Noted: UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said Walker’s fundraising total is somewhat lower than he expected given individual contribution limits have doubled to $20,000 since the 2014 election, Walker’s national profile was elevated during his short-lived presidential run and he became chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
Category: UW Experts in the News
Spectrum Brands selling Rayovac battery business to Energizer Holdings for $2B
“That’s validation that it’s just strategically optimal for both companies,” said Page Moreau, UW-Madison School of Business marketing professor and academic director of UW’s Center for Brand and Product Management.
2016 Export Numbers Highlight Wisconsin’s Reliance On NAFTA
Noted: But that’s just what Brian Gould, an associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is worried about as talks continue over the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Supreme Court race showing its political stripes
Noted: Ryan Owens, a UW-Madison Law School professor who specializes in judicial issues and is a member of the conservative-leaning Federalist Society, said the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 decided it was permissible for judicial candidates to make their positions known.
Technology on Park Street intersections will communicate with passing vehicles
Quoted: “If they’re behind by say five minutes on their schedule and they have people either trying to get to a location on time, trying to get to work on time, or trying to get picked up on time, they can actually preempt the signal so the signal knows by the time it gets here it needs to be green,” said Jonathan Riehl, transportation systems engineer at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
How Scientists Saved Bald Eagles From Destruction in Minnesota
Over two-and-a-half decades later, it’s being hailed as an unqualified success. On Tuesday, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey announced in the Journal of Applied Ecology that bald eagle populations at Voyageurs have been tremendously rehabilitated to stable numbers thanks to nest protection. Collected data in reveals that the breeding population of these birds has risen from 10 pairs in 1991 to 48 pairs in 2016.
In a fast-warming world, scientists say recent cold wave was exceptionally weird
Their finding that the intensity of Arctic cold is easing in a warming world is supported by many other studies. For example, Jonathan Martin, a meteorology researcher at the University of Wisconsin, has documented considerable shrinkage of the pool of frigid air surrounding the Arctic in recent decades.
Independent investigation into sexual harassment at Rochester provides little closure
Seth Pollak, a distinguished professor of psychology and professor of anthropology, pediatrics, psychiatry and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who signed the open letter against advising students to work or study at Rochester, said Thursday that he hoped Seligman’s resignation was a step in the right direction for the campus. But the report itself was unsatisfying, he said, as Jaeger was found not to have harassed women to a “pervasive” or “severe” degree, even though multiple women testified about harassment.
This Is When Your New Year’s Resolution Will Fail
Make sure the quick win isn’t too hard or too easy, adds Alex Stajkovic, assistant professor of management and human resources at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin. “Easy goals are not motivating, and goals perceived to be beyond our ability may cause cessation of effort,” he says.
The Olympics in the Korean Crisis
According to David Fields, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Korean-American complex is like a precarious iron tower, which is strong but brittle, ready to collapse from any unexpected action like a preemptive strike of North Korea by the Trump administration.
Climate Change Is Altering Lakes and Streams, Study Suggests
“We’re monkeying with the very chemical foundation of these ecosystems,” said Emily H. Stanley, a limnologist (freshwater ecologist) at the University of Wisconsin — Madison. “But right now we don’t know enough yet to know where we’re going. To me, scientifically that’s really interesting, and as a human a little bit frightening.”
Seattle officials feared these rumors would start race riots
Citizens were asked to call in with rumblings they’d heard, especially things that might foment rebellion, according to Stephen Young, an assistant professor of geography and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Precision technology – fine tuning cropping
Loretta Ortiz-Ribbing, Dodge and Fond du lac County’s UW-Extension soils and crops agent, says “Research dollars are important for developing better ways to do things but there also has to be an education arm that allows Extension agents to deliver it to the farmers.”
Protecting eagle nests aids in reproduction
Although the result is most relevant to large, undisturbed habitat like Voyageurs, “the model can be used for other raptors, in other places, regardless of the level of disturbance,” says Zuckerberg. “Long-term monitoring data is really hard to fund, but it’s critical for conservation. This is a perfect example of the benefits of collecting data in a standardized way over a long period of time.”
The Olympics in the Korean Crisis
Noted: According to Daniel Fields, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Korean-American complex is like a precarious iron tower, which is strong but brittle, ready to collapse from any unexpected action like a preemptive strike of North Korea by the Trump administration.
Climate Information Is Disappearing From Federal Websites Under Trump
Quoted: “We’re not seeing these databases destroyed or anything like that,” says Eric Nost, a doctoral student in geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a an Environmental Data & Governance Initiative volunteer. “Instead, we’re seeing the way climate issues are described are being changed.”
Before Nextdoor and Facebook, there was the Seattle Rumor Center
Noted: Citizens were asked to call in with rumblings they’d heard, especially things that might foment rebellion, according to Stephen Young, an assistant professor of geography and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Canada Launches Trade Dispute Against U.S.
Canada is citing nearly 200 cases of alleged trade violations against the United States in a complaint the country brought to the World Trade Organization. Central Time speaks with Mark Copelovitch of the University of Wisconsin-Madison about the case and what it could mean for U.S. international trade moving forward.
Trump Administration Proposal Would Allow Oil Drilling Federally Protected Waters
A new plan proposed by the Department of Interior would open some federally protected waters to off-shore oil drilling. We speak Steph Tai of the University of Wisconsin Law School about the news and what the law says.
Medical experts predict worst flu season in history
A different approach to the universal vaccine is under way at FluGen, a biotech firm in Madison, Wisconsin. Backed by both government and VC funding, the company is working with technology first discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Dr. Gabriele Neumann and exclusively licensed to FluGen. “Our vaccine, called RedeeFlu, is based on a premise that says what happens if you take a [naturally occurring] ’wild type’ of flu virus and modify it to infect the human body but don’t allow it to replicate and cause illness,” said Boyd Clarke, executive chairman of FluGen. (Coincidentally, his maternal grandfather died in the 1918 pandemic.)
Farmers worry Trump could leave them in tough spot on immigration, trade
Quoted: “I don’t think the Trump administration has really done anything related to agriculture at all,” said Steven Deller, a rural development economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin sees decline in number of dairy farms
Steven Deller is a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Deller says it’s difficult for small-scale dairy farms to be profitable, so the number of commercial farms will probably continue to decrease.
Feelings of despair or suicidal thoughts over student debt? ‘It’s not uncommon’ say those who work with struggling borrowers
Noted: Cliff Robb, an associate professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studies how people make financial decisions and facilitates efforts on campus to talk to students about how they handle money.
Wisconsin dairy farms on the decline
“It’s difficult for small-scale dairy farms to be profitable, so the number of commercial farms will probably continue to decrease,” Deller said. “Farms that aren’t profitable don’t contribute to the local economy,” he said.
America’s Rivers Are Getting Saltier
“When we’re throwing down road salt, we might be thinking about the fact that we’re putting salt into the water, but we’re not thinking that it may also mobilize lead,” says Hilary Dugan, a limnologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was not involved in the study. Dugan has studied lakes in North America, which she also found to be increasing in salinity.
Healthy habits of mind bring happiness and can be learned – even by the busy
Lastly, purpose. Longitudinal research tracking people for years shows that purpose in life in the latter decades of life can predict whether a person will be alive 10 years later. Identifying your purpose, your larger aspirations in life, and aligning your everyday behaviour and experiences with that core purpose, is something we know can promote well-being and motivate you to do things that are meaningful to you.Take time daily to think about what you care about most in life. Create reminders to connect to your larger purpose, and question whether your actions that day contribute or are in conflict with your purpose. And ask yourself how your activities can be reframed to support your larger purpose. Richard J. Davidson is the director and founder of the Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry
Google Doodle honors Har Gobind Khorana, who deciphered our DNA
Khorana did stints in research institutions in Switzerland and Canada before landing at the Institute for Enzyme Research and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There, he decoded how cells read the language of RNA written in structures represented by the letters A, C, U, and G. He did this by using enzymes to create sequences of these letters. Arranging them into distinct patterns, he and other scientists found that the genetic code comprised 64 three-letter “words,” known as codons.
The Relationship Between Stress And Asthma
Researchers at UW-Madison (Natalie Guyette) are looking at how stress affects the symptoms of asthma in a four year study looking at how the mind and body communicate in stressful situations. We talk with one of the key professors about their findings.
What Logan Paul Says About Internet Culture
YouTube star Logan Paul has been weathering a barrage of controversy following his video depicting an alleged suicide victim in Aokigahara, a forest in Japan. The video–coupled with others posted on his YouTube channel–highlights a growing concern over what is being produced on social media platforms. We speak with Kathleen Culver, assistant professor and Director of UW-Madison’s Center for Journalism Ethics, about the news and what these videos say about internet culture.
Otis Redding’s ‘Dock of the Bay’ soared after tragic crash here 50 years ago
Noted: “He was coming to Madison because there was an enthusiastic — more than enthusiastic — response from white listeners to what Otis was offering,” said cultural historian, author and UW-Madison professor of Afro-American studies Craig Werner, whose living room overlooks the lake where Redding died. “And that was just opening up at this period of his life.”
Number Of Wisconsin Dairy Farms Continues To Decline
“The growth is really in the medium- to large-size dairy operations,” said Steven Deller, professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The growth in those sectors and the increase in productivity of being a bigger operation, the volume of milk is actually not being affected by this.”
Are you getting enough sleep?
Neuroscientist Chiara Cirelli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Sleep and Consciousness, who conducted the study, explained at the time, ‘I don’t think we know of any cognition function that isn’t affected by sleep deprivation.’
Qatar- Monarchs in Mexico allow brush with fragile beauty
’What’s fair to say right now is that scientists estimate the population is at a pretty serious risk of getting so low that it might not be able to recover, said Karen Oberhauser, director of the University of Wisconsin, Madison Arboretum and co-chair of Monarch Joint Venture, an organisation that co-ordinates monarch conservation efforts in the US.
Could freezing winter weather lead to fewer bugs this summer?
“They’re going to get through this. They are going to make it because they have experienced these kinds of conditions before, and they don’t get wiped out. Maybe we’ll get a little suppression of ticks, but we’ll see,” Susan Paskewitz, chair of the University of Wisconsin Madison Department of Entomology told Popular Science.
How climate change could counterintuitively feed winter storms
“It’s just inconclusive at this stage,” said the University of Wisconsin’s Martin. “I think the jet is getting wavier, I’m not sure it’s connected to the Arctic,” he added.
How Wisconsin is working to keep people in the state
Quoted: UW-Madison professor of economics Noah Williams said this has been happening for years. “Since the recession, since 2008, it’s been net out-migration, so more people moving out than moving in,” said Williams.
What to do to avoid frostbite
VIDEO: UW Health Dermatologist Dr. Apple Bodemer gives information on how to avoid frostbite, and what to do if you get.
Could Pitt genetic procedure allow people with type 1 diabetes to produce their own insulin?
Alan D. Attie, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin Madison, described the study as “an exciting development in the diabetes field” with the big question of whether the new beta cells will “stimulate the immune attack of type 1 diabetes” and “whether or not there are ways to protect the new beta cells from immune attack.”
Experts applaud decision to close Lincoln Hills and form other teen prisons
Quoted: “I think it’s a promising move. It makes a lot of sense in light of problems both with children being confined at Lincoln Hills,” said Cecilia Klingele, a UW-Madison associate law professor.
State sees small population gain
David Egan-Robertson, a demographer with UW-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory, attributes the increase to fewer people leaving the state.
He said the census estimates Wisconsin lost about 2,000 people to domestic migration. The state has seen more people leaving than moving in since the Great Recession began in 2007.
Freezing Your Ass Off Is Also a Symptom of Climate Change
When California had record-breaking warm temperatures last fall, Jonathan Martin, a professor of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, suspected the conditions would be right for an extended cold snap in the east in early winter. “It’s colder than normal but not unusual. We’ve gotten used to milder winters,” Martin told me.
Does all this cold weather mean there will be fewer mosquitoes next summer?
“They’re going to get through this. They are going to make it because they have experienced these kinds of conditions before, and they don’t get wiped out. Maybe we’ll get a little suppression of the ticks, but we’ll see,” says Susan Paskewitz, the chair of the Department of Entomology at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Paskewitz’s research focuses on disease-carrying arthropods like mosquitoes and ticks, which tend to be the ones that we worry about most in the summer.
What’s unusual about the ‘bomb cyclone’ headed toward the East Coast
If you live in the eastern US, from northern Florida all the way to New England, you’re in for some nasty weather: a massive winter storm called a “bomb cyclone” is hammering the coast, bringing snow, ice, flooding, and strong winds. That’s not a made-up click-bait term; it’s actually used by meteorologists to indicate a mid-latitude cyclone that intensifies rapidly — or as meteorologist Jon Martin at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says, they “just kind of explode.”
Federal Rulemaking 101
Federal regulations affect everything from how much mercury dentists can pour down the sink to who’s allowed to drill on federal lands. There are thousands and thousands of regulations governing our lives, but since they’re not front and center in Congress, we rarely hear about them, even though regulations are really where the rubber hits the road. This hour, we’ll talk to Susan Yackee, professor of public policy and political science at the UW-Madison La Folette School of Public Affairs, about the mysterious world of federal regulations.
Bomb cyclones, polar vortexes – global warming in winter
In a report published in 2012 by the American Geophysical Union, atmospheric scientists Jennifer A. Francis of Rutgers University and Stephen J. Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison offered evidence that the jet stream’s weaker winds and bigger wave amplitudes “may lead to an increased probability of extreme weather events that result from prolonged conditions.”
Is Ethanol Really Green?
“The problem is that a lot of energy goes into growing those crops,” says Randall Jackson, professor of agronomy at UW-Madison and sustainability lead at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC). “If you actually calculate the amount of energy it takes to make the fertilizer, plant the crops, make the gasoline to plant the crops and the carbon that it takes to make pesticides and herbicides to keep those crops as monocultures, the net energy gain hovers right around zero. Often it is negative, often it is positive, but it’s always right around zero … It’s just a way to run our cars on natural gas and coal because that’s what goes into making all those products that make the grain that go into the gas tank.”
With candidate field set, state Supreme Court race ramps up
State judicial races are officially nonpartisan. Still, the primary is likely to center on Burns and Dallet courting Democratic and liberal voters, said Ryan Owens, a UW-Madison political science and law professor who studies the courts.
UW 2017 crop variety/hybrid performance tests
Providing farmers with unbiased performance comparisons of hybrid seed corn for both grain and silage available in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences recently released the 2017 hybrid performance trials.
UW-Madison granted $7M to help people quit smoking
Quoted: “Risk of heart disease, heart attack or stroke goes down after six to 12 months after quitting smoking, we see the blood vessels relax as quickly as two weeks after quitting smoking, risk of lung disease, which there’s a whole range of lung disease that smoking effects improves within two to four weeks as well,” UW cardiologist Dr. James Stein said.
Bright Ideas 2018: Use psilocybin in treating depression by UW’s Charles Raison
But there are some really interesting things afoot. Usona is a medical research organization that is exploring the potential of psychedelic medication — psilocybin — in depression treatment. My hope in the coming year is that we continue to see exploration of the therapeutic use of psilocybin.
UW-Madison Finishing Plan To Track Student Deaths
UW-Madison epidemiologist Dr. Agustina Marconi said “our findings and the standards we create will benefit other universities moving forward.”
White Children Are Still Diagnosed More Often With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Maureen Durkin, one of the authors of that study and a population health researcher at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told Spectrum that differences in socio-economic status may be one reason why children who are black and Hispanic are less likely to get screened for autism spectrum disorders—leading to relatively lower diagnosis rates.
Why Do We Need to Sleep?
Sleep-inducing substances may come from the process of making new connections between neurons. Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi, sleep researchers at the University of Wisconsin, suggest that since making these connections, or synapses, is what our brains do when we are awake, maybe what they do during sleep is scale back the unimportant ones, removing the memories or images that don’t fit with the others, or don’t need to be used to make sense of the world.
US News & World Report ranks DASH, Mediterranean diet best
Alisa Sunness, a nutritionist at University of Wisconsin Health, who was not involved in the ranking, said that highest rated diets encourage the same types of eating habits.“They all support a higher intake of fruits and vegetables, lean protein and heart healthy fats and whole grains,” she said. “The diets are using foods with minimal added fats and sugars and using foods in the natural form, and naturally those foods are going to be nutrient dense.”
The Big Squeeze: More juice bars in Madison mean more ways to cleanse
Noted: Sarah Van Riet, a dietician at UW Health, sees no long-term benefits to doing a juice cleanse. Neither she nor Kohls would recommend it to patients, though they understand the appeal of a quick fix.
It’s 2018. Here Are Six Scientific Mysteries We Still Haven’t Solved.
“Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” Giulio Tononi, a psychiatry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison tells New Scientist. Tononi and his team conducted experiments on sleeping mice and found that, after sleep, synapses were significantly smaller than those before sleep.
With candidate field set, state Supreme Court race ramps up
Noted: State judicial races are officially nonpartisan. Still, the primary is likely to center on Burns and Dallet courting Democratic and liberal voters, said Ryan Owens, a UW-Madison political science and law professor who studies the courts.
Dairy Cow Slaughter Increases As Farmers Focus On Profitability
But Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the up-tick in slaughter numbers doesn’t mean herds are growing smaller.”If we see cow slaughter numbers being up a little bit, I don’t think you can necessarily read anything into that because we’ve got plenty of animals to replace them,” Stephenson said.
The Benefits of Giving Up Alcohol in January: Better Sleep, Fancy Mocktails, and More
“There are a lot of people who really want to argue the science with me, and I feel like the science has been settled a long time ago,” says Noelle LoConte, M.D., an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the lead author of the statement, recalling the influx of emails she has received.
Animal research helps pets, too
In addition, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified a protein, present at high levels in cells from dogs with osteosarcoma, that formed tumors when injected into mice. Osteosarcoma affects more than 10,000 dogs a year, according to Bailey, with eight in 10 dogs surviving less than a year after diagnosis. Although what role, if any, this protein plays in tumor development is not yet known, future research could determine whether the protein is a marker of more aggressive disease or whether targeting the protein would improve outcome for dogs with osteosarcoma.