Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Mary Prosser, law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it?s a misdemeanor to fail to prevent an additional crime.

Quoted: There?s always a lot of talk about voters from one party or another switching over to wreak havoc on an election, but there?s little evidence to show that it happens in Wisconsin or anywhere else, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and founder of pollster.com.

Quoted: “Barrett?s got a tough road ahead of him,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Katherine Cramer Walsh, who worked on the poll. “I?m a little bit surprised by the results.”

Quoted: “So water quality, air quality and heat waves would all be pertinent for Chicago,” said Jonathan Patz, director of global environmental health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “A lot of the health infrastructure, we need to anticipate more extremes. We can?t do business as usual. We need to plan for more weather variability. Our water systems are failing.”

Quoted: “Can you tell I?m disgusted by this?” writes John Hawks, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He noted that the company is perfectly within its rights to sell the kit, since DNA Consultants explains clearly that its product actually doesn?t test your genetics.

Noted: “Johnson has very deep pockets. He could spend $15 million to $20 million of his own money,” said Ken Mayer, a campaign finance expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“In today?s market, a lot of people are really looking for an opportunity to make a good deal on real estate,” said Tom Landgraf, a senior lecturer in the real estate program at UW-Madison.

Noted: “To my eye at least, it is a baboon, which lives in Africa,” said Christopher Coe, director of the Harlow Primate Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “The more common monkey that lives in that part of the world is a rhesus monkey. They live in India and can also be found in China. But this photo is not [of] a rhesus monkey. … While you could train a monkey to shoot a gun, I certainly wouldn?t want to be anywhere in the neighborhood after that. I rather doubt you could trust its aim,” he said. “In addition, the noise would certainly scare most animals and make them stop.”

Quoted: Sara Goldrick-Rab teaches education policy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She says nonprofit colleges and public universities deserve a closer look too. Plenty of students graduate from those schools with piles of debt and slim job prospects.

Quoted: The greater number of GOP candidates, from local legislative races to higher-profile statewide contests, reflects an energized conservative electorate, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

Quoted: ?Immigration is down the list in terms of voter priorities here,? says UW Madison professor Barry Burden. ?At the top of the list are more immediate bread and butter kinds of issues. Jobs is number one. I think taxes, education, infrastructure, the budget deficit and other priorities are going to come first.”

Quoted: Nutritional physiologist Dale Schoeller of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the study.

There is, however, a silver lining: Tackling global warming is also a public health opportunity, said Jonathan Patz, director of global environmental health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who also participated in the UCS briefing.

Noted: The idea was also praised by Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a government watchdog group, as well as David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor who studies redistricting.

Noted: Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University and Dr. Robert Davidson of The University of Wisconsin-Madison are some of the neuroscientists researching stress management, and they contend that people can retrain their brains to combat stress.

Quoted: “It?s kind of like finding high cholesterol” but not having drugs that can lower it, said Dr. Mark Sager, director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer?s Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was involved in a study of a different Alzheimer?s-linked gene that will be reported this week.

Quoted: ?Thirty years ago, people just assumed that you wrote about women because they were discriminated against,? said Susan Stanford Friedman, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison. ?Now, nothing is off the table.?

Quoted: Dr. Noelle LoConte, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center in Madison, who uses e-mail in her practice, said she gets “surprisingly few” e-mails each day, only five or six.

UW-Madison bug expert Phil Pellitteri says he?s been fielding a number of calls from people who are upset about the slimy and spooky looking insects invading their home and yards.

Quoted: “These folks are past the point of being long shots. There has to be some motivation that is out of touch with reality, or just doesn?t care,” said UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin.

Quoted: “The Betsy Ross story is definitely a myth,” said Jean Lee, a professor of history at UW-Madison and a specialist on the American Revolution.

Q: Which president has had the most impact on the most Americans? lives right now? A: Deciding which president has had the greatest influence on our current lives is subjective and a different calculation for anyone, says Kenneth R. Mayer, professor of political science at UW-Madison and an expert on the U.S. presidency. One could even make a case that any of our nation?s 44 presidents, with a few exceptions made for those who are regarded as failures, is the most influential.

Noted: For one thing, skin, scales and fur aren?t the blank canvases upon which Turing envisioned color patterns painting themselves. ?Sometimes biology is a bit uncooperative because it uses more components than models tell us are necessary,? says Sean B. Carroll, a developmental and evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin?Madison.

Quoted: “This is not the distant past,” said John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin. “This is stuff that?s happened in 40 human generations.”

Quoted: “Almost nobody knows anything about Johnson but yet he?s still only two to four points behind Feingold, and I think what that shows is just how energized Republicans are,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin at Madison political science professor and co-founder of Pollster.com.

Quoted: “Cooling has been used [for headaches] since the 19th century,” says Dr. Roland Brilla, a clinical assistant professor of neurology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison and a member of the American Headache Society. Though many patients say cold helps a bit, he cautions that “it doesn?t seem to be extremely effective.”

Interviewed: Michele Norris speaks with former war correspondent Stephen Ward, now director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the controversy surrounding the profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal published in Rolling Stone magazine. The article, which led to McChrystal?s ouster as the top commander in Afghanistan, sparked debate among journalists about on- and off-the-record exchanges.

Noted: The red shirts are seen as poorly educated provincials, who do not speak standard Thai but a dialect halfway between Thai and Laotian. They are caricatured as ?savages?, ?barbarians? or ?buffalos? who should be sent back to the countryside. Thongchai Winichakul, a Thai history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said well-to-do Bangkokians see the red shirts as ?dirty, ugly, vulgar, low, inferior people? ? country bumpkins.

Quoted: “One would expect the placement rate (in Michigan) to be higher than 53 percent,” said Carolyn Heinrich, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the study?s authors.

Quoted: “When you look at the statewide comparisons, that?s really the biggest discrepancy of any state,” said Dr. David Allen, head of pediatric endocrinology at University of Wisconsin Health.

Quoted: Brian Mayhew, associate professor of Accounting and Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

No one would believe I?d found a 3-inch mosquito, because there aren?t any. But Prof. Phil Pellitteri at the University of Wisconsin?s Insect Diagnostic Lab said Wisconsin is home to the “crane fly,” from the family Tipulidae, which is related to mosquitoes.