Patients hospitalized with nonsevere COVID-19 infections who received empiric antibiotics targeting community-acquired pneumonia may not experience clinically meaningful improvement in outcomes and could have a slightly increased risk of clinical deterioration or in-hospital mortality.
Jon Pevehouse, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in international relations, discussed the Iranian war, its effects and what its outcome might look like in the United States in an interview with The Daily Cardinal.
The U.S. began bombing Iran in February 2026. The campaign, Operation Epic Fury, was intended to upheave Iranian leadership, destroy their military and end Iran’s nuclear program, according to President Donald Trump.
A deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean has alarmed health officials worldwide, but Madison infectious disease specialists say the risk to Wisconsin residents is extremely low, as long as residents haven’t been exposed to a passenger of the cruise ship.
If there’s two things that Andrea “Andi” Bill likes, it’s problem solving and applying it to the human experience. It’s part of what led her to a career in Civil Engineering, but those same skills have also been invaluable in her second career as a trainer and owner of Sugar Creek Stables in Brooklyn, Wisconsin.
Question: Are we ahead of schedule with the spring greening?
Answer: We all just lived through a historic April here in Madison, and broadly across the region.
In Madison and Milwaukee, April 2026 was the wettest April since record keeping began in 1869 and 1871, respectively. Madison received 7.26 inches of rain during the month, more than half of that amount coming on just three days (1.34 inches on April 2, 1.53 inches on April 14 and 0.98 inch on April 17).
Health experts say Wisconsinites should not panic over recent international hantavirus headlines, despite concerns the outbreak could mirror the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Nasia Safdar, a professor of Infectious Disease at UW Madison, said the situation with the hantavirus outbreak is exceedingly rare.
For the first time in 40 years, UW-Madison is launching a new college.
The university has named Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau as the founding dean of the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, set to officially open on July 1.
As artificial intelligence continues to grow, so do its criticisms.
Already had a run-in with a tick this year?
You’re not alone.
Emergency room visits for tick bites hit their highest known level in southern Wisconsin and have been up across the state in recent weeks, according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, which began tracking tick-related ER visits in 2022.
Most of the country has seen a similar trend, but it’s been especially pronounced in the Midwest, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
Testing for avian flu among Wisconsin dairy cows is being reduced, thanks to recent changes at both state and federal levels.
But one animal health expert worries that reduced support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture could leave continued surveillance of the highly-contagious virus on shaky ground.
Questions about racially motivated voting restrictions gained new relevance last week when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a key component of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) in Louisiana v. Callais (2026). The decision effectively ended the protections of the VRA’s Section 2, which sought to ensure that voters of color had fair representation in elections. This ruling now opens the door to the potential elimination of majority-minority districts in numerous states.
The first dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence says the institution will be a vital non-industry leader shaping the future of AI.
Leaders in science, business, and government gathered in Madison on Tuesday to discuss the future of fusion energy.
The Fusion Summit at the Discovery Center brought together researchers, lawmakers, and more than one hundred companies exploring how Wisconsin could become a national hub for this emerging technology.
An ancient practice may hold significant benefits for your mental and physical well-being.
UW Health distinguished psychologist Dr. Shilagh Mirgain highlighted the benefits of therapeutic journaling.
Harm reduction tools like fentanyl and xylazine test strips have years of evidence behind their use, according to Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and an addiction medicine specialist.
What are the true limits of life, will we even recognize it when we see it? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice explore the beginnings of life on Earth and what they might tell us about life everywhere else with astrobiologist and bacteriologist, Betül Kaçar.
Wisconsin lost thousands of manufacturing jobs in 2025, driven in part by an aging workforce and hesitancy to expand hiring in an uncertain economy.
Between January 2025 and January 2026, the state’s manufacturing workforce shrank by about 9,500 jobs, falling from 461,100 workers to 451,600, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The manufacturing workforce nationally declined by about 91,000 jobs over the same period.
Backyard poultry have been linked to a multistate outbreak of salmonella, which includes at least five cases in Wisconsin.
Thirty-four cases of salmonella across 13 states have been linked to the outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A recent decision from a federal appeals court could impact Wisconsin residents looking to get the abortion pill mifepristone from providers in other states.
A Friday decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restricted the mailing of the abortion pill mifepristone. On Monday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily halted that ruling for one week.
The sale of unpasteurized milk remains illegal in the dairy state, but more than three dozen bills supporting raw milk have been introduced in states around the nation, according to the Associated Press.
That includes neighboring states to Wisconsin, such as Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, which have introduced laws this year.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professors in food and dairy sciences say that while farmers in Wisconsin take great care of their animals, raw milk can never be guaranteed completely safe.
Mid-May is the perfect time to start a pollinator garden in Wisconsin. But could someone just not mow their lawn for an entire month and reap similar benefits? That depends.
No Mow May is pitched as a way to let yards grow out and help pollinators. Manicured lawns provide little food or resting spots for bees, butterflies and other insects. These pollinators need vegetation to feed on and find a safe spot to nest.
Question: Is global warming impacting bird migration?
Answer: Global warming refers to the rise in global temperatures due to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. One impact is that northern latitudes are experiencing warmer mean annual temperatures and experiencing earlier springs, milder winters and delayed falls.
In recent weeks, researchers have announced several breakthroughs in treatment for pancreatic cancer. Researchers in New York shared results of a small study with promising signs for mRNA vaccines, and scientists shared research on ways to target and block the KRAS protein.
“For the first time, we have a phase two trial that has told us that we can help patients live longer when we block this protein,” UW Health medical oncologist Dr. Jeremy Kratz told 27 News anchor Caroline Dade.
Pediatric oncologist and researcher Dr. Christian Capitini was named the new director of the UW Carbone Cancer Center.
Capitini said the new role is both a personal milestone and a statewide promise.
“This was the biggest honor of my career… to be able to serve everyone in the state through this leadership role is just an enormous privilege and opportunity,” Capitini said.
Many Madison drivers are paying more than $4 at the pump and say they are feeling the impact.
Average gas prices have increased more than a dollar since the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran two months ago.
Jon Pevehouse, a political science professor at UW-Madison explained why prices are on the rise.
“In large part because Iran is a central producer, as are the countries around Iran, are central producers of oil, which of course goes into gas,” Pevehouse said.
Particularly with the growth of social media, reports of coyotes have become more common in and around Madison.
That may be due to coyotes getting more familiar with humans rather than a growing population or territorial expansion, said David Drake, leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Urban Canid Project.
PJ Liesch, director of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab, said around 20% of juvenile ticks carry Lyme disease, and 40% of adult ticks can transmit the infection. Ticks are also more commonly being found in residential areas, he said.
UW-Madison researchers are celebrating a new executive order from President Donald Trump that expedites FDA approval for psychedelic treatments for conditions like depression and PTSD.
Paul Hutson from UW-Madison School of Pharmacy, who has studied psychedelics for mental health for years, says the new executive order will not only expedite FDA approvals but may help secure state funding for their research.
Severe storms swept through Wisconsin last week, bringing strong winds, heavy rainfall and massive hail that caused extensive damage to homes, businesses and cars, especially in the central and southern parts of the state
The visible light spectrum covers colors from violet to red. Each color corresponds to a different wavelength, with green sitting roughly in the middle. Blue and violet have shorter wavelengths. Light rays change direction when they hit particles — a process known as scattering. The sky looks blue because air molecules scatter shorter wavelengths more effectively.
the Trump Administration has slashed the number of grants from the National Institutes of Health, with far fewer focused on women, cancer and mental health
Wisconsin mothers on Medicaid will soon have access to a full year of postpartum health coverage after Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation extending benefits from 60 days to 12 months after giving birth.
The policy change addresses what doctors consider a dangerous and long-standing gap in care, when many pregnancy-related complications and mental health challenges emerge.
Higher gas prices have some drivers looking at electric vehicles, with searches for the cars rising.
Schoepp Motors says they’ve filled about 25% of their lot with EVs and hybrids in anticipation that gas prices stay high and interest in more sustainable vehicles rises.
UW-Madison political professor Howard Schweber joins For the Record to analyze voting patterns in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
Clean Lakes Alliance hosted an event today to explain seasonal changes happening to Madison’s lakes.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is encouraging people to visit local lakes in May to witness an annual phenomenon that makes the water crystal clear.
Hillary Dugan, an associate professor at the Center for Limnology at UW-Madison, explained the science behind the seasonal clarity. In spring, a large bloom of diatoms, a species of phytoplankton, provides food for zooplankton, tiny organisms that then boom in population.
How is air quality measured and what are the trends in Wisconsin?
NASA has launched its Artemis II mission, sending astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years — a milestone a University of Wisconsin–Madison expert says could shape the future of human spaceflight.
“There was an old IMAX movie called ‘The Dream is Alive’, narrated by Walter Cronkite about the space shuttle,” said UW–Madison astronomy professor Thomas Beatty. “And I think I watched that a million times with my mom.”
Now, decades later, he’s watching as humans prepare to travel back toward the moon for the first time since the Apollo era.
For most of his childhood, Shaawan Francis Keahna considered himself to be a fundamentally unattractive kid — “too giggly and too gangly and too smart,” as he put it to me recently, “with a face that was really, really adult, despite my youth. My biggest problem, of course, was that I was just plain weird.” Growing up in Hayward, a former logging town on the Namekagon River in northwestern Wisconsin, he was often teased by white classmates for his Native ancestry and for his love of poetry and art. “It became a self-fulfilling thing,” he said. “I internalized it and basically came to see myself exactly the way they saw me.”
This March and April, the UW Cinematheque is featuring a new series on the work of legendary American film director John Ford in the 1930s, in conjunction with the publication of John Ford At Work: Production Histories 1927–1939. Professor Lea Jacobs, who wrote this new book, out now with Indiana University Press, is also giving short presentations after each screening. The titles in the series—five in all, three of which are on rare 35mm prints—were curated by Director of Programming Jim Healy, Director of the Cinematheque Jeff Smith, and Professor Jacobs herself.
Two appeals court judges are making their pitches to voters as the April 7 election approaches.
Although technically a nonpartisan race, Judge Chris Taylor is backed by liberals, while Judge Maria Lazar is supported by conservatives. If Lazar wins, liberals will maintain their 4-3 majority. Conversely, if Taylor wins, liberals will expand their majority to 5-2.
To break down the stakes of this election, For the Record sat down with UW-Madison Professor Michael Wagner.
We live in a heyday of meat. Americans ate $45 billion of beef in 2025, up more than 10 percent from the previous year, according to Beef Research, an industry marketing group. Ground beef is driving sales — McDonald’s recently released its new half-pounder, the Big Arch — but steak sales remain robust. In a February interview at CattleCon, the beef industry conference, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that his favorite beef cut was strip steak. He eats beef every day — “usually twice a day,” he said, to applause.
Dane County’s low unemployment rate, and its role as driver of Wisconsin’s economy, is tied in part to Madison-based Exact Sciences, according to a University of Wisconsin report.
“The Economic Impact of Exact Sciences on Dane County and Wisconsin” was published by UW-Madison’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy before Exact Sciences was acquired on March 23 by Abbott for $23 billion.
“There is no prize for second place,” said Greg Keenan of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. “It is critical that the U.S. win the race for quantum technologies. Fortunately for us, UW-Madison is home to some of the world’s most significant breakthroughs in quantum science.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison students, alumni and professors who came to Washington to lobby for more research funding got schooled on just how important that funding is.
University researchers explained how federally funded work in quantum physics and mechanics led to the invention of GPS, lasers and MRI technology.
“With divided government and uncertain election results on the horizon, I think both parties have an interest in doing maybe something they think is right, rather than something that will advantage their party, because it’s not clear that they will have the ability to lock in those advantages,” says Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Lauren W. Yowelunh McLester-Davis is a Research Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and on the advisory council for the Native American Center for Health Professions.
Dr. Jeneile Luebke is an assistant professor in the School of Nursing at UW-Madison and an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. Her research focuses on gender-based violence in the lives of Indigenous women, using community-engaged and Indigenous-specific research methodologies.
Tara Tindall, an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, is the Native American teacher leader for the Madison Metropolitan School District, where she oversees the Native American Education Program and the federal Title VI program serving Native students from pre-K through 12th grade.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from UW-Stevens Point and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from UW-Madison.
UW-Madison is closing its astronomy outreach center, UW Space Place, this spring after nearly 36 years, citing budget cuts.
Over the last three decades, the astronomy department has run Space Place as a hub for guest lectures on space and astronomy research, as well as for programming for Madison-area schools and families that teaches about UW-Madison and Wisconsin’s impact in the field.
“Space Place was the primary way of satisfying that sort of demand for the community for decades,” said Jim Lattis, UW Space Place’s longtime former director, who retired last May after more than 30 years and who has continued to volunteer there post-retirement. “So that’s going to go away. The astronomy department is going to do their best, but there’s no longer anybody who is specifically dedicated to doing astronomy outreach in those forms.”
Written by Jonathan Patz, the Vilas Distinguished Professor & John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute & Department of Population Health Sciences.
There’s europium, which enhanced the color red in early television sets, and neodymium, which strengthens and miniaturizes magnets. These so-called “rare earth permanent magnets” are used in everything from high-speed rail and electric vehicles to the tiny motors that make iPhones buzz, according to Julie Klinger, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a rare earths expert.
The next few weeks are anticipated to be a flurry of travel as spring break approaches for both the Madison Metropolitan School District (March 23-27) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (March 28-April 5).
As those rush times approach, airports across the nation have reported hours-long delays due to inclement weather, and longer lines at security checkpoints due to Transportation Security Administration workers not being paid because of the partial government shutdown.
How will that affect travel in and out of the Dane County Regional Airport (MSN)? Michael Riechers, director of marketing and communications for the airport, said “we haven’t seen any noticeable change in our security throughput.”
Alexia Kulwiec, who teaches labor law at UW Law School, said, “A case in Wisconsin would likely be brought under the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act, which would prove more difficult than the California law” under which the current lawsuit in that state was filed.
DeMaioribus emphasized the importance of cultural shifts, saying, “It may be a bit of a band aid, because that’s not the way to end sexual violence – just by separating people.”
The class action lawsuit in California remains ongoing. As of now, no similar litigation has been filed in Wisconsin.
Morning workouts. Skills training. The weight room. Watching game tape. They’re all part of the program for college athletes.
University of Wisconsin-Madison athletes have one more item on their training list: meditation.
Chad McGehee tells athletes that meditation is “strength and conditioning for the mind.”
The new numbers are still way below the average from the first 10 years of monitoring (about 21 acres) and what scientists consider sustainable (about 15 acres). But they still amount to good news, said Karen Oberhauser, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and one of the nation’s leading monarch experts.
“We are in a period of relative stability where the population has stopped declining,” Oberhauser, who was not involved in the new WWF Mexico report, told me.
Researchers from several prominent universities examined the self-reported sleep habits of nearly 130,000 teens. They found that the number of teens getting insufficient sleep, defined as seven hours or less a night, rose from 69% in 2007 to 78% in 2023, the most recent year for which data was available.
“We know that sleep plays a really critical role in adolescent brain development,” said Tanner Bommersbach, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the study. “So when large numbers of teens aren’t getting enough sleep, it really raises concerns about the downstream effects that that could be having on their mental health, on their academic performance, on their engagement and risk behaviors.”
According to Betül Kaçar, an astrobiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, organisms developing the ability to “eat” radiation isn’t out of the realm of possibility—in fact, it has happened already on Earth.
“Life found a way to eat pretty much anything it can on this planet. It’s quite remarkable,” she says. “If you think about it, the fact that life can capture photons [or particles of light] is ‘eating radiation.’ … For many microbes, the photons are great resources of energy. So phototrophs are an example of radiation-eating organisms on this planet.” Plants are well-known phototrophs, but sea slugs are unexpected ones, making their ability to gain fuel from radiation just as remarkable as that of the Astrophage microbes.
The importance of relationships cannot be overstated, said Robert McGrath, a University of Wisconsin-Madison psychologist who gives public talks on how to live with vitality and resilience. He pointed to one of the longest-running studies on well-being, where Harvard University scientists followed the same group of men since 1938. The study revealed a simple yet profound conclusion: Good relationships lead to health and happiness.
Share experiences with others, even if it’s a solitary activity, McGrath recommended. He teaches a meditation class, for example, which is not exactly made for sparking conversation. But he sees strangers connect before and after class.
“Any form of connection is going to boost one’s mood,” he said. “Make that effort. Get out and connect.”
Physical therapists Lori Thein Brody and Jill Thein-Nissenbaum return to talk about solutions for knee and hip osteoarthritis.
Aaron Greer, an independent filmmaker and University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who has championed film incentives for years, said without an incentive projects would often look elsewhere.
“There’s an old saying in Hollywood, it takes ten years to become an overnight success. There’s a way it feels like that with this,” Greer said.
They’re tiny organisms, invisible to the human eye, and they’re inside you right now. This isn’t a description of a sci-fi monster but it is one of bacteria — single-celled organisms that can cause illness and death but might also help us to sleep better or find the motivation to exercise.
In short, we depend on bacteria, said Timothy Paustian, a professor in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“They’re really important for your health. You have a whole group of organisms that live inside you,” Paustian said.
“The link between physical inactivity and chronic diseases is so strong that any compromise to achieving regular exercise — in this case excessively hot temperatures — will pose broad public health risks,” said Jonathan Patz, chair of health and the environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the study.
Written by Jessica Lee Stovall, an assistant professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the director of The SoulFolk Collective.
Once the viruses adapted to microgravity by subtly shape-shifting, though, they became even more effective bacteria killers. “A simple microgravity experiment exposes these mutations that have much higher efficacy against pathogens,” says senior study author Srivatsan Raman, a chemical and biological engineer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
