Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: “The state of knowledge of the subsurface is just at the beginning,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison geophysicist Harold Tobin, “Weâ??re at the point now where we need to move our experiments from the lab and see if what we think is happening is actually occurring on a larger-scale.” To that end, Tobin and his team have drilled 1-mile deep holes in a major fault zone off the coast of Japan and placed instruments inside fault lines to record subtle changes in activity.

Quoted: That might be as precise as the systems ever get, said Deborah Mitchell, a professor of consumer psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even the human brain canâ??t always determine gender, age or ethnicity.

What happens when a city’s media are subjected to wave after wave of staffing and budget cuts? One consequence is that even obvious, important and interesting stories fall through the cracks.

Exhibit one is the almost total failure of local media to notice that William Cronon, a UW-Madison professor of history, geography and environmental studies, has a standout role in all six episodes of Ken Burns’ stunning series The National Parks:America’s Best Idea. Wisconsin State Journal reporter Deborah Ziff wrote a two-sentence mention in a digest column. Other than that, a search of local news archives, even those of the campus papers, comes up empty.

Quoted: No judge in Wisconsin has ever dealt with the unique circumstances of the Neumann case, and Howardâ??s sentence will be the benchmark for any future, similar cases, said Shawn Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison religion professor and author of “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law.”

Wisconsin residents have a duty to know something about how to judge a dairy cow — we are the Dairy State after all. Ted Halbach from UW-Madison gives us an intro course at the World Dairy Expo.

Noted: Itâ??s the same at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where botanist Laura Jull said people notice but donâ??t dwell on the smell of the campus ginkgoes.

Quoted: Lisa Brunette, a spokeswoman for UW Health, which first publicly criticized the pitch, said it appears to be a “pay for play” in which doctors give the station money in exchange for positive publicity.

“It was striking to us there could even be the suggestion there could be editorial visibility, which is essentially a marketing opportunity,” Brunette said.

Quoted: Such a system might create a perception that journalists let government money skew their coverage, said Stephen Ward, founding director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “Hands-free is not risk-free,” said Dr. John Lee, a University of Wisconsin researcher.

If you’ve been watching Ken Burns’ series on national parks on PBS, you might have noticed a familiar, local face.

William Cronon, UW-Madison professor of history, geography, and environmental studies, is one of several “contemporary commentators,” providing context and history on the parks.

Quoted: Morton Gernsbacher, an autism researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the film could be destructive. “Any organisation that claims to support individuals with disabilities and those individualsâ?? families should familiarise itself with the decades of research which has investigated the deleterious effects of fear-eliciting messaging,” she says.

Quoted: Milk pasteurization became standard after diseases such as scarlet fever, dysentery and tuberculosis were directly linked to the consumption of raw milk, said Barbara Ingham, a food safety extension specialist who teaches food sciences at UW-Madison.

Quoted: “Itâ??s easier to produce a vaccine that has thimerosal in it as a preservative because you can make it in large quantities, and it wonâ??t get contaminated,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar at UW-Hospital. “It will stay preserved.”

Quoted: Environmental historian William J. Cronon of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: UW political scientist Dave Canon says Barrett seems to be favored by many in the party. The only announced Democratic candidate so far is Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

Q: Will a regular flu shot offer any protection against the H1N1 or swine flu virus?

A: In a word, no. Influenza viruses are notoriously shifty, changing their form each flu season in an effort to evade the human immune system. They do this by altering immune system-triggering features called antigens on the surface of the virus. That is why a new vaccine is developed each flu season. Vaccines work by exposing the immune system to deactivated virus particles, which tell the immune system how to defend against a particular virus.

Quoted: If you eliminated the smokers from the equation, non-smoking lung cancer would be the seventh- or eighth-most common cancer in the United States, said Dr. Toby Campbell, a lung cancer specialist at the UW Carbone Cancer Center and assistant professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Quoted: Nevertheless, the Hummer brand has retained a certain appeal, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research by Marius K. Luedicke from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, Craig J. Thompson of the University of Wisconsin and Markus Giesler of York University in Toronto. “Hummer drivers believe they are defending Americaâ??s frontier lifestyle against anti-American critics,” the study notes, adding that Hummer owners employ the ideology of American foundational myths, such as the “rugged individual,” and the “boundless frontier.”

Quoted: “Thereâ??s been a ton of speculation,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor. “We just havenâ??t seen much action.”

Quoted: “There is no doubt based on an economic analysis, giving someone a kidney within about three years is a tremendously cost-effective thing to do,” said Dr. Bryan Becker, a transplant nephrologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the president of the National Kidney Foundation.

Quoted: A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, who studied the use of tire shreds, also deems the material safe. In his research, specifically on athletic fields or artificial turf, Tuncer Edil wrote, “the artificial fields are safe for humans of all ages.”

Quoted: “Health care and health care financing is very much within the jurisdiction of the committee that he sits on, so in that case he will be influential in the health care debate,” said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist.

Quoted: “For people like Brecht, the collapse in 1929 was a confirmation of suspicions of market capitalism had a destructive power,” says Marc Silberman, who studies the work of Bertolt Brecht at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: â??What happened in New York City was successful because of federal, state, and local communication, voluntary vaccinations, and a public-information blitzâ??and thatâ??s whatâ??s needed in an any future potential pandemic, or epidemic,â? says Judith W. Leavitt, professor of History of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Bruce Jones, a University of Wisconsin dairy economist, reported that dairy producers in Wisconsin should gain less than 50 cents per hundred pounds from the temporary rise in the price support.

Noted: The correlation between venture capital investments and productivity growth was researched by Masako Ueda, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She analyzed total factor productivity (or TFP, which is a measure of innovation) in several industries.

Quoted: Yet the economic benefit of marriage isnâ??t what it used to be. In a chapter of a book just out from the Russell Sage Foundation, Changing Poverty, Changing Policies, two social scientists show that since 1969 the marriage premium has subsided. Maria Cancian, a professor of public affairs and social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Deborah Reed, director of research at Mathematica Policy Research, set out to study how the changing make-up of American families has affected the number of people below the poverty line. Considering how the rate of marriage has fallen and the rate of divorce has risen, the researchers expected the number of people living below the poverty line to grow by 2.6%. But when they looked at the data, poverty had increased by less than half that amount.

Quoted: James Johannes, associate dean for executive education at the UW-Madison School of Business, said the price of gold is primarily determined by three factors: Demand for gold for jewelry and industrial purposes; demand for gold as a hedge against inflation; and demand for gold as a substitute for any currency holding.

Q: Is bottled water better for you than tap water?

A: It depends on your tap water.

“Bottled water may be appropriate where tap or well water is contaminated, where it has high levels of chemicals such as nitrates,” says Barbara Ingham, food science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “That would be an excellent reason to choose bottled water.”

Quoted: For one thing, the abstention agreement could create a chilling effect on county elected officials who might not vote their conscience out of fear of being sued, said Howard Schweber, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When he first heard about what had happened in Clark County, the constitutional scholar said â??the hair on the back of my neck started to rise.â?

Quoted: “If we want to prevent foreclosures, something needs to be done, and itâ??s not mortgage modification,” says Morris Davis, an assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and one of the authors of a relief plan that would provide housing vouchers attached to unemployment insurance.

Quoted: Darrell Bazzell, the vice chancellor for administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said expanding its campus is not part of the universityâ??s strategy.

â??We are focusing on meeting the needs on campus,â? he said. â??We value having classes close by and we see no need to expand beyond campus boundaries.â?

Quoted: Joanne Cantor, a former University of Wisconsin professor who writes about media issues, said on her blog that she shares concerns about the beer ads on NFL telecasts, but has mixed feelings about the ED ads.

Quoted: “At the UW-Madisonâ??s Arlington Research Station UW-Madison. it has been the coolest growing season on record,” said Joe Lauer, an agronomy professor and the UW Extensionâ??s corn specialist. “But the story isnâ??t done yet.”

Quoted: Dr. Yoshi Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin said tests in monkeys showed the virus lives and replicates 1,000-fold better in the lungs than does seasonal flu.

Quoted: “Nitrogen is associated with color, phosphorous with flowering and potassium with growth,” said Dennis Lukaszewski, urban gardens director for the University of Wisconsin-Extension. “There are other micro-nutrient blends out there for feeding specific plants, but those are the big three.”

Quoted: Obamaâ??s address to Congress last week “wasnâ??t the huge game-changer some had hoped or thought,” says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who studies public opinion.

Quoted: “The kernels just havenâ??t been developing like they normally would,” said Joe Lauer, agronomist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: J. Michael Collins, an assistant professor in the department of consumer science at University of Wisconsinâ??s School of Human Ecology in Madison, suggests paying less for a home that you can upgrade periodically when your income is stable and your savings or available credit make it possible.