Category: UW Experts in the News

“The data are limited, but this is an impressive survey,” John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who did not take part in this research, told Live Science. Notably, he said there appear to have been consistent burial practices that distinguished Neanderthal and early H. sapiens burials. This is surprising because all of these small, scattered populations wouldn’t be expected to share cultural practices over long stretches of space and time.

An invasive insect that kills fir trees is threatening Michigan’s Christmas tree industry. And the woolly adelgids “are likely on their way to Wisconsin,” according to the Wisconsin DNR. Entomologist Phil Pellitteri joins us to talk about the tiny invasive insects.

Jenny Higgins, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the scope of her work with CORE, the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity housed in the School of Medicine and Public Health, has not shifted as a result of Trump’s victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

However, “the landscape of contraceptive care in the state is likely to change drastically,” Higgins said.

Demographer Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has previously cast doubt on dragon years, pointing out they have generally had a negligible effect on births in China in recent decades.

Mary Louise Roberts, professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was one of the first scholars to consult French as well as U.S. archives for her 2013 book, What Soldiers Do.

“Towards the end of the summer of 1944 there really was a problem with rape,” she says. “And the United States Army, at the highest levels of SHAEF, was concerned about it.” SHAEF was the acronym for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, commanded by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

UW-Madison journalism professor Kathryn McGarr considers questions about historical parallels between the second Trump administration and the mid-20th century’s America First movement and McCarthyism.

UW-Madison education professor Christopher Saldaña considers the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s 2025 budget request and record-setting new funding approved in school referendums in 2024.

There are several preventative emerald ash borer treatments homeowners can have administered to their trees annually in the spring.

Some of the most affordable treatments are sprayed onto trees and cost approximately $30 to $50 per each. Pricier, longer-lasting options can be directly injected into tree bark, said PJ Liesch, director of the Insect Diagnostic Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW-Madison clinical associate law professor John P. Gross, a former criminal defense attorney, said that typically when a criminal court judge sees a lot of requests from defense attorneys to move cases out of a courtroom, it’s because the judge has developed a reputation for being “particularly harsh when it comes to sentencing.”

Other reasons could include that an attorney has disagreed with some of the judge’s past rulings, that a client has said something seen as inflammatory that upsets the judge, or that the judge has a poor judicial temperament, he said.

Political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center Barry Burden told the Cardinal Harris may have fallen short of Biden’s performance due to discontent among young progressive voters regarding the Biden-Harris administration’s Middle East policies.

Phenology is the study of the seasonal events in nature. And thanks to the famed naturalist Aldo Leopold, Wisconsin has a calendar that keeps track of bird migrations, mammal predation and the blooming of flowers. Ecologist Stan Temple joins us.

Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School, believes the second Trump administration is more prepared this time and will follow through on its policy promises. That means organizations like the legal clinic are readying themselves and their clients for what’s ahead.

“It is very terrifying, I think, for everybody involved in immigration and especially for some of the most vulnerable people in our country,” Barbato said. “It seems monumental right now, what we are preparing for.”