Editing of human cells to alter traits handed down to future generations may one day be ethically permissible, said a committee co-chaired by bioethicist Alta Charo, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law.
Scientists could be allowed to make modifications in human DNA that can be passed down through subsequent generations, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine say. “It is not ready now, but it might be safe enough to try in the future,” R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who co-chaired the committee, said. “And if certain conditions are met, it might be permissible to try it.”
Noted: Katherine Magnuson, a social work professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and associate director of the school’s Institute for Poverty Research, said the plan being worked on by state Democrats will help.
Noted: But now two new studies appear to move calorie restriction from the realm of wishful thinking to the brink of practical, and perhaps even tolerable, reality. Writing in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the National Institute on Aging reported last month chronic calorie restriction produces significant health benefits in rhesus monkeys—a primate with humanlike aging patterns—indicating “that CR mechanisms are likely translatable to human health.” The researchers describe one monkey they started on a 30 percent calorie restriction diet when he was 16 years old, late middle age for this type of animal. He is now 43, a longevity record for the species, according to the study, and the equivalent of a human living to 130.
The report Tuesday from the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine was compiled by a 22-member committee with two members from UW-Madison: R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics who co-chaired the NAS panel, and Dietram Scheufele, a professor of life sciences communication.
Quoted: History suggests that lawmakers who outperform their party’s president at the ballot box exercise more independence from the White House, says David Canon, a congressional scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.“For members of Congress where a president runs ahead of them in their districts, there is a tendency to support him more,” says Canon.
Quoted: “Better to err on the long end,” said Matthew Aliota, an assistant scientist who studies viruses at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Chistine Whelan, who teaches consumer science in the university’s School of Human Ecology, said the change is part of a trend toward making toys more gender-neutral, which she said is welcome news.
Noted: “The data on stress reduction is pretty good,” said Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published hundreds of scientific papers about the impact of emotion on the brain and did some of the first MRIs of meditating Buddhist monks.
Noted: Just a bit of radio interference can throw off the calculations used to make accurate weather predictions that are “extremely sensitive” to even small temperature differences, said Jordan Gerth, a researcher at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: “I think he probably prefers the most impressive-sounding version of his name, which is Donald J. Trump, as opposed to Don John Drumpf, which sounds I think a little less imperious,” mused another Donald—Donald Moynihan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Quoted: A sales decline probably has indeed occurred, said both University of Wisconsin-Madison marketing professor Neeraj Arora and retail industry consultant Dick Seesel. “Donald Trump’s election rhetoric likely eroded a sizable chunk of Ivanka’s customer base of wealthy, educated, urban women,” Arora said by email.
Quoted: “I’m very, very careful with the word lie, because it does imply intent, and sometimes when people share a falsehood they’re not necessarily intending to lie,” says Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. “What concerns me most right now is whether we’ve come to a point where people don’t necessarily believe there is a truth anymore.”
A top U.S. toxicologist is questioning Canada’s response to a tainted-cannabis problem in the medical-marijuana sector, saying patients aren’t being given accurate information on the risks associated with a banned pesticide thousands of people may have consumed. Warren Porter, a specialist in molecular and environmental toxicology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says company phone calls and e-mails, approved by Health Canada, to patients after a series of recent product recalls are misleading, and appear to be based on faulty science.
Noted: Adding to the debate is a new study that claims to show that the state of Wisconsin is underreporting the number of wolves poached, undermining arguments by lawmakers and government agencies.Adrian Teves, an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and several co-authors studied 33 years of gray wolf mortality in Wisconsin. Their key finding, published Monday in the Journal of Mammalogy, is that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources didn’t accurately track the number of wolves killed by poaching, and that the true number is significantly higher.
Noted: David Vanness, an associate professor of health population sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who vocally opposed changes to tenure policies there, said he thought Iowa’s “version of Act 10” — as Wisconsin’s blow to collective bargaining was known — is that limiting bargaining to “small” increases in wages “would drastically limit faculty union power, and together with recertification could certainly harm membership.”
Quoted: “For an individual, this won’t look any different for you,” said Justin Sydnor, associate professor of risk and insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business. “You’ll still have an insurance card, you’ll still go to the doctor and they’ll place a bill and the bill will first go through insurance. So for an individual going to your doctor it really won’t have any change.”
Noted: John Witte, UW-Madison professor emeritus of public affairs and political science, says while the post is meant to be nonpartisan, it has always toed the political line.
Noted: Stephen M. Born is emeritus professor of Planning and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: But although the march has garnered the endorsement of many prominent scientists and some scientific societies, others have so far remained on the sidelines, cautioning in part that the march could paint scientists as just another partisan special interest in an already highly polarized political climate. If the event is “interpreted as ‘These people who like science are marching against Trump,’ it could politicize science even more and potentially hurt public trust in science as an institution,” says communications researcher Dominique Brossard, who specializes in public attitudes on scientific issues at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Noted: Sure enough, Goebel and her husband found what appears to be a piece of the meteor on their property. They sent it to UW-Madison to be examined further. “I always approach these things pretty cautiously, but the footage showing something striking the ground immediately after the flash of the fireball is very persuasive,” John Valley, geoscience professor at UW said.
Noted: Dietram Scheufele, a professor who studies science communication at the University of Wisconsin, says the concern is not unfounded. If the public gets the impression that scientists are liberal crusaders, it will be a hard mental image to break. “My mind as a social scientist tells me that [the march] won’t work, but my heart tells me hopefully it will,” he says.
Quoted: “The Iranian community of Madison recognizes the bravery and sacrifice of these 16 Iranian firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty,” says Majid Sarmadi, a representative of Madison’s Iranian-American community.
In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s rollout of a controversial executive order barring immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, many questioned whether it was consistent with American values of acceptance and diversity.
Quoted: “Meteors like that are surprisingly small for as much light as they put out,” said Jim Lattis, the director of UW-Madison’s Space Place, which is part of the Astronomy Department.
Quoted: Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, coined a name for what’s happened in her state’s rural pockets: the politics of resentment.
Quoted: “I think that Trump has been unusually aggressive in the scope of what he is trying to do and also I think remarkably casual in issuing orders and other actions that don’t appear to have gone through what would be a typical process of reviewing and vetting and consideration,” said Kenneth Mayer, a University of Wisconsin professor who has studied executive actions by presidents.
Noted: “In a number of cases, the very same genes from non-carnivorous ancestors have been recruited for carnivorous purposes,” says Thomas Givnish, who studies plant evolution at the University of Wisconsin.
Noted: “These are gene families that have other functions in non-carnivorous relatives or ancestors. In these carnivorous species, they’ve become recruited as part of the system of digestive enzymes and nutrient transporters,” says Tom Givnish of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: It’s also unclear how much of the lost continent actually lies beneath the island of Mauritius. “They’ve found ancient crystals surrounded by younger rocks,” explains John Valley, who studies geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison but didn’t participate in the recent study. “But they haven’t yet found any of the older rocks.” Although the crystals provide valuable evidence for the existence of this submerged land, how much of it lies down there remains a mystery. “It could be a massive buried continent, or just trace amounts of zircon crystals,” says Valley.
Noted: Of course, given all the grave potential flaws in Trump’s executive order, contravening Executive Order 11030 is the least of it. Kenneth Mayer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an academic expert on executive orders, says, “What’s the remedy for a violation? There probably isn’t one,” although he does believe “This could go into a claim that the government didn’t follow its own rules, and that makes it capricious.”
Quoted: Donald P. Moynihan, a professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is one of many who think the violent protesters played into the hands of conservatives looking to make the case that colleges are bastions of liberal intolerance. “Their next argument is that they need to do something to fix this problem,” he said.
Rated “Mostly False”: “There were things that succeeded and there things that didn’t go as planned,” said Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Noted: Mike Wagner, an associate professor with UW-Madison, said political venting on social media is a reality, but there are ways to go about it that are better than others, For example, asking a question rather than making a statement can help spark intelligent discussion, and avoid making generalized statements.
Violence “almost always” hurts a movement, said Pamela Oliver, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor who studies protests.
“Unprecedented.” It’s a word that gets tossed around a lot lately, with regard to Donald Trump. This time, however, it’s justified. Behind all the chaos, confusion, and international consternation of Trump’s thinly-veiled Muslim immigration and travel ban there’s a clear-cut constitutional crisis brewing, as argued on Twitter by Donald Moynihan, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin.
Noted: “Unprecedented.” It’s a word that gets tossed around a lot lately, with regard to Donald Trump. This time, however, it’s justified. Behind all the chaos, confusion and international consternation of Trump’s thinly veiled Muslim immigration and travel ban there’s a clear-cut constitutional crisis brewing, as argued on Twitter by Donald Moynihan, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin.
Noted: Predicting the effectiveness of protests is difficult. It’s so hard to directly link the actions of demonstrators to bills getting passed or leaders making changes. “It’s such a chaotic, complex system,” Pamela E. Oliver, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin, explains. “Imagine a sporting event where there are 12 teams on the field, and they all have their own agendas.” It’s impossible to guess the outcome.
Noted: “There were things that succeeded and there things that didn’t go as planned,” said Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Quoted: “It’s not only science and technology that we’re concerned about. It’s about human decency and dignity for everybody,” Bassam Shakhashiri of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a former president of the American Chemical Society, told BuzzFeed News.
Quoted: “I think the early optimism is probably directly tied to the fact that people just believe that a Trump administration will be much more pro-business given his background than say the Obama administration,” said Mike Knetter, CEO and president of the University of Wisconsin Foundation.
Noted: UW-Madison professor Robert Howard says Trump’s use of Twitter, in particular, may be opening the door for elected leaders to engage with the public in a manner similar to what celebrities have done for years. Howard is a professor of Communication Arts and director of Digital Studies and DesignLab at UW-Madison. He says politicians are adjusting to the new communication medium and so are the people who read the messages and try to interpret their meaning.
Quoted: The company, which is registered as a public benefit corporation, includes the charity component to show it’s not just about making profits. This practice is unusual because an insurance company usually keeps all the profit or pays dividends to its shareholders or policyholders, said Justin Sydnor, a behavioral economist and associate professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural & applied economics professor Paul Mitchell said without the TPP, the United States will have to negotiate individual trade deals with the countries involved, a process that could take a great deal of time.
Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director at UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute, said Medicaid’s relatively rosy budget situation this year could make reform even more likely.
Noted: Plant protein tends to be of a lower quality than dairy proteins, though soy is close, said John Lucey, a food scientist who directs the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Dr. Rob Striker, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said many people who are infected with hepatitis C aren’t aware they have it.
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Steven Deller said the level of union membership nationally has been declining for years as manufacturing is replaced by technology that requires more capital but less manual labor.
Noted: But it is still unclear exactly how, once bound to LSD, these receptor proteins go on to create the specific, often bizarre effects of LSD — like the frequently reported destruction of one’s sense of self, or careening uncontrollably into one’s deepest, most personal memories and emotions. The work only studied two of 40 known receptors that LSD touches in the brain, said Nicholas Cozzi, a pharmacologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the study.
To realize its full potential for innovation and success, science needs all kinds of scientists, said Tracey Holloway, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and president of the Earth Science Women’s Network. “For the well-being of the human enterprise, we want all hands on deck.”
Quoted: Thomas O’Guinn, professor of marketing at UW-Madison, views the naming rights deal as a good move by American Family. He said the insurance market is crowded, so it’s to American Family’s advantage to stand out.
Quoted: UW-Madison economist Steven Deller says the level of union membership nationally has been declining for years as manufacturing is replaced by technology that requires more capital but less manual labor.
Quoted: UW-Madison economist Steven Deller said the level of union membership nationally has been declining for years — a trend that is likely to continue with large-scale, labor-intensive manufacturing being replaced with smaller-scale technology that requires more capital but less manual labor. Large-scale manufacturing companies tend to be unionized and their replacements are more likely not to be.
Noted: This gives the president lots of leeway — so much, in fact, that executive orders can take effect even over the objection of Congress. That’s where much of the controversy lies, says Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemistry and chemistry professor Laura Kiessling, who cowrote the letter, said Pruitt’s skepticism about climate change could affect EPA’s willingness to protect the quality of life in Wisconsin.
Noted: Plant protein tends to be of a lower quality than dairy proteins, though soy is close, said John Lucey, a food scientist who directs the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Many researchers do not realize the effort and computing savvy it takes to pick through piles of such data, says Edgar Spalding, a plant biologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “The phenotyping community has rushed off to collect data and the computing is an afterthought.”
Other times, laws become so restrictive that people are forced to break them to engage in public life, said Finn Enke, a professor of gender and women’s studies at UW-Madison. “Civil disobedience arises when conditions become such that persons are actually criminalized for really basic behaviors,” Enke said, pointing out that transgender people using a bathroom or undocumented immigrants receiving public services could be breaking laws.
UW-Madison political science professor Jon Pevehouse says he often pairs newsworthy information with the week’s topic. “It does help motivate the material that I’m going to cover anyway,” said Pevehouse. “In week eight or nine [of Introduction to International Relations] we’re going to cover international trade and trade agreements, so TPP will still be a big deal then and we’ll still be talking about Trump withdrawing from it so that’s how I’ll lead that lecture off.”
Noted: “Here is the first thing to know: They are not treating gene-edited animals as drugs,” says Alta Charo, lawyer and bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “They are proposing to regulate the altered DNA as a drug.” This refers back to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which defines a drug as something that intentionally alters a body’s structure or function. OK, technically, sure. But even the FDA agrees that altered genes aren’t drugs—its new draft regulation needs several exemptions and caveats before it can contort its 1938 law to wrap around 21st century technology.
