Quoted: Wilson, who also nominated an African-American for register of the Treasury (the nomination was withdrawn after Southern Democrats in the Senate raised a furor), did not spearhead those efforts, though he did go along with them, noted John Milton Cooper, a retired historian at the University of Wisconsin and the author of an admiring 2009 biography of Wilson.
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Jonathan Patz doesn’t focus on looming risks to the planet when he talks about climate change. Patz talks instead about the tremendous health benefits of policies to curb it.
Funding cuts by the Federal Aviation Administration could compromise the consistency of nearly seven decades of Madison snowfall data, weather experts say. “Anytime you’re doing record keeping where you want to look at long-term trends, you need a continuous data set,” Steven Ackerman, director of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at UW–Madison, said. “Once you stop doing that — even for a year — you’ve lost the statistical significance and the continuation of that. Even though it seems like a small decision, it actually has big impacts on the data set.
Noted: Scott Gehlbach is a professor of political science at UW-Madison.
No matter the direction in which relations are trending, new research (ungated) presented at last week’s Association for the Study of East European and Eurasian Studies Annual Meeting by political scientists Timothy Frye, Scott Gehlbach, Kyle L. Marquardt, and Ora John Reuter suggests that the West will be dealing with a leader who is genuinely popular at home.
Noted: Spencer Black represented the 77th Assembly District for 26 years and was chair of the Natural Resources Committee. He currently serves as the vice president of the national Sierra Club and is an adjunct professor of urban and regional planning at UW-Madison.
Video: Associate Professor of Surgery Dr. Nathan Welham on the creation of lab-grown vocal cords.
Quoted: Dr. William E. Cayley, a family medicine professor at the University of Wisconsin who wrote a synopsis of the Cochrane evidence in American Family Physician, said cranberry products should not be recommended to prevent U.T.I.s, but, “If someone says they want to try drinking it, I’m not going to tell them, ‘Don’t do it.’”
Quoted: “The problem is it isn’t working as well as they want it to,” said Jerry O’Brien, executive director of the Kohl’s Center for Retailing at UW-Madison. “The concept of opening on Thanksgiving is a great idea if you’re the only one that does it. The whole point was to grab market share, but when everybody made the move it became a bit moot.”
Laura Albert McLay, a professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, has been using her knowledge of math models and sports analytics to predict which teams are most likely to make the four-team tournament crowning college football’s national champion. She posts the weekly rankings on her blog, Badger Bracketology.
Quoted: Dominique Brossard, who studies science and communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “People have a tendency to equate the (GMO) technology with something that they may not like — big monopoly from corporations and very modern agriculture.”
Quoted: “The toy culture has … contributed a lot to the movie,” said Jonathan Gray, professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Anyone who thinks that the movies were successful just for the movie is forgetting the huge impact that the toys had.”
Column from Andrew Kydd, a political science professor at UW-Madison who studies international security issues including terrorism, nuclear weapons, conflict resolution, and war and peace.
Quoted: “There is this fundamental issue that health care is very expensive,” said Justin Sydnor, an associate professor of actuarial science, risk management and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And therefore insurance is very expensive.”
Noted: Comment from Hart Posen, a UW-Madison associate professor who studies business strategy and innovation.
Quoted: Dr. Michael Xenos warns against limiting Facebook friends to only those you agree with.”Whether online or offline, people benefit from being exposed to political views that are different from their own,” said the University of Wisconsin-Madison communication professor.
Noted: Front-row filmgoers have a champion in David Bordwell, the esteemed film scholar and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s 68, a notable exception to Marshall’s maxim about youthful inhabitants of the row Bordwell calls the “raccoon lodge.”
Quoted: Allyson Bennett, a developmental psychobiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, questions the decision to move them from research facilities to sanctuaries, which are not subject to the same strict oversight and welfare standards that govern NIH-supported centres. She adds that moving the animals to new facilities may create more stress for them.
Quoted: “El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon that involves the tropical ocean and atmosphere working together — it’s a complete rearrangement of heat in the tropical Pacific Ocean,” said Dan Vimont, an atmospheric and oceanic sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Climate change is a forced phenomenon that involves a net increase of energy in the ocean and atmosphere system globally. The anthropogenic change is due to human emissions.”
(Video) The movie “Martian” is based on a novel where an astronaut was mistakenly presumed dead and left behind on a mission to Mars. He fights to survive by growing plants on the red planet, which is a concept UW botanist Simon Gilroy says is based on real science.
By a show of hands in two classes Monday, Andrew Kydd helped illustrate why last week’s terror attacks in Paris have resonated so profoundly across the United States.Kydd, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on terrorism and nuclear arms, is teaching undergraduate classes on each topic this semester.
For the second year in a row, Professor Kydd’s Terrorism 319 class is full.
Once again, more than 60 students and auditors alike are filling up the special political science class at UW Madison.
The emphasis is on the headlines. This week, the Paris Terror Attack is the topic. And this year, Professor Kydd says more than 2/3’ds of his class have ties to the Paris.
Noted: In a sense, this emergency check-in is changing the way we communicate, according to Catalina Toma at the University of Wisconsin communications department.
“International calls can be expensive and difficult to procure, whereas Facebook is readily and widely available to anyone with an internet connection,” explained Toma.
Nestled in the northern Wisconsin woods, Peter Lake once brimmed with golden shiners, fatheads and other minnows, which plucked algae-eating fleas from the murky water. Then, seven years ago, a crew of ecologists began stepping up the lake’s population of predatory largemouth bass. Today, largemouth bass still swim rampant. “Once that top predator is dominant, it’s very hard to dislodge,” said Stephen Carpenter, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the experiment.
Quoted: “The bigger picture is that these are people fleeing for their lives, right, they’re fleeing a burning building,” countered Stacy Taeuber, an immigration attorney who serves as director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at UW-Madison.
While Taeuber disagrees with Speaker Ryan and several other politicians from a moral perspective, she also believes his plan has a lot of holes.
Noted: Two University of Wisconsin-Madison immigration experts are questioning whether states have the authority under the U.S. Constitution to reject placement of Syrian refugees.
“I think, at this point, there’s a widely held consensus that states do not have the authority to decide they are going to reject a specific nationality of refugees,” said Stacy Taeuber, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the UW Law School.
Sara McKinnon, an assistant professor of communication arts and expert on political refugees and asylum, said it’s also important to note the extensive screening of refugees prior to their admittance into the resettlement program, which can take up to 18 months.
Quoted: “People who have Type 2 diabetes are producing insulin, but their cells no longer know how to use it and it becomes a progressive chronic disease,” said Dr. Sandra Kamnetz, a family physician with UW Health [and clinical professor of family medicine]. “Insulin brings to patients with diabetes an increased risk of heart attack; increased risk of a stroke; increased risk of ulcers to the feet leading to potential amputation; and a risk of chronic renal failure even ending up in dialysis.”
Quoted: “The evidence is already very tantalising,” says Francis Halzen, an astrophysicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Usually cosmic ray physics is one puzzle and one explanation. This is one explanation for many puzzles.”
Quoted: Katy Culver, professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and the associate director of the Center for Journalism Ethics, told IBT that it’s a difficult issue to unpack.
Can governors legally block Syrian refugees from entering their states? Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and other governors have said they don’t want any Syrian refugees settled in their states. Don Downs, an emeritus political science professor at UW, says it’s less clear whether they can actually block such settlement.
Mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood often hears from children and adults about how they have a math phobia: They’ll profess to hate solving for X, or figuring out how to split the bill or take care of the tip.
Noted: Includes comment from Sara McKinnon, a UW-Madison communication arts professor and an expert on refugee and asylum law. She said governors don’t have veto power in whether refugees come here but they can deny state money and resources to the volunteer agencies that provide job, health care and other assistance to refugees, “which could make the resettlement of refugees in these states much more challenging,” she said.
Noted: Panelists included Madison Laning, ASM chair; Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of educational policy; Noel Radomski, director of Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE); and Scot Ross, director of One Wisconsin Now (non-UW).
Do governors have the power to close their state borders to Syrian refugees? A clinical assistant professor at UW-Law said no. Stacy Taeuber is the Director of the Immigration Justice Clinic. She said refugees are protected under the federal Refugee Act of 1980.
“Once you’re lawfully admitted to the U.S. as a refugee, you have the same rights of anybody else that is lawfully in the U.S.,” said Taeuber.
Andrew Irving never imagined so many people would show their support in Madison.
“What’s been nice is the unexpected messages we get from people we barely know just saying we want to reach out and say we’re sorry or we’re thinking of you,” Irving said.
Irving, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison French House, decided the community needed a place to come together to mourn and stand in solidarity.
Quoted: Stacy Tauber, an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Immigrant Justice Clinic, said it’s the federal government, not states, that get to make that call.
Noted: Mohammad Sabri, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s good to see non-Muslims supporting his religion.
This week our guest is UW-Madison bacteriologist Cameron Currie, who discusses not only dangerous bacteria, especially the antibiotic-resistant ones, but also the process of finding and developing new medicines and antibiotics.
Noted: Andrew Irving, Director of the French House in Madison, said the attacks have taken a toll on locals who study and immerse themselves in French culture, as well as on French students currently living here in Madison.
“Emotions were very high Friday and also on Saturday. A lot of people just didn’t know what to think,” Irving said.
Irving said the French House, a private residence hall run by the UW-Madison’s Department of French and Italian, houses both American and French students.
“All of our residents speak French here almost all of the time,” Irving said.
Quoted: “For party leaders especially, it’s more difficult (today) and it’s probably more difficult in the Republican Party than the Democratic Party because of … the hard-liners on spending,” said David Canon, a political scientist and congressional scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “They’re hedging their bets,” said Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin, and a long-time consultant to local governments on cable TV issues. If cable TV customers do stampede to the video streamers, Charter wants a way to corral them back.
Quoted: Jerry O’Brien, who leads the Kohl’s Center for Retailing Excellence, said the Kroger buyout could bring more development to the area in the future.”They may use that as an opportunity to have a northern headquarters,” said O’Brien. “We really are a unique part of the country for them.”
Quoted: The prices of premiums can vary widely from year to year, especially if you chose a plan with low deductible, said Justin Sydnor, an associate professor at the Wisconsin School of Business in Madison.
Quoted: Jerry O’Brien, executive director of the Kohl’s Center for Retailing at UW-Madison, questioned whether Kroger will keep the well-known grocery names used by Roundy’s or convert the stores to Kroger or some other brand already associated with the company.
Noted: The study involved people over 50 whose top reading was over 130. People with diabetes were excluded, so the results do not apply to them. The results also may not apply to people with previous strokes, the very old, those with severe kidney disease or people already taking a lot of different drugs, said Dr. James Stein, who heads the high blood pressure program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
(Video) On 27 News at 5 on Tuesday, political analyst and UW-Madison Professor Mike Wagner discussed the GOP Debate in Milwaukee.
He discussed which candidates need to have a big night and other things to watch for in the debate.
(Video) Hollywood shines a light on one of its darkest periods in the new movie “Trumbo.” Jeff Smith, a University of Wisconsin communication arts professor, talks about the Trumbo era.
Quoted: “Our stories are just four among the many stories we could tell about our region’s future,” said Stephen Carpenter, a principal investigator on the WSC project and director of the Center for Limnology. “This contest is an effort to encourage all of us to think about the future we want to live into and how we could get there.”
Noted: The study involved people over 50 whose top reading was over 130. People with diabetes were excluded, so the results do not apply to them. The results also may not apply to people with previous strokes, the very old, those with severe kidney disease or people already taking a lot of different drugs, said Dr. James Stein, who heads the high blood pressure program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. Our guest weather expert, Steve Ackerman, talks about the November gale responsible for one of history’s most well-known shipwrecks.
Can you tell anything about politicians’ accuracy by analyzing how they speak? A new analysis finds that lying politicians tend to be more verbose. Michael Braun, Lyn Van Swol, and Lisa Vang at Millikin University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, they recently analyzed several hundred claims made by politicians that had been fact checked PolitiFact.
Coauthored by Clif Conrad:
Visit an American college campus today and you’ll see a more diverse student body than ever before. Over the last 30 years, the number of Hispanic students has risen five-fold, Asian and Pacific Islander enrollment has tripled, black enrollment has risen 150 percent and Native American enrollment has doubled.But the graduation rate for minority students falls far below the nationwide average. Our colleges and universities are not succeeding at educating students with diverse backgrounds. In an increasingly competitive global economy, our country cannot afford this waste of time, money and talent.
Quoted: “It was the first real shot in the arm here for the Space Race growth of planetariums in the coming decade,” says Jordan D. Marché II, an astronomy lecturer who has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An architect who helped lead implementation of green building practices and the founder of a statewide sustainable business organization have won top honors from the Wisconsin affiliate of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Noted: UW-Madison economics and public affairs professor Andrew Reschovsky said there have been a number of state efficiency commissions in the past but that because the state has long been dealing with tight budgets, government bureaucrats have already long been lowering costs.
Quoted: “In any instance where a person would have good reason to think, Whoa, what’s going on here, is this some kind of harassment or abuse of an animal? certainly you have an obligation to explore further before you would use it,” says Robert Dreschel, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “There’s a lot of disagreement about where is the line between cute animal behavior and behavior that involves something that would be abusive. I would err on the side of caution.”
Noted: The neighborhood was developed in the 1940s and today represents a remarkably preserved example of the kind of postwar, mass-produced housing that would proliferate in the following decades, according to Anna Andrzejewski, a UW-Madison professor of art history who has written about the neighborhood.
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.
Noted: UW-Madison education professor Gloria Ladson-Billings assured a crowd of well over 100 that the problem is “not insurmountable.” Most important are highly effective, fully qualified teachers. Three really good teachers in a row, she said, citing research, will pull young students out of failure.
Quoted: Surprisingly, there isn’t even a good map of the Internet’s highways and byways to clearly show locations that, if taken out, would severely hamper the system. “Everybody assumes somebody knows, but after a while you find out nobody actually knows,” said Paul Barford, a professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin who has made it his mission to find out where the vulnerabilities are.
Quoted: “Madison lost out on this one,” Steven Deller said.Deller teaches Agriculture and Applied Economics at UW and he says this week’s job loss could be a sign where this state is going.”I think the days of big manufacturing plants that employ thousands of people in Wisconsin are limited,” he said.
