Category: UW Experts in the News

Noted: ?We found that couples in which both individuals have equal levels of education are now less likely to divorce than those in which husbands have more education than their wives,? said Christine R. Schwartz, lead author of the study and an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?These trends are consistent with a shift away from a breadwinner-homemaker model of marriage toward a more egalitarian model of marriage in which women?s status is less threatening to men?s gender identity.?

Noted: All of this helps make an otherwise treatable problem a potential crisis. ?Most kids are actually quite resilient and they can bounce back after a traumatic event,? said Ryan Herringa, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who runs a lab dedicated to youth-PTSD research. If it?s ?a one-off trauma, or if they have a lot of social support ? most kids can actually do pretty well.?

Advocates of net neutrality want unrestricted, high-speed access to the Internet, something that?s been talked about for nearly a decade. Barry Orton is a professor of telecommunications at the UW ? Madison. ?We are now in the fourth iteration of the Federal Communications Commission trying to figure out what to do about the Internet and failing legally each time.?

Quoted: ?I think Michael Crow says a lot about broadening access, but I don?t think he?s saying that from a goodwill standpoint,? said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Online education is largely untested, she said, and numerous studies have shown that nontraditional students struggle in many online courses compared with in-person and even hybrid classes.

Noted: “There are clashes all the time between the reality of what goes on in a classroom and what researchers would like to see happen in a classroom,” said Paul Olson, an outreach specialist at the Games Learning Society, or GLS, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who taught seventh grade for more than three decades. He said that a lot of his time these days is spent explaining to researchers what life is like “in the trenches” and encouraging teachers to experiment with GLS games to motivate those students who “really don?t respond to a lecture or a chapter in a book but are all over programming something.”

Quoted: International relations expert and University of Wisconsin professor Jon Pevehouse said it is likely the U.S. gets further involved in the region, but not likely an escalation leads to war.

Quoted: “This is one of the things that people put out there saying there must be a Higgs boson,” says Matthew Herndon at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who works on similar problems with another LHC experiment called CMS. It also makes W scattering one of the best places to look for physics beyond the standard model ? which does not take gravity into account and cannot explain mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy.

Quoted: ?What most of us don?t realize is that all of us are what psychology in the mid-?90s started calling ?cognitive misers,?? said Dietram Scheufele, a professor of science communication at the University of Wisconsin ? Madison. That is, ?we all use as little information as possible to make any given decision,? relying on cognitive shortcuts or social cues or other not-particularly-intellectual factors to do so.

Quoted: Susan Paskewitz, entomologist with the UW-Madison Cooperative Extension, studies mosquitos for a living. She just returned from a northern Wisconsin field trip, in which she and six other researchers traveled from Phillips to Minocqua to Crandon and Antigo.

Noted: According to David Canon, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin ? Madison, this dysfunction dates back at least a decade. At first it affected budget issues, and programs like the Highway Trust Fund, which funnel money into both Democratic and Republican districts, were safe. But times have changed.

Noted: It?s an approach that?s also being pushed by University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist and higher-education policy expert Sara Goldrick-Rab and a colleague, Nancy Kendall, who urge in a new report that the billions of dollars in existing federal financial aid and some state money be redirected to make tuition, fees, books, and supplies free for the first two years of any two- or four-year public university or college and that students be given stipends and jobs to help them pay their living expenses.

Quoted: ?It?s very clear it?s a different quality of mental engagement when you?re playing games of skill than when you?re reading a book,? said Ozioma Okonkwo, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and senior author of the study. ?To win a card game, you have to judge, you have to plan, you have to do something, you have to remember what the last player played.?

Noted: However, the chicken-or-egg question remains, said lead researcher Stephanie Schultz. “The cause-and-effect here is unclear,” said Schultz, a research specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Noted: This makes comparing Obama?s use of unilateral action to other presidents? difficult, said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: In the past, U.S. butter exports have gone primarily to the Middle East and North Africa. But Brian Gould, an agricultural economist and dairy marketing specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the growing global middle class, especially in Asia, has helped spark new demand for more dairy products. That includes butter, as the popularity of pizza, ice cream and other U.S. food staples increases overseas.

Quoted: Hart Posen, a professor of management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Lyft?s tactics in New York are part of a familiar playbook for app-driven services trying to shake up the industry. He predicted Lyft will eventually strike an agreement with regulators.

Noted: Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., recounted a chapter in North Carolina history after the Civil War in which black men had been granted the right to vote and did so in large numbers. With that increase in participation came a push by white legislators to change the law to make it more difficult for blacks to vote, Burden said.

?Most Americans want to live independently in the community for as long as possible and avoid being a burden on their families when their health declines,? Michal Engelman told Reuters Health in an email. Engelman is a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was not part of the new study.

Noted: The last witness Wednesday was Barry C. Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and another expert, Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testified that the new law would be detrimental to blacks.

Quoted: ?It?s important to remember: What?s the cost of getting the wrong person in there?? says Russell Coff, professor of strategy at the University of Wisconsin Madison. ?In many cases it?s a creative endeavor, putting together product development teams, and there?s only so much you can handle in terms of a personality that doesn?t fit.? An internship is a good way to suss that out.

Quoted: Patti Nagai, horticulture educator for the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Racine County, and Brian Hudelson, outreach specialist and plant disease diagnostician for UW-Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, put their heads together on this one.

“For us it?s been a bad mosquito year,” said P.J. Liesch, manager of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab. “The mosquitoes are pretty happy, they?re doing well.”

Quoted: Patrick Liesch, who manages the University of Wisconsin Insect Diagnostic Lab but was not involved with the study, told Reuters Health by email that a lot of stinging insects have evolved to look fairly similar. ?They have these bright flashy colors ? yellow and black ? and it kind of serves as a warning pattern,? he said.

Quoted: To the list of potential health risks for children exposed to even tiny amounts of the double herbicide, Warren Porter, a toxicologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and another signatory, added attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, asthma and immune disorders.

Quoted: Cohabitation has become more common as social mores have shifted; mostly gone is the sentiment that such arrangements constitute ?living in sin.? More women and men have delayed marrying and having children in favor of pursuing educations, careers and personal goals, said Christine B. Whelan, a sociologist in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Noted: That same day, Paul Robbins, director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed the benefit of experience, zipping through the 21st installment of his 24-lecture course on cultural and human geography in 29:48.

Quoted: ?The character was invented to be fake,? said Andrew Peck, who has studied Slender Man, in an interview with The Washington Post. He is a PhD candidate in folklore and media at the University of Wisconsin. ?There?s something fun about letting ourselves be scared. There?s something fun about suspending our disbelief. That?s by and large what the Slender Man is ? it?s a campfire story.?

Quoted: The University of Wisconsin, Madison?s Dietram Scheufele knows a thing about the power of emotions in the digital media. The professor of science communication has reported on a psychological “nasty effect” of reader comments on online news stories. His team showed that negative comments make people dislike the subject of otherwise neutral-toned news reports, while positive ones skewed them the other way.

Quoted: Some of the growth in hot spot locations has been fueled by more people working in nontraditional settings, including freelance contractors who hang out at coffee shops with a laptop computer and mobile phone as their office tools.If you can work like that, it might as well be in a place with good coffee and food, said Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

After noticing his neighbors flocking to the idea of his miniature library, Bol teamed up with Rick Brooks from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to form the Little Free Library organization in 2010.

Quoted: “One has to wonder how sincere a consultation process is when infrastructure in support of the project is being put into place at the same time,” said Ian Baird, an expert on Laos and specialist on hydro-power dams and fisheries at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: Although the new passive plan is considered by some to be a do-nothing “faith healing” approach, research by Stacie Robinson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrating genetic resistance to CWD is only one reason why current CWD management policy has adapted toward this logical solution.

Quoted: As a candidate, Burke could resemble another Wisconsin lawmaker from the other side of the aisle. Barry Burden, a professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson launched his campaign when he was relatively unknown, was a first-time politician and also used his business experience as the CEO of the Oshkosh-based Pacur Inc. to paint himself as a jobs creator.

Quoted: ?We?ve had a rebound that we haven?t seen in many, many years,? said Gene Clark, a coastal engineer with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute in Superior, Wis. ?We?ve been historically below average, and now we are finally back to above-average water levels. At this time last year, I was talking to Wisconsin state legislators about what was happening, why the levels were so low and what could the State of Wisconsin do about it. It was very much a crisis.?

QUoted, Edward Friedman: “CIs come in many forms. For smaller colleges with no budget for teaching the Chinese language, a CI seems a good trade-off with the purpose of serving one?s students and their future career opportunities.”

Quoted: Don Downs, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who focuses largely on constitutional law, said the potential change in policy mirrors a change in public opinion, both statewide and nationwide. Gallup polls taken annually show support for same-sex marriage has more than doubled since 1996, and a Marquette University poll taken in May shows 59 percent of Wisconsin residents polled think the state?s same-sex marriage ban should be repealed.

Quoted: “There is so much that can be done upstream to prevent the need for health care,” said Bridget Catlin, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin who directs the RWJF program.

Quoted: “This does seem to signal a fairly broad protection of security in terms of electronic information, in terms of electronic devices like this,” said UW-Madison law professor Adam Stevenson. He said Wednesday?s decision could have implications on whether police are able to search laptops or tablets as well.

Quoted: The connection to traditional sports raises some interesting questions. David Williamson Shaffer, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in educational games, says this is a sign of games as a growing “cultural phenomenon.” He compares the move to what many high schools have done by turning debate into a letter ?sport.?

Quoted: ?What this study shows is that there?s a correlation between facial markings and sociality and the need to communicate,? said zoologist Patricia McConnell of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a dog behavior researcher who was not involved in the study.

Quoted: ?If we can get that first 1,000 days of life right,? said Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, ?we?re really going to save a lot of trouble later on and have to do far less remediation.?

Quoted: Brian Hellmer, director of the UW-Madison School of Business? Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis, said novice investors should be cautious about these opportunities . ” You should not confuse investing for retirement with providing yourself with entertainment,” he said.

Quoted: B. Bradford Brown, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who writes about adolescent peer relationships and was not involved in the study, said it offered a trove of data.