Terrie Mess of Lake Geneva sent TMJ4 photos of several cicadas hatching in her yard on Friday. PJ Liesch, with UW’s Department of Entomology, along with the DNR, confirmed that this represents the first report they are aware of in Wisconsin this year.
There has been a general rise in solar activity on the sun in recent years, said Mayra Oyola-Merced, UW-Madison assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
rofessor of higher education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s complicated, because biodegradability changes depending on where you’re at and what happens to your plastic,” said George W. Huber, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who works on solutions for plastic waste. “And there are companies who make claims about biodegradable plastic that aren’t backed up.”
Colleges are also moved by research tying internships to better salaries and job prospects after graduation, said Matthew Hora, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies internships. “The market has been flooded,” he told me.
According to Ryan Owens, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the decision “highlights the uncertainty going into the election and likely Democratic weakness. It’s unclear who will hold the White House in 2025.”
The author, Dr. Phil Greenwood, joined WMTV on Wednesday to discuss the five strategies for growth. Dr. Greenwood says he was motivated to write this book as these strategies have been taught at UW for decades.
Citizen science projects could help map the Wisconsin locations of noisy but benign cicadas and far less welcome ticks. Entomologist Phil Pelliterri explains what researchers hope to learn.
Developing a positive body image and healthy mental attitude towards your body is very important to living your best life. We talk to Distinguished Psychologist Shilagh Mirgain about how to focus on the function of your body and not its shape.
PJ Liesch, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Insect Diagnostics Lab, said he can’t give an exact date when the cicadas will emerge but expects them to come out in southern Wisconsin during the last two weeks of May.
Meanwhile, new technologies like artificial intelligence will give cybercriminals new frontiers, said University of Wisconsin-Madison computer science professor Somesh Jha, who specializes in security. While machine learning tools can be used to automate some parts of the cybersecurity process, they also offer bad actors new ways to wreak havoc, like, for example, interfering with self-driving cars.
Similar-sized cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana, or Toledo, Ohio, that had their manufacturing sectors decline have seen their populations either stagnant or barely grow year over year, while Madison continues to grow, said Kurt Paulsen, a professor of urban planning at UW-Madison. And other Midwest state capitals with big universities, such as Lincoln, Nebraska or Columbus, Ohio, have lower median home values.
“This is always the challenge with how you measure Madison,” Paulsen said. “It’s really hard to find a comparable.”
“I’ve lived here for 30 years and until last summer, never had a summer like that where we had the air quality warnings,” says Monica Turner, a Professor of Ecology & Biology for UW-Madison.
“The wildfires in Canada are so large and they’re being driven by the warming climate that we have. The smoke particles are going up in the atmosphere and then coming down and being driven by the winds into Wisconsin and other parts of the country,” says Turner.
“Library learning represents one of the most exciting frontiers in artificial intelligence, offering a path towards discovering and reasoning over compositional abstractions,” said Robert Hawkins, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a statement. Hawkins, who was not involved with the research, added that similar attempts in the past were too computationally expensive to use at scale.
Henry Bunn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says he remains sceptical of the hypothesis. Bunn thinks the method wouldn’t have worked in the bushlands where humans evolved, where hunters would quickly lose sight of fleeing prey. He also thinks endurance hunters would catch mostly young or old animals, but his team found teeth from butchered animals in their prime at one 2-million-year-old site.
UW-Madison management professor Martin Ganco says non-competes allow companies to lock employees in place without offering competitive wages.
Robert Yablon, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and an expert on state courts, said the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s declining case count is on par with a national trend of state supreme courts and the U.S. Supreme Court deciding fewer cases.
“They are conceiving of themselves as courts that are resolving the big ticket issues, rather than doing run of the mill error correction,” Yablon said of high courts around the country.
Jackie McCarville is a regional dairy educator for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension in southwestern Wisconsin. She also feels like concern around avian flu has died down, especially as many farms begin work in their fields this spring.
“But I think it’s still in the back of a lot of minds: what happens if it does get into Wisconsin?” McCarville said. “What considerations should we be looking at? It’s a great time to look at your biosecurity plan to see what you can do to protect your farm.”
Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, said much of the national dairy industry has been opposed to doing more testing for the virus on farms. He said the number of avian flu tests in cattle across the country has actually declined since the federal order requiring them went into place.
“We are in this time where we often see cops shooting people in unjustified ways, which is definitely a big social problem right now,” said Travis Wright, an associate professor of counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But this wasn’t a cop doing a cold call warrant on an adult who was caught off guard. This was somebody in a defensive act protecting children.”
Menzie Chinn, a macroeconomist at UW-Madison, said much of the United States’ strong recovery can be attributed to federal stimulus programs.
“We were much more aggressive, so it’s no wonder that we’ve recovered in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic much more rapidly,” he said.
As protesters dismantled their tent encampment at UW-Madison after reaching an accord with university administration, journalism professor Douglas McCleod discussed the impact of campus protests.
Experts at UW-Madison explain the mental load that moms or mother figures tend to take on in the household and how taxing it can be on their mental health. Assistant Professor of Sociology at UW-Madison Allison Daminger studies cognitive labor in households and how couples divide up the work.
“Even if only 85% of Black voters instead of 90% vote for Biden, additional turnout helps Democrats,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Concern No. 1 is just whether he will get a smaller share of the Black vote than he did last time around.”
As young Chinese-Americans raised (and, in Stephen’s case, born) in the United States, Helen and Stephen were in a rare position to guide Americans through this once-forbidden land. “We saw China through their eyes as Americans that could broker more easily into Chinese culture,” says Cindy I-Fen Cheng, author of Citizens of Asian America and professor of American history and Asian-American studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison. “We saw it with fresh eyes. We’re like, ‘Look at the wonders!’”
Scientific discovery doesn’t always require a high-tech laboratory or a hefty budget. Many people have a first-rate lab right in their own homes – their kitchen.
Wisconsinites can be jailed for failing to pay public fines and court debts. We talk with John Gross, a clinical associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and director of the Public Defender Project, about how frequently it happens and how it affect the justice system.
Around 50 percent or fewer ash trees have died in northern Wisconsin where infestations are relatively new, according to PJ Liesch, an entomologist with the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Unfortunately, we’re still going to be seeing lots of ash trees dying over the years and likely decades to come,” Liesch said.
“It is the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive folksong field collection ever made for the Library of Congress,” said James P. Leary, professor emeritus of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies at UW-Madison. It reminds “us that we cannot fully grasp the richness of American roots music without recognizing the many peoples, tongues, and sounds that – whether past or present, from mainstream or margins, deservedly acknowledged or unjustly ignored – have always made America great.”
Dr. Nick Hillman, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referenced a 2020 article written by Dr. Denisa Gándara and Dr. Sosanya Jones titled Who Deserves benefits in higher Education? A Policy Discourse Analysis of a Process Surrounding Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, telling Newsweek via email on Thursday that “they have found policymakers favor certain groups over others based on notions of deservingness.
The UW-Extension office said it depends on the lawn. Lawns that are solely turfgrass will provide few resources for pollinators. But lawns that have low-growing plants like dandelions will provide nectar and pollen.
The Cardinal-Hickory Creek fight is as much about legal principles as it is about the fate of the mile-wide section of the wildlife refuge the developers want to traverse. The actual environmental impacts of the current deal on the table are arguably not the worst outcome, explains David Drake, a wildlife specialist at the University of Wisconsin. With proper mitigation, he argues, the ecosystem could respond well to the proposed land swap. “After the transmission towers are constructed, there is a minimal impact at that point,” he explains, though he warns that construction would still pose dangers like habitat disturbance and invasive species.
“Small, transient episodes of loneliness really motivate people to then seek out social connection,” said Anna Finley, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute on Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But in chronic episodes of loneliness, that seems to kind of backfire” because people become especially attuned to social threats or signals of exclusion, which can then make it scary or unpleasant for them to interact with others.
“Lawns seem to draw as much irrational hate as they do love these days,” said Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are.”
“The dairy industry has never had to deal with something like this before,” says Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and a former dairy veterinarian. “This is probably going to be the most important outbreak in my professional career.”
Cicadas are very loud indeed. Extension entomologist P.J. Liesch of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told CBS 58 in Milwaukee that a grove of trees with a bunch of singing and screeching cicadas could reach 70 to 80 decibels – a similar volume to a vacuum cleaner.
KP.1.1 and KP.2, nicknamed FLiRT (pronounced “flirt”), are considered omicron variants, said University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of population health sciences Ajay Sethi. The “FL” and “RT” in the name refer to the mutations present in the variants that allow them to evade some of the immunity people have built up from past infections or vaccines.
And for well over a decade Jo Handelsman, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been championing a state microbe. Among other things, Lactococcus lactis is used to make cheese, a big local industry. Professor Handelsman said the idea to make it a state symbol started off as a joke in a meeting of the bacteriology department.
Colleagues were considering how to educate people about the benefits of microbes, but then they decided “that’s actually a great idea”. The first attempt to pass it, in 2009, failed, but it’s back on the agenda.
The milestone transplant excites Dr. Anna Gaddy of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Dr. Didier Mandelbrot of UW Health who work with patients living with chronic kidney disease.
“The burden of chronic kidney disease in the United States is just enormous and the vast majority of people with chronic kidney disease don’t know that they have it,” Gaddy said.
The connection between humans and dogs has long been studied by researchers in fields like anthropology and psychology—but not by many economists. Interview with David Weimer, author of a new book that studies human-canine relationships through an economic lens.
We talk to authors of new book “Chasing the Stars,” James Lattis and Kelly Tyrrell, about the history and astronomical impact of the Washburn Observatory on the UW-Madison campus.
Dr. Sterling Johnson, a study author who leads the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention at the University of Wisconsin, said it would be very important for clinical trials to start to take participants’ APOE4 status into account.
Dr. Keith Poulsen, director of the UW-Madison Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, has been monitoring a strain of avian influenza called H5N1 that has so far been identified in dairy cows in nine states. It has not been found in Wisconsin, but Poulsen said researchers are testing cows that are transported across state lines.
“I think folklore forecasts will continue to reside in our social communities and circles. They’re tradition,” says Steve Ackerman, retired professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He adds tactfully: “While old sayings of the coming weather still enter our social lives, I do think we rely more now on forecasts that better reflect our understanding of atmosphere circulations.”
If you find them, remove them before they start flowering or seeding, said Susan Carpenter, native plant garden curator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. Native plants should be your first choice to replace invasives, but you can also opt for noninvasive ornamentals, Carpenter said.
Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, has studied how best to teach African American students. She told us an encouraging teacher can change a life.
“We still don’t fully understand some of the core aspects of their biology,” said PJ Liesch, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin. Though there are theories about the insects counting the years through the compounds in tree sap, soil temperatures and their own underground communication, none manage to completely unravel the cicada’s mystery.
“If it had liquid water in the past, and if we can really confirm that, then yes – Venus would likely be the planet I would place my bet on,” University of Wisconsin-Madison planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye tells Inverse.
ssistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In those situations, having members of both parties present reduces the risk that observers might think poll workers are trying to benefit one side or another, said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It should build trust in the system, because it means that each polling place, if it were staffed by at least one Republican and one Democratic poll worker, has a monitor from each party essentially keeping eyes on what’s happening,” Burden said.
Steve Vavrus, director of the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, said that continues an ongoing trend where many months have been warmer than normal.
“Not only here, but over most of the country,” Vavrus said. “And that would continue the long- term trend with our warming climate.”
Student protests across the UW system are as old as the universities themselves. One project is working to archive that history, specifically at UW-Madison. It’s called Sifting and Reckoning. It shares the history of student protests and uncovers the exclusion and violence toward marginalized groups on campus. Kacie Lucchini Butcher, the director of the Rebecca M Blanks Center for Campus History, shares about the project.
Research shows that traumatic experiences can shift the physical makeup of our brains, said Shanda Wells, behavioral health manager for Behavioral Health in Primary Care at UW Health. When we encounter life-threatening events, it can change how we react to other things, which makes processing those experiences all the more vital.
If concerns around bird flu persist, milk’s relevance may continue to slide. Even the slightest bit of consumer apprehension could cause already-struggling dairy farms to shut down. “An additional contributing factor really doesn’t bode well,” Leonard Polzin, a dairy expert at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Division of Extension, told me. For the rest of us, there is now yet another reason to avoid milk—and even less left to the belief that milk is special.
I spoke to Tyler Lark, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose 2022 study questioned ethanol’s climate credentials and concluded that it can be more carbon-intensive than gasoline. He told me that the margins on ethanol’s benefits are thin enough that, depending on the model you chose to calculate its effects, the results can be radically different. His paper prompted rebuttals from the Renewable Fuel Association, an industry group, and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Sleep apnea has become more common in recent years, with an estimated 30 million Americans affected by the condition. Interview with Dr. Stacey Ishman from UW Health.
Beth Olson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences in the Department of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently spoke to WPR’s “Central Time” about
A meteorite found in Wisconsin 15 years ago is now on display at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Geology Museum.
There are some educational interventions that could help those at the lower end of the income-distribution spectrum. Educating consumers on certain kinds of fraud or teaching them how to negotiate or dispute debts are examples of some effective interventions, said J. Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and faculty director of the school’s Center for Financial Security.
Column by Burden, a professor of political science at UW-Madison.
Many people brush off measles outbreaks as a problem for the unvaccinated, or dismiss spikes in mpox as an issue mainly for men who have sex with men, Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. And they shrug off just about any epidemic that happens abroad.
