Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Sometimes other illnesses can lead to orthorexia. David Rakel, director of integrative medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, estimated that 10% to 15% of the patients who come in with food allergies and related problems develop an unhealthy fear of particular foods.

Quoted: “My strong suspicion is this happens more frequently than you think,” said Meg Gaines, who runs the Center for Patient Partnerships, a consumer health care advocacy group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. “I mean every time someone goes down, they don’t have someone around who knows what their insurance is.”

Quoted: “It is very good idea,” says Bilge Mutlu, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who researches the interaction between humans and robots. “It’s a lot more flexible and adaptable to day-to-day environments.”

Quoted, University of Wisconsin–Madison psychologist Janet Hyde: “I don’t think [the authors] give sufficient credence” to the experimental results about implicit bias and stereotype threat, Hyde says. “I think they just didn’t take it seriously enough. … They too readily dismiss evidence of sexism in academic science.”

Gov. Scott Walker beat expectations with a wide and early win over Democrat Mary Burke in Tuesday’s election, and experts say lower-than-anticipated voter turnout was the key to his victory.

Noted: That’s the question Elizabeth Graue and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been studying at schools involved in a project called SAGE Student Achievement Guarantee in Education.

Noted: To assess this, Karine Prince and Benjamin Zuckerberg, wildlife biologists with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used bird counts taken between 1989 and 2011 by Project FeederWatch–an international volunteer program in which citizen scientists count and record the number and species of birds gathered at their backyard feeders–to analyze winter communities across eastern North America.

Quoted: Dr. Peggy Scallon, a child and adolescent psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that kids who don’t develop a sense of autonomy may start to fall behind their peers, have lower self-esteem, strained relationships with family members and be more irritable and anxious.

Noted: During her keynote address, Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings, the Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told participants that hip-hop can also be an effective teaching tool in helping scores of “New Century students” succeed.

Noted: Now let’s remember Bush wrote “among the developed nations.” All the things we’ve looked at so far have stuck to European countries and Canada.But that’s okay, because University of Wisconsin economist Timothy Smeeding told us we can say plenty more countries beat us, too.

Quoted: In Wisconsin, labor-law changes pushed by the victorious Walker reduced union membership in the state, said William Jones, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “The aftermath will continue to be bad for unions.”

Quoted: “He can say to Republican activists around the country, ‘I won three close races in a swing state,’?” said Mike Wagner, an assistant professor of journalism who studies political communication and elections at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

University of Wisconsin political scientist Ken Mayer talks about what each candidate needed to do to win Tuesday night’s election.

“There would have to be some really exceptional set of events to get people who have shown no interest in cooperating to get something done,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who studies the presidency. “It is very hard to see how there is any substantial legislation.”

Quoted: “There would have to be some really exceptional set of events to get people who have shown no interest in cooperating to get something done,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who studies the presidency. “It is very hard to see how there is any substantial legislation.”

Noted: UW-Madison political scientist Barry Burden says midterm elections can be a little odd when it comes to who shows up at the polls. You have some highly engaged voters, but others who tend to only tune-in during presidential years. There’s also less buzz around a race for governor. Burden says “there are, believe it or not, fewer ads and there are actually fewer ads this time than in the last midterm election. There’s also less of the phone calls and door knocking that go along with a presidential year.”

Noted: Barry Burden is a professor in the Political Science department at UW-Madison; he said we vote on Tuesdays because of our nation’s roots as farmers. “That meant there were days of the week when crops needed to be delivered to market,” he said. “That ways typically in the middle of the week. Most people were going to church on Sunday and that was a big commitment, and so that just left a couple of days in between.”

Noted: Barry Burden is a professor at UW-Madison; he said voting in a small town is more of a communal experience. “Some of these small communities have potlucks where people bring a dish and people spend time at the poll,” he said. “They don’t just come and cast the ballot and leave, they might spend a couple hours there, talking with neighbors, cast the ballot, have some food, hang around for a while and socialize.”

Quoted: “It’s the great irony of this whole debate,” says Barry Burden, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s that the places where we’re focusing to try to improve security are the places where security least needs improvement.”

Quoted; Mike Wagner, a professor of journalism and political science at the UW-Madison, said Schultz’s retirement will likely impact, at least somewhat, the atmosphere of the state senate.

Quoted: “A good satirist is someone who hits a point, cares about something, and wants you to care about it,” Jonathan Gray, professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told the HPR. A good satirist “makes a statement” about his or her subject, and does not simply mock for comedy’s sake.

Quoted: “For these hospitals to make decisions because they’re scared, that’s a problem,” said Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But if it’s because it’s futile, that’s understandable.”

Quoted: This finding is particularly important because of what is known about children’s long-term development if they have difficulties with self-regulation early on, said Julie Poehlmann-Tynan, a professor of human development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: From the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Dr. David Plante, an expert in sleep disorders, said the time changes in the spring and fall could disrupt sleep controls, causing something akin to jet lag. People with sleep disorders can suffer even more.

Quoted: A big lesson from a Walker loss would be that austerity approach to budgets at the state level do not work and are unpopular with voters, said David Canon, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

Warren County Community College in Washington, will host the sociologist Alice Goffman, nationally recognized author of “On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City,” on Thursday, Nov. 13, for a reading and master class. Both events are free and open to the public.

Quoted: While credit-card balances among young people have actually fallen some over the past decade, a new study by Fenaba Addo at the University of Wisconsin—Madison in the journal Demography finds that “credit card debt is positively associated with cohabitation for men and women.” In other words, debt pushes people into living with partners, not just parents.

Quoted: The 2013 upturn in the rates among black teen girls and slight increase among white girls are “bumps in the road” that are typical in all statistical downward trends, according to Geoffrey Swain, medical director for the Milwaukee Health Department and a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

Quoted: The ratcheting up of this by making objects or people sexy that usually aren’t or shouldn’t be, like the sexy Ebola nurse is perhaps a way to differentiate ourselves now that va-va-voom costumes are the norm, says Markus Brauer, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an expert in human social behavior. After all, no one wants to be the third sexy cop at a party. We want to be sexy and stand out.

Quoted: “It’s something almost all Americans are paying attention to,” said Tom Oliver, professor of medicine at public health at the University of Wisconsin. “The ability to grab an audience is irresistible.”

Quoted: “If I was a regulator, I would want to take a look at that,” said Peter Carstensen, who teaches antitrust at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School, joins Here & Now’s Robin Young to discuss the ethics and impact of quarantining people who may have had contact with Ebola patients.

Quoted: “When we talk to smokers in Massachusetts and across the nation, 80 percent say they want to quit, and 50 percent try every year,” said Dr. Michael Fiore, professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin and director of the school’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.

Quoted: “Every time we come to these cities, we try to see what might be unique in that region from an urban-wildlife standpoint,” said tour leader David Drake, a University of Wisconsin professor and wildlife specialist. “It’s a way for us to take new ideas back home.”

Quoted: The current finely balanced state of the race is, in part, “a reflection of the degree of polarization that you see in the state,” said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The city of Madison is abuzz over a rapid population decline of honeybees ? and has created a bee task force to stop it. 

Quoted: University of Wisconsin Entomology professor Chris Williamson said he was not aware of that aspect either. He said he would like to see the city treat some park trees as well but that he doesn?t know enough about the details of the park forests to make an informed analysis of the plan.

Quoted: John M. McKeller, a senior lecturer at UW-Madison?s Grainger School of Supply Chain Management, said secretly providing information to one bidder ?goes against everything that the government procurement process is supposed to preserve for the taxpayers.? In a process involving bidding or requests for proposals, all bidders should be given the same information to preserve fairness, transparency and competitiveness, he said.

Quoted: The 2014 electorate could be a fundamentally different group than it was for the 2012 gubernatorial recall election.UW-Madison journalism professor Michael Wagner pointed that out during the Cap Times? panel on polling on Monday, noting that there was a segment of the voting population in 2012 that voted against the idea of a recall and for Gov. Scott Walker.