Basketball fans have been creating NCAA tournament brackets for decades, but UW-Madison engineering professor Laura Albert McLay said that the ease of making brackets online has drawn in more casual fans in the past 15 years.
Noted: Donna Friedsam of the UW-Madison Population Health Institute and School of Business professor Justin Sydnor weigh in.
Noted: One of your best weapons during a disease outbreak is knowledge, says Dr. Jonathan Temte of the University of Wisconsin.
On a recent Saturday morning walk through the UW-Madison Arboretum, Christy Lowney stops to examine the newly formed buds on a stately magnolia tree. They’re lovely to see and touch — fuzzy little proto-blossoms bursting forth from dormant wintry branches. But they’ve arrived several weeks early. “Our curator is kind of in a panic,” says Lowney, an Arboretum ranger. “This normally happens much later.”
We’ve all heard of the great divide between life in rural and urban America. But what are the factors that contribute to these differences? We asked sociologists, economists, geographers and historians to describe the divide from different angles. The data paint a richer and sometimes surprising picture of the U.S. today. Contributor: Tessa Conroy, Economic Development Specialist, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Noted: Dr. Diane Heatley, an ear, nose and throat specialist for children, echoed the pinch-and-hold method in a piece on the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health’s website, noting that an ice pack is also useful as, much like your fingers, cold surfaces work to constrict blood vessels in the nose. However, she also said that these cold items must be applied to the nose only — so if you’ve heard others tell you to place an ice pack near your neck or mouth, it wont help. Said Dr. Heatley, “A cold cloth or small ice pack on the bridge of the nose will also slow blood flow by constricting blood vessels. … But an ice pack on the back of the neck won’t do much.”
Quoted: “This is one of several studies that have shown some increased heart risk associated with medicines that are not steroids but are used for pain,” said Dr. Patrick McBride, the associate director of preventative cardiology at University of Wisconsin Hospital.
Noted: “Probably in other sciences this is where you’d be done. However, in math that’s just the beginning. Now we want to know for sure,” said Melanie Wood, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Air quality, in particular, represents an enormous environmental-health achievement, said Tracey Holloway, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Marine fisheries tend to be commercial operations, while freshwater fishing is almost exclusively a means of subsistence. “Most freshwater fish catches don’t enter the global trade economy, so they draw less interest,” says University of Wisconsin–Madison zoologist Peter McIntyre.
Noted: “Understanding and addressing pay gaps in higher education is a complex matter. Unpacking how these gaps continue to exist, albeit with some progress, requires both a close look at the institutions and individuals involved,” says Dr. Jerlando F.L. Jackson, the Vilas Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
If the U.S. elected its president the way a UW-Madison political science professor thinks is most fair, the Electoral College would be a “charming” instrument of the past. “Even those of you who are U.S. citizens probably have never voted for president directly,” Barry Burden told a crowd of UW-Eau Claire students Wednesday night, “and probably never will.”
Laura Albert-McLay is a professor at the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She said even the most thought out bracket may not be a winning one.
Noted: Kim Truong, a 2016 graduate of the full-time MBA program at the University of Wisconsin—Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business, says she learned some companies mainly recruit full-time MBA candidates.
Quoted: Hart Posen studies competition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and says these skirmishes underscore Airbnb’s success.
UW Researcher Peter Rafferty from the Wisconsin Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory (TOPS Lab) in the College of Engineering discusses testing driverless cars.http://www.wsaw.com/search?searchKeywords=UW
UW-Madison Industrial Engineering professor Laura Albert McLay tells 27 News she can’t mathematically justify the Badgers tough spot in the tournament. She thought based on their rankings and season schedule that they’d be a 5 or 6 seed.
Basketball fans agonizing over their NCAA tournament brackets — or casual viewers looking to make some cash in the office March Madness pool — might want to take some advice from UW-Madison professor Laura Albert McLay as they make their picks.
They’re prepping for a huge Lyme disease year in the northeast but maybe not so much in Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin entomologist Susan Paskewitz says she’s seen nothing to suggest the state as a whole will face a Lyme outbreak this year – just not the kind of mouse population explosion happening in the northeast.
It would be a disaster to shut down the federal Sea Grant program, said University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Steve Ackerman.
Quoted: “When you buy into a franchise, you are buying a system of operations and you are buying an accepted brand,” says Michael Williams, director of entrepreneurship activities and director of the business and entrepreneur clinic and faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship. “Franchising ebbs and flows with the economy; when we have a slowdown or recession and people are laid off, there may be an uptick in franchising as people look to replace their incomes.”
Quoted: “We had about 65 days of lake ice on Mendota this year,” Hilary Dugan, a postdoctoral researcher studying limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.
Quoted: “It’s all just so polarized right now and I think that’s going to continue in to next year,” UW Political Science Professor David Canon says.
Quoted: Ryan Owens, a UW-Madison professor and legal expert, said Roggensack was right to defend the court’s institutional legitimacy. Owens said her remarks draw attention to what he described as the need for collegiality among leaders in various spheres, including judicial and political.
Noted: Owens is a political science professor who teaches constitutional law and judicial politics at UW-Madison
Quoted: Negative ads work, after all. But there also “is evidence for ‘backlash’ against candidates who run negative ads,” although not when third parties run them, according to UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.
Noted: Moira Kelley is a senior career counselor in UW-Madison’s Division of Continuing Studies.
Quoted: Family dynamics can complicate matters when transitioning a family-owned company from one generation to the next, said Sherry Herwig, director of the Family Business Center at UW-Madison.
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.
Quoted: A more potent form of self-deception is dissociation, which occurs on a spectrum, says Charles Raison, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We’ve all arrived at a location without remembering how we got there. Then there are people whose “experience of the world is like Swiss cheese,” Raison says. “They go in and out, and if their personality isn’t well-glued together, they could even start perceiving themselves as being more than one entity.” Nearly all of these people, Raison says, have experienced a trauma.
Quoted: Broadly, the Republican replacement plan — titled the American Health Care Act — would hurt people with low incomes or who are older while benefiting people who have higher incomes or who are younger, said Justin Sydnor, a professor of risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.“Those are quite clear effects,” he said.
Quoted: “By 1900, it was estimated that as many as 10% of all tuberculosis cases in humans were caused by infection via milk consumption,” wrote University of Wisconsin food science professor John Lucey in a review for the journal Nutrition Today. (I usually only consult with professors at Wisconsin for dairy-related matters.)
Noted: Susan Paskewitz, professor of entomology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, began checking Wisconsin sites in response to the news, to see if this state’s mouse population was also growing.
White-nose syndrome is named for the fuzzy white growth of fungus observed on the faces of infected bats. Infected bats show unusual behavior, such as flying during the day in summer or leaving caves during their usual winter hibernation, when no bugs are present for them to eat. A wildlife veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin confirmed the disease kills bats by causing their bodies to overheat, burning energy too quickly and at a time — in winter — when no insects are present to replace the lost calories and when it’s far too cold for the mammals to survive outside.
Quoted: “There’s a general belief in the public that teachers shouldn’t be using their classroom as a soapbox but there’s a ton of variation on what’s allowed and what’s not allowed,” said Paula McAvoy, program director at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Ethics and Education.
Noted: Geologist Huan Cui of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues discuss their findings in a recent paper, “Redox-dependent distribution of early macro-organisms: Evidence from the terminal Ediacaran Khatyspyt Formation in Arctic Siberia,” published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
Noted: Checking for fairness could eventually become a basic aspect of programing, says Samuel Drews, a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison who works on a similar fairness-checking tool.
You might be hoping for warmer temperatures, but that mild weather we experienced a few weeks ago could actually mean problems for your health and the quality of area lakes. “We had about 65 days of lake ice on Mendota this year,” Hilary Dugan, a postdoctoral researcher studying limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.
Ryan Owens, a UW-Madison professor and legal expert, said Roggensack was right to defend the court’s institutional legitimacy. Owens said her remarks draw attention to what he described as the need for collegiality among leaders in various spheres, including judicial and political.
A political science professor and elections expert will discuss the Electoral College during a presentation at 5 p.m. Wednesday in Room 1415 of Centennial Hall at UW-Eau Claire.
Noted: Dr. Katie Antony joined NBC 15 to discuss the latest insights on Zika just in time for spring break travel.
Quoted: “The fact that we share so many diseases with primates tells us about evolution,” explains Tony Goldberg, the UW professor of epidemiology who led the investigation into Mahal’s death. “There are an awful lot of primate pathogens that don’t really care whether they’re in a human or a chimpanzee or an orangutan.”
Noted: Allyson Bennett, a developmental psychobiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who works primarily with rhesus macaques (which are not covered by the PETA request), argues that if the animals are removed from research, they may end up in zoos or other settings with a lower standard of care and less public oversight and transparency. “That is not a win for the animals,” Bennett says.
Noted: Three of Brady’s fellow political analysts — Edward G. Carmines and Michael J. Ensley, political scientists at Indiana and Kent State universities, along with Michael W. Wagner, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — are taking up this challenge.
Noted: Cecelia Klingele, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she cannot imagine how one person could give “fair and full consideration” to the “significant” number of people who are currently parole eligible.
Quoted: “When you buy into a franchise, you are buying a system of operations and you are buying an accepted brand,” says Michael Williams, director of entrepreneurship activities and director of the business and entrepreneur clinic and faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship. “Franchising ebbs and flows with the economy; when we have a slowdown or recession and people are laid off, there may be an uptick in franchising as people look to replace their incomes.”
Quoted: Russia is a particularly important diplomatic post, explains Yoshiko Herrera, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in Russian politics. From terrorism to NATO, nuclear proliferation to the Arctic, the US and Russia have both serious disagreements and shared interests.
Noted: 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: “What you’re dealing with are allegations that would go from the desk of the present county administrative coordinator to the successor,” said Frank Tuerkhiemer, an attorney and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “That’s no reason that the county attorney shouldn’t do his job.”
Noted: Russia is a particularly important diplomatic post, explains Yoshiko Herrera, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in Russian politics. From terrorism to NATO, nuclear proliferation to the Arctic, the US and Russia have both serious disagreements and shared interests.
Quoted: “Probably in other sciences this is where you’d be done. However, in math that’s just the beginning. Now we want to know for sure,” said Melanie Wood, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Beau Burdett and other researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have attempted to elucidate just what happens when a ride around the circle goes pear-shaped. They pored through six years of accident data from 53 Wisconsin roundabouts and found a couple of interesting patterns, which are described in the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (unfortunately behind a paywall).
Quoted: “It’s the nature of politics today that it has been more efficient for the Democratic Party to focus on urban areas. That’s where their base of support is. In some respects, they have neglected rural places in the state and across the country,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Katherine Cramer, whose recent book on rural politics in Wisconsin (“The Politics of Resentment”) has drawn national attention in the wake of Trump’s rural landslides. Democrats in both the U.S. House and Senate invited Cramer this year to share her insights with them on what happened last fall in the small counties and towns of the battleground Midwest.
As an antidote to a proliferation of “fake facts,” Stephen Carpenter offers repeatable, observable, measurable science that is provably fact-filled.
Noted: Ben Jordan, director of the Transportation Information Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Engineering, said rain, snow, heat and cold all deteriorate pavement, but on the roads where they travel, heavy trucks do the most damage.
What can be done about all this confusion in a world where we are bombarded with information – and increasingly hear that we shouldn’t believe much of what we are told? In a post-truth world, are we even more susceptible to exaggerated or untrue stories? We speak to Dominique Brossard, professor and chair in the Department of Life Sciences Information at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: “Trump and the people around him have been quite open about their desire to smash the system,” says Ken Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: “The area of…Palestine that would have been the Arab state [per the U.N. vote] was largely conquered by Jordan and by Egypt,” Nadav Shelef, Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Israel Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Teen Vogue.
University of Wisconsin students, faculty and community members gathered to discuss agriculture’s most controversial topic: genetically modified organisms and crops.
Quoted: Justin Sydnor, an economist and associate professor in the risk and insurance department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also agreed that the move to self-insuring and having access to claims data could enable the state to make future changes in its health benefits that could encourage competition and help control costs.“You could see this as a move that, down the road, might give the state the ability to bend the cost curve,” he said. “But that won’t come immediately.”
