Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: â??I see current approval about in line with the fluctuations weâ??ve seen all year for each pollster,â? said Mr. Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. â??Little evidence of real change.â?

Noted: It turns out that just as recent brain-imaging studies have begun to reveal the physical evidence of empathyâ??s erosion, they are now also beginning to show definitive signs of its cultivation as well. A group of researchers led by Richard Davidson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published a study in a March 2008 edition of the Public Library of Science One, showing that the mere act of thinking compassionate thoughts caused significant activity and physical changes in the brainâ??s empathic pathways. â??People are not just stuck at their respective set points,â? Davidson has said of the studyâ??s results. â??We can take advantage of our brainâ??s plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities. . . . I think this can be one of the tools we use to teach emotional regulation to kids who are at an age where theyâ??re vulnerable to going seriously off track.â?

Noted: Perhaps a youth-obsessed culture has difficulty believing such tidings. Yet a study by Midlife in the United States, a research project run out of the Institute on Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, concluded a decade ago that â??for most of us, at least some portion of the middle years may be the â??prime of life.â?? â?

James Stein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that the result was only barely statistically significant, and could be due to the fact that patients on ARBs lived longer and were more likely to get diagnosed with cancer. Moreover, there is no known biological reason these drugs would increase cancer risk.

Quoted: Dr. Damon Williams, vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, sees movement and hopes to see more. Williams has done considerable research making a case for expanding the role and reach of diversity officers. Both men have spoken to audiences around the country about the merits of the idea.

Quoted: Democrats are supporting Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for governor, their only candidate in the race. In a surprise move earlier this week, he proposed making $1 billion in cuts to state government, if elected. UW-Madison Political Science Professor Charles Franklin says Barrett might be trying to appeal to moderate voters.

A UW-Madison expert sees some problems, and possible advantages, in the GOP race for Governor. The race has grown gotten increasingly nasty between former Congressman Mark Neumann and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. Political science professor Charles Franklin says that upsets what had seemed to be a clear cut path to the nomination for Walker, after he received the endorsement from the Republican Party at its state convention.

Quoted: The season has also arrived early for Judy Reith-Rozelle, assistant superintendent at UW-Madisonâ??s West Madison Agricultural Research Station in Verona, where she is running a strawberry research plot for the second consecutive year.

Quoted: Several medical physicists said in interviews that they were reserving judgment until they saw the specific changes. â??How it is implemented would make a big difference,â? said Dr. Bruce Thomadsen, a medical physicist at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “This study is pretty consistent to what the research literature say so far,” said Dave Riley, a professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the UW.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the UW Madison, said he does not recall a similar event, or any high profile politico changing support for a candidate, as Klauser has done. Neumann is contesting the Republican primary race against Walker, with the winner to face the Democratic candidate, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in November.

But the group has as much responsibility to provide legal drugs as it does to control illegal ones, says David Joranson, founder of the University of Wisconsinâ??s Pain & Policy Studies Group, which works with governments to reform their palliative-care laws.

Noted: Thatâ??s all changed, Monteleone adds, thanks in large part to the Master Cheesemaker Program at the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Noted: Brain computer interfacing is also entering our everyday lives. This year, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered a way to post messages on the social networking site Twitter using their minds. Wearing a red cap fitted with electrodes, they concentrate on letters on a computer monitor to spell out a message.

Summer sports programs mean smiles for kids with potential sadness as well. A sports psychiatrist says if kids get bummed from making a bad play or losing a game itâ??s important not to sweep the situation under the rug. â??The most important thing I think is to acknowledge their childâ??s feeling about what happened,â? says Dr. Claudia Reardon of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Quoted: “Our new study shows that in people with similar levels of chronic disease burden having a strong sense of purpose in life is linked with lower levels of inflammation,” said Elliot Friedman of the University of Wisconsin.

Andrew Grose, 14, is one of 273 brainiacs who will converge on Washington, D.C., this week for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This marks the second year in a row Grose has reached the nationals. Last year he finished one point shy of making the semifinals, missing a chance to compete in front of the cameras on ESPN. This year he stepped up his studies, training with spelling coach Jeff Kirsch, a UW-Madison professor and National Senior Spelling Bee champion.

Quoted: That finding undermined the idea that the genocide was planned before the assassination, said Scott Straus, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Chip Hunter, a professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said an advantage to bringing back former employees is the savings in training, valued years of experience and the familiarity with work processes within the company.

Quoted: â??Wetlands used to be the place where you dumped your old refrigerator, but now theyâ??re gems,â? said Joy Zedler, a UW-Madison botanist who studies wetland plants. Still, Wisconsinâ??s remaining wetlands face other threats today. Near the top of the list are invasive plants.

Noted: Also going to the National Spelling Bee will be his coach, Jeff Kirsch, who teaches Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Continuing Studies. He met Andrew when he first began competing in fifth grade when Kirsch was coaching another contestant.

Quoted: But Tom Reason, interim director of admissions at UW-Madison, said that eliminating class rank will not necessarily mean that more of a high schoolâ??s students will be admitted. It means different students might be admitted, he said.

Only two candidates remain in the race for the Republican nomination for US Senate. However, UW Political Scientist Charles Franklin says businessmen Ron Johnson and David Westlake will need to overcome their outsider status if they hope to compete.

Several hundred dogs and cats in southeastern Wisconsin may need to be revaccinated after being given expired rabies vaccines. But an animal-vaccination expert at the University of Wisconsin says the expired vaccines are probably still effective.

Quoted: “We use a truckload of spironolactone,” says James Stein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Itâ??s hard to beat a drug that costs four bucks at Wal-Mart and has been around for fifty years.” He says he mainly switches patients to Inspra when men had breast growth or tenderness, a side effect he says is rare.

Quoted: “I think the most important point here for Republicans is the prize for them is the fall election,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist David Canon. “They want to have a chance to beat Russ Feingold and so to have the party coalescing behind one candidate now is to their advantage for sure.”

Quoted: “If you said there was a candidate who entered the race five days before the convention and five days later stood as the odds-on favorite, you would think that candidate was (former GOP Governor) Tommy Thompson,” said Charles Franklin, UW-Madison poltical science professor. “Instead, itâ??s a guy most of us have not heard of before.”

Quoted: Farmers are â??looking for low-cost reliable workers,â? said Brad Barham, a dairy researcher with the UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies, which conducted the study of immigrantsâ?? roles on dairy farms.

Quoted: Dr. Michael A. Stier, a forensic pathologist with UW-Madison School of Medicine & Public Health, wrote that the childâ??s injuries were non-accidental and were “inconsistent with the reported history of being sustained from a fall down a short flight of steps,” according to the complaint.

Noted: For the last two years, the agency has awarded money for “buy local” projects, including $35,000 to the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition (MACSAC), $25,000 to Underground Catering in Madison to develop traditionally made pork products, and $20,000 to the UW-Madisonâ??s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems to beef up Wisconsin apple distribution to the stateâ??s K-12 schools.

“The number of farmerâ??s markets in the region has increased almost exponentially in the past five or six years,” said Rick Brooks, outreach program manager and one of the founders of Dane Buy Local, an organization of local businesses that encourage local commerce. “East side, north side, west side, south side and many smaller communities host markets,” he noted.

Quoted: If companies find their costs are more predictable, they can be â??more focused on operations that should improve quality and improve value,â? said Mark Ready, UW-Madison School of Business professor.

Quoted: Tim Van Deelen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison bear expert and a Waunakee resident, said he saw the 150-pound animal when neighbors called him on Sunday night. He said the bears maturity can be compared to that of a teenager.

Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering grad student Carl Johnson explained that major roads like the Beltline are basically square slabs of concrete, and they have slices, or joints, in them for a reason — to give the slabs some room to breathe. UW-Madison physics professor Clint Sprott said itâ??s one of the basic principles of physics — expansion and contraction.

To track how well Johnny could read last week â?? and the week before that â?? Gina Tortorice can now drag her finger across the front of an iPod Touch and watch her studentâ??s progress. The first-grade teacher is one of 11 educators at the adjacent Black Hawk Middle and Gompers Elementary schools using KidGrid, an experimental iPod application designed by UW-Madison researchers to make documenting student progress frequent, instantaneous and high-tech. “This is a research project as much as it is a tool for teachers to use,” said Richard Halverson, associate director of the education research and development group for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, who is developing KidGrid with Suzanne Rhodes, a UW-Madison graduate student in educational psychology.

Ken Goldstein, UW-Madison political science professor, said a variety of factors go into Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s selection of appointees, including expertise and how well known to Doyle the applicant is.

Stem cell research happening at UW-Madison every day slowly works toward a cure. Many students and professors are spending years working with stem cells. Su Chun Zhang, a professor of Anatomy and Neurology at the Waisman Center at UW-Madison says, “Itâ??s a very mysterious disease.. the problem is we donâ??t even know what causes ALS. Even though itâ??s difficult to predict when we will get there [to finding a cure}, I think we are doing our best to go from multiple avenues toward that goal.”

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at UW-Madison, said the criticism was to be expected in todayâ??s polarized political climate.

Quoted: Adaptable deer mice came to dominate the small furry communities of northern California as the climate warmed at the end of the last ice age, around 11,700 years ago, an excavation of one ancient woodrat nest shows. Overall, the number of small mammalian species in the area declined by about one-third, say Jessica Blois, currently at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her colleagues.