Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Michael Dubis, a lecturer in the real estate program at UW-Madison.

The devastation in Haiti from Januaryâ??s earthquake was still fresh in our minds when another massive quake rocked Chile this weekend with an 8.8 magnitude.  UW-Madison Geophysics professor Clifford Thurber says in terms of size, Haiti was a â??run-of-the-millâ? 7.0 quake and Chileâ??s is among the top ten in the last century.

Quoted: â??Itâ??s somewhat complicated,â? said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. â??I think for all of the White House claims that itâ??s about serious decisions and itâ??s not political grandstanding, it clearly is both parties setting out their view of the health care debate.

Noted: Economists Morris Davis, Andreas Lehnert, and Robert Martin calculated that the rent/price ratio averaged 5.29% from 1960 to 1995. But from 1995 to 2006 a home buying frenzy drove the ratio down to a historically low rate of 3.5%. Davis, an economist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says the ratio has climbed back to a recent peak of 5% in the first quarter of 2009, and in the fourth quarter of last year it was at 4.85%. Rents may trend lower, with a national rental vacancy rate of nearly 11%, close to a record high. Nevertheless, “the ratio is at its historic average,” says Davis. “Looking at that ratio, you would say that housing prices have stabilized.”

Quoted: “You serve your country as a journalist by covering all aspects of the story, the good and the bad,” said Ward, who teaches at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “Million-year-old species are a dime a dozen; 15,000-year-old species are not,” says Jenny Boughman, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the B.C. sticklebacks.

Quoted: “Itâ??s mostly used as a money raising tool,” says Ken Goldstein, is a political science professor at UW-Madison.

Quoted: â??It succeeded in chipping away at some of the misconceptions,â? said Steve Walker, a student at the University of Wisconsin Law School who helped found the alliance before graduating from Union in 2008. â??Students saw that there werenâ??t boarded-up windows over the businesses and a bunch of drug dealers on street corners.

Quoted: Thongchai Winijakul, a Thai historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Julie Underwood, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s School of Education.

Mentioned: Amaud Johnson, a UW-Madison professor and member of the Parents of African American Students at Franklin, who volunteers once a week at his sonâ??s first-grade classroom.

Quoted: “I think itâ??s unlikely they will land an Asian carp,” says Phil Moy, a biologist with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant program.

Quoted: But UW-Madison zoology professor Jim Kitchell will dig into whether the impact of climate change on Lake Superior-namely, that “it is the most rapidly warming lake in the world”-and is leading to an increased population of sea lamprey.

Quoted: At home, Norwayâ??s newspapers this month are touting the current Olympic medal rankingsâ??and also past ones. “Letâ??s see, this newspaper [the Aftenposten] says itâ??s Norway 297 to 244 for the U.S.,” Peggy Hager, a University of Wisconsin Norwegian lecturer, said this week in an interview from her office, where she was perusing Norwegian Web sites.

Quoted: “Often parents change their minds,” said Dr. Daniel Williams, assistant professor of urology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Although the proposed meter wouldnâ??t be as useful to University of Wisconsin-Madison admissions officials as class rank, said Tom Reason, the universityâ??s interim director of admissions, it is better than nothing.

Quoted: “Even if you manage your lifestyle very well, and you avoid all the trigger factors, most patients will still get these headaches because itâ??s a genetic predisposition to get these headaches,” said Dr. Roland Brilla, of UW Health.

Quoted: Amaud Johnson, a member of the Parents of African American Students at Franklin and a UW-Madison creative writing professor who regularly lends his teaching skills in the classroom of his first-grade son, Hayden.

Quoted: “There are humans today who are more different from each other in phenotype [physical characteristics],” says John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin. He has studied differences in the DNA of modern human populations to understand the rate of evolutionary change in Homo sapiens. Many of the differences between a Neanderthal clone and a modern human would be due to genetic changes our species has undergone since Neanderthals became extinct. “In the last 30,000 years we count about 2,500 to 3,000 events that resulted in positive functional changes [in the human genome],” says Hawks. Modern humans, he says, are as different from Homo sapiens who lived in the Neolithic period 10,000 years ago, as Neolithic people would have been from Neanderthals.

Quoted: “The hot dog is probably the number one food kids choke on. It would make sense to work with manufacturers … to strategize to see how it could be designed to be safer,” says Nan Peterson, Safe Kids Coalition Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Quoted: Dr. Norman Fost, a pediatrician and ethicist at the University of Wisconsin, had a similar reaction.

Quoted: UW-Madsion economists Andrew Reschovsky and Menzie Chinn.

Research by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, which is housed at UW-Madison.

Quoted: David E. Schultz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said such an argument acknowledges a person committed a criminal act, but that circumstances could justify reducing the seriousness of the charge.

Quoted: If children are to relate positively to others, they must feel secure themselves and â??have a secure attachment to another person,â? said Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin. Infants and young children whose own distress is ignored, scorned or, worse yet, punished, can quickly become distrustful of their environment and feel unsafe.

Quoted: James Stein, director of preventative cardiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says Avandia has no proven benefits over other medicines. “Removal of this drug from the market is long overdue,” Stein says. “It does not do the public any good to have it around.” Actos, from Takeda, lowers blood sugar equally well without the heart risk, he says. Avandia sales have dropped from a peak of $3.6 billion to $1.2 billion.

Quoted: But fatigue is the price Madison officials and residents must pay if the city insists on sustaining its inclusionary process for city approvals, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “In a free society,” said Donald Downs, a First Amendment scholar at UW-Madison, “you are going to get that rough and tumble.”

Quoted: Michele LaVigne, a UW-Madison criminal law professor, said attorneys often know a judgeâ??s opinion on certain issues.

Quoted: “Using it on an injury is an unusual purpose for cheese even in those countries,” said Lucey, who teaches and does research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Itâ??s not clear if thereâ??s anything in this that would help.”

Quoted: Urban agriculture crosses jurisdictional lines, says Alfonso Morales, a professor of planning at the University of Wisconsin. He advises cities to set up a one-stop-shop for urban farms, like they have for small business development, so that city farmers can deal with zoning, home business regulations and nuisance laws all in one place.

Quoted: “This is a call to action in every community,” said Patrick Remington, one of the lead authors of the report and associate dean for public health at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: “We have been ranking the health of Wisconsinâ??s counties since 2003,” said Bridget Booske, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin – Madison who served as project director for the rankings.