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.
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.”
Quoted: “I found that young children with imprisoned mothers are at risk for having insecure attachment relationships with their mothers and caregivers,” says Julie Poehlmann-Tynan, professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kids may become ambivalent or anxious about relationships, instead of enjoying the type of secure relationships that help a child flourish.
University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon said the question for the Women’s March movement is whether it will have a lasting impact on policy following Saturday’s marches.
Noted: Enter the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Led by Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist Time named one of the world’s most influential people in 2006, the center recently began shifting its emphasis from pure research to applied science, testing its findings about neuroplasticity, mind-body medicine, and the mental-health benefits of mindfulness outside the laboratory.
Noted: Julie Mead, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who was invited by the coalition to speak, said that vouchers erode public schools, which are required to serve all students and teach by a state-approved curriculum. Private schools have different requirements.
Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon said the question for the Women’s March movement is whether it will have a lasting impact on policy following Saturday’s marches.
Art faculty Lynda Barry quoted: “Always carry a pen and a notebook with you — write down the crazy things you hear people say: the good, the bad, the confusing. If you can draw a picture of them saying it, even better! In other words, start to make comics about your experiences in this world.“And learn to sing ‘Bad Reputation’ by Joan Jett. Sing it as loud as you can with all of your heart.”
Noted: Katherine J. Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, recently wrote a book about this. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker came out just last March. It’s based on research she did from 2007 to 2012, when she essentially kept inviting herself to informal but regular gatherings of people in more than two dozen rural communities around the state—and listened.
Quoted: To Justin Sydnor, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economist who studies insurance and individual behavior, the two measures represent a chance to put politics aside and think about what really happens when the government requires consumers to buy insurance.
Kathy Cramer, a political science professor at UW-Madison, noticed these bubbling tensions when studying rural Wisconsinites’ political opinions. In her book “The Politics of Resentment,” Cramer explains the ever-growing wariness of people in rural areas toward Madison and Milwaukee.
Noted: UW-Madison Political Science Professor Barry Burden said the governor’s fundraising numbers will keep climbing.
Quoted: “The vocal folds have a very specific viscosity, and you need that viscosity to create the mucosal wave,” said Susan Thibeault, an otolaryngologist and surgeon at the University of Wisconsin.
The term ‘post-truth’ is now a mainstay in political discourse, its use firmly established in any analysis of the European Union referendum result and the outcome of the US presidential election. Academics already struggle to communicate their research findings to the broader society — a problem that is likely to be exacerbated if the public is happy to disregard facts. Dominique Brossard suggests that scientists “Show that you care.”
Quoted: Federal regulations already define milk as “the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows,” and UW-Madison Center for Dairy Research director John Lucey notes that there are “‘Standards of Identity’ for yogurts and most cheeses, where they state that those products must be made from milk.”
Noted: Elena D’Onghia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had predicted in 2009 that unless gravity is doing something very strange, we should see clusters of dwarf galaxies all on their own, even near our galaxy. “Based on dark matter theory, we expect a lot of little dwarf galaxies and clumps of dark matter in and around the Milky Way,” she says. So why have these clusters been so hard to spot?
Researchers could reduce experiments on nonhuman primates by studying data that have already been collected to answer new questions, says David O’Connor, a pathologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Noted: Brian Gould, an agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said exports are critical to the dairy industry, primarily in preventing domestic supplies from growing too large and depressing prices.
Noted: “Few people ask themselves why they set the goal they chose,” says Christine Whelan, Ph.D., a clinical professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin. “Accomplishing your goal can feel empty without understanding the motivation behind it.”
A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor says people shouldn’t expect the truth anytime soon about the authenticity of the dossier containing unsubstantiated information about Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
UW-Madison professor Hart Posen joined Steve Ketelaar on Wisconsin’s Weekend Morning News to discuss the future of retail. How did brick-and-morter stores do compared to online during Black Friday and holiday shopping? What will malls look like in the next few years?
Quoted: That has the advantage of allowing the U.S. Senate to pass a repeal measure without needing a filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes. But it also has the downside of being unable to necessarily pass all the elements that are likely needed in a replacement plan, said Donna Friedsam, director of Health policy programs at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Quoted: “At the moment, he looks like a very individualized figure in history,” said political scientist Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hillary Clinton “couldn’t mobilize the Obama coalition because it’s an Obama coalition.”
This week, President-elect Donald Trump held his first press conference in six months. Many of the questions addressed the unsubstantiated claims recently released by Buzzfeed concerning Trump’s connections to Russia, and included accusations of “fake news.”
Noted: Problems in other brain systems, like vision, might also increase athlete injury risk, says Alison Brooks at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. But she warns that the underlying relationship between concussion and other injuries is unclear. “How do we know these athletes weren’t different to begin with? Maybe the reason they got a concussion in the first place is that there’s something different about them,” she says.
Quoted: “It depends on how many people apply. They divide the money up, but I don’t think we’re looking at very many bucks,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Robert Cropp, who was an expert witness in the original case.
Quoted: Edward Hubbard, an assistant professor in the department of educational psychology and the neuroscience training program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that the brain regions involved in processing colors are adjacent to the regions involved in recognizing letters and numbers.
Katy Culver, an assistant professor of Journalism at UW-Madison and the director of the UW Center for Journalism Ethics, talks about the phenomenon of “fake news” on Live at Four.
Quoted: Because of Walker’s approach, what happens to the exchange and its subsidies matters more in Wisconsin than in most places, said Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director at UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute.
Quoted: Martin Ganco, an associate business professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is part of a nationwide effort to find out how widespread non-competes are, which industries use them, and how they impact companies, workers and the overall economy.
Quoted: “Anybody that bought some dairy bought some milk from 2003 to 2010 can claim some damages,” Bob Cropp, a UW-Madison economist, said.
Noted: University of Wisconsin medial law expert Robert Drechsel argues the opposite: “It is cautioning readers that such-and-such statement in the dossier has been found to be untrue as it continues wrestling with verification. So I think such acknowledgement might actually undermine any claim of reckless disregard.”
Noted: A centralized massive protest has its advantages, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor Pamela Oliver. “(Media) rarely get interested unless an action is either very, very large … or disruptive, or especially, violent,” she said.
Quoted: “This is amazing work that reshapes how we think about bacterial interactions and biofilm formation,” says Helen Blackwell, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the study. “It shows us a simple and generic way for many different bacteria to interact thorough electrical signals.”
Quoted: Martin Ganco, an associate business professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is part of a nationwide effort to find out how widespread non-competes are, which industries use them, and how they impact companies, workers and the overall economy.
Noted: Dr. Howard Steinberg, a veterinary pathologist at UW-Madison, was part of the committee for several years beginning in 2006. While he doesn’t recall seeing anything particularly alarming, he believes that “an institute of that stature” would benefit from a voluntary external accreditation. “The major issue is the fact that we felt they should be accredited by an agency that normally accredits animal care and use programs,” Steinberg said.
Noted: “Anybody that bought some dairy bought some milk from 2003 to 2010 can claim some damages,” Bob Cropp, a UW-Madison economist, said.
Quoted: “Fit your favorite foods into your diet so you don’t end up feeling deprived and saying I’m done with this,” said Julie Andrews, dietitian and chef at UW Health.
Quoted: UW-Madison Journalism Professor Mike Wagner told 27 News politicians have always challenged the press, but feels the type of attack from President-Elect Trump is certainly new for an entire of generation of reporters used to covering the likes of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – all of whom were generally cordial with the media.
Quoted: “We don’t want to lose ground on the insurance coverage,” Donna Friedsam, health policy programs director at UW-Madison’s Population Health Institute, said during a panel discussion at the Capitol.
Noted: The Daily Caller News Foundation spoke with Kathleen Bartzen Culver, assistant professor and director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the relevant legal standards in defamation lawsuits. Culver is a media ethicist who teaches a course in media law, but is not a legal expert.
Interviewed: We examine Mr. Obama’s so-called “Pivot to Asia” strategy with Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. McCoy has called Mr. Obama a “geopolitical genius”.
Noted: Though Neanderthals survived this turbulence, they were never able to build up their numbers. (Across all of Eurasia, at any point in history, says John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “there probably weren’t enough of them to fill an N.F.L. stadium.”)
Quoted: So what hell is an organ? Tom Broman, a science historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, laughs when I ask him.
Noted: Then there is a study by Bonnie Svarstad and Chester Bond of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison more than three decades ago: They found that patients in for-profit nursing homes got heavier doses of sedatives than those in nonprofits got. Explaining the pattern, the economist Burton Weisbrod wrote that sedatives were “less expensive than, say, giving special attention to more active patients who need to be kept busy.”
Noted: Hart E. Posen, an expert on business strategy from the Wisconsin School of Business, talks about the closing of The Limited and the future of retail.
Gov. Scott Walker is set to deliver his seventh annual State of the State address Tuesday afternoon. “A lot of his State of the State (addresses) are less rattling off policy ideas, as compared to other governors or certainly presidents when they do the State of the Union,” said Mike Wagner, professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “When he does talk about what’s to come, it’s not always with a great deal of specifics.”
Quoted: Ken Mayer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of a book on executive power, agreed on this point: “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Discover Magazine corrects their error: So what hell is an organ? Tom Broman, a science historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, laughs when I ask him.
Quoted: “It seems like climate science is going to be targeted,” said Michael Notaro, associate director of the university’s Center for Climatic Research, which receives about 90 percent of its roughly $3 million budget from federal sources. “We are very vulnerable, and from our standpoint we see climate change research as something very critical that has big impacts on the state and the globe.”
Noted: Meditation — sometimes as little as five to 10 minutes a day of focused breathing — has been shown to affect areas of the brain that control attention, emotion and habit, says Cortland Dahl, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Healthy Minds. If you want to stop making mindless or money-wasting choices, meditation may help build the “muscle” that enables you to pay attention to your thoughts.
Quoted: Yi Fuxian, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies China’s demographics, said half of all Chinese women eligible to have a second child were 40 or older.
Quoted: “There’s no question there’s an income disparity, and probably in no case does more than half of that [79-cents-on-the-dollar] gap go away when you control for other factors,” says Barry Gerhart, a professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin School of Business. “The question is, what causes that? That’s harder to answer.”
Noted: Recently, “big data” analytics have supplemented surveys to develop microtargeting strategies for particular baskets of voters. These approaches have some value, but they are also overly static and overly national. Surveys and focus groups tell us what individuals in various demographic categories say in response to questions experts put to them, but they do not reveal how people in groups and communities think and talk about politics — as Katherine Cramer, a University of Wisconsin political scientist, discovered when she actually sat down with groups all over her state to “listen in” on their discussions of community affairs.
Quoted: “Earlier experiments show that a neural representation of a word disappeared,” said the study’s lead author, Brad Postle, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But by using a trio of cutting-edge techniques, Dr. Postle and his team have revealed just where the neural trace of that word is held until it can be cued up again.
