Category: UW Experts in the News

Noted: Said University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus of applied economics Andrew Reschovsky, who worked in the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Treasury: “The problem is, economies are complex things. It is really impossible to attribute any change” in the economy to a single tax cut.

Noted: In 2011, only 20 percent of divorced mothers were receiving child support, according to James Raymo, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has published a number of papers on single mothers in Japan.

Noted: Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin Law School, said Watson should be subject to tighter regulation because of its role in treating patients. “As an ethical matter, and as a scientific matter, you should have to prove that there’s safety and efficacy before you can just go do this,” she said.

“The series is a testament to the Wisconsin Idea, sharing UW-Madison expertise with the community,” Auerbach said. “The retired faculty members appreciate the chance to speak on subjects close to their hearts, and attendees enjoy seeing eminent scholars they may have only heard about.”

Quoted: And CEOs should always be evaluating their businesses, said Brad Chandler, the director of the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “They should understand whether their portfolio makes sense today and for the future,” said Chandler, a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley.

Noted: But focusing on mitigation is a good strategy for communities experiencing recent flash floods, because they’re likely to continue, said Steve Vavrus, senior scientist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research.

Noted: University of Wisconsin, Madison, professor Menzie Chinn’s research also suggests lawmakers in the United States should look to domestic fiscal policy if they want to reduce external imbalances.

Noted: Some scholars focused on the growing sense of geographical—not just cultural—separation between Republicans and Democrats. In a series of in-depth interviews with rural Republicans in Wisconsin, Katherine Cramer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said she had found a sense of “distributive injustice” that ran through their concerns: Rural voters thought political resources flowed disproportionately to those in cities—and vice versa.

Noted: David Brown of the Wisconsin School of Business was mentioned as a signatory of a letter sent to the Trump administration by a group of economists advocating repeal of the inheritance tax.

CW News at 9 talked with UW Professor of Animal Sciences Dan Schaefer about what he expects for the beef, poultry and produce industries.

The Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison determined that many areas of Southeast Texas have received rain that is expected to come around only once every 1,000 years (or having a 0.1 percent probability of occurrence), assuming a stationary climate.

Noted: UW professor and chair of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, Jonathan Martin, explains the potential damage that hurricane Harvey could cause to the coast of Texas.

Noted: Steve Vavrus is the senior scientist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research. He says flood mitigation is important for communities that have experienced flash flooding because floods are likely to continue.

“There is so much to celebrate about Wisconsin’s $88 billion agricultural industry, which encompasses dairy, livestock, field crops, fruit and vegetables and so much more,” says Kate VandenBosch, dean of the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Noted: Expressive writing is about emotional disclosure, said Dr. Adrienne Hampton, an assistant professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin. “It can be trauma-focused, or it can be aspiration-focused,” Hampton said. “Really, the key is just that it involves either conscious or subconscious emotional processing around a given topic.”

Noted: Some of the Madison centers’ success may be due to the convenience they offer in a city that Gloria Ladson-Billings, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education, describes as ”asset-rich and access-poor.”

Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student Valerie Stull didn’t make it to the fairgrounds in West Allis to try the cricket nachos, but she’s eaten crickets – and other insects – prepared in a myriad of ways.  And she believes the world would benefit if the rest of us would open our minds to the nutritional value of entomophagy – the practice of eating insects.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) has started a two-year “virtual dairy farm brain”project that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze data in real time helping dairy farmers improve their management decisions.

Quoted: The average American consumes more than 23 pounds of ice cream per year, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. That said, Bill Klein, dairy plant manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Babcock Dairy, sees a growing interest in adding “good for you” ingredients to ice cream. “We recently came out with a cherry-flavored ice cream, Frozen Fuel,” he added. “That has additional ingredients that are considered good for you, such as whey and milk proteins, probiotics, Omega 3.”

Noted: On the whole, there isn’t enough data to show whether or not specifically dog saliva is healthy for humans or not, said Kimberly Kelly, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It has been nearly a century since a total solar eclipse crossed the United States as it did Tuesday, according to UW-Madison’s Department of Astronomy.

Noted: Sanjay Limaye is a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center.

Noted: In two unpublished research papers, Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist with the department obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s medical school, said China’s actual population at the end of last year should have been about 1.28 billion, and not the 1.38 billion calculated by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Noted: Jim Lattis, director of the University of Wisconsin Space Place, cautions people in the strongest terms to not look directly at the sun during the eclipse.

Stephen Kantrowitz, a history professor at UW-Madison who specializes in the Civil War era, said he believes a replacement marker is appropriate to explain the historical context of the Confederate soldiers’ burials. But he takes issue with how the plaque “celebrates their actions as heroic.”

Noted: But the kids of color aren’t the only ones who benefit from more diverse teachers. In 2015, Gloria Ladson-Billings, a well-respected education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, broke it down:“I want to suggest that there is something that may be even more important than black students having black teachers and that is white students having black teachers! It is important for white students to encounter black people who are knowledgeable,” she wrote. “What opportunities do white students have to see and experience black competence?”

Noted: Katy Culver, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication and associate director of the Center for Journalism Ethics, helps explain the meaning of “alt right” on Live at Four.

Noted: So, what drives some community members to call upon ordinary citizens to solve crimes or mediate? Pamela Oliver says a lack of trust in a police department. Oliver teaches sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Noted: In Charlottesville, the mainstream media coverage has generally been responsible, according to Kathleen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Beginning with reports on the hundreds of torch-bearing alt-rightists marching around the University of Virginia on Friday night, the situation grew increasingly intense and violent, and the reporting reflected that.

Noted: “I don’t think this has too much to do with trade negotiations that are about to start,” said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It’s more means of providing some relief for those few plants who made this product and had been selling it into Canada. Now, [the United States has] the possibility of selling it domestically.”

Researcher Paul Moberg with the University of Wisconsin School of Public Health says the crisis concept is certainly borne out here in Wisconsin, where in 2015 there were 614 deaths from opiods. “In 2016, we had 588 traffic deaths, so we now have surpassed the number of traffic deaths with our number of deaths due to opioid drugs,” Moberg said.