Noted: Another way to decline your boss’s request is to say no to right now and suggest a different timeframe, says David A. Ward, communications lecturer at the Wisconsin School of Business. “For example, ‘There’s no give in my schedule for the rest of this month, but things ease up for me in March, and I’d be glad to get involved then if you still need some help on this.’”
UW-Madison professor is speaking out in support of the four American journalists who were arrested in Bahrain on Sunday after accusations they lied – claiming to be tourists.
Freelance journalist Anna Therese Day, a 2010 UW-Madison graduate, and three members of her crew were charged with participating in unlawful protest and lied about being journalist, according to initial reports.
Lindsay Palmer, a journalism professor at UW-Madison, said she realizes the challenges an independent journalist faces when covering conflict in foreign countries.
Noted: Paul Smith, associate professor in the department of family medicine at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said research shows literacy is the strongest predictor of health. One study showed that smoking was the only predictor for health stronger than literacy. This does not mean that low literacy necessarily causes poor health but rather that there is a strong association between the two factors.
Noted: The best professors bring more than passion to the classroom and a deep caring for students outside it. Chad Navis, who teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin, couples candor with his enthusiasm and sense of humor to prepare students for the harsh realities that await them.
“He is not afraid to discuss with students the potential risks of entrepreneurship or the less than glamorous side,” says Wisconsin senior Vanessa Mariscal. “He works with students to limit these risks and make their ventures successful.”
Also mentioned: Mark Laplante.
Noted: Dr. Paul Smith has been working toward improving health literacy in Wisconsin for years. He’s a physician and professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the medical advisor for Wisconsin Health Literacy, a division of Wisconsin Literacy, Inc.
Quoted: “Tidal’s trying to position itself as having these exclusive deals,” said Jeremy Morris, a professor of media and culture studies at the University of Wisconsin. He credits West for the Tidal bump.
Noted: Dating expert Catalina Toma studies online dating at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Initially, when online dating came to the scene it was regarded a crutch for the desperate,” said Toma. “It was really stigmatized initially. But the tool has proven to be quite useful for people looking to find partners in a more low-pressure environment.”
UW Madison professor and researcher Kenneth Cameron made a monumental discovery this week.
Fungi samples found by George Washington Carver, the famous African American scientist, were discovered after sitting untouched for over fifty years.
A scientific breakthrough had the whole physics community on the edge of their seats Thursday morning, when National Science Foundation announced the observation of gravitational waves caused by a merger between two black holes. Interviewed: Sebastian Heinz and Peter Timbie
Pet food companies are looking to get a piece of a $20 billion business, but many choices can make it difficult to decide on a brand to buy your dog.
University of Wisconsin veterinarian Sandi Sawchuk says finding the right dog food isn’t as difficult as it might seem.
“If you’re feeding a pet food that is complete and balanced and has gone through AAFCO feeding trials, you can be fairly sure you are giving your dog one of the best foods you can give,” Sawchuk said.
(Video) UW physics professor Peter Timbie visits News 3 This Morning to explain the details behind an important advancement announced Thursday in the study of gravitational fields.
Quoted: “Young people are showing up in a way they haven’t before,” journalism professor Mike Wagner said. “[Sanders] is talking about a message that is really speaking directly to issues young people really care about, especially the free college issue.”
For more on why the high court issued this precedent setting stay, Dylan Brogan spoke with UW-Madison Political Science Professor Ryan Owens.
Researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory–or, LIGO–announced today that it has the first official detection of gravitational waves. This discovery helps solidify Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Interviewed: Sebastian Heinz, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “Medical education and nursing education is really grappling with: ‘How do we train the health professionals of the future to care for the patient and not for the electronic health records?’” says Katharyn May, a professor and the dean of the UW School of Nursing.
Noted: Crew members got some help from a UW-Madison wildlife researcher.
“What we’re doing is using that animals behavior of its travel ways against it, and we’ll set it where the animal is coming and going,” said UW-Madison wildlife specialist David Drake.
The National Institutes of Health is funding a Zika Virus at UW-Madison. While many research teams across the country are still drafting their proposals, a team led by UW-Madison Pathology professor Dave O’Connor and associate professor of Pathobiological Sciences Thomas Friedrich will begin their first study on Monday.
Quoted: Justin Sydnor, an associate professor also at the Wisconsin School of Business, comes at the question from an economic perspective. “It makes a lot of sense that Google would be interested in administering healthcare data,” he says. He suggests their expertise in data storage, data access and data analysis would allow them to provide value in a variety of ways, such as mining large data sets of medical records to find new treatment patterns.
Marjorie Rosenberg, a professor in the Department of Actuarial Science, Risk Management, and Insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business, was also quoted.
Noted: According to Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, last year was one of the hottest, driest years in Brazil’s history. The country saw 500,000 cases of dengue; presumably, it was suffering from the silent outbreak of Zika at the same time, the effects of which are only being reckoned with now.
Noted: “Entertainment media play a critical role in shaping people’s feelings, attitudes and behaviors in intergroup contexts,” said Sohad Murrar, the lead author of the study and doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: A third example: Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy have a new book, The Political Classroom, which shows that many teachers, even the most partisan, are eager for students to hear radically different viewpoints. Teachers also experience pressure to “scrub” any controversy from their curriculum, so they need support in enacting this. Diana Hess is chair of the College of Education at UW-Madison.
Quoted: Addressing the decision during a climate change forum in Madison on Tuesday night, Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison, emphasized the health benefits of tackling climate change, such as preventing 6,600 asthma deaths. “It’s not just energy policy and dollars. We’re talking about lives. We’re talking about people dying,” Patz said.
Quoted: “The primary effect is supply and demand,” says Jerry O’Brien, executive director of the Kohl’s Center for Retailing Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Certainly there’s a plan to have a lot of roses available. However, they also know the demand is very high, so the market can absorb some additional price, which helps the growers get through those times of the year when there isn’t such a high demand.”
John Cooper, Jr., emeritus professor of American Institutions, University of Wisconsin: “The best way to judge Wilson on matters of race is not to keep score between good and bad deeds but to recognize him and judge him for what he really was. Many have made snap judgments based on his birth in Virginia on the eve of the Civil War and his upbringing in Georgia and South Carolina during the war and Reconstruction to write him off as a typical white man of those places and times. Such a characterization is wrong.”
Quoted: John Milton Cooper, a Princeton alum and Wilson biographer who taught history at University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted in his essay that the former president also supported minority rights, albeit perhaps in less significant ways, such as speaking out against lynchings and opening university positions for Catholics, Jews, and poorer students.
Noted: Catholicism is just one religion that urges followers to step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves during certain seasons, according to Charles Cohen. He’s a religion professor at UW- Madison and specializes in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
(Video) Quoted: David Gamm, director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute and associate professor, ophthalmology and visual sciences.
University of Wisconsin-Madison mechanical engineers have developed technology that could reduce reliance on the batteries in mobile devices by simply plugging a device into your shoe, according to a release. (Researchers: Tom Krupenkin, professor of mechanical engineering, and J. Ashley Taylor, senior scientist in Department of Mechanical Engineering.)
Quoted: “Even with the high value of the dollar, we are still exporting, but not as much as we were when the dollar was not quite so strong,” said Bruce Jones, an agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that not only was 2015 the hottest year on record, but places like Brazil, where the disease began, and Columbia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, where it’s now flourishing, saw record-breaking temperatures last year too.
Noted: Apps, by themselves, are not a continuing care program. But since they are used on phones, they are a logical tool to help people stay connected to their programs. David Gustafson, the University of Wisconsin professor who led A-Chess’s development, said that the evidence is that people in recovery need three things: social connection, motivation (“the desire to keep on keeping on”) and confidence that they know how to cope with their struggles. Apps can help with all three.
Quoted: The IOM panel argued that restricting initial pregnancies to sons takes away that concern. “This ensures that if there are adverse events, they will not be reverberating down the generations,” said bioethicist R. Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Hundreds of teams applied, but a team of UW-Madison researchers was one of only eight teams that were chosen in the Mind Matters Challenge co-sponsored by the NCAA and U.S Department of Defense.
Together these two entities have contributed more than $40 million towards the study of concussions. The UW-Madison team consists of Assistant Professor of Human Ecology Dee Warmath and Athletic Training and Kinesiology Professor Dr. Andrew Winterstein.
Over the next two years the team will work with some of the 2,500 student and club team athletes on UW-Madison campus. These students will help them test out new strategies for getting the word out on how dangerous ignoring a concussion can be.
UW-Madison’s Jorge Osorio, Matthew Aliota and Jonathon Patz speak about the spread of Zika virus, funding issues in infectious disease research, the interdisciplinary nature of the work, and the role of climate and climate change in the global spread of the virus.
Matthew Aliota, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine who helped detect Zika in Colombia, discusses a possible reason why Colombia has not yet seen cases of the rare birth defect linked to the virus in Brazil.
The spread of mosquito-born Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in children of infected women, has led to travel advisories for pregnant women and, in some countries, advice that women delay pregnancy entirely. What is Zika, and how can countries fight it? Joy Cardin talks to UW-Madison’s Kristen Bernard about how Zika is spreading, the challenges it poses, and how big a problem it may become in the U.S.
Hundreds of fireballs streak across Earth’s atmosphere every day, said Jim Lattis, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but people witness few of them. The majority fly over uninhabited areas, and many also occur during daytime when the sun’s glare makes them hard to detect.
Quoted: Peter Carstensen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus law professor and researcher who has assisted with cases involving airport transportation issues, said he believes ride-share services such as Uber and Lyft need some sort of regulation.
Noted: Bagged greens are usually washed thoroughly (some packages boast that their contents are “triple-washed”) with a little bleach, but that unfortunately doesn’t make any difference if the produce carries disease-causing bacteria. “Listeria is a natural soil inhabitant, and spinach commonly comes in contact with the soil,” says Jeri Barak, associate professor of plant pathology and executive member of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Listeria, like Salmonella and E. coli, can’t be rinsed or washed from leaves even if the dirt is, she says.
Noted: The Zika epidemic parallels the 1999 West Nile Virus outbreak in New York, according to Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both arrived during record-hot summers and involved the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which bite more frequently in hot weather.
Quoted: “It could be that Zika is causing [microcephaly] with another factor, which is definitely possible. There could be other environmental factors, there could be co-infections that cause the unfortunate microcephaly, and at this point there is just not enough evidence to say it is causing it,” said Kristin Bernard, a mosquito-borne virus researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Overall, infectious disease researchers are pushing toward a more interdisciplinary approach to predict outbreaks. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison, is doing research to connect the dots between climate change and global health, offering a glimpse into the ways differing scientific fields can combine to build a proactive approach to mosquito-borne disease. His research has revealed a link between dramatic climactic shifts and the occurrence of viral outbreaks.
Quoted: “The arrival of Zika virus in Brazil is not good news,” wrote Thomas M. Yuill, an emeritus professor of veterinary science and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: This column, prompted by a friend’s excruciatingly painful problem that seemed to emerge from nowhere and by a new review of studies on the topic published in JAMA by Dr. Wald, a gastroenterologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Quoted: James Hurley, a UW-Madison professor and expert on groundwater contamination, said Janesville’s approach is adequate.
David T. Anderson, a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin who isn’t involved in the project, said the project in Greifswald looks promising so far.
“The impressive results obtained in the startup of the machine were remarkable,” he said in an email. “This is usually a difficult and arduous process. The speed with which W7-X became operational is a testament to the care and quality of the fabrication of the device and makes a very positive statement about the stellarator concept itself. W7-X is a truly remarkable achievement and the worldwide fusion community looks forward to many exciting results.”
Quoted: “What they’re recommending is that if you traveled to a place where Zika virus is, which is an ever-changing thing, that you avoid donating blood, if you’ve traveled there within 28 days,” said Dr. Daniel Shirley, a clinical professor of infectious disease at UW Health.
Shirley said that right now there is not a test to screen for the Zika virus in donated blood.
“Each test that they run on transfusion blood is a big process to institute that across the board, and so it would take some standardization and some testing before that ever happened,” Shirley said.
In adults, the symptoms of the Zika virus are relatively mild—rashes, fever, joint pain, malaise. Most who are infected may not even know it. But as this seemingly routine disease spreads across the Americas, so do cases of a much more severe problem: infants born with microcephaly. UW-Madison’s Kristen Bernard talks about a potential reason why.
Kristin Bernard, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who specialises in dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases, said that tropical diseases are often under-researched because they do not affect developed countries. “Now because [Zika is] potentially causing a pandemic, and it’s definitely widespread in the Americas, the WHO is concerned,the CDC and the NIH is concerned,” she said.
Noted: UW-Madison Prof. Majid Sarmadi helped with research and is featured in photo.
(Video) UW-Health registered dietitian Julie Andrews talks to Eden Checkol about a date night cooking class offered at the American Center.
(Video) Christie (Christine) Whelan is a professor of consumer science at UW-Madison. She talks about the Barbie’s makeover on Live at Four.
Dr. James Conway, a pediatric disease specialist with University of Wisconsin Health, told the Assembly health committee there are national guidelines for Lyme disease, and that this bill may be a solution looking for a problem.
Quoted: But if you’re really intent on sidestepping illness, meditation may be the best way to stay cold free, says Dr. Bruce Barrett, a professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin. In his research, he’s found that mindfulness meditation can lower risk for common respiratory infections by up to 60% by combating immune system-crippling stress.
Quoted: Al McCoy, the JRW Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says what we’re witnessing is the first time in modern history the Chinese have systematically fought to capture this key ’heartland’ region, and thus unify the Eurasian landmass.
Quoted: “This is definitely a market that’s in a lot of flux right now,” says Jon Eckhardt, a professor in the UW-Madison School of Business and a co-founder of gener8tor startup accelerator.
Quoted: The zip code that a child is born into oftentimes determines their life chances,” said Nick Hillman, an author of the study and assistant professor of education leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Place matters because it reinforces existing inequalities.”
Quoted: Dr. Thomas O’Guinn of the University of Wisconsin has written several books on advertising and brand promotion. He has consulted with a wide range of corporations on advertising campaigns. He worked on public service announcements for the American Cancer Society, so he knows that advertising is not always about puppies and horses.
Noted: Field Day Lab is continuing to develop some of the ideas that were born in the workshop into free, open-sourced video games. The game designers said they aim to further engage students with an interactive learning environment.
“By engaging science teachers right from the start, we want to build games that will actually be used in classrooms,” said David Gagnon, the director of Field Day Lab, in the release. “Too many games languish because they do not fit what teachers want. With the teachers’ help, we want to build them right—right out of the gate.”
Noted: El Nino, a natural warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide, usually puts northeastern Brazil into a drought, as it did last year. Aedes aegypti does well in less-developed regions in droughts, because it lives in areas where poorer people store water in outdoor containers, said Jonathan Patz, director of the global health institute at the University of Wisconsin.
