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Category: UW Experts in the News

New species of early human was Lucy’s neighbour in Africa

New Scientist

Quoted: “If Haile-Selassie is right, I think it’s only reasonable to conclude that some unknown number of Australopithecus afarensis skeletal remains actually belong to this new species instead,” says John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This means that everything that has been written about variation, function and the anatomy of Australopithecus afarensis from fragmentary remains must now be in doubt.”

UW Political Scientist All Eyes Will Be On Wisconsin

Public News Service

Former Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold wants his seat in Washington back, and he’s announced he’ll challenge the man who unseated him five years ago, Republican Ron Johnson. The election isn’t until November of 2016, but UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden says the race already has a very high profile.

Why Too Many Health Insurance Choices Are Costing You Money

Time.com

Quoted: So how can you be a better health care consumer? Justin Sydnor, one of the researchers and an economist at the University of Wisconsin business school, suggests the dreaded school math-class crucible: the story problem. First consider how much you expect to spend on health care. Then calculate whether your total payments would be higher with a low-deductible plan or a high-deductible plan. Asking people to compare premiums with out-of-pocket expenses helped set his research subjects on the right course.

A Flattering Biographical Video as the Last Exhibit for the Defense

New York Times

Noted: Given that a defendant has a right to speak at sentencing, a video is on solid legal ground, said Walter Dickey, emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, “though the judge can obviously limit what’s offered.” Professor Dickey said that because, at both the state and federal levels, the lengths of sentences are increasingly up to judges rather than mandated by statute, it followed that videos that “speak to the discretionary part” of sentencing were having a bigger role.

Raising Boys in a “Girl Power” World

NBC15

Quoted: Karl Rosengren, a professor of Psychology and Human Development Family Studies at UW Madison said even though we are making strides in equality between men and women, we’re still facing some obstacles.

“I think things have changed for girls where they haven’t changed for boys.” said Dr. Rosengren. “It’s okay for girls to cross those typical gender boundaries.”

Bug season starts off strong

Channel3000.com

While experts say they’ve already heard of an uptick in, well, ticks, it’s too early to say just how bad bug season will be here. “But this year the ticks seem to have rebounded, and they seem to be out in force,” PJ Liesch of the UW Insect Diagnostic Lab said.

Does Divestment Work?

The New Republic

“There was a real tension within the business ethics of what you do when you’re investing in a country whose laws are unethical,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor Gay Seidman, an apartheid activist at Harvard at the time. “Most of the people working in the divestment movement through the 1970s and 1980s weren’t doing it to simply to get the institution to divest,” Seidman said. “It wasn’t about the institution; it was about a broader issue. We wanted people to think about apartheid.”

Can economists explain the falling marriage rate?

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Quotes Randall Wright from the School of Business: “Our idea is that if people live in a country or a decade with high inflation/taxation they will be less disposed to use markets and bring more economic activity in house — which for us means setting up a house and that translates into marriage (as well as roommates, living with parents, etc.).”

Job prospects good for college grads

Channel3000.com

The job prospects for those students are looking good. Employers have increased hiring of new grads by 9.6 percent this year, according to the National Association for Colleges and Employers. “We’ve been seeing an increase in employers for the past couple of years,” says Steve Schroeder, assistant dean for UW’s BBA program. “We’re not quite where we were pre-2008, but we’re close.”

Feingold Will Face Different Political Landscape In 2016 Than He Did In 2010

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Both candidates are likely to spend heavily, said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science and journalism professor Michael Wagner. “This is a race that is likely to break Wisconsin U.S. Senate records in terms of fundraising — both in terms of candidates and in terms of super PACs that will fund a lot of television advertising,” said Wagner.

Animal Sex: How Sloths Do It

Live Science

Quoted: “A sloth just isn’t a sloth,” said Jonathan Pauli, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has studied sloths. “Two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths are quite different from each other.”

World’s central bankers braced for big divergence

Financial Times

Quoted: Collaborating to manage exchange rates — another possibility — would also be problematic. As Charles Engel, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes, there is no agreed model upon which to determine the relative value of currencies. Add to that the immense political pressure that policy makers would face upon entering such negotiations.

Big Money Expected in Johnson-Feingold Race

WBAY-TV, Green Bay

Quoted: “That fits right in line with political science research that suggests when the incumbent is spending a lot of money it means they’re in trouble, which Feingold was in 2010,” said Mike Wagner, a professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has followed the two candidates for years.

Scientists Urge Action On Phosphorus As State Moves To Delay Compliance With New Limits

Wisconsin Public Radio

Noted: Chris Kucharik is an agronomy professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kucharik said any slowdown in phosphorus reductions puts the state behind where it should be. “I mean phosphorus, nitrogen — these are known pollutants,” said Kucharik. “We really need to start making some headway on these problems. They’re not going to go away. And I think if we would have known what we know today 50 years ago, we would have been able to get on a better path.”

Laura Good of the UW-Madison Soil Science Department said a recent study in Dane, Green and Iowa counties — all in the Pecatonica River watershed — showed farmers can make significant reductions in phosphorus runoff.

What a civil suit would mean for Tony Robinson’s family

WKOW TV

Quoted: UW legal expert Steven Wright joined the Wake Up Wisconsin anchors Wednesday morning to talk about what a civil suit would mean for Robinson’s family. “I think one of the motivations perhaps for the family, is they will get to conduct their own investigation,” Wright said. “They won’t necessarily have to rely upon the findings of the state.”

A lively look at Forest Hill Cemetery

Wisconsin State Journal

“Forest Hill Cemetery: A Guide” — the web address is foresthill.williamcronon.net — is a remarkably lively and varied look at the Speedway Road cemetery. It focuses almost not at all on who is buried at Forest Hill — a two volume biographical guide published by Historic Madison has that handled — and instead looks at aspects of a cemetery that are, if not ignored, at least often taken for granted.

1st lawsuit filed over retracted Rolling Stone rape piece

Quoted: Robert Drechsel of the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism and Mass Communication agreed that Eramo, as a public official or figure, would have to prove Rolling Stone knew what it published was false and went forward with the story anyway.”It’s really a state of mind kind of thing and that’s really not easy to prove,” said Drechsel, dean of the school’s Center for Journalism Ethics.

Video by UW Law School students focuses on officer-involved deaths

Channel3000.com

“We saw around the country that there was a lot of confusion, frustration, sometimes anger when decisions like this come and I think a large part of it was the fact the public wasn’t aware of the law, how it was applied and how the investigations were conducted,” said Stan Davis, an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Davis worked with six Latino or black law school students to create a 14-minute video explaining the law in a way the general public can understand.

A Rainforest-Protection Policy That Really Works

Pacific Standard

Quoted: “After the last 15 years of being completely focused on studying tropical deforestation,” says geographer Holly Gibbs, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “these are the first policies I’ve seen lead to significant and rapid change.”

Rethinking sales incentive management

CRM Magazine

Sales is often associated with competition, which, in a sense, negates the idea of cooperation. But recent research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business suggests that incentives offered to teams might be more effective than those offered to individuals, when members of those groups have established a social connection.

Noah Lim and Hua Chen, both marketing professors at the school, were unsatisfied with existing research on incentives. Much of it suggested that groups enable freeloaders to thrive.

Family defies odds to have children

Channel3000.com

Quoted: “We get multiple eggs from a woman, we fertilize all those eggs and create many embryos, then what we do is grow them in a lab and select the very best ones for transfers,” says Dr. Jeff Jones, lab director at UW Health Generations and associate professor of obstetrics.

Sheriff’s actions ‘highly inappropriate’, expert says

Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune

Quoted: Can a sheriff legally refuse to enforce a law? The answer is not as clear as it might seem, said Howard Schweber, professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Laws allow police to use discretion in deciding whether to charge a person in a specific case, but Schweber said that’s different from choosing not to cite anyone, ever, with a particular violation.

Taj Mahal to undergo mud pack therapy

The Times of India

Noted: Last year, a joint study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, ASI and US-based Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta) and University of Wisconsin (Madison) stated that mud pack therapy on Taj had to become an annual feature in order to keep the Taj in pristine condition.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson: Dover cop used ‘excessive force’

Dover, Del. News-Journal

Quoted: “It is the kind of thing that usually most people don’t see so it is easy to think it doesn’t happen in your community, but it is a pattern that is happening everywhere across the country,” said William Powell Jones, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on the civil rights movement. “We are in a moment where there is a lot of heightened attention to it.”

The History — and Health Implications — of Student Hunger Strikes

Chronicle of Higher Education

Quoted: Still, in medical circles, doctors often refer to what’s known as the 72/72 rule: You can’t survive more than 72 hours without water or more than 72 days without food, said Sarah Van Orman, executive director of University Health Services for the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “We start to become really concerned about the physiological effects after 20 to 30 days,” she added.

Working, but still poor

CNNMoney.com

Noted: Many of these folks are employed in fast food and retail, but they are also home health care workers, pre-school teachers and waitresses, said Sarah Halpern-Meekin, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who co-wrote “It’s Not Like I’m Poor,” a new book on struggling working families. Since their hours often fluctuate, many of these low-wage workers also are subject to great shifts in income each week.