Quoted: “Reporters reviewing documents without editors seeing them happens every single day across news media,” said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Take, for instance, a crime reporter doing a story on filed charges by reviewing the criminal complaint. An editor rarely reviews the document as part of the editing process.”
Category: UW Experts in the News
Think You Know the Polar Vortex? Think Again.
Quoted: “The word has become appropriated by the popular media,” says Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the term “polar vortex” is now used in a general way to describe an extreme cold front that migrates southward to latitudes where it doesn’t typically reside.
A look at lawsuits challenging Wisconsin’s lame-duck laws
Quoted: Howard Schweber, a political scientist who teaches constitutional law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, questioned whether the unions have standing to sue. The unions argue their members purchase health insurance through the ACA and Wisconsin’s participation in the ACA challenge would hurt them.
Why Are Fewer Wisconsin Students Studying To Become Teachers?
Quoted: “We know that nationally, enrollment in teacher education programs is down about 35 percent and in Wisconsin it is down more dramatically in some places,” said Diana Hess, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education.
UW’s Jim Leary Gets Grammy Nod For Vintage Swiss-American Album Notes
Noted: Jim Leary, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus, is up for his second Grammy Award in the category for Best Album Notes. This time he’s been nominated for his work on an album called “Alpine Dreaming.”
More Wisconsin kids skip vaccines, citing ‘personal conviction.’ It’s raising immunity concerns.
Vaccines work only if the vast majority of people receive one, Dr. Patrick Remington, associate dean of public health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. He worked at the CDC for six years and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for nine.
Foxconn says it will actually build factory, cites “conversation” with Trump
Quoted: The U.S. never made sense for a touch screen factory, said Steven Deller, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin. Those goods are cheaper to make in Asia.
AP FACT CHECK: Taxpayers have already spent money on Foxconn
Quoted: Other costs to taxpayers are harder to quantify, said Steven Deller, an economist at University of Wisconsin-Madison. For example, the state has put manpower into crafting the deal and consulting with outside lawyers for the project.
Medication Denied: Wisconsin Bill Would Make Insurance Appeals Easier
Quoted: Zgierska’s an associate professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and is also on the board of the Wisconsin Society of Addiction Medicine.
The next frontier: Transgender rights take center stage
Quoted: These developments are deeply troubling for sj Miller, an internationally known gender identity educator and social justice activist who works as a faculty assistant at UW-Madison’s School of Education. “I’m worried sick,” says Miller, who is transgender. “You talk about hope, but I’m scared. [The Trump administration’s policies on gender identity] are going to open up this maelstrom of possibilities for putting prejudice back into practice.”
From baiting to embracing a ‘slow path,’ local artists respond to political tension
Noted: Fred Stonehouse says he has a privileged view of Wisconsin politics. He lives in a working class and deeply red neighborhood in Slinger, teaches art in the “leftie bubble” of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and considers himself “a Milwaukee guy,” he says. Like a lot of artists, he leans left, but he’s hip deep in conservative circles too, including family and the monied collectors who buy his work. It’s one of the reasons his subtext is subtle.
You Know It’s Cold When Satellite Imagery Makes the Frigid Ground Look Like a Giant, Oozing Cloud
Noted: NOAA’s GOES-East satellite detected the arctic air as it collected in northern Canada on Jan. 28, then followed its plunge south into the Upper Midwest by Jan. 30, as noted by University of Wisconsin-Madison satellite research meteorologists Scott Bachmeier and Tim Schmitt.
As Extreme Cold Crosses Midwest, Scientists Push Back Against Climate Change Doubts
Quoted: Such comments are frustrating to scientists sounding the alarm on climate change, including Steve Vavrus, senior scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research.
Sleeping When Sick Could Have Its Own Gene
Noted: “It’s very interesting work,” says Chiara Cirelli from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She and others have identified genes in flies that are important for a good night’s rest and, when disabled, result in less sleep. But this is the first time anyone has done the reverse: increase the activity of a gene, and trigger more sleep.
Frostbite nips dozens in Wisconsin, some regions see more cases than others
Minutes. If you haven’t heard that’s how long before this cold air could give you frostbite.
“Or less with really cold wind chills it really can happen very quickly,” said Apple Bodemer, an associate professor of dermatology at UW-Madison.
Staying warm is key today
Noted: UW Health dermatologist Apple Bodemer joined Wisconsin’s Morning News with warning signs and more.
Thinking like a doula: “Birth coaches” negotiate the roles of everyone in the birthing suite
Amy Gilliland believes that a positive birth experience has a lasting effect on the lives of both mother and baby. Gilliland should know: As a research fellow in the U.W.-Madison’s School of Human Ecology, she studies and teaches about the psychological needs of people during the birth experience.
How working from home helps the environment
Quoted: “Anything that reduces vehicle miles helps improve air quality and reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming,” said Jack Williams, a professor who researches global climate change in the Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Extreme cold increasingly rare for Wisconsin, but polar vortex could be more common in warmer climate
A sudden warming of the stratosphere 20 miles above the Earth can cause those swirling winds to slow, allowing a “lobe” of cold air to slip down into the middle latitudes — covering places like Wisconsin, said Stephen Vavrus, a senior scientist at UW-Madison’s Center for Climatic Research.
Pundits who decry ‘tribalism’ know nothing about real tribes
Although “ethnic labels .?.?. have pre-colonial origins, they became comprehensive and rigidly ranked categories only in the colonial period; they were heavily influenced by imperial codifications and further transformed by politicized actions in the last half [of the 20th] century,” writes Merwin Crawford Young, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Awake on the Table
“There’s plenty of evidence” that even without an explicit memory of surgery, humans can form implicit or subconscious memories under anesthesia, said Dr. Aeyal Raz, an anesthesiologist at the University of Wisconsin.
Janesville native to work with Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Pentagon-based job, sometimes referred to as director of J3, includes keeping tabs on all U.S. combat operations, said John Hall, a UW-Madison professor who is writing historical studies for the Joint Chiefs.
AP Exclusive: US Nobelist Was Told of Gene-Edited Babies
Quoted: It’s not clear how someone would have raised concerns about He’s project, said University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo, who was one of the leaders of the Hong Kong gene-editing conference where He gave details of the experiment.
Howard Schultz’s presidential ambitions draw backlash
Quoted: Barry Burden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied third-party runs, agreed. However, he said Mr Schultz would face other obstacles to a winning candidacy.
Frigid temperatures bring concern for frostbite
Quoted: “If you really need to be out, cover up. So making sure you are wearing hats that go down far over your forehead, scarfs that go over your nose. Mittens are better than gloves because it keeps your fingers together in the warm,” Dermatologist Apple Brodemer from UW-Health said.
Warfarin no longer recommended for most atrial fibrillation cases
Quoted: “It becomes an even bigger problem as people age into their 70s and 80s,” said University of Wisconsin cardiologist Dr. Craig January, who was the lead writer for both the 2014 and 2019 guidelines. “So the numbers of people affected by Afib will go up a great deal in our society as the population of baby boomers age.”
Integrating wellness into everything we do
Quoted: The U.S. spends more of its gross domestic product on health care than any other country, yet Americans as a whole are still among the unhealthiest people in the developed world. “Our numbers still aren’t changing,” says Nicole Youngberg, chief employee wellness leader at UW–Madison.
Trade War Aggravates Wisconsin’s Slumping Agriculture Economy
Oversupply of milk and persistently low commodity prices have hurt farmers, said Mark Stephenson, director of the Center for Dairy Profitability at UW-Madison. He said tariffs are a factor in the slow markets, but not the whole story.
Governor closes out Kindness Week
Evers also discussed the high incarceration rates for African Americans across Wisconsin. A recent study from Pamela Oliver of UW-Madison on prison admission rates in Wisconsin showed that in 2014, black people were 11 times more likely to be incarcerated in than white people.
Consumer Survey Shows Support For Ending Use of Term ‘Milk’ By Non-Dairy Beverages
Noted: Scott Rankin, head of the Food Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the extension reflects how complicated the issue is.
The polar vortex will return, and bring the coldest temps of the year
Noted: It’s “like a band of warm air just cutting right through the puddle of cold air,” John Martin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained last week.
Jayme Closs kidnapping ‘a shock’ to the community, but very rare
Noted: “It was a shock,” said Cecelia Klingele, assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
These glaciers haven’t been this small in over forty thousand years
Noted: So even the big hit of warmth the Arctic experienced 10,000 years ago “wasn’t enough to annihilate that ice,” says Shaun Marcott, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the study.
False Positive: How bite marks made one man a murder suspect
Includes interview with Keith Findley. “False Positive” is a video series by Vox that looks at the structural and cultural factors that have made the U.S. criminal justice system susceptible to unreliable forensic science, and that continue to impede progress toward more reliable methods today.
How to Stop Rogue Gene-Editing of Human Embryos?
Noted: Some experts say the best way to block misguided uses of embryo editing is coordinated action by all public and private players involved in new scientific technologies, including regulatory agencies, patent offices, funding organizations and liability insurers. In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, recommended a “comprehensive ecosystem of public and private entities that can restrain the rogues among us.”
FDA Pushing for Over-The-Counter Sales of Naloxone
Noted: “Expanding naloxone access increases opioid abuse and opioid-related crime, and does not reduce opioid-related mortality. In fact, in some areas, particularly the Midwest, expanding naloxone access has increased opioid-related mortality. Opioid-related mortality also appears to have increased in the South and most of the Northeast as a result of expanding naloxone access,” wrote Jennifer Doleac, PhD, Texas A&M University, and co-author Anita Mukherjee, PhD, University of Wisconsin.
How to stay focused
Noted: Creativity can benefit from distraction too. Jihae Shin, now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has found that when people played Minesweeper or Solitaire for 5 minutes before coming up with new business ideas, they were more creative than those who didn’t play.
Downtrend in milk prices
Quoted: “Exports as a percentage of U.S. milk production have been climbing,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Every major downturn in the U.S. all milk price corresponds to times when export growth has been off trend or down.”
Report: Lots Of Access To Pre-K, But Quality Sometimes Lacking
Quoted: “Particularly in large urban areas they can’t afford to have a class that low,” said Graue, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Research in Early Childhood Education.
How to Stop Rogue Gene-Editing of Human Embryos?
Quoted: In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, recommended a “comprehensive ecosystem of public and private entities that can restrain the rogues among us.”
Evers Walks Back Comments As Legislature’s Attorney Says He Can’t Stop ACA Lawsuit
Quoted: Howard Schweber, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said it could be up to the judicial system to decide the dispute.
How low-income parents are working to to help their children with autism
That means the needs of an untold number of children aren’t being met. It also has serious ramifications for research, because it can skew estimates of autism, says Maureen Durkin, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “It means that the prevalence of autism is probably even higher than we’re measuring.”
Wisconsin Ag Outlook Forum Slated for January 29
Agricultural economists and commodity specialists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Extension will talk about the financial health of Wisconsin agriculture and the outlook for the year to come at the 12th annual Wisconsin Agricultural Economic Outlook forum in Madison next week.
Profitability concern leads to service
Dave Daniels began farming in 1977 after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in dairy science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
…he wanted to serve on Wisconsin Dairy Task Force 2.0. He serves as chairman of the generational succession/transition subcommittee.
Assembly GOP tweaks pre-existing condition bill; Tony Evers pans it as ‘lesser benefits for fewer Wisconsinites’
But it would not protect people on private self-insured health plans, which a UW-Madison expert estimates is about 1.5 million Wisconsinites. That’s because such plans cannot be regulated under state law.
Alcohol-related disease overtakes hepatitis C as top reason for liver transplant
There is nothing magical about six months, according to Dr. Michael Lucey, medical director of the University of Wisconsin liver transplant program. He said it shows a poor understanding of alcohol abuse as a “very complex behavioral disorder.”
Protecting Monarch Butterflies Could Mean Moving Hundreds of Trees
Quoted: Rising temperatures and habitat destruction at the butterflies’ breeding sites in the United States and Canada are the major drivers of monarch declines, says Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Lake Mendota has iced over twice this winter, a rare phenomenon that experts say might happen more often
Quoted: “It’s unusual for the lake to freeze and open up, freeze and open up,” said John Magnuson, UW-Madison limnology professor emeritus and director emeritus.
Naming rights deals for sports venues proliferate, but two economists say they do nothing for a company’s bottom line
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison marketing professor Kevin Chung sees good reason for insurers to keep their names before the public. In a hyper-competitive insurance market in which consumers shop only infrequently, it’s very important for companies to be on consumers’ minds, Chung said by email.
That’s one reason why insurance advertisements — think of Geico — tend to be memorable and interesting, he said.
“With this being said,” Chung added, “there is no study in marketing that I know of that has convincingly shown that sponsorship via stadium naming rights led to increased awareness and ultimately to more sales in insurance products.”
Jayme Closs captured the nation’s attention. Why don’t these other missing kids?
Quoted: Hemant Shah, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s journalism school, said the pattern is part of a larger trend where white people are overrepresented as victims and people of color are overrepresented as criminals in mass media.
Part of the problem is the lack of diversity in newsroom leadership, said Shah, who teaches courses about mass media, race and ethnicity. White journalists may be more likely to latch onto stories of white victims.
“There’s a social psychology at work where you relate more to your in-group than to your out-group,” Shah said. “You may see in a missing white girl something that’s more relatable: It could be my daughter, my neighbor, et cetera. Whereas with a non-white young woman you might not have that same visceral connection.”
Scientists are learning how to farm on Mars through trail and error
Quoted: “Watering plants in space is really hard because water moves differently because there’s no gravity. If you get the water onto soil particles, it’ll just creep over the surface,” said Simon Gilroy, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches the effects of gravity on plant growth. He was not involved with the new study.
Wisconsin’s ag economy in 2019 at Agricultural Outlook Forum
The financial health of Wisconsin’s farms and agricultural businesses, with a special focus on consolidation in the state’s dairy industry, are topics for the upcoming Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum, which will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 29 on the UW–Madison campus.
China Says Claim Of Gene-Edited Babies ‘Seriously Violated’ Regulations
NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Associated Press reporter Marilynn Marchione about the Chinese government’s investigation into He Jiankui, who claims he created the world’s first gene-edited babies. Mentions Marchione’s conversation with UW–Madison’s Alta Charo.
Losing the Humanity of Transplants
Surgeons like me, who work in the field of organ transplant, have been repeating a cliché for decades about the idea of using other animals’ organs to replace failing ones in humans: “It’s the future, and it always will be.” By: Joshua Mezrich
China seems to confirm scientist’s gene-edited babies claim
Quoted: The statement shows that “scientific leadership is taking this situation seriously,” said Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin bioethicist and one of the leaders of the Hong Kong conference.
The Cotton Plant That Sprouted on the Far Side of the Moon Has Died
Quoted: He adds that though the project was cut short, he still considers it a success. And other scientists agree, including Simon Gilroy, a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the study.
Government shutdown frays America’s safety net
Quoted: “A safety net that has a frayed bottom to it makes people much less, feel more financially fragile and financially vulnerable than they already are,” J. Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, told ABC News.
Protecting monarch butterflies’ winter home could mean moving hundreds of trees
Quoted: Rising temperatures and habitat destruction at the butterflies’ breeding sites in the United States and Canada are the major drivers of monarch declines, says Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
R. Kelly and the silencing of black women in history
Quoted: “It is incredibly courageous for the survivors to come forward, given the gross misogyny and disregard for black women and girls in the country and worldwide,” insists Bianca J. Baldridge, an Assistant Professor in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the forthcoming book entitled Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work.
The bones of Bears Ears
Quoted: Early on, says paleontologist Allison Stegner of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, some locals skeptical of the monument came to share scientists’ enthusiasm for the resources it aimed to protect.