Quoted: “I’m not trying to dumb it down too much here,” says Jeffrey Sindelar, professor of meat science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, “but a truly uncured hot dog is just loose ground meat in a casing.”
Category: UW Experts in the News
Mussels in Trouble: Nature’s Water Filters in Massive Die-Off
Quoted: Tony Goldberg is an infectious disease epidemiologist and a veterinarian from the university of Wisconsin, Madison Veterinary School. “We’re at ‘ground zero.’ This, the Clinch River is the best studied example of this. But throughout the world there are muscle populations that are experiencing what we’re calling mass mortality events where you’ll walk out onto the river and you’ll see unusually large numbers of fresh dead mussels.”
A Wisconsin man double-checked he could keep bees, but the town is kicking his bees out, anyway.
Quoted: “One out of three bites you take you can thank an insect for,” said Christelle Guedot, assistant professor in the entomology department at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin Dairy Economists Say 2020 Will Be ‘Restorative’ Year For The Industry
Quoted: The production increase comes after several months of declines from 2018 levels. Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he was surprised by the change.
“(There were) fewer cows than we’ve had in all of our earlier months of the year, so a continued decline there, but milk production per cow had a strong growth,” Stephenson said. “That usually doesn’t happen unless we have pretty good quality feed and a real strong incentive to produce milk.”
The Days Of Coffee-Grabbing Internships Are Over. Here’s How Fellows And Apprentices Are Changing The Way We Train Our Youngest Workers.
Noted: Since these programs often don’t pay much (or sometimes at all), many low-income students cannot afford to take an internship, said Matthew Hora, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Harvest Struggles Across Wisconsin Could Impact Supply Of Livestock Feed
Quoted: Liz Binversie, agricultural educator for University of Wisconsin-Extension in Brown County, said she has heard farmers describe silage as like pickling vegetables.
“You’re kind of pickling the feed, right? You’re preserving it long term. And what’s doing that is the microbial population,” Binversie said.
Wages for residential construction workers near 20-year high
Noted: The study, titled “Impact of Real Estate on Wisconsin’s Economy,” was authored by Mark Eppli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graaskamp Center for Real Estate and uses wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for the 2001 to 2017 period.
We may not be able to end hunger in Wisconsin but we can reduce it. Here’s what it will take.
Quoted: Judi Bartfeld, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies food security and policy, said she doesn’t think society will ever be able to eliminate food insecurity, but we can ease it.
“As long as there are families who are struggling with poverty and limited resources, I think we’re going to have struggles with food insecurity. I think we can certainly reduce it if we focus on tackling the root causes,” she said.
Instagram-famous farming couple captures audiences with authenticity
Noted: Don Stanley, a faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studies social media techniques and explored the reasons for Mel and Ben’s online success.
What a harsh flu season in Australia could mean for Wisconsin
Noted: “The concern is that the flu season in Australia was very intense and a month and a half to two months earlier than usual,” said Jonathan Temte, associate dean for public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Our Civics Duty
Noted: Diana Hess, dean of UW-Madison’s School of Education, is a big fan of the approach used by Middleton’s Legislative Semester, which is a spawn of an innovative civics program developed by a former social studies teacher in a Chicago suburb. “I think it’s hard to teach people how to be engaged without giving people opportunities to be engaged,” says Hess, a national expert on civics education and the author of several books on the topic. “The analogy I often use is we would not teach people how to swim by lecturing them about various strokes. We would have them in the pool.”
More LOLs, Fewer Zzzs: Teens May Be Losing Sleep Over Social Media
Quoted: “This is an incredibly stressful time to be a teenager,” says pediatrician Megan Moreno, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A harsh flu season in Australia could be a warning, but so far only 12% vaccinated in Wisconsin
Quoted: “The concern is that the flu season in Australia was very intense and a month and a half to two months earlier than usual,” said Jonathan Temte, associate dean for public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Instagram-famous farming couple captures audiences with authenticity
Quoted: Don Stanley, a faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studies social media techniques and explored the reasons for Mel and Ben’s online success.
People of color have less access to mental health help. Here’s how a new Appleton nonprofit plans to change that.
Quoted: While some research points to lower numbers of people of color seeking treatment, Steve Quintana — professor of counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — says those communities are showing up to appointments, not getting what they need and dropping out.
“The treatment that’s provided tends to be culturally loaded with white, middle-class culture and social norms, as well as people,” Quintana said.
Trump sends message to frustrated GOP: ‘I have to do what I have to do’
Quoted: “The thing about tipping points is you never know you’re in one, until you’re actually in one,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Are we at least likely moving toward a tipping point? It’s more likely today than it was a few months ago.”
Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Excessive Lobbying’ Tax Misses Her Intended Target: The NRA
Quoted: The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Ellie Powell reiterated that opinion, saying that groups classified under this tax code include “local volunteer fire departments and homeowner associations.”
Separation of powers case could set Wisconsin apart
“What’s so unusual and bold about this arrangement is that they’re taking litigation and day-to-day decisions about litigation, which are usually thought of as quintessential executive power, and giving them to a legislative committee,” said Miriam Seifter, a UW-Madison law professor. “Wisconsin would become an outlier in allowing this.”
Steroid injections may cause more long-term harm than thought
Quoted: Richard Kijowski, a professor of radiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, wrote an editorial accompanying the recent study saying the objective of the journal’s special report was “to educate radiologists that the intra-articular corticosteroid injection they routinely perform with little, if any, thought about long-term safety may cause more harm than benefit.”
University Of Wisconsin Enrollment Drops
Enrollment at the University of Wisconsin dropped 2.6 percent compared to last year.
Building trust key to getting drivers to accept automated vehicles in Wisconsin, experts say
“The demos are really less about exploring the technology,” said David Noyce, executive associate dean of UW-Madison’s College of Engineering. “They’re more about building trust in the technology.”
Black Madison school staffer appeals firing for repeating student’s racial slur
Gloria Ladson-Billings, a UW-Madison education professor and advocate for black students, said policies that don’t consider context “will always be problematic.” “Such policies ignore common sense in favor of expediency,” she said. “Educators should know better.”
Microwave myths: The truth behind microwave safety
Quoted: UW-Madison food science professor Bradley Bolling says it’s not true.
“A microwave is a perfectly find way to warm up food,” he said. Bolling says the microwave’s heating speed is actually better.
“The short amount of time that it takes to heat up the product can actually preserve a little bit of the nutrition.”
UW-Madison expert says poverty remains 10 years after recession
Poverty continues to dog Wisconsin despite a lower unemployment rate since the Great Recession.
Tim Smeeding is the former director of the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty. He spoke Tuesday in Delavan about why poverty is still an issue a decade after the recession.
“I’m trying to give people who’ve got nothing at the end of the month something at the end of the month,” said Smeeding, who supports a higher minimum wage.
Why Evangelical Christian Leaders Care So Deeply About Trump Abandoning The Kurds
Quoted: Even though most Kurds are Muslims, the ethnic group includes a subset of Christians and other religious groups. Today, conservative and politically engaged evangelicals remember the critical role America’s Kurdish allies have played in the region since 2003, including helping in the fight against the Islamic State, according to Daniel Hummel, a historian of U.S. religion and diplomacy at a Christian study center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Insofar as many evangelicals see the major confrontation of this age as American power vs. Islamic radicalism, the Kurds are a small but valiant ally,” Hummel said.
Potential changes to nut milk, plant-based meat labels
Quoted: Steph Tai, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that farmer protection, not consumer confusion, is at the heart of the proposed legislation.
Protesters voice concerns about lack of pain medication
Quoted: “We’re having negative consequences from rapid stopping of individuals with opioids who have legitimate needs for these prescriptions. So it’s finding that balance,” Cody Wenthur, UW-Madison Assistant Pharmacy Professor said.
Medical marijuana bill to potentially bring medical, monetary benefit, affect arrests
Quoted: Kenneth Streit, UW clinical professor of law, said incarceration rates for THC are not as prevalent as it may seem.
Illinois’ Automatic Voter Registration Delays Worry Experts
Quoted: “It’s helpful to have that come out in a midterm year or odd year where election officials have an opportunity to make fixes without the pressure,” said Barry Burden, a director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center. “The presidential (election) puts the most stress on any system than any other contest.”
Why the 2019 Nobel Prizes in STEM struggled with diversity
Quoted: “When it comes to diversity in STEM studies, we act clueless. We don’t take our scientific mindset or approach to these issues,” said Angela Byars-Winston, the first black woman to become a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Ron Johnson should have done more on Trump and Ukraine, ethics experts say
Quoted: “Yes, clearly this should have been reported to the FBI,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon said. “What did he expect the president to say? ‘Ah, you are right, sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.'”
Presidential debate sites announced, what it may mean for Wisconsin
Quoted: “Given that there are still a lot of democrats aren’t happy about the fact that Hillary Clinton didn’t never showed up in Wisconsin once during 2016,” said David Canon, a political science professor at UW-Madison. “I think the democrats are trying to make up for that, by not only having the convention here but, yeah, I think they probably will have one of the primary debates here as well.”
‘The smell will knock you off your feet’: mass mussel die-offs baffle scientists
Noted: Tony Goldberg, a veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin, said the die-offs are peculiar because of how they narrowly affect mussels.
Will cursive become a lost art form? Not if these Wisconsin lawmakers can help it
Quoted: Sarah Zurawski often debated the topic with teachers and administrators who were on both sides of the cursive issue when she worked as a school-based occupational therapist. She now teaches a clinical doctorate program and conducts research through UW–Madison’s School of Education.
“From a purely clinical perspective I’ve worked with several students who struggled with manuscript writing (reversals, illegible letters, etc.) who seemed to do better with cursive writing,” Zurawski said. “Many of the students I’ve worked with were highly motivated to learn cursive because it seemed almost like a rite of passage as a third grader.”
Evers Administration: More Health Insurance Options On Tap This Fall
Quoted: “The marketplace has stabilized quite substantially in the last couple years. Insurers are making money,” explained Donna Friedsam, a health policy director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty. “There were substantial (profit) margins in some cases. In the last year we saw a couple of the insurance carriers giving rebates to consumers.”
New Report Shows Extreme Racial Disparities In Wisconsin, Midwest
Quoted: Laura Dresser is the Associate Director of COWS, a nonprofit, nonpartisan “think-and-do tank” based at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, which partnered with the Iowa Policy Project, Policy Matters Ohio, and the Economic Policy Institute to produce the report. She says that segregationist policies hampered black communities’ ability to rebound from economic downturns.
“This inequality has gotten baked in, in very aggressive ways in the Midwest through segregation and redlining, through school citation policies [or] where people put new schools as communities grew, and where they shut schools,” Dresser argues.
Potential changes to nut milk, plant-based meat labels
Quoted: Steph Tai, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that farmer protection, not consumer confusion, is at the heart of the proposed legislation.
“If a consumer knows that we can use nut-based products in the same way that we’ve been using dairy-based products, then the concern from the dairy industry is that people will be substituting,” Tai said. “The same thing with plant based burgers. If people know that they could use it as an easy substitute and it tastes kind of the same, then they might just replace that, which will lead to undercutting the profits of livestock producers.”
UW-Madison assistant professor twerks with Lizzo after her tweet goes viral
A UW-Madison assistant professor got to twerk with Lizzo after her #TwerkWithLizzo tweet went viral, according to WISC-TV.
Dr. Sami Schalk, an assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was invited on stage during the Lizzo concert at Sylvee Thursday night.
Agronomist earns UW-Madison honorary recognition
A tomato plant played a huge part in launching the career of Tim Boerner, who will receive Oct. 17 the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Honorary Recognition Award. Boerner was 9 years old when his grandfather gave him a tomato plant. That gift cultivated his lifelong interest in crops and agriculture in general. That interest also has helped innumerable Wisconsin farmers.
With help from cheese, milk prices finally improving
Quoted: Mark Stephenson is the director of dairy policy analysis with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re about $1.30, $1.40 higher per hundredweight on milk than we were this time last year,” Stephenson says. “So we’ve had a definite improvement.”
Jessie Opoien: Lizzo’s magic let us all shine for a night — especially one twerking UW-Madison assistant professor
“If I’m shinin’, everybody gonna shine.”
When Lizzo sang it, she meant it.
For one magical night last week, she shared that moment with Madison. And in that moment, we all got to shine — but perhaps no one more than Sami Schalk, an assistant professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1.9 million people with diabetes gained insurance coverage through Affordable Care Act, study estimates
The long-term complications from uncontrolled diabetes include the increased risk of a heart attack or stroke, nerve damage that causes tingling or numbness, kidney failure, blindness, and losing toes and feet to amputation.
Yet an estimated 17% of adults under the age of 65 who had diabetes were without health insurance before the expansion of coverage through the Affordable Care Act, according to a recent study by Rebecca Myerson, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and colleagues at the University of Southern California.
‘Our River Was Like a God’: How Dams and China’s Might Imperil the Mekong
Noted: “I have not seen a single case in which people have been compensated fairly for the disruptions to their lives caused by dams,” said Ian Baird, a Southeast Asia expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the social effects of dams. “If governments are arguing that these projects aren’t viable without underpaying compensation, then maybe these projects aren’t right for the country.”
Illinois’ automatic voter registration delays worry experts
Noted: “It’s helpful to have that come out in a midterm year or odd year where election officials have an opportunity to make fixes without the pressure,” said Barry Burden, a director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center. “The presidential (election) puts the most stress on any system than any other contest.”
Hunter Biden says he will resign from Chinese company board and won’t take foreign work if his father is president
Noted: “It highlights the need for the United States to make disclosure by adult children of officials more transparent,” said Yoshiko Herrera, professor of political science and international relations at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Overzealous in preventing falls, hospitals are producing an ‘epidemic of immobility’ in elderly patients
Noted: Barbara King, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, studied how nurses responded to “intense messaging” from hospitals about preventing falls after the 2008 CMS policy change. She found that pressure to have zero patient falls made some nurses fearful. After a fall happened, some nurses adjusted their behavior and wouldn’t let patients move on their own.
Wisconsin country doctor treats Amish, studies genetic diseases
Quoted: “These changes come out of huge health care systems like Kaiser Permanente,” says Byron Crouse, who retired last September from his job as associate dean for rural and community health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “How do you scale that down to a small, rural practice?”
Does solar power make sense in Southern Wisconsin?
Quoted: “It’s growing at about 30 percent per year,” explained Greg Nemet, professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In a rural Wisconsin village, the doctor makes house calls — and sees some of the rarest diseases on earth
Quoted: “These changes come out of huge health care systems like Kaiser Permanente,” says Byron Crouse, who retired last September from his job as associate dean for rural and community health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “How do you scale that down to a small, rural practice?”
Has corporate feminism come to solve Pakistan’s social problems? Not quite
Quoted: In her book The Gender Effect: Capitalism, Feminism, and the Corporate Politics of Development, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Kathryn Moeller examines why transnational US corporations such as Nike are increasingly investing in philanthropic efforts to promote the prosperity of girls and women in the Global South and finds that these corporate-led campaigns end up benefiting corporations at the expense of women in the Global South.
Fair Pay To Play Hailed As Game-Changer
Quoted: Dr. Jerlando F.L. Jackson, Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, Department Chair and Director & Chief Research Scientist in the University of Wisconsin’s Equity & Inclusion Laboratory says that he is watching closely to see the impact of the legislation.
“If other states follow, it does address one of the chief issues in the pay to play dynamic,’’ Jackson says. “That dynamic is student athlete will own their likeness, their name and the ability to put that in the market for themselves. That is probably our best pathway forward to recognizing their contributions.’’
Why Amazon Fires Keep Raging 10 Years After a Deal to End Them
Quoted: “The agreement has so many holes, the deforestation is still just going on,” said Holly Gibbs, a University of Wisconsin geographer who has studied the agreement.
These State Birds May Be Forced Out of Their States as the World Warms
Quoted: “There’s a lot we don’t know about how certain species might adapt to novel climate conditions,” said Benjamin Zuckerberg, an associate professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We might see bird species shifting their nesting times or changing their diet.”
Adjustable Desks: Health Benefit Or Hype?
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering professor Robert Radwin studies workplace ergonomics. He was not involved in the University of Pittsburg study but he instructs students on the qualities of sit-stand desks which he feels have gotten a lot of hype. He does not have one.
Every Single Living Thing Is Part of an Ecosystem. Here’s How They Work
Quoted: “The ecosystem concept ecologists now use has been refined since it was first introduced by Tansley almost a century ago,” says Stephen Carpenter, a scientist in the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Ecosystem science studies the interactions of all the living and non-living entities in a specified place. This definition is consistent with modern concepts of energy, nutrient flow and biogeochemistry, which barely existed during Tansley’s career.”
Is a vaping-linked lung illness a public health crisis? That depends on who you ask
Quoted: Communication scholar Dietram Scheufele at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that at any point in time, roughly five issues tend to dominate a person’s memory. A constantly shuffling set of concerns struggle endlessly for one’s attention.
Expert breaks down online dating deception
Quoted: Catalina Toma is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She studies how people communicate online, and has recently been investigating self-presentation and deception in online dating profiles.
‘A church that stands for something that is vitally needed’: Black and white churches form alliance
Noted: Brenda Plummer, professor of Afro-American studies at UW-Madison, said while some churches today are multiracial and multiethnic, King’s remark “still has some currency.”
Part of that is due to people self-segregating by race because of different worship-style preferences, Plummer said.
11 scientific reasons why attractive people are more successful in life
Noted: Joseph T. Halford and Hung-Chia Hsu, researchers from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, tested whether the appearance of a company’s CEO is related to shareholder value.
They found stock prices rose higher for businesses with attractive CEOs after positive news about the company aired on TV.
Wisconsin farmers coping as dairy herd declines
Quoted: “It’s a shake-out. This is not just a bump on a trend line. This is a pretty big change,” said Mark Stephenson, Director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.