Quoted: Barry Burden, a UW-Madison professor of political science who focuses on campaigns, elections and public opinion, says Republicans see Baldwin’s seat as a prime take-back opportunity, while Democrats are having a hard time finding a viable candidate to challenge Walker.
Quoted: Hart Posen, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and start-up expert, said all rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. “When you look at these rankings, you need to realize there are a variety of ways of measuring entrepreneurial activity,” Posen said.
Noted: “Our main finding from the study was that any lake that was surrounded by some type of impervious surface — that’s usually roadways or parking lots — was more at risk of having long term salination,” said Hilary Dugan, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the study’s lead author.
Noted: Competitors to Facebook that harnessed the powers of social media only in an effort to make us wiser would probably be niche services, like National Public Radio and PBS. “Most people aren’t that fussy,” says Jack Mitchell, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin and the author of Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio. “PBS’s market share is not that high. Public radio is a little higher. It’s a minority taste.”
Noted: Nick Hillman, a professor of educational leadership at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has worked with Ellie Bruecker, a graduate student at the university, to track the effects of the tool’s closure with recent data from the Office of Federal Student Aid.
Noted: Susan Carpenter, the native plant gardener at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, said while flowering resources or the bee’s habitat is one of the major contributing factors to the bumblebee’s listing. Disease, pathogens, climate change and agricultural pesticides have played a significant role in the insect’s decline.
Noted: Mark Stephenson, UW-Madison director of dairy policy analysis, said he doesn’t believe the “handful” of producers who received letters make the scenario symptomatic or a reason for more widespread concern.
The rusty-patched bumblebee recently became the first bumblebee, as well as the first bee overall in the continental United States, to be listed under the Endangered Species Act. We talk with a native plant gardener Susan Carpenter about what can be done to help this bee and other native pollinators and how everyone…
Noted: Science as an institution has, for hundreds of years, been viewed as the best method for producing knowledge. Until recently, science has also been relatively sacred across administrations, across partisan lines, said Dietram Scheufele, a professor of science communication at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “Once we start eroding [science], we get into dangerous territory,” he added. “Think about how important science is for national security, how important it is for business. The very laptops this stuff is being written on wouldn’t be possible if not for the science that’s under attack.”
Quoted: Throughout history, people sought alone time for religious or personal reasons, said Christine Whelan, clinical professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “It was separation from community, for a period of time, as a way to prepare for an emotionally significant event,” she said. “To be alone with your thoughts, to think about what matters to you, to get rid of the background noise.”
Noted: Mike Wagner, a professor of political science and journalism at UW-Madison, says the Indivisible movement’s collective strategy will give it a greater chance of being politically effective. The fact that Indivisible isn’t endorsing candidates will help them get more credibility with liberal activists, but at some point they’re going to need to find and support candidates who will help further their agenda, Wagner says.
As the confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch were getting underway, the University of Wisconsin philosopher J. Paul Kelleher explored, in Vox, an important aspect of Gorsuch’s view of the world. Gorsuch has praised the late Justice Scalia’s “originalist” approach to interpreting the Constitution. But he has also been influenced by the concept of “natural law” — and even studied under a famous natural law theorist at Oxford. In this excerpt from that Vox piece, Kelleher explains natural law theory, and why it’s important for the senators voting on Gorsuch to consider its implications:
Quoted: “Money is not a dirty conversation to discuss and shedding light on it is how we get toward equality,” said Professor Christine Whelan, in the School of Human Ecology at UW-Madison.
Noted: Paula Niedenthal, professor of psychology, quoted
The pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right of all people. The U.S. Declaration of Independence makes that very clear. But as everyone discovers at some point, happiness is not so easy to achieve — unless, perhaps, you’re in a place where it is not only a state of being but also a way of life.
Noted: “Senator Warner has access to confidential and classified information through his post on the Intelligence Committee,” said Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin Elections Research Center. “Hopefully a thorough investigation will make some of this information public.”
Noted: Based on the prevalence in Nordfjella—estimated at 1%—Lund guesses that CWD may have been present for only 5 to 7 years, which could mean contamination is minimal. “There’s a good chance they can solve the problem,” says wildlife ecologist Michael Samuel of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Quick response has been shown to work before: In 2005, routine testing revealed CWD on two deer farms in western New York. Strict regulations prevented the disease from spreading. The state has seen no cases since.
Noted: Government regulations and other guidelines for human research generally require that people be allowed to withdraw from experiments. When this happens, it can make it hard to determine whether a treatment is safe, says Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In this case, she says, it is unclear whether the parents received enough information to appreciate how long-term follow-up could benefit their child as well as science.
Noted: Teachers may be censoring themselves more than necessary when deciding what to teach, said Diana Hess, the dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Educators should use current events to help students learn about authentic political controversy, said Hess, who co-authored The Political Classroom with Paula McAvoy.
Noted: Thomas O’Guinn, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on branding and advertising, said using the hashtag could result in a smaller applicant pool or even a loss of liberal customers if the campaign rubs enough people the wrong way.
Noted: Government regulations and other guidelines for human research generally require that people be allowed to withdraw from experiments. When this happens, it can make it hard to determine whether a treatment is safe, says Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In this case, she says, it is unclear whether the parents received enough information to appreciate how long-term follow-up could benefit their child as well as science.
Noted: The Evers campaign told us the statistic came from research conducted by Peter Goff, a UW-Madison professor who is leading a team studying teacher supply and demand in Wisconsin.
Noted: Negative feelings activate a region of the brain called the amygdala, which is involved in processing fear and anxiety and other emotions. Dr. Richard J. Davidson, a neuroscientist and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has shown that people in whom the amygdala recovers slowly from a threat are at greater risk for a variety of health problems than those in whom it recovers quickly.
Nick Hillman, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies higher-education finance and policy, and his graduate students Ellie Bruecker and Valerie Crespin-Trujillo have been tracking FAFSA completions for several years using federal data. For the latest FAFSA cycle, their graph shows a steep climb in the opening months. After hitting 1 million completed applications by December, the number of new FAFSAs slowed down until another, small surge in late February, as financial-aid deadlines approached.
Noted: “It was huge,” says Kevin Eliceiri, a microscopist at the University of Wisconsin Madison, of the initial discovery of bacteria. “There was a lot of confusion about what made you sick. The idea that there are bacteria and things in the water was one of the greatest discoveries ever.”
Noted: “If I throw the ball across the desk, and you are watching through the camera and the tongue, you can catch it, and you can learn it in a matter of a couple of hours,” said Yuri Danilov, a neuroscientist who has worked extensively on that device at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Tactile Communication and Neurorehabilitation Laboratory.
Noted: “These are Americans [who] are dying essentially in the prime of their life,” said Abbey Cofsky, the deputy director of data and science at the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute, which collaborated on the report. “They are dying as young adults” or with young families, she added.
Quoted: “This has been a very dark report,” says Marjory Givens, one of the authors of the 2017 County Health Rankings. She is deputy director of data and science for the project as well as an associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute. “We’re facing a crisis here.”
Noted: Kestell’s champion cow is an extreme example, but the average amount of milk per cow has shot up since 1950. There are fewer than half as many dairy cows in the United States as there were back then, but now they produce almost twice as much milk. One of the reasons for this huge rise in milk production, said dairy expert Mark Stephenson, is the introduction of artificial insemination.
Quoted: “President Trump seems to have no awareness whatsoever of what he does and does not know,” Steven Nadler, a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote me. “He is ignorant of his own ignorance.”
Video: Science and discovery are all over the UW campus this weekend with the Science Expeditions event. The runs from Friday to Sunday.
Noted: The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center in Madison works to develop new liquid biofuels. The center’s researchers work closely with farmers on the crops that go into making sustainable fuels, said John Greenler, director of education and outreach for the center.
Noted: One researcher who co-wrote an influential 2012 study suggesting that changes in the Arctic could be driving mid-latitude weather extremes, Stephen Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin, praised the new research in an emailed comment Monday. “This study goes beyond statistical correlations and explores a specific process that can plausibly explain how enhanced high-latitude warming trends may trigger remote weather impacts,” he said.
Noted: Consider the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, which in 2014 combined its foundation and alumni associations. The impetus for that union involved the growing demand for private philanthropy in an environment of shrinking state support for public higher education, said Mike Knetter, president and CEO of the UW Foundation.
The westernised definition of feminism, and misconceptions that surround Muslim feminists as being in opposition to Shariah, were challenged at a session at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q). In her session, “How Not to Talk about Muslim Feminism,” distinguished scholar and Islamic and US constitutional law expert, Asifa Quraishi-Landes, spoke about the goal of women’s empowerment within Muslim societies.
Dr. Alaa Abd-Elsayed, director of UW Health’s pain management clinic, plans to use a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to educate primary care doctors about appropriate use of opioids and alternatives such as other medications, steroid injections, nerve blocks and surgeries.
That ranking, from University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Professor Nicholas Hillman, is based on what’s known about a proposed performance-based funding system to allocate $42.5 million in new money for the 2017-19 budget.
Orf, a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, uses supercomputers to create 3D simulations of weather patterns.
Quoted: Whether they are trained therapy animals or not, pets can help their owners with physical and psychological conditions, UW-Madison professor Linda Sullivan said.
Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, weigh in.
Noted: “What is interesting is that they found, yes, we have a type. But when we think about the idea of having a type, we think it is internal, only our unique preferences. That is not really true,” said Christine Whelan, clinical professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the study.
Noted: Thomas O’Guinn, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on branding and advertising, said he didn’t think using the term made sense, but he could understand its application. He said the move could result in a smaller applicant pool or even a loss of liberal customers if the campaign rubs enough people the wrong way.
Noted: In an email interview, Kathleen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said journalists had some basic obligations, including reporting as accurately as possible how popular or marginal the groups are.
Quoted: “What is interesting is that they found, yes, we have a type. But when we think about the idea of having a type, we think it is internal, only our unique preferences. That is not really true,” said Christine Whelan, clinical professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the study.
Noted: Simmons, up until the last three years, was indisputably a public figure, but all his actions since have indicated his desire to be a private citizen. “Just because Richard Simmons was a flamboyant and bold public figure, doesn’t mean he needs to remain that way throughout the entirety of his life,” Katy Culver, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me. “If … he just decided enough was enough and he wanted to retreat, that’s a decision he gets to make; that’s not a decision a podcast author gets to make for him.”
Noted: Dane County and other small- to medium-sized metro areas are seeing most of that population growth, said David Egan-Robertson, applied demographer with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Population Laboratory.
Poor customer service and repeated mistakes can cause consumers to “lose confidence in their banks,” says Jim Johannes, director of the Puelicher Center for Banking Education at the Wisconsin School of Business.
Noted: Professor emeritus Bob Cropp from the University of Wisconsin-Madison said milk prices usually decrease later in spring as nice weather brings an increase in milk production.
Quoted: “Fruits are treated differently in Asian culture and in Japanese society especially,” Soyeon Shim, dean of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells CNN. “Fruit purchase and consumption are tied to social and cultural practices.
Waisman Center’s Sigan Hartley talks to Channel 4 about Sesame Street’s new muppet, Julia.
“High turnout has been maintained by a combination of three factors: a strong culture of civic participation, supportive election laws and competitive elections,” said Burden. “The participatory culture probably did not change substantially since the last election. The more likely culprits are changes in election laws and the competitiveness of the 2016 campaign.”
Wisconsin residents who are 64 years old, make $26,500 a year and buy health insurance individually would pay $5,300 to $13,000 a year more in premiums under the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, depending on where they live, a liberal watchdog group says.
“We are looking for a much improved year for dairy farmers,” said Cropp, professor emeritus with University of Wisconsin-Extension and UW-Madison. “Feed prices are lower and milk prices will be higher, which will improve margins — returns over feed cost. As of now it looks like milk prices could average about $2 per hundredweight higher than last year.”
A researcher from the University of Wisconsin said Julia is a welcomed addition to Sesame Street’s cast. Sigan Hartley led a study about the day-to-day lives of parents raising children with autism. She said Julia helps destigmatize negative images of children with autism and shows differences are not a bad thing.
Noted: “Study after study has shown that this assumption is not supported by the data,” says Dietram Scheufele, who studies science communication at the University of Wisconsin.
Noted: “It’s the most difficult (to judge) because the flavor profile is very, very light,” says judge Bob Bradley, a University of Wisconsin food science emeritus professor.
Noted: Nancy Keller, who studies fungal pathogens at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also emphasizes the importance of studying the corn outside of a greenhouse laboratory. Regulatory agencies would insist on all this testing before allowing the modified corn to be introduced globally.
Noted: Karen Strier, a University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist, just visited the forest, which lies within the federally protected RPPN Feliciano Miguel Abdala reserve near the Brazilian city of Caratinga.
Quoted: Airbnb stands to gain through agreements like these, said Hart Posen, an associate professor of management at the Wisconsin School of Business on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Noted: Greg Nemet is a University of Wisconsin professor specializing in energy policy. He says Wisconsin lags despite cost drops for renewable energy.
Recently, Wisconsin has lagged by this measure even as the cost of renewable energy has fallen, said Greg Nemet, a UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs professor who specializes in energy policy.
