Category: UW Experts in the News

Noted: John Markley, director of the BMRB and a structural biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hopes to attract other federal funders to support the database.

Quoted: ?There?s a potential for a large variation of outcomes,? said Kenneth Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?What matters as much as the absolute level of unemployment is the relative level — how people feel about economic uncertainty, the deficit, the middle class.?

Quoted: “Milk production is slowing down,” said Bob Cropp, the University of Wisconsin?s dairy marketing professor emeritus.

Do scarecrows work and, if so, why?

What is the source of energy for hurricanes?

Noted: Shanan Peters, a palaeobiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isnt so sure the paper is noteworthy. Its primary result, he points out, is to overturn Mayhews own prior finding and bring the long-term diversity results into line with ecological common sense. “Palaeobiologists and climatologists have long referred to warm intervals as climate optima,” he notes, “precisely because it is during such times that palm trees and alligators inhabit the Arctic and life appears to be diverse and flourishing.”

Quoted: “It really does take a bit of getting used to. But once you talk to patients and they understand the theory, they accept it. We have had no trouble recruiting,” said Dr. John Fleming, a professor of neurology at the University of Wisconsin who is testing the drug in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Quoted: “Denisova is a big surprise,” says John Hawks, a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin?Madison who was not involved in the new research.

Noted: About half of the 31 copies came from the girl?s mother and half from her father, producing a genome “of equivalent quality to a recent human genome,” says paleoanthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not part of the team.

?He?s not even the most conservative in the Wisconsin delegation,? said Ken Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?That would be (Rep. James) Sensenbrenner.? An analysis of all roll call votes throughout each term shows Ryan typically ranks on the far but not extreme right, according to Mayer. Ryan typically ranks ?around 380 or 390? among the members of the House of Representatives, with 435 being the most conservative. Mayer also cautioned that ?extreme? is a politically charged term, used by both sides to define their opponents? views in a way that repels the people in the middle.

Noted: ?His speech will be his real introduction to a lot of people who don?t know anything more about him than the fact that he?s a vice presidential nominee,? said Kenneth Mayer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?It?s not what Obama and Biden will have to do, because they?re incumbents and people know who they are.?

Noted: In short, it?s just not as simple as Santorum?s statement suggests. There are many factors outside a given person, from the job market to the size of wages to the quality of K-12 education that determine whether one can follow the three simple rules of graduating high school, getting a job and waiting to have kids. ?That?s a wonderful dream world,? Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin-Madison concludes. ?But it?s really hard to get from here to there.?

Quoted: “Higher temperatures foster faster reproduction of both the mosquito and the virus,” said Tony Goldberg, professor of epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has studied urban outbreaks of West Nile since shortly after the virus arrived in the Midwest.

Quoted: “The officials who know this are quite aware that in this era of 24 hours news, access is king,” Stephen Ward, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told DW. “This is just a game of access – its as old as journalism.”

Quoted: John Kaminski, founder of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said many Americans create in their minds their own version of what they think the Constitution should say.

Noted: The new research paper contributes to a touchy debate about the role of community colleges, a discussion that too often lacks nuance, said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a co-author of the study. She said the sector is too big and complex to draw much from examples of the ?average? student.

Quoted: ?You can?t think about the last time you went to a convention and wondered what would happen. You don?t even wonder if there will be a rules fight or a credentials fight or even a platform fight,? said Byron Shafer, a University of Wisconsin professor. ?The convention is objectively less important.?

Quoted: ?You don?t mess with hunting and fishing because that?s part of who we are,? says Kathy Cramer Walsh, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who specializes in civic engagement. ?A lot of times, talk about regulating guns and ammunition is seen as the outside trying to change who we are.?

But another stem cell pioneer, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, believes that stem cell solutions will be a long time coming for more complex organs. ?We?re a long way from transplanting cells into a human brain or nervous system,? he said.

Noted: At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Thad G. Walker, an atomic physicist, uses optical magnetometry to monitor the magnetic fields of the beating heart rather than the brain. Professor Walker and his group have created small magnetometers that are an inexpensive alternative to superconducting devices now used to spot various heart abnormalities in a fetus.

Quoted: William Tishler, a professor emeritus of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has traced some of the earliest cordwood structures back to the hardscrabble settlements of the mid- to late-19th century.

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor specializing in income inequality.

Noted: ACS president Bassam Shakhashiri, a chemist at the University of Wisconsin?Madison, has been a strong supporter of the Innocence Project, and he appeared with many of the speakers for the Innocence Project at a press conference on Monday. He told Nature that before the society could lobby Congress in favour of the bill, the board would need to approve a policy statement on the matter, but that he planned to speak to several of the governance committees that oversee the topics involved.

Quoted: Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, cautions against putting too much weight on Ryan?s small business ties as an election issue. He has followed Ryan since his first congressional election campaign.

Quoted: One is the move into what University of Wisconsin astronomer Jay Gallagher as well as others have called the era of “big science.”

Quoted: ?It?s as elegant as any speech in the top 100,? said Stephen Lucas, a professor in the department of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin and co-editor of the book, which polled 137 scholars of rhetoric to establish the list.

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor told the Associated Press that the middle class has been hurt by rises in healthcare costs and college tuition, as well as disappearing mid-wage jobs.

Quoted: “The job market is changing, our living standards are falling in the middle, and middle-income parents are now afraid that their children will be worse off than they are,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor specializing in income inequality.

Quoted: ?It makes sense that his addition to the ticket would have more effect in Wisconsin given that he represents one-eighth of the state in Congress, has connections to the state?s largest university, and is generally visible in the state,? said Barry Burden, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Quoted: “This is absolutely fascinating. I?ve seen probably at least three patients in the last 10 years or so” who might have had this, said Dr. Dennis Maki, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Quoted: Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, cautions against putting too much weight on Ryan?s small business ties as an election issue. He has followed Ryan since his first congressional election campaign.

Quoted: ?The job market is changing, our living standards are falling in the middle, and middle-income parents are now afraid that their children will be worse off than they are,? said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economics professor who specializes in income inequality.

Quoted: Dominique Brossard, who studies public perceptions of controversial scientific topics at the University of Wisconsin, which holds many of the usable embryonic cell lines, said she was surprised the Republican Party platform would include language on stem cells in 2012. ?I was surprised to hear that they were going to add that issue because as far as public opinion is concerned, this is an issue that wasn?t really defined by party lines,? she told Salon.

Noted: Outside of education, some call these ?reward, recognition and motivation programs.? And Alex Chisholm, executive director of the Learning Games Network, a spin-off from the MIT Education Arcade and University of Wisconsin, shared an equivalent perspective recently when he noted that saying you?re going to ?gamify? something in education means you?re applying game design principles to motivate and inspire learners.

Quoted: Jae Park, an environmental engineer at the University of Wisconsin?Madison, agrees. He says that a combination of plenty of sunlight and high levels of nutrients in the rivers, rather than slower flow speeds, is responsible for the the algal outbreak. In fact, the algae do not seem to thrive in water deeper than 3 metres, so by creating a number of deep reservoirs, the dams have helped to curb algal growth.

Quoted: Lou Brown, professor emeritus of special education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Lee was in the forefront of those working to include people with cognitive disabilities in society when her son was in school.