Quoted: Sean Carroll, a geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, says: ?The inventory of genes in a bird would be very similar to the inventory of genes in a dinosaur.
They will have wings. They will shine like a mallard?s feathers. They will do just about everything but take flight. The uniforms the Oregon Ducks will wear to the Rose Bowl are “the most advanced football uniform system ever assembled,” according to uniform designer Nike. Nike unveiled the new uniform designs Tuesday with the flourish of a bird shaking its tail feathers.
Quoted: Justin Doherty, UW associate athletic director
Quoted: Steven Deller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of agriculture and applied economics, predicted that the funding cuts included in Walker?s current two-year budget will result in 20,000 job losses.
Quoted: “If you compare approval ratings, you may think that just muddling along is not the wrong approach,” said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “In most of the states where bills were introduced last year, legislators are planning to introduce them again,” said Sam Munger, managing director of the Center for State Innovation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has researched the issue. Lawmakers in other states (Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey) also are planning bills, he said. “The banking collapse of 2007 made a lot of people nervous about too-big-to-fail banks,” Munger said.
Winter has been a bust so far in Madison, not only for those trying to ski or sled, but for those who would normally take to the frozen expanses of Lakes Mendota and Monona. We are about to turn the calendar page to January, and there are still large areas of open water on the two big lakes as of Dec. 27, an unusual but not completely unheard of event here, according to UW-Madison?s Stephen Carpenter.
For smokers, there are just a few more days left if you want to kick the habit in 2011. Doctor Michael Fiore of the UW Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program says most smokers do want to quit, but may need a little extra help getting there. He says that?s why the Tobacco Quit line remains available.
Quoted: Deborah Mitchell, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Early in the debate, the state Department of Public Instruction said it could support the school only if it could prove that single-sex classes were effective. UW-Madison professor Janet Hyde was quick to point out such research did not exist. Yet we have ample proof that the current school model fails minority students, especially boys.If Hyde and the DPI applied the same test to Madison schools, the whole district would be shut down!
A: A snowflake can be an individual ice crystal or an aggregate of ice crystals. Ice crystals can grow by water vapor deposition on the crystal or by collisions with other cloud particles.
A: To stave off flu or measles or other afflictions, vaccines prepare our immune systems to identify particular sets of antigens, chemical markers that cover the exterior of viruses.
Communities around Wisconsin can apply next month for a share of a $23.5 million federal grant that state officials initially opposed but that was eventually awarded to UW-Madison to prevent chronic diseases. The five-year grant, awarded in September, targets three efforts: smoke-free apartment complexes, access to exercise and fresh foods, and heart disease screening in underserved areas.
The grant will boost disease prevention programs around the state, said Tom Sieger, prevention coordinator for UW-Madison’s University Health Services.
Quoted: Local councils and board seats are nonpartisan to negate the influence of political machines, said Dennis Dresang, professor of public affairs and political science at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Those elected are supposed to serve the community with no other agendas.
Quoted: ?Land sales are where the big money is,? Edward Friedman, a political science professor and a China scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a telephone interview. ?Every level can see how much better the level above it is doing. And each one wants to live at least that well. The system has within it a dynamic which makes people feel it?s only fair that they get their share of the wealth.?
Quoted: Steven Deller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of agriculture and applied economics.
There are more mixed signals on the Wisconsin jobs scene. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released a report showing Wisconsin with the second-highest number of unemployment claims from mass layoff events in the nation last month. A “mass layoff” is any event affecting at least 50 workers, according to the BLS. Its mass layoff report for November estimated Wisconsin with 90 such events in the month, impacting 9,359 individuals.
“The tilt against manufacturing over the last few months is hitting Wisconsin pretty hard,” says Laura Dresser, a labor economist with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a UW-Madison think tank.
Quoted: Dr. Ken Nordlund, DVM and clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Officials with the National Institutes for Health are recommending restrictions on the publishing of the findings of a UW-Madison?s researcher?s work on avian flu, over fears bioterrorists could use the information.
AT&T may very well look for a smaller wireless company to buy now that it has given up on plans to acquire T-Mobile USA, or it may just wait for a new administration in Washington, D.C., two UW-Madison School of Business finance experts say. “They?ve got some difficult decisions to make. The government now has set the bar,” said Jim Seward, director of the Nicholas Center for Corporate Finance and Investment Banking. Assistant professor Oliver Levine said he thinks AT&T may wait until a new president is elected before trying another merger. “In a different political environment … they may try to do it again,” Levine said.
A committee that advises the federal government on biosecurity issues is recommending that the details of two experiments on the H5N1 avian influenza virus — including research conducted by UW-Madison bird flu expert Yoshihiro Kawaoka — not be made public due to fears that terrorists could use the information to create a bioweapon.
WASHINGTON ? The U.S. government asked scientists at two research centers, including UW-Madison, not to reveal all the details of how to make a version of the deadly bird flu that they created in labs in the U.S. and Europe. Bill Mellon, UW-Madison associate dean for research policy, said virology professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka has gone through several iterations of a manuscript to the journal Nature to comply with the recommendations.
“That is an awkward situation to be in because, obviously, we?re interested in disseminating science,” Mellon said.
A liberal-leaning Milwaukee think tank is out with a new report blaming state budget program cuts and public worker paycheck reductions for exacerbating Wisconsin?s job struggles. The report from the Institute for Wisconsin?s Future says the reduction in take-home pay for tens of thousands of public employees is now hurting the private sector, as are the drastic state budget cuts for K-12 education. Steve Deller, an economics professor at UW-Madison, says that reducing spending during a deep recession can often make things worse, as this blog chart suggests.
“Economic modeling shows that the extreme cuts to state and local programs cost thousands of jobs and put Wisconsin in a weak position to create jobs,” says Deller, who appeared at the Capitol on Tuesday with Norman and Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison, to introduce the IWF report.
Based on the best and latest weather science, it appears that you will look out your window on Christmas morning and see mostly brown grass. Maybe. Jonathan Martin, professor and chairman of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the UW-Madison, said that everything from satellite data to computer models to numerical weather forecasts are telling us that, though snowless Christmases are rarer than skinny mall Santa Clauses, this coming holiday may indeed buck the trend.
The following is a guest post by Gilles Bousquet, the dean of the Division of International Studies and vice provost for globalization at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is also chair of the Statewide International Education Council and co-chair of the University of Wisconsin System Task Force on Economic Development and Globalization.
At a roundtable discussion last spring in Milwaukee hosted by the Wisconsin International Education Council, the vice president of global human resources at Johnson Controls told educators: ?Our talent development and acquisition activities across the organization are the most critical factors for us as a company to grow and to thrive. So, it is all about people.? At a series of meetings I had with business officials in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai in November, executives at several American companies ? including giants like 3M and Caterpillar in addition to up-and-coming ones like Madison-based Promega and TrafficCast ? vigorously repeated that same message.
Quoted: ?With Walker?s recent defense of his actions it?s hard to square any cooperation with labor unions, let alone expanding their benefits, with where the GOP is today,? said University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Charles Franklin. ?This critique of Thompson as an accomodationist, one willing to work with unions to expand their power, seems tailor-made for the campaign.?
Quoted: Meg Gaines, director of the Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, likens the experience to the game Mouse Trap, with patients moving around a board trying to avoid hidden pitfalls.
Quoted: “(Surgeons) feel the advance directive basically ties their hands behind their back, and they?re not given the tools to get them through the surgery,” said Margaret Schwarze, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who was one of the survey?s authors.
“I think it?s safe to say the goals of Madison Prep would be universally shared,” said Adam Gamoran, director of the university?s Wisconsin Center for Education Research and a supporter of the school. But there’s disagreement among faculty about whether Madison Prep is “the right vehicle,” he said, and “for that reason, it would not be appropriate for the university as a whole or the school of education or WCER to take a stand as an institution.”
Quoted: ?Those are the people on the doorsteps of the service system,? said Marsha Mailick Seltzer, an autism expert at the University of Wisconsin. ?They may not have a diagnosis, but they are there.?
Quoted: “Voters are getting signals from sources that they trust, conservative and Republican sources, that that candidate (Gingrich) has flaws, and some significant flaws,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and founder of the website PollsandVotes.com.
“If you look broadly across the state, it?s still really rare for a retail establishment to take a stand,” said Dan Olszewski, director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship at UW-Madison. The standard business maxim is that there?s little upside to mixing politics and commerce, although there are notable exceptions, Olszewski said.
Quoted: “A lot of consumers believe it?s a way to assist in all the issues we?re dealing with,” said University of Wisconsin consumer science professor Cynthia Jasper. “They believe that the money spent is reinvested in the local community in terms of taxes and jobs. Many consumers, because of the economic climate, want to to support their local communities.”
A. In geometry, pi (3.14159?.) is defined as the ratio of circumference to diameter, and “if this is the only definition of pi, then computing it to many decimal places would be impossible,” said Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at UW-Madison.
The winter solstice (from the Latin sol, or “sun,” and stice, or “come to a stop”) is the day of the year with the fewest hours of daylight. This year, this occurs for the Northern Hemisphere at 11:30 pm Wednesday.
Editorial mentions that the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Urban Land Economics Research studied the impact of low- to moderate-income housing developments on communities.
Quoted: Randy Stoecker, UW-Madison professor of Community and Environmental Sociology, has provided support to a number of local community organizations and has worked with Neuschel on several projects. He says he is particularly impressed with how the nurses have used community dinners as an “organizing process” and encouraged residents to take the reins.
Some two dozen people with ties to the University of Wisconsin-Madison joined the prime minister of Norway and a contingent of scientists and explorers at the bottom of the earth on Wednesday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Norwegian Roald Amundsen becoming the first person to reach the South Pole.
Quoted: “It?s gone under the radar with the stalled reauthorization process,” said Doug Harris, a University of Wisconsin professor who wrote a recent book on education performance metrics. “You get really different answers depending on what you do with these numbers. You can talk all you want about what you do with failing schools but if you haven?t identified schools that are failing, it?s a waste of time.”
Noted: Flirtation-themed Ryan Gosling blogs have been trending on the Web for months as Gosling?s reputation as a sex symbol has grown. The ?Hey girl? meme, which started when one blogger started writing captions on paparazzi photos of the actor, took a turn for the academic in October when Danielle Henderson, a graduate student in gender studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, started Feminist Ryan Gosling.
Noted: And in a new twist, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified the development of ?superjets? in the Pacific ocean that may have fueled some of this year?s severe weather and heavy rains. These superjets form in the western Pacific when the subtropical jet stream lifts north and combines with polar jet stream. Jon Martin, one of the researchers, says these superjets can bring powerful storms to the Nation?s mid-section and Southeast 7-10 days after they form.
The race for the White House is heating up, and with the Iowa caucus just three weeks away, a University of Wisconsin professor said a pattern in polling numbers may point to a surprise in the race for the Republican nomination.
A UW researcher was honored at the White House Friday for her work to provide more opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The University of Wisconsin?s IceCube Research Center will be hosting celebrations in honor of the 100th anniversary of the first-ever trek to the South Pole this upcoming Tuesday.
Early in my career, years before I recall being pejoratively called a “filter” or a member of the “mainstream media,” discussions of journalism ethics focused on the straightforward divide between so-called “objective” news reporting and editorial page writing. Today, the Internet has blown up traditional definitions of who is and isn?t a journalist by removing virtually all barriers to entry. There was this adage: Don?t start a fight with someone who buys his ink by the barrel or paper by the boxcar. So obsolete.
Quoted: UW-Madison professor of journalism Stephen Ward, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics.
In response to the recent shooting of a Virginia Tech campus police officer, UW-Madison Police Chief Sue Riseling discussed improvements the university and campus police departments have made to their crisis prevention and response strategies.
Assistant Director for UW Communications Terry Devitt said many of these improvements come in thanks to text alerts and emails, which can reach students instantly. ?[There are] lots of different tools that one can use to get to the university community and beyond very quickly, and we would use the whole menu if the situation warranted it,? Devitt said.
UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden says it?s possible the Greens could make a decent showing next year, although they might end up competing with another outgrowth of the discontent with the two-party system ? the online Americans Elect movement to nominate a nonpartisan ticket.
No matter how the vote turns out, the School Board is on notice to address the achievement gap, said Harry Brighouse, a UW-Madison philosophy and education policy studies professor who has followed the Madison Prep debate closely. “There is a kind of momentum behind this,” Brighouse said. If the School Board votes no, “they have to present real, clear alternative experiments that they?re going to be pursuing.”
A: A total lunar eclipse could be seen in cloud-free regions across most of the United States and Canada on Saturday morning, Dec. 10. In a total lunar eclipse the sun, Earth and moon line up and the Earth casts its shadow on the moon. The moon is always a full moon and it never goes completely dark during a total lunar eclipse. It appears reddish for the same reason that sunsets and sunrises often have a red tint.
A: It?s not clear that they do, says Robert McGrath, coordinator of mind/body wellness services at University Health Services at UW-Madison. McGrath has seen a study that found that children laugh no more than adults, but added that kids do have some advantages in the laughter department.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has played a leading role in recent years when it comes to attempting to curb sweatshop abuses at companies that produce college-logoed apparel. But will Bucky still flex his muscle when the company coming under fire is Adidas — which supplies the university?s sports teams with everything from shoes and jerseys to athletic gear? “This time around, it?s a bit more complicated because of our involvement and close ties with Adidas,” says Vince Sweeney, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for university relations. “We?re still in fact-finding mode.”
“I don’t believe money is going to ultimately drive this decision, and I hope I’m right,” says Lydia Zepeda, a UW-Madison professor of consumer science who chairs the university’s Labor Licensing Policy Committee (LLPC).
Pam Oliver, a sociology professor at UW-Madison who studies incarceration, said she believes cost is the driving force behind keeping 17-year-olds in the adult system. ?Honestly, it saves the state a lot of money,? Oliver said. ?The money is what?s really going on.? Nonetheless, the policy of automatically trying minors in adult court is declining across the United States as new evidence emerges challenging these ?tough on crime? approaches.
Noted: The lead author on the study, Yuri Miyamoto at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has also looked at Japanese participants and found that in general, East Asians are more holistic in their reasoning than European-North Americans, Ji said Wednesday.
Quoted: “The governor?s race means that the very issues Fitzgerald is identified with are going to be front and center through April or May or even early June,” said Charles Franklin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin. “Even if none of those Walker ads directly mention Fitzgerald, they are all about the success of the budget reforms. Fitzgerald has the opportunity to piggyback on that message.”
Quoted: Dr. Robert Golden, dean of the UW-Madison medical school, said a new medical school would have to include comprehensive residency programs for additional training after graduation. That would be cost-prohibitive, he said. That must also be examined in the study of a third medical school?s needs and impact.
Marshall Middle School is into its fifth year of an experiment in single-sex education, a practice under attack from some who say it doesn?t work and could harm students. Janet Hyde, an authority on the role of gender in education at UW-Madison calls single-sex education theory “pseudoscience.”
Quoted: Where some see obstinacy in the governor, UW-Madison Political Science Professor John Witte perceives strength.
Quoted: Conversely, the state has benefited from its larger proportion of older people, since young people tend to move more often, said Dave Long, a researcher with the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Iraqi students first started coming to American universities more than 70 years ago, al-Khalili said. In the late 1940s, Iraq had as many as 40 students enrolled at the University of California-Berkeley, and Nazik al-Malaika ?an Iraqi poet who is considered one of the Arab world?s most-renowned contemporary artists ? earned her master?s degree in comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1959.
A UW Madison researcher will be honored at The White House on Friday.
Dr. Angela Byars-Winston will receive an award for her efforts to enhance job opportunities for young girls, women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Quoted: Dave Long, a researcher with the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
