The trend of small and midsize dairy farms closing will probably accelerate after having slowed in 2007 and 2008, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison dairy specialists.
Quoted: Cheese prices in December fell below the level that triggers government purchases, although they have recovered slightly in recent days, which may avert those purchases, said Robert A. Cropp, a dairy economist at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Take, for example, smoking. “Think about 100 people who got up on New Year’s Day and quit smoking,” said Dr. Douglas Jorenby, professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.
Quoted: “Drunken driving is out there as a policy issue and it is getting a lot of legislative attention,” said Tara Jenswold-Schipper, assistant director of the Resource Center for Impaired Driving at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Quoted: Political science professor David Canon of the University of Wisconsin said, ”It does appear to be a high-risk move on their part to remain unified against this, especially if the economy does turn around by 2010 and the next election. I think they’re banking on being able to ride some of the concern people have about the large budget deficit.”
Quoted: Dr. Joe Cline, director of emergency medicine at University of Wisconsin Hospital, said the I-Stan helps paramedics learn exactly what training mistakes they might have made during training.
“This mannequin logs in high detail everything that happened — everything that was done; everything that happened to it physiologically. We can go back and debrief the point at which the point of no return was reached, and what should have been done at that point that could have turned things around,” Cline said.
Noted: Then there is the fact that companies often continue to see high turnover, always a destabilizer, even after the layoffs are done. A study by Charlie Trevor and Anthony Nyberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that companies with big staff cuts saw, on average, an annual turnover rate of 13%, compared with 10.4% for firms with no layoffs.
Q: Why does snow squeak when you walk on it?
A: Snow can make a â??squeakyâ?? sound as well as a â??crunchyâ?? sound. Snow is a mixture of ice, liquid water and air. The sound snow makes when you walk on it depends on this mixture.
Q: Why do my fingers hurt so much when they warm up after getting cold in winter?
A: In the cold, the body reduces blood flow to the extremities to keep the vital organs â?? heart, lungs and brain â?? warm, says Kristine Kwekkeboom, an assistant professor at the UW-Madison School of Nursing.
Everyone knew what would happen back in the 1960s when a good family from Wausau or Rhinelander sent their son or daughter to school at UW-Madison.
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 can’t always determine gender, age or ethnicity.
Still, “even if it gets to 70 percent accuracy, that’s still giving you a wealth of information,” said Mitchell, who teaches in the Wisconsin School of Business.
Quoted: The result puts to rest questions about long-term health consequences for people who give a kidney to a family member, friend or stranger, said Dr.Bryan Becker, president of the National Kidney Foundation and a surgeon at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research. Now, transplant surgeons “can give them confidence that their own health will not be compromised.”
The science is unequivocal about how to reduce the algae levels in the Yahara lakes: Stop spreading vast amounts of manure, Richard Lathrop, a research limnologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, told an audience Tuesday night in a lecture hall in the UW-Madison Mechanical Engineering Building.
“How do we tackle this King Kong gorilla? This isn’t the 800-pound gorilla you hear about. This is a huge one,” he said.
Lathrop, who is also a part of the UW-Madison Center for Limnology, kicked off the spring 2009 Community Environmental Forum with the lecture, “Controlling Eutrophication in the Yahara Lakes: Challenges and Opportunities.” About 100 people, equal parts students and community members, were in the audience.
Noted: A preoccupation with Nike, Coke, or Gucci may not just mean you’re materialistic – it could also mean the Grim Reaper’s been preying on your mind.
In one study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Virginia surveyed subjects on their levels of brand connection and death anxiety. In a second study, some of the subjects were told to consider their death in detail, heightening their death anxiety. In both studies, subjects were asked to rate their level of connection to such products as microwaves, jeans, MP3 players and sunglasses.
Children who spent their first years in institutions before being adopted by loving and affluent families still suffered long-term damage to their immune systems as a result of early emotional stress, according to a University of Wisconsin study posted Monday with the online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Even the health of children adopted before the age of 3 who then spent more than a decade with their new families were no better than the health of children who had spent their entire childhoods in abusive families.
Quoted: Co-authors Seth Pollak, director of the Child Emotion Laboratory in the UW-Madison Waisman Center and a professor of psychology and pediatrics, and psychology professor Christopher Coe.
Quoted: It’s not just the demoralized, unproductive employees who leave, says study author Charlie Trevor, professor of management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Once the axe begins to fall, star employees, who he says will do well even in a downturn, also jet in search of greener pastures.
Quoted: Zircons from Earth tell the story of a fast-cooling planet that developed a solid crust within 200 million years of formation from the solar nebula, says John Valley at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose group dated the oldest terrestrial samples. “It’s reasonable that there would be something older from the moon than on Earth,” he says, because the smaller moon cooled more quickly after the colossal impact.
Noted: At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. John Fleming, a neurologist, is testing whether the pig whipworm can temper the effects of multiple sclerosis.
Noted: Another big crowd pleaser was the announcement that K. T. Horning, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s Cooperative Childrenâ??s Book Center (CCBC), will deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture at a winning host site. The honor recognizes someone who has made a significant contribution to the field of children’s literature.
Noted: Ron Kraemer, CIO and vice provost for IT at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said innovation can get lost in the recession shuffle. While it’s important in the short-run to emphasize the provision of services for things that are part of an organization’s core mission, Kraemer warned not to neglect the long view. CIOs also need to ask, â??How do we innovate to remain relevant in the long run?â? he said.
Derek J. Cripps, the UW-Madison dermatologist who developed the SPF rating system commonly seen on sunscreen bottles, died Friday in California after falling ill on a cruise, his wife said Saturday.
Cripps, 80, was born and educated in Britain but did his residency at the University of Michigan, said Eileen Cripps.
Quoted: Academic David Streckfuss from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in the US, who has studied the lese majeste law, believes there is no evidence to suggest the existence of an organised Republican movement.
Quoted: “I wrote a whole chapter in my book from those late-night memos,” said University of Wisconsin Professor Stanley Kutler, author of “The Wars of Watergate.”
Q: What happens when you throw boiling water into the air on a very cold day?
A: This is a great experiment to try at home, but just be careful not to burn yourself! For this to work, you need to have very cold and dry air.
Q: Are people attracted to people who look like them?
A: Yes, says Linda Roberts, a professor of human development and family studies at UW-Madison.
Though some people blame inadequate thinning of older trees by state forest managers, the study makes a “convincing case” that drought and pests are responsible, says entomologist Kenneth Raffa of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
University of Wisconsin Associate Professor of History Ned Blackhawk has been named as one of 10 emerging scholars nationally by “Diverse” magazine.
Blackhawk, on the UW History staff since 1999, is an expert on the history of Native American people and the complex and often tragic conflicts between natives and European settlers in the American West.
Quoted: Dr. Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease expert at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, said people normally don’t think of peanut butter when they think of salmonella, but its ingredients make it very susceptible.
Quoted: And having good business sense is as important to building that practice as practicing law, said Ralph Cagle, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
President Barack Obama must act to address a “crisis of confidence” in the financial markets in order to help pull America out of the recession, UW-Madison Business School Dean Michael Knetter told business executives at an economic forum in Milwaukee today.
Knetter said Obama also must act to restore the publicâ??s faith in the economy, while continued action by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department is needed to prop up banks in order to keep them lending.
You knew it was coming. In the midst of a second long, frigid and snowy winter, the skeptics of global warming are feeling a bit vindicated.
Quoted: Professor Jon Martin, chair of the Department of Atmospheric Oceanography; John Magnuson, professor emeritus of zoology; and climatologist Stephen Vavrus. UW-Madison student Rebecca Hershman is also quoted.
Quoted: Shawn Peters, the author of three books on religion and the law, including â??When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children and the Lawâ? (Oxford, 2007), said the outcome of the Neumann case was likely to set an important precedent.
â??The laws around the country are pretty unsettled,â? said Mr. Peters, who teaches religion at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and has been consulted by prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case.
Quoted: One of the plaintiffs, Stanley I. Kutler, an emeritus professor of history and law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said he remains worried that “when the Archives goes to open Cheney’s papers, they are going to find empty boxes.”
Quoted: Still, the speech â??really did help to restore national confidence,â? said Stephen E. Lucas, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of â??Words of a Century,â? a compilation of the top 100 speeches of the 20th century. The 1933 FDR inaugural came in at No. 3.
Noted: What Buchanan did not reveal, according to John Milton Cooper Jr., a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was that he had “actually influenced and knew how the Dred Scott decision was going to come out.” The court ruling, which prohibited slaves from becoming citizens, helped spark the Civil War.
Quoted: Dr. Darald Hanusa, a psychotherapist with the Midwest Center for Human Services and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that in 15 years of evaluating law enforcement officers, he has recommended only two officers be fired.
Quoted: â??Thatâ??s one of the secrets of his success, rhetorically,â? said Stephen Lucas, a professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin. â??He seems very focused on the purpose of the moment.â?
Quoted: UW-Madison history professor Jeremi Suri; political science professor emeritus Dennis Dresang; political science professor Kathy Cramer Walsh; and Louis Butler, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who is currently Justice in Residence at the Law School.
Quoted: Shawn F. Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer and author of the 2007 book “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law.”
A new technology developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may make it easier to snap clear pictures with a cellphone camera.
Associate Professor Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma and his team have developed a curved, high-end photodetector designed to eliminate some of the blur caused by tiny cameras.
Cited: Frank Greer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, who was not involved in the study.
Cited: James Stein of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Quoted: In a YouTube video posted by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Professor Stephen Carpenter, who specializes in ecosystems at the University of Wisconsin, said resilience explains how things can â??change and persist at the same time.â?
â??A resilient system could be able to withstand a shock without losing its basic functions,â? he said. â??A resilient system is able to transform to a different way of life when the current way of life is no longer feasible.â?
Quoted: Dr. Michael Fiore of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research still spends much less than the suggested federal minimum on tobacco control programs â?? about $15 million a year.
Quoted: Some deep questions are in order for the Republican Party following the bath it took at the polls in November, says UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.
Quoted: Thom Kriegl of the UW Center for Dairy Profitability says the decrease in price is “a great concern” to Wisconsin dairy farmers. Kriegl says the price of cheese has been on downward trend since 2007 but significantly dropped the last several weeks.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison clinical dietitian Gail Underbakke.
The good news is, Janesville drivers won’t necessarily be dealing with the snowy weather every yearâ??or even the rest of this winter, a UW-Madison expert said.
Just because Janesville had a snowy December doesn’t mean it will have a snowy January and February, said professor Jonathan Martin, chairman of the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.
“Last year’s winter was so unusual in the persistent nature of storm traffic going right over us,” Martin said. “You could never have expected that to happen.”
Quoted: Michael Knetter, dean of the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Tom Heberlein, professor emeritus from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: According to neurologist Lauren Riters of the University of Wisconsin, starlings have among the longest and most complex songs of any birds in North America. They continually incorporate new sounds into their vocal arrangements, often mimicking frogs, goats, cats and even other birds. The result is an admixture: warbles, creaks, squeaks, whistles, throaty chirrups, twitters and raspy trills.
While singing, the starling syrinx vibrates in two separate parts, which allow one bird to sing harmonizing duets with itself. “Starlings sing because it makes them feel good,” Riters explains.
Quoted: “It is amazing,” said Brian Gould, an associate professor of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I think the economy has caught up.”
Quoted: “Downsizing is a shock to the system, and it leads employees to take a much closer look at what they have and what they may find elsewhere,” says Charlie Trevor, the University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor who led the study. Employees afraid to quit in this extremely tight labor market may jump ship later.
Quoted: Should the feds delay implementing digital TV? A UW researcher weighs in. UW Madison Professor Greg Vanderheiden is at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and he says while manufacturers and retailers are leery of a DTV delay.
Quoted: “The thing that’s unique about it is it’s not synthesized,” says Susan Nitzke, a nutrition specialist with the University of Wisconsin Extension and a UW-Madison nutrition professor.
Noted: I recently interviewed one of the foremost researchers of these â??Promiseâ? programs. Noel Radomski, a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, contacted me after I first wrote about Kalamazooâ??s plan. Radomski is helping determine the best way to spend a $175 million gift from the former Chairman of Cisco Systems to provide scholarships for Wisconsinâ??s public high school graduates. Radomski is also working with the mayor of Racine, Wis., to implement a program similar to the Kalamazoo Promise.
Radomski favors statewide programs although he takes care to applaud locally based programs like Kalamazooâ??s. He points to Indianaâ??s two-decade-old 21st Century Scholars Program. Central to the Hoosier State plan is a requirement that students take challenging courses.
Quoted: Consumers need to be careful not to overreact to bad economic news, said University of Wisconsin-Madison Business School Dean Mike Knetter. If people have money and needs, they should not shy from spending.
Noted: But then a family friend suggested they contact Dr. Adam Rindfleisch, a University of Wisconsin family doctor who specializes in integrating traditional Western medicine with alternative medicine.
Rindfleisch suggested probiotics — “friendly” bacteria that he says have been shown to help babies and children with diarrhea. While probiotics didn’t cure Luke, Kruse-Field said, they seem to have helped.
Quoted: The limited representation of minorities in Newbery-winning books is an even thornier issue. Kathleen Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that the number of children’s books about minorities has remained around 10 percent since 1992.
Q: Why are icicles shaped like long skinny carrots?
A: The icicle shape is determined by heat diffusion and conduction.
You may notice that more icicles form on the sunny south-facing side of your home than on the shaded north-facing side.
Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA Radio (970 AM) the last Monday of each month at 11:45 a.m
