Some 4,500 years ago, the Bell Beakers invaded Britain. Roughly 90% of the genes of later Britons came from this group, named for the distinctive shape of their pottery. Archaeologists long thought that Britain’s early farmers, who built Stonehenge five millennia ago, adopted the pots from continental neighbors. Instead DNA evidence shows that the farmers were nearly annihilated by the Bell Beakers.
Mr. Hawks is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Reality: A major study on this question came out in 2011, and Janet Mertz, senior author of the study and a professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, concluded, “This is not a matter of biology: None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level.”
Those scam calls that you’re likely getting on a weekly basis aren’t going away any time soon. That’s because it it’s very cheap to set up one of those call centers, according to UW Madison information security expert Dave Schroeder.
Noted: Dr. Claudia Reardon, an associate professor of psychiatry at UW-Madison and the lead psychiatrist for Badger athletics, says it can be harder to detect signs of mental health struggles in someone who participates in sports.
Quoted: “If you want to try and have an independent effort to investigate, it can be a very significant undertaking, with due process, so that you are confident in the outcome,” said R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is also a member of the academy. “A lot of it will be confidential because they are personnel actions.”
Quoted: “I think this is a cool discovery and it definitely suggests that we need to explore the Arabian peninsula much more for fossil humans and their ancestors,” John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who was not involved in the study, said via email.
Cliff Robb quoted.
The Cap Times spoke to University of Wisconsin-Madison professor David Canon, who studies Wisconsin politics and campaigns, about the election and what might be ahead.
It’s a matter of weeks before soybeans are planted in some parts of the state. For farmers who have cover crops established, cover crops need to be terminated two weeks before planting, said Shawn Conley, University of Wisconsin-Madison soybean specialist.
Quoted: “Strategically, politically, it was really, really effective,” said Ryan Owens, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin who heads the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
Quoted: “I’m definitely doing more overuse hamstring surgeries now,” says Geoffrey Baer, an orthopedic surgeon with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and team physician for the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department.
Quoted: One of the biggest misconceptions about this issue is that the size of the farm is the main contributor to well contamination, said Becky Larson, a professor of biological systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and bio-waste specialist at UW-Extension.
Noted: Not only that, but WMEP is joining up with a productivity expert at the University of Wisconsin, Professor Enno Siemsen, who is suggesting the tools that companies will use, and who will help supervise the productivity effects.
Quoted: The danger for Trump’s opponents, said Dietram Scheufele, a professor of communications at the University of Wisconsin, was “letting him define the battlefield.”
Quoted: Year in and year out, heat claims lives. Since 1986, the first year the National Weather Service reported data on heat-related deaths, more people in the United States have died from heat (3,979) than from any other weather-related disaster — more than floods (2,599), tornadoes (2,116) or hurricanes (1,391). Heat’s victim counts would be even higher, but unless the deceased are found with a fatal body temperature or in a hot room, the fact that heat might have been the cause is often left off of the death certificate, says Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Quoted: TV anchors decrying ‘fake’ news puts spotlight on Sinclair Broadcast Group (with UW–Madison’s Lewis Friedland.)
Noted: Barroilhet works with patients at the UW Health Carbone Cancer Center who have a high risk of developing cancer.
Quoted: While there’s no doubt that Democrats this year are more energized than Republicans, it’s dubious whether one election can be an accurate bellwether of what’s to come in November, said Ryan Owens, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin who heads the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
Quoted: “He is one of those executives who wants to be remembered as being on the right side of history,” said Thomas O’Guinn, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin school of business. “Part of the quid pro quo is there will be none of this stupid gender bathroom stuff. They are going to demand that the city do everything it can to fight voter suppression. They are going to demand high attention paid to meaningful spending on the environment and more efficient greenhouse reductions.”
Quoted: Amy Trenton-Dietz, public health specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the California ruling contrasts with what science shows.”Studies in humans suggest that if anything, coffee is protective for some types of cancer,” she said. “As long as people are not putting a lot of sugar or sweeteners in, coffee, tea and water are the best things for people to be drinking.”
Companies hope to curb health care costs by encouraging their employees to be healthier, said Justin Sydnor, an associate professor at UW-Madison’s School of Business who researches wellness programs.
One of the few peer-reviewed efforts to examine the method’s effects, published last year in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, concluded that some behaviors do go away when students attend what the study called “gender-neutral” preschools. (Kristin Shutts, Psychology)
Quoted: “We need the support and engagement of the general public and of course government and private funding agencies, and it’s always useful to practice articulating what is interesting and important in our research,” said Pepperell, who works at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “I also saw it as an opportunity to raise the profile of women in science, to increase the diversity of voices and perspectives that make up the ‘face’ of science—my hope is that all young people have the opportunity to see themselves as scientists, to consider science as a career and pursue it if that’s where their passions and skills lie.”
Quoted: So would a warning even be worth it? “I imagine perhaps if there was a public information plan, it would generate more hysteria than would be warranted for something so unlikely,” Ruth Rand, historian of science, technology, and the environment during the Cold War at the University of Wisconsin told me. “I imagine some people might respond with undue fear and you might have a crisis in your hands.”
Quoted: In the most recent Wisconsin Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 30 percent of students admitted to drinking. Twenty years ago nearly 50 percent of Wisconsin’s public school students said they used alcohol. That’s when underage drinking in the U.S. went “sky high” according to Julia Sherman, coordinator of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project, which is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School and funded by a grant from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Quoted: If the company did obtain a comprehensive set of user data from Facebook, as has been reported, then it may have gotten unique insight into what makes people vote and how. “Facebook allowed them to combine different data sources in a way that allowed them to understand voters maybe better than voters themselves did,” says Dietram Scheufele, science communication professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: “I think everybody has a knee-jerk reaction on this, and they may prove to be correct, but it is tough to say on these issues,” said UW-Madison Law School professor Ryan Owens, who heads the UW-Madison Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.
Quoted: So would a warning even be worth it? “I imagine perhaps if there was a public information plan, it would generate more hysteria than would be warranted for something so unlikely,” Ruth Rand, historian of science, technology, and the environment during the Cold War at the University of Wisconsin told me. “I imagine some people might respond with undue fear and you might have a crisis in your hands.” Instead, it might be better to just give people what information is available, and remind them not to touch any debris with their hands, as it might contain a corrosive fuel called hydrazine.
Quoted: “There’s been a push recently for companies, in particular, to start offering direct cash payments or reductions on premiums for insurance for people who engage in healthier activities, so exercising more, dieting, taking a health risk assessment,” said Justin Sydnor, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, who researches wellness programs.
Noted: Yaron Nili is an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Quoted: Tracey Holloway, an air emissions expert and professor of atmospheric and ocean science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said federal laws dating back to the 1970s have led to cleaner air, but the regulations have also been marked by a tug of war between competing interests.
Quoted: “When an object is uncontrolled, and its orbit is decaying, it starts tumbling,” Lisa Rand, a space junk scholar and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, told Quartz.
Cryptocurrency courses are coming to the Wisconsin School of Business as schools worldwide catch on to a new intersection of technology and finance.
What’s the story behind the Cambridge Analytica scandal? What are the implications for our democracy? And will Facebook and other data giants be more regulated? Esty Dinur speaks with Young Mie Kim, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication and a Faculty Affiliate of the Department of Political Science at University of Wisconsin Madison, and Scholar-In-Residence at Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C.
Psychiatrist Charles Raison believes it’s a mistake to separate the mind from the body. He told Steve Paulson that he and his colleagues are studying new ways to treat depression as a disease of the body, not just the brain.
Quoted: Pamela Oliver, a University of Wisconsin sociology professor, said to build a sustained movement after the midterm elections, students have to persuade supporters to persevere through legislative losses and fading media attention.
Noted: As the image bounced around among self-professed NRA supporters and alt-right figures, a college professor alerted people that the image was, in fact, a fake. Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, tweeted the doctored image alongside the original photo, which showed González tearing up a gun target poster.
Noted: The most popular debunk was from Donald Moynihan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who said: “Just a sample of what NRA supporters are doing to teenagers who survived a massacre (real picture on the right).”
Noted: I reached out to Patrick Iber, a professor of Latin American history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to ask about political dynamics in Mexico ahead of the 2018 election.
Josephine Lukito, a PhD student in the UW School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and Chris Wells, associate professor at SJMC, are the lead authors of the study. The Cap Times sat down with Lukito to break down what they found and think about how journalists can prevent this from happening in the future.
Noted: Donald Moynihan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, debunked the altered image, saying in a tweet: “Just a sample of what NRA supporters are doing to teenagers who survived a massacre (real picture on the right),” referencing a user named “Linda NRA Supporter” who posted the photo and whose account has since been suspended.
Quoted: “I think the reason this one is a potentially bigger news story is first of all it’s a pretty large object. It’s a space station rather than a smaller satellite. But also that it is uncontrolled,” said Dr. Lisa Ruth Rand, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at UW-Madison.
Noted: UW-Madison economist Tim Smeeding said there are some qualifications to the report. He noted Milwaukee is still in a slump and Walker’s efforts to encourage those receiving public benefits to work will require child care and transportation workers that are also hard to find in a labor shortage.
Quoted: “His Britishness, since it allows him to adopt the role of the assumed-to-be-friendly foreigner trying to understand just what’s going on,” Jonathan Gray, professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Observer.
Quoted: David Eagan Robertson of the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said a closer look shows that counties like Winnebago, Sheboygan, and Calumet have grown, which is a reversal of recession era trends. “The manufacturing counties in the state as a group are actually now, in this most recent year, are seeing an increase in the domestic migration number,” said Robertson. “So, that’s a bit of a turn.”
Quoted: Heim confessed to an initial skepticism about Cramer’s technique of meeting regularly and repeatedly with “old white guys” in rural areas to develop her theories because he relies more on polls.
“I was wrong,” he said.
VIDEO: UW System Chief Information Security Officer Nicholas Davis talks about the Facebook data scandal.
Kelly, the associate dean at University of Wisconsin Law School, presented on U.S. military and its role in global engagement during the latest Great Decisions event at the Manitowoc Public Library.
Noted: Laura Albert, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and expert on lottery odds, agreed. Albert said some people play the lottery professionally, such as monitoring games’ payouts, and then buying tickets in bulk when the game’s payouts are far below normal.
Noted: “Wildlife conservation has been at its strongest when hunters and non-hunters are allied together for wildlife,” says Adena Rissman, an associate professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: “The reality is: That information can be used to deny access to health insurance, to life insurance, even to employment, so how it’s used and who has access to it is a real concern,” said University of Wisconsin biochemistry professor Michael Cox.
Noted: The research of Amaya Atucha, an assistant professor and Gottschalk Chair for cranberry research in the university’s horticulture department, focuses on how cranberry plants are able to withstand subfreezing temperatures during winter, as well as strategies to reduce the impact of frost and winter stress in cranberry plants.
Quoted: Maybe, said Hart Posen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, who studies corporate strategy and decision-making under uncertainty. “Gou (a multi-billionaire who runs one of the world’s biggest companies) is clearly a more powerful figure in the global sense than is Gov. Scott Walker, and he should rightly feel like the bigger player on the world stage,” Posen said.
“There’s no magic bullet as far as quitting smoking, but I think the contribution of NRTs has been an important one,” Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told The Daily Beast.
Throughout her career, (Francis) had focussed on how global warming was affecting the Arctic, and after many months staring at the sea she began to wonder how Arctic warming was affecting the global weather system. On her return to New Jersey, where she is a professor at Rutgers University, she and her colleague Stephen Vavrus, a climate modeller at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, set about examining changes in the behavior of the polar jet stream since the early nineties.
Noted: A team that included University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Chris Wells found last month that at least 116 articles from U.S. media outlets included tweets from @TEN_GOP and other Russian-linked accounts, with the tweets usually cited as examples of supposedly ordinary Americans voicing their views. Wells said the tweets found by the Journal Sentinel seemed similar. “It looks very consistent with what we’ve seen in our research so far,” Wells said.
Noted: Laura Albert, a UW-Madison professor and expert on lottery odds, agreed. Albert said some people play the lottery professionally, such as monitoring games’ payouts, and then buying tickets in bulk when the game’s payouts are far below normal.
In a 2016 column outlining myths about sharia, Asifa Quraishi-Landes, a University of Wisconsin law professor, wrote that sharia is not necessarily a law in the sense that the West sees it. “Sharia is not a book of statutes or judicial precedent imposed by a government, and it’s not a set of regulations adjudicated in court,” she wrote. “Rather, it is a body of Koran-based guidance that points Muslims toward living an Islamic life.”
Noted: Hart Posen, associate professor at the UW-Madison School of Business, said the announcement is not unexpected.“They’ve been in trouble for so many years. It’s rather surprising they’ve lasted this long,” Posen said.
Which is not to say that we then read it, as e-reader data now shows. When Professor Jordan Ellenberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison devised a measure of how far people actually get through the books that they download, he called it the Hawking Index. A Brief History comes second in this ranking of owning but not reading: on average, people get seven per cent of the way through.
