Category: UW Experts in the News

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.”

Quoted: But since that rapprochement China?s increasing global profile, epitomised by its hosting of the 2008 Olympics, appears to have made it more assertive, said Edward Friedman, a China specialist as the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “It?s really counterintuitive,” said University of Wisconsin ecology professor Monica Turner, coauthor of a paper that has been accepted for publication in Ecological Monographs. “The beetles are good foresters, thinning the forests for us in a way.”

Quoted: Dennis Dresang, founding director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said lieutenant governors with strong ties to the governor have been able to lead on issues important to them.

Quoted: John Mullahy, a health economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s La Follette School of Public Affairs, say rationing has always been a part of the nation?s health care system.

Quoted: UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin says the balance might be tipping toward Johnson, but it?s still a close race.

Quoted: That?s false, says Pamela Herd, an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the UW-Madison whose research focuses on old age policy. She says the money is in Treasury Bonds that are backed by the ?full faith and credit of the U.S. government.” 

Quoted: UW political scientist David Canon says there?s unlikely to be many surprises in the encounter, since the debates are usually pretty structured.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, polling expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: The numbers are low compared with other institutions, with 77 percent of Latino students in the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s 2002 entering class graduating in six years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Quoted: Polling expert Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Western respondents may have been less equivocal in their support for science and scientists because of political debate in their countries, says Dietram Scheufele, a science-communications and public-policy expert at the University of Wisconsin?Madison. “Particularly in the United States, dichotomies dominate political issues, like a sporting event with two sides. Dichotomies are prominent in discussions about climate change, stem cells and so on,” he says. “And they can damage the debate.”

Quoted: Alta Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law & Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School at Madison. She was a member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission during the Clinton administration

Quoted: Although Goadsby noted that prior research had similarly illustrated the apparent benefits of IV aspirin by comparing pain levels against a second pool of patients who did not get the treatment, Dr. Carl Stafstrom, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pointed out that the current effort did not do so.

Quoted: The decision to stop distributing residential listings is a trend for Verizon and AT&T, said Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now obtained recordings they claim prove a conspiracy between the Republican Party of Wisconsin and various Tea Party organizations to target students and minorities in a “voter caging” effort.

Quoted: Brent McCown, a University of Wisconsin-Madison horticulture professor.

Noted: A recent study by the Institute for Research on Poverty showed that St. Croix County has the state?s seventh-fastest growing poverty rate. It exceeds 12%.

Quoted: Dr. Norman Fost shares that concern. He directs a bioethics program at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

“After college, I?ll go to Europe, but I?m not sure I would ever have the chance to live in a developing country,” said Jessie Lavintman, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who became familiar with bucket showers and malaria when she studied in Ghana.

?President Hu Jintao?s government has made a fundamental shift in China?s foreign policy orientation to, as it sees it, at long last, standing up for China,? said Edward Friedman, a China scholar at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Jeffrey Johnson, a pharmaceutical researcher with the UW-Madison?s Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences.