Quoted: Tom O’Guinn, a University of Wisconsin expert on consumer behavior, said packaging issues aren’t enough to sway diners’ decisions on where to eat.”The average American doesn’t care lot about this,” he said. “People don’t want to sit there and think, ’Gee, this is a slight improvement in packaging.’”
Category: UW Experts in the News
Epic Wins In Supreme Court Decision Seen As Blow To Worker Rights
Quoted: An estimated 25 million workers could be affected by the decision, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School professor Steph Tai.”About 50 percent of non-union, private sector employees have arbitration agreements in their contracts,” Tai said.
Why You Should Stop Being So Hard on Yourself
Quoted: “Self-criticism can take a toll on our minds and bodies,” said Dr. Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also teaches psychology and psychiatry.
Talk Wednesday About Climate Change Impact On Northwoods Fish
A lakes researcher says some impacts from a changing climate are already showing up in Northwoods fisheries.
UW Health Chief Flight Physician: Single-Engine Helicopters ‘Have No Place’ In EMS
Quoted: Dr. Michael Abernethy, chief flight physician of UW Health Med Flight in Madison, does not believe the Eurocopter AS 350 should have been flying.”You’d be hard pressed to find a physician in the United States who has spent more time in the back of a helicopter caring for patients. I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years,” Abernethy said.
How To Pick Up A Toddler & Save Your Back, According To An Expert
Quoted: According to Jill Boissonnault, Ph.D., a professor of physical therapy at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, to avoid back injuries you should also not turn your body when you pick up your toddler. As she told Parents, “Avoid twisting your torso while lifting, which places the spinal area at risk for injury.”
Texas Shooting: Schools Can’t Stop Violence
Quoted: He may have an explosive temper; he may even have access to guns. “But if he hasn’t come right out and said, ‘I’m going to kill someone tomorrow,’ or ‘I’m going to kill myself,’ you’re not going to be able to involuntarily hospitalize him,” says Michael Caldwell, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin who works with dangerous young men at a juvenile treatment center in Madison.
Their Protest Helped End the Draft. 50 Years Later, It’s Still Controversial.
Quoted: “It embedded itself into our cultural fabric,” said Shawn Francis Peters, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who grew up in Catonsville and wrote a book about the Catonsville Nine. “I don’t think that they even dreamed that it would have this kind of resonance.”
GOP US Senate candidates tell group they want personhood law, no-exceptions abortion ban
Noted: The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is among the groups that say a personhood measure could criminalize certain forms of birth control. Alta Charo, a professor with expertise in law and bioethics at UW-Madison, said the same. Charo, who served on former President Barack Obama’s transition team, said certain infertility treatments such as in-vitro fertilization also could be affected.
This Is How Your Grocery Store Is Tricking You Into Spending More Money
Quoted: “Retailers prefer sampling events to price-based promotions, such as coupons or temporary price reductions, because these events encourage consumers to try a product and build loyalty that won’t disappear once the price goes back up,” said Qing Liu, an associate professor in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who contributed to the study.
The Future of Sports: A New Wearable Designed to Measure Human Movement
However, injuries are all too common in high-intensity interval training environments. This is why engineers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-Madison) recently designed a wearable that can directly identify muscle strain to help mitigate recurring injuries.
Spring Comes Quickly In Louisville. Can We Blame The Heat Island?
Noted: A study from a couple years ago from the University of Wisconsin, Madison used thermal sensors and satellite imagery to compare the growing seasons of plants inside and outside the city.
The Curious Case of the Rogue ‘SpaceBee’ Satellites
Noted: In the last few years, the rate of launches of miniature satellites has increased exponentially. The industry is “moving away from these really large satellites that are expensive to build, expensive to launch, and into satellites that are highly specialized and often intended to last,” says Lisa Ruth Rand, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the environmental history of near-Earth space. “The smaller the satellite, the cheaper it is to launch, the better rate a company will get.”
The U.S. spends less on children than almost any other developed nation
Noted: These conclusions about safety net spending for children are broadly similar to those reached in a 2010 paper by Yonatan Ben-Shalom of Mathematica Policy Research, Robert Moffitt of Johns Hopkins University and John Karl Scholz of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. But the new paper uses federal administrative records, rather than survey data dependent on people’s responses, to produce its results.
Men disproportionately win NIH’s plum award for young scientists
Noted: “This is exactly what research on the influence of gender would predict—that men would be favored in the review process for a new, highly prestigious award that is based on potential, not proven ability,” says Molly Carnes, director of the Center for Women’s Health Research at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Could U.S. Senate Races Impact Gubernatorial Races?
Noted: In the 2010 midterms, the Tea Party movement helped Republicans win both the gubernatorial and Senate races in Florida and Wisconsin. The races in Wisconsin, for instance, “were fueled by anger at the Obama administration,” says University of Wisconsin political scientist Barry Burden. Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker emphasized his opposition to Washington, and Ron Johnson, the Republican Senate challenger to Democratic incumbent Russ Feingold, “appeared on the scene out of nowhere, motivated almost entirely by his opposition to the Affordable Care Act.”
He’s on his 4th run for office in 6 years, but ‘IronStache’ Randy Bryce says he’s not a politician
Noted: “There’s not an obvious point when a person becomes a politician,” said Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist, “but Bryce has done enough things that he’s clearly moving toward that category.”
Murphy’s Law: Can City Solve Its Turnout Problem?
Noted: Rep. Mark Pocan, whose Democratic congressional district includes Dane County, pointed to the get-out-the-vote effort in Madison: Democrats there did an “amazing” job, he told the Cap Times. And UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden suggested Madison might have done better because of “its expanded early voting hours and locations.”
Wisconsin is coming for Minnesota’s millennials
Noted: The exception was in the early 2000s, when the Twin Cities were rapidly suburbanizing. At that time, there was a lot of migration from the Twin Cities into western Wisconsin counties like Polk and Pierce, said David Egan-Robertson, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin Applied Population Laboratory.
Wisconsin farmers take Mother Nature out of the equation
Noted: “We’re seeing more interest now as we’re seeing bigger populations of people in urban areas – food deserts – looking at ways to get food production closer to the consumer,” said Johanna Oosterwyk. She’s the manager at D.C. Greenhouse on UW-Madison’s campus.
Living on the Edge: Wildfires Pose a Growing Risk to Homes Built Near Wilderness Areas
Quoted: “The Forest Service is concerned about more and more houses built in and near wildland vegetation because of this double whammy,” says the study’s lead author Volker Radeloff, a forest ecologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
First, Marijuana. Are Magic Mushrooms Next?
Noted: Even so, Paul Hutson, professor of pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin who has conducted psilocybin research, says he is wary of the drive for decriminalization. Psilocybin isn’t safe for some people — particularly those with paranoia or psychosis, he said.
White people get more conservative when they move up — not down — economically. Here’s the evidence.
President Trump’s election upended the conventional view of U.S. class politics. Republicans have long been considered the party of the affluent and upwardly mobile, while Democrats have appealed to the economically disadvantaged. But many observers have suggested that Trump “tapped into the anger of a declining middle class” rooted in decades of income stagnation and growing social distress.
Katherine J. Cramer is a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of “The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker” (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
What parents and teachers can do to not make the 7th grade the worst ever
Noted: A professor of communication sciences and disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rountrey also can’t understand how her only child can be so disorganized.
How training doctors in implicit bias could save the lives of black mothers
Quoted: “The Implicit Association Tests are humbling. I have every bias in the book,” said Dr. Molly Carnes, director of the Center for Women’s Health Research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and an internal medicine doctor.Carnes has developed workshops for the university’s faculty that increase awareness about bias by teaching participants how to recognize it.
A healthy soil system: building organic matter
Patton, a senior outreach specialist with the University of Wisconsin?Madison & Extension Nutrient and Pest Management Program, discussed the importance of promoting soil health in improving farm sustainability and water quality in the region, as well as the relevant agronomic practices farmers can use to improve the biological, chemical and physical properties key to a healthy soil.
The U.S.-North Korea summit could be Trump’s ‘Nixon-to-China’ moment
After the release of three U.S. prisoners Wednesday in North Korea, President Trump tweeted that the “Date & Place” for his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “set.”The recent thaw in U.S.-North Korean relations has taken many foreign policy analysts by surprise.
Scott Walker is giving Wisconsin families $100 per kid. Democrats should learn from that.
Quoted: What’s more, there are some barriers to poor families getting the money, like the requirement that recipients of the funds have bank accounts for direct deposits. After looking over the procedure for filing for the refund, Tim Smeeding, an economist and poverty expert at the University of Wisconsin Madison, commented, “I am sure poor people won’t follow all of this and won’t get the money.”
State Seeks Different Avenues To Improve Opioid Addiction Treatment
Quoted: Aleksandra Zgierska, a professor who specializes in addiction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, says one possible explanation for the surge in emergency room visits is that people hooked on prescription drugs don’t have timely access to treatment and may be turning to illegal drugs.
Are There Enough Young People In Rural Wisconsin?
Research shows the loss of young adults raises the cost of schools, public services, and recreation for individuals. The Applied Population Lab at the UW-Madison projected that 15 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties will have smaller populations in 2040 than they did in 2010.
First, Marijuana. Are Magic Mushrooms Next?
Paul Hutson, professor of pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin who has conducted psilocybin research, says he is wary of the drive for decriminalization. Psilocybin isn’t safe for some people — particularly those with paranoia or psychosis, he said.
Fox, Sinclair vie for executive with ties to Hannity
Quoted: “If they’re interested potentially in Hannity and they’re interested in Pirro…that gives us some clue of what’s going to be on the Sinclair cable network,” said Lewis Friedland, who directs the Center for Communication and Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Why it takes so long to get election night results
Quoted: Once the vote is officially closed, poll workers will shut down the voting machines and download or pull the memory card or stick that stores the votes. Workers might also run or print out a summary of the voting machine, a kind of receipt for the number of ballots cast, said Barry Burden, a political science professor and the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Is Russia interfering in Guatemala’s anti-corruption commission? The real story might surprise you.
On April 27, the U.S. Congress’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, held a hearing about alleged Kremlin pressures on the United Nations Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a hybrid legal body that investigates and tries high-level corruption cases.
Rachel A. Schwartz is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Wisconsin Dairy News: Promising job outlook for agriculture students
John Klatt, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs for UW-Madison, says most students in the Dairy Science program have an accepted job offer before graduation, or shortly thereafter.
Get outside: How nature benefits our well-being
UW Health Senior Psychologist Dr. Shilagh Mirgain reminds you why its important to get outside.
Dairy farmers urged to accept MPP ‘gift’
While speaking at the Extension Service’s semi-annual farm management update, Gould described the legislation which was passed on February 9 as “a gift” for dairy farmers, particularly for those with a history of annual milk production of up to 5 million pounds (the approximate equivalent of 200 cows with an annual milk production average of 22,000 pounds).
High rise development – U.S. studies indicate states with legalized pot have seen a boost in property values but this trend isn’t expected to hit Canada
Noted: In their study published in August last year, Contact High: The External E?ects of Retail Marijuana Establishments on House Prices, the University of Georgia’s James Conklin, University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Moussa Diop, and Herman Li of California State University in Sacramento reported an even greater boost to home prices after recreational marijuana sales became legal in Colorado.
Study By UW School Of Nursing Dean Exposes Sleep Deprivation In Nurses
Linda Scott, Dean of the School of Nursing at UW–Madison, has studied this issue for decades and has a newly published paper on sleep deprivation and fatigue among American nurses and how to turn the problem around.
Ketamine Stirs Up Hope—and Controversy—as a Depression Drug
Quoted: In certain circles, they’re held in high esteem. Clinicians interested in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy often seek them out for training. And Charles Raison, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, sees merit in the couple’s approach.
Global trade
Marco Werman speaks with Menzie Chinn about tariffs and global trade.
Genetic Adaptation to Cold Brought Migraines With It
Noted: The connection between TRPM8 and migraine isn’t clear, other than the association. “Selection is optimizing fitness,” says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not associated with the study. “It doesn’t optimize health, it doesn’t optimize happiness, so sometimes things are pushed by selection and they have negative side effects. This seems to be a case where a gene is pushed higher in frequency by selection for adaptation to cold, and it maybe has a bad side effect on increased susceptibility to migraines.” It’s also possible that the downside to having the cold-adaptive TRPM8 allele is a modern phenomenon, and that the migraine risk didn’t appear until more recently as environments have changed, says Nielsen.
The black-white wealth gap is fueled by student debt
Noted: “Student debt is going to contribute to the ongoing persistence of the racial wealth gap,” said Fenaba Addo, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the working paper. “These disparities are large and then they grow over time.”
UW researchers find CWD-causing prions in soil and water around mineral licks
Two UW-Madison researchers believe that their discovery of protein agents responsible for causing chronic wasting disease near mineral licks in Dane and Iowa counties strengthens longstanding theories that gathering spots for deer are hot spots for transmission of the disease.
Does growing up poor harm brain development?
Quoted: “You know what you do when you can’t afford to buy diapers? You change your baby less often. You let them walk around in a dirty diaper,” says Katherine Magnuson, the team’s poverty expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Illegal Immigration Does Not Increase Violent Crime, 4 Studies Show
Interviewed: Michael Light, a criminologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, looked at whether the soaring increase in illegal immigration over the last three decades caused a commensurate jump in violent crimes: murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Reporter’s journal: In Trump era, views of media — like politics — are polarized
Noted: Today’s media is so diverse in its mission, style and point of view that there is something for everyone to hate (or like). But the mistrust of the “mainstream media” on the right has reached a point where it is reinforced by practically everything that happens in the Trump presidency, said Dhavan Shah, a professor of mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Will Starbucks’s Implicit-Bias Training Work?
One training, developed by Patricia Devine and colleagues at the Prejudice and Intergroup Relations Lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, looks at bias as a habit that can be broken. Their approach—which I’ve written about before—consists of a couple of hours of modules based on what the researchers see as three essential elements of an antibias intervention: awareness of the problem, motivation to do something about it, and strategies for what to do.
Are slow drivers a danger on Oregon roads?
Noted: That number may not tell the whole story, according to Andrea Bill, a research program manager at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Traffic Operations and Safety Lab.“When you’re looking at the crash data afterwards, it’s really hard to get what the speed was. What they were actually traveling, the speed, at the time of the crash,” said Bill.
How Bacteria Eat Penicillin
Noted: “Basically, if you look for it it’s there in when it comes to bacterial degradation of compounds. . . . Somebody out there will degrade just about everything,” says Jo Handelsman, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I don’t think that penicillin-producing strains of Penicillium are absolutely ubiquitous in soil, so it is kind of interesting that it is easy to find these degraders, even though they may not individually have encountered penicillin before.”
Ep 29: MBA in Real Estate Programs with Andra Ghent
Emoji Analysis: How it Can Help Your Business
According to recent research by the Wisconsin School of Business, the use of emojis will likely continue to increase in marketing communications.
“Brands are trying to be authentic, to come across as personable, and project traits like warmth and competence,” Joann Peck, associate professor of marketing at the Wisconsin School of Business, said in the press release. “One way to do that is to mirror everyday conversation, and that means taking the non-verbal cues we use in face-to-face communication into the online environment.”
A Population That Pollutes Itself Into Extinction (and It’s Not Us)
Noted: “This is a very important discovery,” said Jo Handelsman, who studies microbial diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she directs the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery. “I didn’t think bacteria were so self-destructive, but this is a very simple phenomenon. The pH changes, and the bugs all die. How did we miss it all these years?”
Girls and Concussions: UW-Madison Study on Protective Head Gear Largest in the U.S.
Girl’s soccer and football. What do they have in common? Concussions. The biggest prevention trial in the U.S. is happening right now at UW-Madison. But the lead researcher feels this type of research has yet to catch on in the soccer world.
Will the Social Media Loopholes Be Closed Before the Midterm Elections?
(also published in the Council on Foreign Relations)
Young Mie Kim, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, collected controversial Facebook ads displayed over a six week-period before the 2016 elections. She found that one-half of groups purchasing these ads not only failed to file a report with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but also had no IRS or online footprint indicating who they were.
Checking the gas
Sometimes dairy scientist Michel Wattiaux approaches his research like a cop at a traffic stop. He uses a breath analyzer to check for problematic products of fermentation.Last spring, the UW-Madison researcher began using a specialized device to measure the methane being exhaled or belched by a group of Holsteins and Jerseys.
How to Talk to Kids About Money
Research out of the University of Wisconsin–Madison found that by age three, kids can understand basic money concepts, such as value or exchange.
Our Top 10 Summer Pests
A consecutive pair of mild winters followed by an unusually rainy spring and early summer in 2017 likely played a significant role in some of the invertebrate trends observed by the University of Wisconsin Insect Diagnostic Lab, and may point towards what’s in store for 2018.
‘Be vigilant’: Security expert warns UnityPoint Health patients after major security breach
Noted: Bob Turner says he can think like a criminal, not just because of his job tracking them down at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as the chief information security officer, but also because he’s been a victim of them.
Dr. Cropp: Milk Prices on Path to Slow Recovery
One of Wisconsin’s top experts in dairy market pricing says butter, cheese, dry whey and nonfat dry milk prices continue to average higher this spring.