Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Terry Devitt, director of research communications at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.

Quoted: Mark Johnson, senior scientist with the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Dhavan Shah, a communications and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Quoted: Paul Mitchell, an associate professor of agricultural and applied economics of at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri.

UW-Madison decided to stay in-house in naming its next dean of the university?s School of Veterinary Medicine. Mark Markel, a professor of medical sciences and associate dean for advancement in UW-Madison?s vet school, will assume the dean?s post on Sept. 1, according to this university news release. Markel will be only the third dean in the school?s 29-year history and replaces Daryl Buss, who retired in June after heading the school for 18 years.

The UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine appointed a new dean on Thursday, just the third dean in the school?s nearly three-decade history. Mark Markel, already a professor and associate dean at the school, will start his new job on Sept. 1. He replaces Daryl Buss, who led the school for 18 years.

Quoted: ?The problem is as old as journalism,? says Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Media Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. “It?s a systemic issue, it?s a case of extreme pressure being put on people. Newsrooms are hot competitive environments, and whether that?s on Wall Street or at The New Yorker, people may take chances to get noticed.”

Children under the age of 16 are sometimes allowed to provide testimony on videotape or via closed-circuit television if a judge decides that facing alleged abusers could be too traumatic. But the girl turns 16 on Dec. 26, so if the trial doesn?t begin before that, Hayes? motion would be rendered moot, said Cecelia Klingele, a UW-Madison law professor who is not involved in the case. “Once the witness has turned 16, she would have to testify under the same conditions as an adult,” Klingele said.

Quoted: “The irony is that we could start seeing some price reductions in the short run,” says Bruce Jones, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoed: “Poland [is] a symbolic location because that was kind of the epicenter of the controversy. Republicans are arguing Obama sold the Poles out by backing down,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Nothing happens by accident. You don?t go someplace because you think it would be kind of cool to go there.”

Quoted: Dhavan Shah, a communications and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the results show that despite tragedies like the July 20 massacre in Aurora, which left 12 dead and scores wounded, public opinion on guns is deep-seated and rigid.

Noted: Farmers say they?re growing some of the most flavorful produce in years. Part of the reason is the lack of rain: the more water content in produce like cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, peaches and grapes, the plumper and juicier they are. But the water also dilutes their flavor. Smaller, less juicy fruits and veggies this season are packing a more concentrated tastiness. ?Most plants that have high moisture content will now have sharper flavors, like peppers and tomatoes,? says Irwin Goldman, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where farmers have been feeling the heat. ?Whenever there is a drought, flavor compounds can become more dominant and foods can have more pungency.?

A: Besides the whole experience of grilling ? which might color our perception of a meal ? it turns out grilled food really does have something special going for it. ?The reason grilled foods taste differently than things that are, say, baked or broiled or pan-fried, is because of different flavor compounds that are generated through the grilling process,? said Jeff Sindelar of the University of Wisconsin?Madison Meat Science and Muscle Biology Laboratory.

A: Our remarkably warm summer continues to take aim at some all-time record measures of heat here in Madison….In other words, in such warm summers in the past, we have averaged 9.8 days at or above 90 in August and September. Given that we are very likely to have totaled 30 such days by the end of this July, if past trends in such years apply to 2012, it is quite likely that this summer will set the all-time record for most days at or above 90 degrees in Madison.

Quoted: In general, there is low participation in all facets of the political process, including voting, attending meetings and running for office, said Kathy Cramer Walsh, political science professor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: ?That?s pretty cool,? said John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who works with Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA. ?Anthropologists have historically looked at fossils and tried to draw lines connecting them. But that?s a poor approach because fossils are really hard to find.? DNA, on the other hand, tells its story within every human cell, and new technology is making those tales ever easier to read.

Noted: It became “the equivalent of a knish,” says Henry Sapoznik, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Wisconsin. Incidentally, he considers it to be “a really crummy little tune.”

Quoted: Julianne Zweifel, clinical psychologist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, and current chair of the mental health professional group within the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

Noted: What accounts for the rapid adoption of social networking? Convenience, said C. Shawn Green, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin.

The British Cheese Board recently launched a competition inviting songwriters to compose an anthem celebrating cheddar, Britain?s most popular cheese. Of the five entries shortlisted for the finals, four pay tribute to the cheese?s notable hue. (Sample lyric: “Every pickled onion/ dreams of lying beside/ a wedge of golden cheddar, /crusty bread on the side.”) But why is cheddar yellow or orange when milk is white?

Quoted: ?They seem pretty unconnected,? said University of Wisconsin political scientist Barry Burden. The recall election was bitterly fought around a rather narrow spectrum of state issues, he pointed out. Even on the day Wisconsin voters turned out to save Walker from recall, a majority of recall voters said they planned to vote for President Obama in exit polls.

Noted: The first one appeared in Hudson, Wis., in 2009, when Todd Bol, whose background is in international business development, built a little library in his yard as a memorial to his mother, a school teacher. People seemed to love it, he said, so he and friend Rick Brooks of Madison, Wis., an outreach program manager at the University of Wisconsin whose specialties include social entrepreneurship work, decided to create the Little Free Library project.

Noted: “It is phenomenally difficult to measure with precision what the effect of advertising is,” said Ken Goldstein, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of Kanter Media during a Brookings Institution panel discussion on political advertising Monday. “But advertising very, very much matters at the margin.”

Quoted: “Peppers really like hot weather,” said Irwin Goldman, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “When it?s dry and hot outside, you?ll get a higher concentration of alkaloids.”

Quoted: ?It?s certainly unusual. Data suggests that 95 to 98 percent of people Holmes? age are on social media,? Dr. Megan A. Moreno, of University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, told CBS News. As for that other 5- to 2 percent, Moreno, who has no connection to the case, highlighted a link between extreme Internet use ? or lack of use ? and depression.

Quoted: David Egan-Robertson, a demographer with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Population Laboratory.

Quoted: Joe Lauer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and corn agronomist for the UW Extension Service.

Noted: The trade group?s claims are based on academic work by Dermot J. Hayes of Iowa State University and Xiaodong Du of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The professors? original peer-reviewed work on the subject, published in 2009, assigned a more modest amount of credit to the biofuel for its ability to reduce gasoline prices. That work, however, was updated in May ? with financial support from the trade group ? for Iowa State?s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, and the findings ascribed greater price-reducing powers to ethanol.

Quoted: ?Peppers really like hot weather,? said Irwin Goldman, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?When it?s dry and hot outside, you?ll get a higher concentration of alkaloids.?

Quoted: ?I don?t care who he plays for ? I?m a Lin fan, not a Knicks fan,? says Timothy Yu, an associate professor of Asian American Studies (and Jeremy Lin Studies pioneer) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. ?What I?m mad about is that the Knicks just completely cut him loose ? and they?re blaming him for cutting such a hard-nosed deal with the Rockets. The fact of the matter is that even the team that benefited from Linsanity doesn?t believe it?s for real. That really burns me as an Asian American fan. But shed no tears for Jeremy: An Asian American athlete is getting paid like a superstar, because he is one ? and that?s cool.?

Noted: To help me understand why every state has such laws, Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, gave me a history lesson.

Noted: People who don?t want to spend the time or money are in luck, though. Most lawns in Wisconsin are made up of Kentucky bluegrass, which is hardy enough to survive up to 60 days without water in drought conditions, said Doug Soldat, a turfgrass specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension.