Q. Is it true that cell phone chargers continue to draw power when they ‘re not charging a battery, simply because they ‘re plugged into an outlet? And if this is true, how can it be?
A. Although he hasn ‘t measured it, UW-Madison emeritus electrical engineering professor Don Novotny guesses that a plugged-in charger still draws about one-third of the power it does while operating.
Like many Badger fans, Eric Graf is angry as the Big Ten Network launches tonight without a deal with Charter Communications.
Barring an improbable agreement to break the long and contentious stalemate, Charter subscribers won’t be able to see at least three University of Wisconsin football games and at least 10 UW basketball games scheduled to air on BTN in the next six months.
But Graf isn’t focusing his ire on the network or cable company; he blames the heads of the Big Ten universities, including UW Chancellor John Wiley.
(Professor of telecommunications Barry Orton is quoted.)
Quoted: University of Wisconsin entomologist Phil Pellitteri said.
Quoted: Robert Lemanske of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.
Quoted: Dr. William Busse of the University of Wisconsin, who headed the panel.
The good news is that George W. Bush at last has found parallels between his Iraq misadventure and the Vietnam War. The bad news is that he is again writing his own revisionist history. The president is on dangerous ground — for both wars are based on a bed of lies and miscalculations.
Quoted: Kenneth R. Mayer, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky said he saw some problems with the program, such as the fact that many eligible taxpayers don ‘t participate.
The region saw floods in 1993, 1978, 1965 and the early 1950s, experts said. But this year topped all of those, with the Kickapoo River level at the community of Steuben rising nearly five feet above flood stage, two feet higher than the previous high flood of 1978, according to federal data examined by UW-Madison hydrologist Ken Potter.
Both Potter and fellow UW-Madison professor Jim Knox said that, thanks to improved methods of farming and controlling soil erosion, floods in the region have generally lessened over the past 50 years.
Quoted: Joanne Cantor, director of the Center for Communication Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says typical public-service announcements about healthful eating fail because they lack the punch of enormous advertising campaigns promoting less nutritious fare.
Quoted: Dr. Norman Fost, professor of pediatrics and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin and co-author of a much-cited academic report on the topic.
If your garden survived the drought that lasted through July and the recent flooding rains, youâ??re not out of the woods yet. Japanese beetles are still on the attack.
These beetles, which shouldnâ??t be confused with ladybug look-alike Asian lady beetles, are becoming more numerous and widespread this summer than ever before, said University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s Phil Pellitteri. Pellitteri said Japanese beetles are invasive insects that only appeared in large numbers in Wisconsin within the past 10 years.
Quoted: Kenneth Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and author of “With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Powers.”
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri
Quoted: John Coleman, a political science professor at UW-Madison.
Q. What are teeth made of?
A. Built for crunching and chewing, teeth mostly consist of hard, inorganic minerals such as calcium. But they also contain nerves, blood vessels and specialized cells that manufacture the different parts of the tooth, said Bill Gengler, a veterinary dentist and oral surgeon with the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
No American diplomat’s career has been more thoroughly documented and debated — or celebrated and reviled — than Henry Kissinger’s. There are shelves of biographies by distinguished authors, and Kissinger himself has produced a massive three-volume memoir followed by a steady flow of books, essays, and commentaries. These two books do not provide startling new historical accounts of Kissinger, but they do offer some fresh glimpses of his motives and personality on display in high office.
Quoted: Jonathan Martin, chairman of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Dr. Jerry Halverson, a University of Wisconsin health psychiatrist and the medical director of Meriter Hospital’s adult psychiatry program, said that shock and other feelings are normal and natural when confronted with such a traumatic event.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin law professor Asifa Quraishi, at the opening of Wednesday’s session, pointed out that Islamic conservatives point to the very topic of “women’s rights” as “a Western imposition” of outside values on Muslim women, which therefore means it can be dismissed as irrelevant and anti-Islam.
You get an engrossingly detailed picture of how he achieved his vision in â??Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautifulâ? at the Portland Museum of Art. The show displays more than 100 examples of his furniture, metalwork, textiles, plans, drawings and publications, along with photographs of particular interiors.
It was organized by International Arts and Artists, of Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation of Scottsdale, Ariz. Virginia T. Boyd, professor of design studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, served as curator.
Quoted: John Webster, UW-Madison professor emeritus of biomedical engineering.
The downed power line that killed a woman, her toddler, and a would-be rescuer Wednesday afternoon on Madison’s north side also shocked, but did not kill, the woman’s 7-year-old child, authorities said today.
Quoted: Ted Bernstein, UW-Madison emeritus professor of electrical and computer engineering
Quoted: Donald Hester, professor emeritus of economics at UW-Madison.
Americans pushing 60, 70, 80 or even 90 don’t forgo sex just because they’re aging, according a new study that shows many older adults are having sex well into their 70s and 80s.
The University of Chicago study being published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine is being called the first comprehensive look at the sex lives of older adults in the USA. It portrays an image that researchers say runs counter to the stereotypes of older people as either asexual or “dirty old men.
Quoted: John De Lamater, UW-Madison professor of sociology
Quoted: Climatology pioneer Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the department of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: John DeLamater, a University of Wisconsin sociology professor who has studied human sexuality for 35 years.
Why should we care? That was a rhetorical question asked by Scott Craven, professor of wildlife ecology at UW-Madison, in leading off the second CWD Stakeholder Advisory Committee meetings in Madison last Saturday.
The meeting, held at Lowell Inn and Conference Center on the UW-Madison campus, drew a surprisingly small public attendance, less than 10 people. However, the reason for the meeting was for the 16-member committee to hear from experts about what is known about chronic wasting disease.
….”I obviously care for both personal and professional reasons, but this issue is just not on people’s radar screen like it was three years ago,” he (Craven) said. “One of the most important challenges that you face, as liaisons to groups of citizens and hunters, is to bring that back.”
(Also mentioned are Chad Johnson, an assistant scientist in the School of Veterinary Medicine, and Joel Pedersen, associate professor of Soil Science.)
Three-fourths of cancerous prostate removal surgeries at the University of Wisconsin Hospital are now performed by a robot. The robot and its very flexible “wrists” are controlled by a surgeon, however.
The first robotic prostatectomy at UW Hospital was performed in March 2006 by urologic surgeon Dr. David Jarrard, who also performed the 200th on July 31 this year.
….in the 1618 painting of “Two Citrons” by Filippo di Liagno (called Filippo Napoletano), a lemon is more than either just a lemon or just a painting.
That is typical of most of the 43 works you can see in “Natura Morta: Still-Life Painting and the Medici Collections,” a new show of 17th and 18th century works that goes on exhibit Saturday at the University of Wisconsin’s Chazen Museum of Art.
Professor Gail Geiger, who teaches Italian Renaissance art at the UW and specializes in patronage, knows how to decode these paintings and other works of art.
Quoted: David Ahrens, spokesman for the Tobacco Surveillance & Evaluation Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison hydrologist Ken Potter said the rain in some parts of the region reached levels that could be expected once every 100 years. The extraordinary rainfall, combined with the steep slopes found in the Driftless Area, posed a challenge to dams, bridges, roads and levees, he said.
Quoted: Presenter Dr Suzanne Gibbons-Burgener, from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, noted that on-farm use of raw milk is legal and common, and that the sale of unpasteurised milk is legal in 28 states, though California, for example, requires a warning label.
It wasn’t that long ago when few people embraced alternative medical practices such as chiropractic services, acupuncture and massage.
Today, such services, like many advanced traditional medical practices, are moving into the mainstream of pet care as more and more people pamper their pets — although medical care isn’t seen on the same plane as some other pampering practices.
Quoted: Dr. Sandi Sawchuk, School of Veterinary Medicine
Whether climate change has caused the extreme weather we’ve experienced in recent weeks — near-drought followed by heavy rain — is a subject of debate among scientists.
A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Society of America in 2005 said Wisconsin’s climate was warming, that extreme heat would occur more often and long periods of flooding rains may increase. John Magnuson, UW-Madison professor emeritus, helped write that study and definitely believes that global warming is causing more extreme weather.
Quoted: Jonathan Martin, chair of the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Quoted: Laura Dresser, associate director of UW-Madison ‘s Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
Will an agent secure you a higher selling price? The National Association of Realtors claims homes sold by its realty agents bring 16 percent higher prices on average. On the other hand, a study released earlier this summer by economists from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin showed FSBO sellers in Madison, Wis., made out better than if they had hired an agent and paid a commission. But Madison has a more-robust-than-usual local FSBO Web site, and the researchers’ calculations placed no value on services provided by an agent.
Quoted: Pamela Oliver, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied racial disparities in prisons, said there are “reasonable arguments” both for and against profit-driven prison industries.
Q. Can lightning strike in the exact same spot twice?
A. The short answer, according to UW-Madison atmospheric scientist Steve Ackerman, is yes.
Bedbugs are back, with a vengeance.
The tiny night-time bloodsuckers were common in Madison and elsewhere in the United States in the 1940s, until DDT ended the threat. But the insecticide damaged wildlife and was banned in the U.S. in 1972, and in recent years travelers brought bedbugs back, according to Phil Pellitteri, a UW-Extension entomologist affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A chemical family known as synthetic pyrethroid has been used to get rid of the unwelcome pests, but they have developed resistance to it, he added.
Cataracts, a clouding of the lens of the eye that begins as a vague blurriness and can lead to blindness, is a common affliction of aging. For insured Americans, cataract surgery is a routine procedure that restores vision completely.
Despite the simplicity of cataract surgery, about 20 million people worldwide are blind because of cataracts, and 90 percent of them live in developing countries.
Dr. Suresh Chandra, an opthalmologist at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, has been working to eliminate preventable blindness through the Combat Blindness Foundation he started in Madison in 1984. Since then, the CBF has supported more than 100,000 free cataract surgeries.
Everyone who lives long enough will eventually get cataracts, a clouding of the lens of the eye that begins as a vague blurriness and can lead to blindness. For insured Americans, cataract surgery is an routine procedure that restores vision completely.
Despite the simplicity of cataract surgery, about 20 million people worldwide are blind because of cataracts, and 90 percent of them live in developing countries.
Dr. Suresh Chandra, an opthalmologist at UW-Madison medical school, has been working to eliminate preventable blindness through the Combat Blindness Foundation he started in Madison in 1984. Since then, the CBF has supported more than 100,000 free cataract surgeries.
Quoted: Bob Cropp, a dairy analyst at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the market could soften.
Nobody will ever accuse Jeremi Suri of lacking style or insight. His study of Henry Kissinger’s personality and place in history offers piercing originality–so much so that laying down Dallek for Suri feels rather like that moment in The Prince and the Showgirl when Laurence Olivier, after telling all and sundry that they have too little love in their life, meets his ex-mistress . . . and realizes that she has too much.
Suri fires off insights and theories about Henry Kissinger at a rapid clip. He especially delights in paradox.
NOT LONG after Frank Sinatra died, his journalist friend Pete Hamill, spurred by obituaries that were full of Sinatra’s feuds and foibles, wrote a wonderful little book called “Why Sinatra Matters.”
….At noon Wednesday at the Rotary Club of Madison’s meeting at the Inn on the Park, UW-Madison Professor Craig Werner — an admirer of Hamill’s Sinatra book — will make a similar case for another music legend, Elvis Presley.
Quoted: Molecular geneticist Sean Carroll of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
If you’ve tried loading up on fruits, vegetables and whole grains and still can’t get relief from constipation, maybe you need more than a boost of fiber.
“The idea that many patients have, and unfortunately their physicians, if we just keep pushing fiber until the grass grows out of their behind they’ll have been treated successfully, that’s not really true,” said Dr. Arnold Wald, a professor of medicine in the section on gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of Wisconsin.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A poison-ivy rash is never any fun.
But this year the itching might be worse.
Botanists say there are record-high carbon-dioxide levels – and that’s causing poison-ivy plants to grow faster and with more potency.
Tom Sharkey is a botany professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Donald Downs, a professor of political science, law, and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, would take issue with that. Downs acknowledged that some FISA reforms are needed, but the issue is whether the new law goes too far.
Quoted: Molecular geneticist Sean Carroll of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says the study offers some “intriguing leads” on candidate genes to be followed up. “There is an important message here” that changes in regulatory sequences may be important in the evolution of many species, he says.
The best thing about this weekend ‘s Perseid meteor showers, according to UW-Madison astronomer Jim Lattis, is that it doesn ‘t take any fancy equipment or knowledge to enjoy the spectacle.
“All you need, ‘ ‘ Lattis said, “is a lawn chair. ‘ ‘
Quoted: Dennis Dresang, a political science and public affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Carl Watras, a research scientist for DNR and the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Quoted: Tim Sell, who manages a surplus program for the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the state of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Robert Blick, a professor of electrical and computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: Arthur Glenberg, a gesture researcher at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Quoted: David Bordwell, University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Quoted: Dr. John Moulder, a senior editor of the journal Radiation Research, for his reaction to the study. Moulder, who is professor and director of radiation biology in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Wisconsin,
Quoted: Harry Bunn of the University of Wisconsin, who co-directs the project.
