have disagreements that they’re truly struggling to resolve. It’s also conceivable that they’re waiting to see if Wisconsin law changes in ways that moot the appeal or hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court eventually decides another voting-related case that offers further guidance on the relevant legal standards.”

In-person election, protests, bars opening. None appear to have spiked COVID cases. Experts hope public precautions keep spread in check

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “This is just a sliver of the nearly 6 million people in Wisconsin,” said Patrick Remington, an epidemiologist and a professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These were highly visible and they could be high risk, but in reality, these were isolated events.”

“It is really hard to isolate one thing when so many things are going,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We cannot deny such an impact because of people on the street in public, standing close and shouting out and not wearing masks. That is ideal to spread the virus,” said Song Gao, assistant professor at the UW-Madison Geospatial Data Science Lab.

Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor of industrial engineering and infectious disease modeling expert at the UW-Madison, said his work shows social distancing adherence plays a major factor in the spread of coronavirus.

“Me and my family are also tired of being careful,” Alagoz said. “But unfortunately we cannot get super comfortable. … People should still be careful. Wearing masks, I think, is important, especially indoors.”

Local experts weigh in on black communities disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths

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WKOW-TV 27

Quoted: UW-Health Doctor Tiffany Green studies the causes and consequences of racial disparities in health.

“We see across the country that Black Americans are dying disproportionately relative to our share of our population, and that is especially true here in Wisconsin unfortunately,” Green said.

“Currently we’re talking about what can we do about the police, but the police are not the only issue, every other social system was built on the same inequities,” Alvin Thomas, UW-Madison Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies, said.

Facts behind concerns of COVID-19 second wave

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NBC-15

Quoted: NBC15 also reached out to Nasia Safdar, the Director of Infection Prevention at UW-Heath, and asked if a second wave of COVID-19 is likely to happen this fall. “I think with a new virus, it’s difficult to predict if it’s going to behave exactly like other viruses that are in the same family,” Safdar said.

What if all viruses disappeared?

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BBC Future

“If all viruses suddenly disappeared, the world would be a wonderful place for about a day and a half, and then we’d all die – that’s the bottom line,” says Tony Goldberg, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “All the essential things they do in the world far outweigh the bad things.”

Hands-on curriculum teaches kids about mosquitoes

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Yale Climate Connections

“They think a lot about, well, what happens if this mosquito larva is in cold water or if it’s in really hot water? Or what happens if this adult female mosquito can’t find a shady spot to rest in?” says Lyric Bartholomay, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It’s awesome what kinds of questions emerge.”

Opinion: Black men and boys are especially vulnerable to mental health challenges because of coronavirus and police violence

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Somewhere in America, a 14-year-old Black boy is playing video games in his room, and his parents are satisfied that they are keeping him safe from COVID-19. But then, in Minneapolis, George Floyd is killed by a police officer, and his parents are reminded that their son’s life could just as easily be snuffed out.

Author Alvin Thomas is an assistant professor in the Human Development and Family Studies Department in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Anti-immigration protests- more nuances than we think

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Mirage News

“This thesis brings us new knowledge about why people do engage themselves, it brings nuances to our understanding of the anti-immigrant sentiment, and none the less shows how storytelling can be a mobilizing force for this type of protest movements”, first opponent professor Katherine Cramer (University of Wisconsin-Madison) said during the disputation.