Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: ?We consider a person?s experience of his or her own health, how they pay attention to their symptoms and changes in their condition, how well they know themselves and take healthy action as all part of health literacy and a patient-centered definition of health care [integral to health-care reform],? says Patti Brennan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing.

Quoted: Johnson?s lack of political experience could play well in a year when voters seem to prefer outsiders, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: The genetically modified plants, called Bt corn, have had an economic benefit of $6.9 billion during the past 14 years in the five Upper Midwest corn-producing states studied, the researchers concluded. They were led by William Hutchison, head of the entomology department at the University of Minnesota, and Paul Mitchell, an agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin.

Noted: Yi Gang, deputy governor of China?s central bank, acknowledged a link with other Asian currencies after watching a presentation in Washington Thursday where University of Wisconsin economist Menzie Chinn showed how the Korean, Thai and Singaporean currencies mirrored the yuan?s ups and downs.

Quoted: Ken Goldstein is a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is tracking ads in governor?s races in six Midwestern states. He says Barrett and his allies have an advantage in the air war but Walker?s allies played a crucial role while he replenished his campaign war chest.

Quoted: Stephen Ward, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism ethics expert, called her demotion draconian and chilling.

Quoted: “Charter can charge whatever it wants to, for whatever it wants to,” said Barry Orton, a University of Wisconsin telecommunications professor. “They charge what they can get away with. Legally, they can charge anything they want; what they can get away with is what the market will bear.”

Quoted: “They almost certainly came from prisoners, either executed or deceased prisoners… people who may have died under uncertain circumstances. There?s no record about consent,” said Dr. Norman Fost, directof of the UW School of Medicine?s bioethics program.

Quoted: “The greatest consumption period is during irrigation and frost protection,” says Rebecca Harbut, an associate professor of Horticulture at UW-Madison.

Interviewed: Barry Burden, political scientist, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Ron Johnson has been able to convince voters that — at least some voters — that he?s responsible for many of the things happening in Washington that they don?t like at the moment: government spending, health care, stimulus funds and the like. (Video and text.)

Quoted: “What you?re looking at here is people at the bottom trying to hang on,” said Timothy Smeeding, public affairs professor and director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “You can?t go below a certain level.”

Quoted: Dr. Megan Moreno, an expert on cyberbullying with the University of Wisconsin, said what makes online bullying so serious is how public it becomes.

Noted: What these findings mean for those of us who work out regularly is still being determined by scientists. But one message is clear. ??The evidence suggests that antioxidants are not needed?? by most athletes, even those training strenuously, said Li Li Ji, a professor of exercise physiology and nutritional science at the University of Wisconsin and one of the authors of the rat study. ??The body adapts,?? he said, a process that can, it seems, be altered by antioxidant supplements.

Quoted: The ad points to Verizon?s large investment in fiber optic cable to the home, said Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That results in fewer slowdowns when lots of people in the same neighborhood are using the Internet, he said.

Quoted: Sue Robinson, a UW professor who specializes in online journalism.

Quoted: ?We can?t call this research,? said Sara Goldrick-Rab, an assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. ?The for-profits are under attack and this report is being paid for by for-profits. We need to be asking many of these questions, but a report like this one isn?t providing meaningful answers.?

Quoted: If they succeed, they will be giving up something unique in American politics. Joel Rogers, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has founded organizations focused on both state- and city-level policymaking, calls being mayor “a total gas … You?re known everywhere. Your decisions touch people directly. You deal with an incredible variety of issues. You get instantaneous feedback.”

Quoted: At this stage, the equipment is all too sizeable to be used outside the lab. “The question of practical applications to sleep will require further study before any implementation would be practical,” says Michael Peterson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who works with Tononi.

Quoted: One skeptic doubts POM?s motive for the new ads. “It sounds to me like they?re trying to change the subject (from the FTC lawsuit),” says Ivan Preston, ad professor emeritus at University of Wisconsin.

Prof Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that many Chinese people sympathetic to the sentiments Wen was espousing also seemed doubtful of whether he was engaged in a political struggle for them, “or just setting out a position so he has a certain historical legacy”.

Noted: UW-Madison?s Kurt Paulsen, an assistant professor of urban and regional planning.

Quoted: Darald Hanusa, a senior lecturer in social work at UW-Madison.

As neuroscientists, we are deeply disturbed by the article that appeared recently in the Sept. 21 State Journal titled ?Is jellyfish protein supplement much-needed memory aid?? Letter from Jeffrey Johnson, professor, Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Ronald Kalil, professor, School of Medicine and Public Health, both at UW-Madison.

Quoted: “Kleefisch is very Sarah Palin-esque, and she?s embraced that,” notes UW political science professor Barry Burden. “It?s easy to see a lot of similarities in their backgrounds, their identities as mothers, their concerns on size of government and their folksy approach.”

Noted: Students studying supernatural beings can be found at colleges and universities all across the nation. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has an English course called ?The Vampire in Literature and Cinema?. The University of Florida offers a humanities course, ?Vampire Studies? and an honors course, ?Figures of the In-between? in which students study ghosts, angels and vampires. But it doesn?t stop there — just this semester the University of Baltimore began offering students a minor in pop culture ? which includes a lesson in zombies 101.

Quoted: “Madison is certainly still friendly territory for President Obama, (but) I would say that his supporters are battle-worn and disappointed in a way they were not in 2008,” said John Coleman, chairman of the political science department at UW-Madison. “As we learn for the thousandth time, governing is not the same as campaigning.”

Quoted: ?We?re able to glean a lot of information from all the letters we receive and should someone receive a negative letter we blend those into the narrative of an applicant,? said Michael Hall, Dean of Admissions at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Noted: The second is a 2009 article that Dr. Dennis Maki, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin, published in The New England Journal of Medicine. After analyzing nationwide outbreaks of salmonella, he warned, ?To those who believe that the solution is a return to a pastoral, early-20th-century model with millions of small farms producing more ?natural? food . . . it would be impossible to feed 300 million Americans, much less the rest of the world.? The real challenge, he explained, ?is to enhance the quality and safety of industrially produced food.?

Quoted: Dr. Dietram A. Scheufele said QR Codes are a step toward in an overall movement that could eventually see mobile devices such as smartphones become a part of all aspects of consumerism.Scheufele, an expert on public opinion, emerging technologies, new media and politics, is the director of graduate studies, life sciences and communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: That shift in language was most clear this week in Wisconsin, where Mr. Obama rolled his sleeves up and delivered a speech reminiscent of the ones he delivered on behalf of himself in the 2008 campaign ? but this time for the lawmakers who so badly need a boost.

“Income inequality is rising, and if we took into account tax data, it would be even more,” Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty, told The AP. “More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy.”

Quoted: “In most instances, monkeys do not show [self-awareness],” Christopher Coe, director of the Harlow Primate Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the work, said in an email to The Scientist. But the new study “indicates that rhesus monkeys can acquire this ability in the right setting and with the right tools.”

Madison police Sgt. June Groehler was recently giving a presentation on cybersafety at a local church, during which she advocated keeping tabs on kids? cell phone and computer use with powerful new web monitoring software. A minister asked her why she was telling parents to spy on their children.

Her response: ?It?s called parenting.?

Quoted: Megan Moreno, a UW pediatric physician who specializes in adolescent development

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, a professor at UW-Madison?s La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty.

Quoted: UW-Madison history professor Colleen Dunlavy.

Quoted: Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty.

Friends and family of Professor Emeritus Jim Hoyt met Friday in Vilas Hall to dedicate room 2195 to him after his years of dedication to UW-Madison.

Quoted: “We throw thousands and thousands of antibiotics on bacteria,” says Marcin Filutowicz, a microbiologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “This is tremendous selection for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”