Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Donald Nichols, a professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said initiatives that encourage innovation and research and development are aimed at industries that “employ highly educated people.”

Quoted: Paul Zedler, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, looked around at the blasted landscape and said, â??To us, this is beautiful.â?

UW-Madison professor of landscape architecture Arnold Alanen is quoted in “The Fish House Book: Life on Ice in the Northland” by Kathryn Nordstrom.

Quoted: Max W. Carbon, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at the University of Wisconsin, contends that nuclear power has a phenomenally good safety record.

NEW YORK (AP) — Just hours after baseball assured Congress it’s working to address the sport’s doping problem, scholars debated whether performance-enhancing drugs should even be banned.

Intelligence Squared, an organization that holds Oxford-style debates on such topics as global warming and illegal immigration, hosted a doping debate that included two-time National League MVP Dale Murphy and former World Anti-Doping, Agency chief Dick Pound.

“More people died playing baseball than died of steroid use,” declared Dr. Norman Fost, a professor of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin who supports allowing the drugs.

MADISON, Wis. — How can the accomplishments of Bonds, McGwire, Sosa and others of the “steroid era” of baseball be compared to those of Aaron or Ruth? Can Major League Baseball and the National Football League and the others ever get drugs out of their systems? Will the athletes named as users in the Mitchell report face futures threatened by cancer, heart attack, stroke? What will come of the House committee hearings, now postponed until February? Is there any tarnish remover strong enough to put the shine back on sports in America?

As the controversy over use of anabolic steroids by athletes swirls like a wind-whipped snowstorm, Norman Fost, professor of pediatric medicine and director of the Program in Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, is a center of calm and certainty. He says, as he has for many years and virtually alone, that the maelstrom is nothing more than “the hypocrisy, bad facts, inconsistency and moral incoherence of anti-drug hysteria.”

Quoted: The outcome of the fight over coal could determine the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions for years to come, said Gregory Nemet, assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Neil Lerner, director of the Small Business Development Center at the business school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Quoted: Mark Bugher, head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s research park and a former state revenue secretary for Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, praised the package as exactly what the state’s economy needs.

Quoted: A number of urban districts experimented with a revamped principal’s role in the 1990s, said Richard Halverson, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

If you think winter is monochromatic, take a look at the Center for the Visual Arts newest exhibit, then think again.

The 18th annual Midwest Winter Exhibit opens Friday at the downtown Wausau art gallery, and the work represents a wide variety of what artists from throughout the region believe the coldest season has to offer. The pieces in the exhibit were chosen by Tom Loeser, an art professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Stephen Lucas, a professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said faculty can put students at ease by, before posing a question to class, letting students talk over the material before calling on a few of them to explain their positions. Anxious students are most on edge when theyâ??re put on the spot, Lucas said

Quoted: “We have no idea what the rest of the winter might bring,” said professor Jon Martin, chairman of the University of Wisconsin Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Department.

Quoted: In advance of Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary, UW-Madison Political Science Professor Charles Franklin gets out his crystal ball.

Topography also affects where fog congregates, as it tucks into low elevations or lingers on hills, said Jonathan Martin, chairman of the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Quoted: “Basically, it probably does not matter what pregnant or lactating women eat,” said Dr. Frank Greer, an author of the report, professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin and chairman of the AAP Committee on Nutrition.

Quoted: Denise Teves, an assistant professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa, said cells that line the arteries of the heart have vitamin D receptors. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to a proliferation of smooth muscle cells in those blood vessels, which, in turn, can lead to blockages and stiffness in arteries.

The Legislature’s first vote on a statewide smoking ban is scheduled for next week, and apparently there’s enough support on the Senate Health Committee to pass the measure.

Doctor Pat Remington of the UW Population Health Institute is urging lawmakers to ignore opposition from the Tavern League. He says this is an example where leadership in the state needs to the interests of the public, not the interests of the industry.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political science professor.

Quoted: “In short, the biggest genetic threat to society may not be infertility but fertile old men,” says University of Wisconsin in Madison geneticist James F. Crow.

Quoted: “In the future, objects are going to be interacting amongst themselves,” said Alfonzo Gutierrez, the Associate Director of the RFID Lab at University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor.

Quoted: Kathy Glass, a scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Food Research Institute, agreed. The “natural” tag, she added, “is more of a marketing gimmick than anything else.”

The Iowa caucuses ended Thursday with Mike Huckabee in the lead for Republicans and Barack Obama ahead of fellow Democrats, but UW-Madison professor David Canon says the presidential race is far from over. Canon says several candidates were close on the heels of both candidates, and that could stretch out into other states in the coming weeks. If that happens, Wisconsin could play a pivotal role in deciding who eventually wins the primary race.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin.

Close your eyes and think of someone who has hurt you. Let all the anger, hurt and resentment you feel for that wrongdoer bubble to the surface. Seethe, shout, savor it. Feel your heart pounding, your blood boiling, your stomach churning and your thoughts racing in dark directions.

OK, stop. Now, forgive your offender. Don’t just shed the bitterness and drop the recrimination, but empathize with his plight, wish him well and move on – whether he’s sorry or not.

University of Wisconsin psychologist Robert D. Enright, the guru of what many are calling a new science of forgiveness, calls this final step “making a gesture of goodness” to a wrongdoer. It’s the culmination of a process that, he says, “you’ve got to be able to see through to the end.”

Quoted: Linda Gorchels, a marketing expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin said of Wisconsin’s chances of mattering on Feb. 19.

Quoted: Steven Deller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of agricultural and applied economics.

Quoted: Michael Bell, a rural sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Data compiled by Volker C. Radeloff of the University of Wisconsin, when more than 28 million homes sit less than 30 miles from federally owned land that millions of people increasingly view as their extended backyards.

Quoted: Ken Goldstein, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, said the episode might backfire on Mr. Huckabee because it showed him as not ready for prime time. He has been falling in the polls since he stumbled a few days ago in talking about Pakistan, and he began unleashing a torrent of harsh words against Mr. Romney, whose once-sagging candidacy has appeared revived.

Quoted: Thatâ??s just what happened to Scott Craven, head of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on opening day of this yearâ??s deer gun season. At about 5:45 a.m. on Nov. 17, Craven was cruising at 65 mph in Iowa County when he noticed a doe standing on the shoulder of U.S. Highway 151. The deer stepped into his lane, leaving him no time to hit the brakes. His Chevy Silverado hit the animal and sent it hurtling to the shoulder.

â??I may have taken the earliest deer of the entire Wisconsin deer hunt,â? joked Craven, 59, of Oregon, in Dane County. â??I remember the deer head like a hood ornament on an old Packard.â?

Quoted: Michael Bell, a rural sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences said there were 1,311 women enrolled last fall and 1,005 men, compared with 796 men and only 353 women during the 1977-1978 school year.

The assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Thursday shows how fragile Pakistani democracy is, experts say.

“The country is terribly shaky, ” said Robert Frykenberg, an emeritus history professor at the UW-Madison. “No country will benefit from a crumbling Pakistan. It is a very, very touchy situation. “

Quoted: Robert Frykenberg, an emeritus history professor at the UW-Madison; and UW-Madison professor Muhammad Memon, who left Pakistan in 1964.

The assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is likely to call into question the future of democracy in Pakistan as well as the country’s role in fighting terrorism in the region, several international policy experts told ABC News.

“The fact that the election could be delayed and a major candidate has been killed makes it very difficult to go ahead with establishing the impression that Pakistan has at last returned to a democratic process,” said Joe Elder, professor of sociology and a specialist on Pakistan at the University of Wisconsin. “This is a very serious blow to the democratic process in Pakistan.”

A little more than a decade ago, Wisconsin garnered national attention when it became the first state to scrap its old welfare system. From its ashes, the W-2 program was born.

Quoted: Jennifer Noyes of the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty. (Audio.)

Quoted: Seth Pollak, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research.

Quoted: Mike Scott, an associate professor at the UW-Madison Law School who specializes in police discipline.

Quoted: Donna Friedsam, an associate director at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

Quoted: Scott Craven, head of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

To Vietnam War veteran Chuck Goranson, Wills’ story rings all too familiar. He has been helping veterans cut through the red tape at the University of Wisconsin in Madison since 1972 through a student group called Vets for Vets.

Though the number of recent combat veterans pales compared with Vietnam â?? about 1.6 million have been deployed so far vs. 8.7 million back then â?? the paperwork has grown far more complex. Until this spring, even the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs were giving conflicting information about eligibility requirements for one benefit.

In the Vietnam era, “there was essentially just one kind of GI Bill, and you signed up for it and you got it,” he says. Now, there is a GI Bill for members of the regular military, another for Reserve forces, including the National Guard, and additional benefits for Reserve members who have served at least 90 days in combat after 9/11. That’s not to mention vocational training for disabled veterans and tuition waivers offered by some states.

Quoted: Peter Carstensen, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin who specializes in agricultural markets and tracks Smithfield.