Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: The robot?s color-changing ability doesn?t have much in common with its biological inspiration?s, according to Douglas Weibel, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin?Madison who is unaffiliated with the paper. The squid in the wild doesn?t use biochemical processes like fluid and air manipulation to create its color-changing effect. Rather, the animal uses an optical illusion to reflect light and blend in to whatever background it finds itself within. “It?s structural color, and I think that?s pretty hard to do,” Weibel says. “People know how to make iridescent structures, but I don?t know any really good examples of structured color.”

UW-Madison officer Erik Pearce says 15 cops and 11 security officers patrol the campus regularly, logging above 2,200 hours on bikes last year, and more than 3,100 in 2010. The UW police have used bikes since 1992. Pearce likes to point out that bike policing is green and cost-effective. According to Madison police officials, purchasing and equipping a squad car can cost about $47,000, not to mention the approximately 2,400 gallons of gas each burns in a year.

Quoted: ?He?s definitely extremely conservative but his vote for Tarp showed he was more of a [George W.] Bush loyalist than an ideologue,? says Ken Mayer, professor of politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said adding Ryan to the ticket should help Romney gain 1 or 2 percentage points but probably not enough to carry the state. Ryan isn?t particularly well-known to voters statewide, Canon said.

Quoted: In a typical restructuring, the company must develop a plan that all of its creditors agrees to, said Jim Seward, an associate professor of finance and academic director of the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: The new figures suggest that sex education programs need to directly address oral sex as well as vaginal intercourse, says Craig Roberts, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s University Health Services department and a member of the American College Health Association.

Quoted: ?This is an unprecedented allergy season,? said Dr. Mark Moss, an allergist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin Professor Charles Franklin.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, the director of the Marquette University Law School Poll and a professor in the political science department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: ?It?s like what happens when the Packers win the Super Bowl. Concretely, not a whole lot. But symbolically, it makes a difference,? said Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an affiliate professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs. ?It puts Wisconsin on the national map.?

Quoted: “George Shultz is a gimme,” says the University of Wisconsin at Madison political science professor Ken Mayer, of the man who has run Labor, Treasury, and State. “People who have served in nine different capacities are easy.”

Quoted: “If you are producing organic dairy products, you must have organic feed,” said Ed Jesse, a retired professor of agriculture and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: ?Salt serves as a preservative, as a director of flavor development,? said Mark Johnson, senior scientist with the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?If I remove it, my flavor goes in a different direction.?

Quoted: Ken Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison

Quoted: Tim Smeeding, a UW-Madison professor of public affairs and economics

?The schools have to start out with one hand tied behind their backs when a child starts school already thinking that Pop Tarts are breakfast and that pop is what you drink at lunch,? said Susan Nitzke, cooperative extension nutrition specialist and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin.

Nitzke and colleague Dave Riley, an expert on child development and early education for Cooperative Extension and a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote ?Rethinking Nutrition: Connecting Science and Practice in Early Childhood Settings.?

Quoted: Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an affiliate professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri.

Quoted: Jiwan Palta, a University of Wisconsin-Madison horticulture professor and Stanley Temple, a Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation.

The University of Wisconsin?s School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison continues to enroll students who want to work with large animals, said Dr. Christopher Olsen, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of public health with the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Michael Scott.

Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.

Quoted: UW-Madison ag economist Ed Jesse.

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.