Q. Why do people like to scare themselves by watching horror movies or going on thrill rides?
A. First of all, it’s important to remember that many people don’t enjoy these experiences, said Jack Nitschke, a UW-Madison professor of psychiatry and psychology. But those who do may be seeking thrills provided by the amygdala, a brain region that controls our emotional responses to salient objects and events.
Quoted: Lewis Friedland, a UW-Madison professor of journalism, mass communication and sociology who researches social networks.
Widespread screening for high CRPwould be expensive, says James Stein of the University of Wisconsin. But if Crestor clearly saves the lives of people with high CRP counts, patients will probably find a way to get the test and the drug.
Quoted: The younger Stubergh “was a master of wax figures, an artist of the first rank,” said Blake Kellogg, professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an amateur sculptor who studied under the Stuberghs.
John McCain won’t win every single undecided. Over the past 24 hours, two of the nation’s most respected pollsters–Andy Kohut of Pew and Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin–conducted extensive analyses of the latest polling data and came to the same conclusion: that Obama and McCain will roughly split the five to six percent of the electorate that remains uncommitted.
Noted: Analysis by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project shows that both candidates have used negative ads, despite Mr Obama’s accusation, in the final presidential debate, that Mr McCain had run a wholly negative campaign.
Quoted: But as University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse, no wild-eyed liberal, pointed out, Obama â??is not saying that judges should distort the meaning of law so that people they empathize with can win cases. He’s saying judges need to understand the realities of the world, most significantly, what life is like for people.â?
Quoted: “The reality is that young people are much more supportive of Obama than McCain,” said University of Wisconsin at Madison Professor Diana Hess, who specializes young people and politics.
Quoted: “When a party is facing bad economic times and an unpopular president, over the past 50 years that party typically loses seats in the Congress,” said Charles H. Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: “At some point, the tonnage of Obama commercials makes it difficult for McCain to get his message out,” said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who studies political advertising.
Quoted: James Johannes, director of the UW-Madison Puelicher Center for Banking Education.
Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Robert Booth Fowler
With the presidential election less than a week away, The Capital Times’ higher education reporter, Todd Finkelmeyer, tracked down political experts from UW-Madison and Madison Area Technical College to get their take on how things might shake out on Nov. 4.
Quoted: Barry Burden, John Coleman, Kathy Cramer Walsh and Dietram Scheufele
Quoted: “There’s no competitive race in a top 10 media market,” said Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which studies political campaigns at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Quoted: Racism is far from dead in the United States, said Charles Franklin, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin who helped conduct a three-part national survey on race and the 2008 election.
Quoted: Stephen Ward, a journalism ethics professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the payment of money to a charity was less worrisome than putting cash in the pocket of the person who was interviewed.
Quoted: The election is now just a week away, and on UW-Madison political scientist says it’s doubtful the race is still competitive for Republican nominee John McCain.
Tom Holbrook says the unpopularity of President Bush and the tanking economy have been real drags on McCain’s bid for the White House. He says Democrat Barack Obama maintains a sizeable lead in most polls as well.
Noted: Senior strategists in both campaigns said in interviews this week that they had identified women, specifically the so-called â??security momsâ? who are worried about national defense, as a crucial part of the undecided vote.
That both campaigns have tried hard to reach them this year is underscored by the list of their top shows compiled by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project: â??The Oprah Winfrey Showâ? is the top, non-news program for the advertising of both campaigns, followed by programs like â??Regis & Kelly,â? â??Rachel Rayâ? (one of the few programs that has included more advertisements from Mr. McCain than from Mr. Obama) and â??The View.â?
Quoted: â??When I walk down the street carrying my campaign materials, people yell at me,â? said Katie Nix, 22, the statewide co-chairwoman of Students for McCain who is a senior majoring in molecular biology and French at the University of Wisconsin. â??I just keep hearing, â??Obama! Obama!â?? â?
Quoted: Another researcher, Song Jin, a chemist at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, is experimenting with nanometer-scale wires instead of clusters of molecules to convert solar energy (light) into chemical energy (fuel).
Noted: â??Thatâ??s an enormous part of this phenomenon â?? no one has the time to collect all that information,â? said Mark Blumenthal, who started Pollster.com in 2006 with a University of Wisconsin professor, Charles Franklin.
Quoted: â??What weâ??ve really seen is an increase in the salt load in childrenâ??s diet,â? said Dr. Bruce L. Slaughenhoupt, co-director of pediatric urology and of the pediatric kidney stone clinic at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal have both endorsed Democrat Barack Obama. James Baughman, Director UW Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, says this hasn’t happened since Bob Dole versus Bill Clinton when in 1996 both papers endorsed the Republican Dole.
UW-Madison is in the midst of implementing an important initiative to reduce the energy consumption on campus and to promote grassroots efforts to motivate the community.
The results of the Big Ten Battleground Poll are astonishing too.
The survey of between 562 to 586 registered voters in the eight states that are home to the 11 universities in the Big Ten conference was this week, from Sunday to Wednesday.
In each state, Mr. Obama holds a double-digit lead. The poll was conducted by University of Wisconsin political scientists Charles Franklin and Ken Golstein.
Quoted: Barry Orton, UW-Madison telecommunications expert.
Noted: Richard Davidson, who directs the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin, used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) to “read” the minds of meditating monks in a 2003 study. While engaged in a type of Buddhist contemplation known as compassion meditation, these monks showed extraordinarily high levels of activity in the left dorsolateral regions of their prefrontal cortex.
Quoted: The younger Stubergh “was a master of wax figures, an artist of the first rank,” said Blake Kellogg, professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an amateur sculptor who studied under the Stuberghs.
Quoted: There are also questions whether street protests can change anything, said Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the 2005 book “Power and Protest.”
Quoted: The falling prices are a result of less speculation in the crude oil market because of the world’s shaky financial situation and less consumption by consumers, said Rodney Stevenson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor specializing in energy and regulation.
The depth of their challenge was made plain yesterday by eight surveys produced by the Big Ten Battleground Poll. Obama not only leads in all eight Midwestern states by hefty margins but has improved his standing since the last time the group surveyed these states.
Recently, I wrote here about how a search of the candidatesâ?? own websites shows that supporters of Barack Obama have many more events literally all over the country, even in presumed GOP strongholds, than John McCain.
The Obama campaign has built a machine that is crushing what passes for the McCain/Palin effort. The latest evidence is the Big Ten Battleground Poll, which covers the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The jaw-dropping numbers come from the Big Ten Battleground Poll, which is supervised by two University of Wisconsin political science professors. The survey finds Obama ahead — BY DOUBLE DIGITS — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota (as well as his home state of Illinois and Michigan, where McCain pulled up stakes a few weeks ago).
With an 11-point advantage among likely voters in today’s Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, Barack Obama maintains his largest national lead of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.
In addition to the state polls out today from Quinnipiac and the University of Wisconsin, another way to see the magnitude of the Democrat’s progress is to see how well he is currently doing across so-called “red” and “purple” states.
One of UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin’s top priorities is keeping the university affordable through need-based financial aid, she said Thursday in a speech at an event formally welcoming Martin to Wisconsin.
Less important, she said, is an unrealistic goal of keeping tuition flat or decreasing it.
She said the university must raise more money for need-based aid and envisioned a sliding scale of college tuition.
“Those who can afford to pay more should pay more,” Martin said. “Those who can afford less should pay less; and those who cannot afford to pay anything should pay nothing in actual dollars but should be allowed to contribute to their own education through work study.”
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has carved out a healthy lead across a Midwest region that was fiercely competitive a month ago, according to an eight-state Big Ten Battleground Poll released Thursday.
Quoted: barry Burden, UW-Madison political scientist.
Quoted: “It’s close in a way that Indiana has no business being close for a Republican,” said University of Wisconsin pollster Charles Franklin. “It shows that McCain is in big trouble elsewhere in the country if he’s in trouble in Indiana.”
Quoted: “Banks and huge corporations seem to be the tools of the problem right now, rather than the solution,” said Byron E. Shafer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. “Small business is somehow much more human: You can imagine yourself as a small business; you can’t imagine yourself as a big business.”
Quoted: “If the Republican is only winning Indiana by 1 or 2 points, he’s in serious trouble,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and the director of the Big Ten Battleground Poll. “McCain still has a chance to get to 270 electoral-college votes, but it’s a narrow one.”
Quoted: Charles Franklin, co-director of the Big Ten Poll and a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wasn’t quite as bold. But he also has difficulty seeing McCain pulling out a victory.
Quoted: Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that while Bachmann’s comments did not harm McCain’s campaign directly, he said her comments confuse the general message coming from Republicans. Burden said the party does not have a clear leader or image at this point in the election. “Bachmann’s comments do reinforce the point made by Sarah Palin this week that Republicans view some politicians and some parts of the country as being more ‘American’ than others, a strange point of view.”
Barack Obama is leading John McCain in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota, according to a new Big Ten Battleground Poll. “Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground,” says Charles Franklin of Pollster.com. The results.
As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama holds significant leads over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
Quoted: “When the bandages came off, they were able to recognize faces and navigate on their own,” said Josh Vrabec, who is now chief resident at the University of Wisconsin Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in Madison. “It was just an amazing experience seeing the amount of good you could do in a short period of time.”
John McCain faces double-digit deficits in eight Midwest states, including Minnesota, with only 12 days to make up the difference, a poll released Thursday showed.
Barack Obama has substantial leads in the eight states that are home to universities in the Big Ten Conference, according to a poll sponsored by those universities. The states include three carried by Republican President Bush in 2004 and crucial in this election – Ohio, Indiana and Iowa.
Quoted: “With the fundamental factors so to their advantage, this election was always about Barack Obama and the Democrats reaching a threshold level of credibility with voters,” said Ken Goldstein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and co-director of the poll. “It appears Obama has and this race has popped nationally and here in the Big Ten.”
MADISON (WKOW) — As the race for the White House enters its final days, the Big Ten Battleground Poll shows Barack Obama holds significant leads over John McCain in eight crucial Midwest states.
One of the co-directors of the study, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, sat down with 27 News to explain the results and discuss what’s ahead for both candidates on November 4. (Video.)
Officials from St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison will pick up a very special award at the end of the week at the National Collaborative meeting in Nashville, Tenn.
All of the hospital’s patients who are eligible to become organ donors signed up this year for the donor program, and the hospital will receive a medal of honor Friday for its effort.
St. Mary’s is part of the University of Wisconsin Health Organ Procurement Organization and the average sign-up rate in the UW service area is 87 percent for organ donations, while the national average is just 70.7 percent.
Quoted: Dr. Tony D’Allesandro, medical director of the UW Health OPO
If the Big Ten battleground states are any indication how the presidential election will go, Sen. Barack Obama will handily defeat Sen. John McCain in the race for the White House.
The Big Ten Battleground Poll released Thursday shows Obama with significant leads in all eight states that have universities comprising the Big Ten Conference, a major shift in voter sentimentality from the first poll taken in September that had Obama leading in one state and both candidates neck and neck in the other seven states.
“Obama is clearly winning the Big Ten battleground,” said UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin, co-director of the poll. “The dominance of the economy as a top issue for voters is the overwhelming story.”
Q. Are people having more hearing problems today because they are spending so much more time with iPods, cell phones and other gadgets?
A. “That depends,” says Daniel Stoppenbach, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at UW-Madison. “Noise-induced hearing loss appears to be related to how loud and how long an individual is exposed to noise.”
Quoted: “There really does need to be a formal separation between the committees that are spending the money and the candidates,” said Ken Mayer, a political science professor and expert on campaign finance at the University of Wisconsin. Under the law it’s supposed to be independent speech.
Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people
Mackenzie Heinrichs is less than two months into her freshman year at UW-Madison but already is playing an active role in political protests around town.
She recently helped organize a gathering outside U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s office to protest the government’s $700 billion bill to bail out the nation’s financial services industry. Baldwin voted for the bailout. Heinrichs then made T-shirts that stated “No Money for Wall St. and War, Bailout Workers and the Poor!” and participated in another small protest Oct. 8 that disrupted Baldwin’s appearance at the Memorial Union for a panel discussion on voter issues.
Yet as active and enthusiastic as Heinrichs is herself, she’s frustrated by what she sees as a general apathy among her classmates toward important political issues — especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Quoted: Political science professor Kathy Cramer Walsh and Paul Soglin, an adjunct associate professor at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs
The subsidy hasn’t been paid since February 2007, but it might pay out this month, said Ed Jesse, dairy economist at UW-Madison. That’s because the new version of the subsidy approved in May takes into account recent higher costs of cattle feed to allow for farmers’ expenses for the first time, making it more likely to pay out.
Many communities are poorly equipped to analyze proposals, said Matthew Mayrl, who in December 2006 penned a 27-page report on TIF practices in the state for UW-Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
The classic three-legged stool approach to retirement security of employer pension, Social Security and personal savings is looking wobblier than ever these days.
Traditional pensions are fast disappearing, the long-term outlook for Social Security is cloudy and retirement accounts have been walloped by stocks’ steep decline. The turmoil in financial markets has wiped out some $2 trillion from Americans’ retirement accounts since the middle of 2007, the Congressional Budget Office said earlier this month – more than 20 percent of their value.
“This is certainly the most uncertain time in many decades for people approaching retirement,” said John Nelson, co-author of “What Color Is Your Parachute? For Retirement” with Richard Bolles of the best-selling “What Color Is Your Parachute” career guide.
Nelson, 49, a retirement researcher and lecturer in consumer science at the University of Wisconsin, created a retirement model that has been selected for the retirement readiness program for federal employees. His Retirement Well-Being Model is a research- and philosophically based tool designed to factor in health and happiness, as well as finances, as people plan and set goals for retirement.
Quoted: But one University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business professor said it’s questionable whether a stimulus package would have the desired effect.
“It’s not clear a stimulus package will work. I think what the fed chair is saying is if we want to avoid an unemployment rate of eight percent its worthwhile considering stimulus packages,” said Morris Davis.
Quoted: “Nobody wants to be the education president this year,” said Gloria Ladson-Billings, an education policy professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Barry Orton, professor of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Comcast is levying the second rate increase throughout the country. It will add a little revenue during an otherwise difficult year, he said.
Quoted: How significant is Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama? It probably won’t sway big numbers of voters, according to UW political scientist David Canon
