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Category: UW Experts in the News

Brain scanners trying to pinpoint our virtues within

USA Today

Mentioned:
“University of Wisconsin researchers reported that when 16 Tibetan monks meditated inside an fMRI machine, the images showed “brain circuits used to detect emotions and feelings were dramatically changed in subjects who had extensive experience practicing compassion meditation.”

Story includes scans from Richard Davidson, director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior

UW has big role in giant particle collider

Wisconsin State Journal

History’s most ambitious science experiment was scheduled to begin this morning on the Swiss-Franco border in Europe in a giant underground particle smasher called the Large Hadron Collider.

As is true of many scientists, Terry Millar, UW-Madison’s associate dean for physical sciences, can hardly contain himself when he starts talking about the groundbreaking nature of the knowledge that could come from the 17-mile, $8 billion loop of steel and magnets and seven-story particle detectors.

Mixed views locally on Fannie, Freddie takeover

Wisconsin State Journal

The government did the right thing by bailing out mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before their finances deteriorated any further, a UW-Madison School of Business professor says.

“If we learned anything from the savings and loan (crisis of the 1980s and 1990s), it’s that firms have incentives to take big risks if they’re near bankruptcy,” said Morris Davis, assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics.

A Fatty Acid May Help Your Body Burn Fat

Wall Street Journal

Noted: Last year, a meta-analysis concluded that 3.2 grams a day of CLA “produces a modest loss in body fat.” The analysis, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, pooled results from 18 studies to conclude that subjects taking CLA lost an average of two-tenths of a pound of fat a week more than those taking a placebo.

“It’s not a wonder drug to make fat melt away from the body in a few weeks and drop 10 dress sizes,” says study author Leah D. Whigham, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “What it is doing is resulting in a fat loss over time.”

UW researcher contributes to study linking warmer seas to stronger hurricanes

Capital Times

A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher contributed to a new study that bolsters the theory that global warming might be contributing to stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean over the last 30 years.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Nature, was led by Florida State University geography researcher James Elsner, with UW-Madison research scientist James Kossin and FSU researcher Thomas Jagger contributing.

World’s strongest hurricanes could be getting stronger

USA Today

Quoted: James Kossin, Space Science and Engineering:

“By creating a better, more consistent historical data set, we’ve been able to weed out quality issues that introduce a lot of uncertainty. Then, by looking only at the strongest tropical cyclones, where the relationship between storms and climate is most pronounced, we are able to observe the increasing trends in storm intensity that both the theory and models say should be there.”

Curiosities: IQ tests do not measure your intelligence

Wisconsin State Journal

Q. Do IQ tests really measure how smart you are?
A. No, they do not, according to Mitchell J. Nathan, professor of learning sciences in the UW-Madison departments of educational psychology and curriculum and instruction.

Like any test, IQ tests present certain test items and exclude many others. One’s IQ test score simply measures how one did on those particular items relative to other people.

Strongest Storms Grow Stronger Yet, Study Says

New York Times

Because of these environmental factors, most storms fall far short of their maximum possible intensity. But Dr. Elsner, along with Thomas H. Jagger, a postdoctoral researcher at Florida State, and James P. Kossin, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reasoned that warmer waters increased the possible intensity and that storms that develop in ideal conditions might have become stronger.

Arts Groups Facing Financial Challenges (Chronicle of Philanthrophy)

The financial woes facing a nonprofit dance theater in Forth-Worth, Tex., is a further sign that cultural groups need to do a better job examining their economic health, writes Andrew Taylor on his blog, The Artful Manager.

Mr. Taylor, director of the arts administration program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, writes that arts groups must get used to the lean times.

A step toward restoring hearing

Wisconsin State Journal

A newly arrived UW researcher and colleagues at two other universities published stem-cell research results this week based on the successful growth of sound-signal-sending hair genes in the ears of lab mice, a process that could eventually be used to restore hearing to deaf people.

Global warming: Sea level rises may accelerate

Guardian (UK)

Quoted: Climate scientists are uncertain how susceptible ice sheets are to global warming, largely because they have never witnessed one disappear, so researchers led by Anders Carlson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison decided to look back to the end of the last ice age for clues.