Category: UW Experts in the News

Milk prices have been falling lately, creating problems for farmers throughout Wisconsin.  A dairy anaylst looks at the reasons for the falling prices, and when things might turn around.

Quoted: “Right now, our patients are getting mixed messages from ‘don’t bother taking D at all’ to ‘take 2,000 too 4,000 units a day,’ so what are we to do?” said the lead author, Dr. Karen E. Hansen, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin. “This study supports a middle-of-the-road approach. If your D level is 20 or higher, that’s enough, and if you’re low, you can achieve that with 600 to 800 units a day.”

Noted: The call for more teachers of color has grown more urgent in recent years because of America’s changing demographics. In an increasingly multiracial, multicultural society, some education experts question the impact on white students’ world views when the face of teaching almost always mirrors their own. Gloria Ladson-Billings, an African American professor of urban education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, broached this subject in a recent essay for Education Week responding to the apparent decline in nonwhite teachers—what some observers have described as a “disappearance crisis.” “I want to suggest that there is something that may be even more important than black students having black teachers and that is white students having black teachers! It is important for white students to encounter black people who are knowledgeable,” she wrote. “What opportunities do white students have to see and experience black competence?”

Even though harvest is months away, agriculture experts say most of Wisconsin’s corn and soybean crop is exceeding expectations. It’s been a good year for Wisconsin farmers, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison corn agronomist Joe Lauer. He said there’s been a good balance of rain and warm, sunny days.

Quoted: Overwhelmingly, bioethicists agree with Pinker that the red tape surrounding scientific research is awful, and there’s way too much of it. Norman Fost, a professor emeritus of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, mentioned a slew of cases in which scientists who conducted solid, ethical work were threatened with sanctions because the consent form was slightly unclear, or the IRB minutes didn’t note if a quorum was present.

Quoted: Bruce Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural and applied economics professor,  said that’s because farm incomes have been on the rise, especially for dairy producers.

Quoted: Marcus Perlman from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues wanted to test this. They challenged nine pairs of students to express certain words, such as big, slow or attractive, using only simple vocalisations.

Quoted: “They have been in place for a very long time under both Republican and Democratic administrations,” said Alta Charo, a bioethicist and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Ken Mayer has similar expectations for Walker, along with much of the other candidates in the debate. However, he notes the one “wild card” is Donald Trump. The current leader in the polls has been making headlines with controversial statements on the campaign trail. Mayer says it’s unlikely Trump will keep a low profile on stage, and could try to “stir things up” on stage by interrupting or making other statements.

Political analysts describe Wisconsin as purple – neither liberalism’s traditional blue, nor conservatism’s typical red.  The state’s deep political divides are well-documented, but often in terms of political parties.

Quoted: “For a child to die from whooping cough in this day and age is criminal,” said Dr. Thomas N. Saari, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison.

There’s one class at the University of Wisconsin at Madison that you don’t need a campus map to find. All you need to do is follow your nose. The aroma of warm chocolate and sweet treats fills the basement of Babcock Hall and lets everyone know that Candy School is open for class. “The course first started in 1963, so this is the 53rd year,” UW-Madison food science professor Rich Hartel said.

Quoted: Jack Kloppenburg, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thinks the GMO generics mean farm-state universities are playing Monsanto’s game, instead of coming up with new ideas. But he says generic versions could at least get farmers out from under what he calls the “monopolistic practices” of big seed firms.

Quoted: Kathy Cramer, a political science professor at the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin, said Walker’s attacks tap in to a “politics of resentment” that ripples through many communities outside the population centers of Milwaukee and Madison.

Quoted: One lingering question about the animal, aside from its very existence, is its species. Tim Van Deelen, associate professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said cougars are known to be present in the state, though they usually show up farther north.

Quoted: “Once again it was an issue of unification, which pervades physics to this day,” said Marshall Slemrod, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Quoted: “Trust but verify,” said Brian Mayhew, who teaches auditing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Put in good controls.”

Noted: Thumbs Down to UW-Madison’s Sara Goldrick-Rab. This professor of educational policy and sociology searched out and sent tweets to prospective students, encouraging them to go elsewhere because state lawmakers jeopardized academic freedom by pulling tenure guarantees from state law. She also compared Gov. Scott Walker to Adolf Hitler.

Quoted: ‘‘Terry is what a great 21st-­century mathematician looks like,’’ Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has collaborated with Tao, told me. He is ‘‘part of a network, always communicating, always connecting what he is doing with what other people are doing.’’

Dr. Jonathan Gray, a professor of media and cultural studies at UW-Madison, talks about why “Sharknado” is becoming a summer tradition and a social media sensation.

Quoted: Lydia Zepeda, an economist from the University of Wisconsin in Madison did a study of the impact of mobile markets for the USDA. She found that the people who shopped at mobile markets “ate 3 1/2 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. And the people who didn’t shop at the mobile markets ate just less than 2 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.”

Noted: The University of Wisconsin actually houses a nationally renowned State Smart Transportation Initiative, which is now advising 20 states—including Wisconsin’s three neighbors—on reforms that would advance more environmentally sustainable and economically equitable development.

Quoted: John Witte, professor emeritus of political science and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the union’s statement is “clearly overstating the case.”

Quoted: John Hawks, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in either study, agreed that both teams’ data showed a lot of similarities. He was inclined to put more stock in the Science study, he said, because it depended more heavily on ancient DNA sequences in drawing its conclusions. He added that more sampling in the future might uncover evidence of a second ancient migration, however.

Are some ice creams “meltier” than others? This is a question that Maya Warren, an ice cream expert and Ph.D. candidate in food science, explores at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Despite the simple sweetness of a scoop of ice cream, this frozen dairy product has a complicated microstructure. And this complex combination of air cells, ice crystals, and fat globules—to name a few constituents—affects the way in which different kinds of ice cream melt and collapse.

Quoted: But Director of the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis Brian Hellmer said it’s important to know what these people do to understand why they make so much money.