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.
Category: UW Experts in the News
Amazon’s HQ2 Search Is About Politics, Too
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.”
Coffee cancer warning: What science says about cancer risk, coffee and acrylamide
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.”
Wisconsin companies see benefits of wellness programs
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.
In Sweden’s Preschools, Boys Learn to Dance and Girls Learn to Yell
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)
SciLine scores successes in first five months of operation
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.”
Here Is FEMA’s Plan If the Falling Chinese Satellite Takes Aim at a US City
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.”
Teen Drinking Down In State, Nation
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.
Cambridge Analytica psychology: The science isn’t that good at manipulation
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.
Michael Screnock’s work defending Didion, dairy producers draws fire from liberal, conservation groups
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.
Here Is FEMA’s Plan If the Falling Chinese Satellite Takes Aim at a US City
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.
Wisconsin Companies Weigh Benefits Of Wellness Programs As Obesity-Related Health Problems Rise
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.
Better, but not good enough: Women still are few and far between on corporate boards
Noted: Yaron Nili is an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Foxconn industrial operations would represent a major new source of air pollution in region
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.
Tiangong-1, China’s falling space lab, is a prism for its space ambitions
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.
A Cryptocurrency Course Is Teaching MBAs About Bitcoin, Blockchain, And Ethereum
Cryptocurrency courses are coming to the Wisconsin School of Business as schools worldwide catch on to a new intersection of technology and finance.
A Cambridge Analytica Briefing
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.
Treating the Body To Treat The Mind
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.
After the ‘March for Our Lives,’ Student Activists Focus on Midterm Elections
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.
Emma Gonzalez Fake Photo: Twitter Didn’t Stop Viral Image
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.
No, Emma Gonzalez did not tear up a photo of the Constitution
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).”
Mexico’s 2018 Election: Populism Vs Prudence
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.
Q&A: UW researcher Josephine Lukito digs into how major American media were fooled by Russian tweets
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.
A fake photo of Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains
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.
Southern Wisconsin in debris path of falling Chinese space station
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.
Wisconsin’s unemployment rate reaches an all-time record low of 2.9 percent
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.
How John Oliver Uses Satire to Make Millennials Care About the News
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.
New Census Data Show Wisconsin Population Trends Recovering From Recession
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.”
La Crosse political scientist Joe Heim: Trump’s exploiting rural resentment harms country
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.
Facebook’s data scandal: What should you do?
VIDEO: UW System Chief Information Security Officer Nicholas Davis talks about the Facebook data scandal.
Manitowoc Great Decisions: UW-Madison Law School professor Kevin Kelly talks U.S. military
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.
Some people repeatedly win the Wisconsin Lottery. Do they play fair?
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.
Decline In Hunters Threatens How U.S. Pays For Conservation
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.
Experts warn DNA testing kits could put your genetic information in the wrong hands
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.
Research aimed at helping cranberry industry
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.
The romance between Foxconn and Wisconsin almost had a rocky star
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.
Can Nicorette Really Help Smokers Quit?
“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.
Bomb Cyclones, Nor’easters, and the Messy Relationship Between Weather and Climate
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.
Russian Twitter trolls stoked racial tension in wake of Sherman Park rioting in Milwaukee before 2016 Trump election
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.
Frequent lottery winners raise questions about Wisconsin enforcement
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.
Arizona women went to a Tempe mosque and mocked Islam
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.”
Toys R Us plans its demise: Madison stores to close in May
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.
How Stephen Hawking did theologians a favour
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.
Russian Twitter trolls stoked racial tension in wake of Milwaukee rioting before 2016 election
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 that the tweets found by the Journal Sentinel seemed similar.
Expert on pediatric child abuse testifies
JEFFERSON — An internationally known expert on pediatric child abuse testified on Wednesday — day three of a trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court — that injuries sustained by a 4-month-old Lake Mills boy appear to have been intentionally inflicted by his day care provider.
Video: Expert discusses national school walkout day
University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Dean for the School of Human Ecology Connie Flanagan discusses the school walkouts.
Groundbreaking Physicist Stephen Hawking Dies At 76
We speak with Sebastian Heinz, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the life and legacy of Stephen Hawking.
When Do Toddlers Start Having Night Terrors? The Scary Phenomenon Comes On Earlier Than You Think
According to a presentation by Dr. Cami Matthews, MD, Associate Professor Division of Pediatric Pulmonology and Sleep Medicine at the University of Wisconsin Department of Pediatrics’ Wisconsin Sleep Center, sleep terrors or pavor nocturnus usually happen between the ages of 4 and 12, and they’re associated with “Pallor, sweating, pupil dilation, piloerection (hairs standing on end), tachycardia (rapid heart rate), and screaming.”
The Alt-Right’s First Real Political Candidate Went Too Far Right—Even for Many White Nationalists
“He went from being kind of an underground hero in 2016 to being a total pariah,” Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek. “They’ve all walked away from him now. No one in the conservative movement is willing to stand with him.”
Bob Roth sings Transcendental Meditation’s praises to the world
Superior brain function was proved by neuroscientist Richard Davidson, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who famously put electrodes on the heads of meditating monks.
How Cheese, Wheat and Alcohol Shaped Human Evolution
You aren’t what you eat, exactly. But over many generations, what we eat does shape our evolutionary path. “Diet,” says anthropologist John Hawks, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “has been a fundamental story throughout our evolutionary history. Over the last million years there have been changes in human anatomy, teeth and the skull, that we think are probably related to changes in diet.”
Tornado Whips Through Towns in Southern Italy, Injuring Eight
Although tornados are not completely uncommon in Italy, the European country’s tornado season is typically in October and November, according researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Alaskan Community Works to Revive Native Languages
Monica Macauley, professor of linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of the Board of Directors of the Endangered Language Fund, says this is fundamental change from linguistic practices of the 20th century.
How To Recognize And Overcome Your Biases
“You can learn to address them — I’m not sure you unlearn them,” Patricia Devine (@DevineLab), professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin Madison, tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson.
How Forests Change Over Time
The rate of natural forest succession is affected whenever a disturbance such as fire, a windstorm, pests, or management activities occurs on the site. The more severe the disturbance, or the more often disturbances occur, the more slowly natural forest succession moves forward.
Your guide to election-year health policy issues in Wisconsin
Quoted: “All of these policies that are being promoted right now address some element of both coverage and the price of premiums,” said Donna Friedsam, health policy director for UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute. “They touch every person in our state.”
Video: Doctor weighs in on talking to kids about school shootings
Dr. Marcia Slattery, a child psychologist with the UW and an expert in anxiety, talks about how to answer your kids’ questions about school shootings and Wednesday’s walkout.
Let Them March: Schools Should Not Censor Students
Noted: Kathleen Bartzen Culver is the James E. Burgess Chair in journalism ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Center for Journalism Ethics. Erica Salkin is an associate professor of communication studies at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., and the author of the 2016 book Students’ Right to Speak: The First Amendment in Public Schools (McFarland).
Real Time Economics
“Naloxone access may unintentionally increase opioid abuse through two channels: (1) saving the lives of active drug users, who survive to continue abusing opioids, and (2) reducing the risk of death per use, thereby making riskier opioid use more appealing,” the University of Virginia’s Jennifer Doleac and the University of Wisconsin’s Anita Mukherjee write. Because there are more opioid abusers needing to fund their drug habit, theft may also rise.
Ask the Weather Guys: How severe was our just completed meteorological winter?
Noted: Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at 11:45 a.m. the last Monday of each month.