Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Jeremy Foltz, a University of Wisconsin assistant professor of agricultural and applied economics.

To ward off frost damage overnight, Brent McCown, a professor of horticulture at UW Madison, recommends covering any vegetable plants or flowers that are directly exposed to the sky.

Quoted: There are many warning signs signaling aging eyes need some medical care, says Dr. Amna Buttar, member of the American Geriatrics Society and faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Wisconsin residents flooded by recent torrential rains know firsthand that disasters have a way of exposing problems they previously didn’t know existed.

UW-Madison professor Richard Keller, who is bringing his study of disaster and catastrophe to the classroom, says disasters â?? particularly large-scale, catastrophic ones â?? can also offer revealing glimpses of larger human issues.

Quoted: String theorist Gary Shiu of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US, says the fact that not every version of string theory is compatible with inflation is good news, because it will help narrow down which versions of the theory should be further investigated from the vast number of possibilities.

Quoted: Co-author Diana Hess, a professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Aaron Gilson of the Pain and Policy Studies Group at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Bridges should be checked again because some may have deteriorated since then and can withstand less weight now, said Don Walker, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Transportation Information Center.

Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania, is one of the leading meat processing states in the country, said Jeff Sindelar, a professor of meat science at UW-Madison, a meat specialist with UW-Extension and a member of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors.

Some schools, including the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have long done without preferred-lender lists and are emphasizing their neutrality. “If there was ever any tendency to advise people [on specific lenders], we’re making sure that’s not happening,” says Susan Fischer, director of financial aid at Wisconsin.

Quoted: Alfred McCoy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argued recently that the photographs from Abu Ghraib reflected standard CIA torture techniques of ” stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sexual humiliation”.

Quoted: David E. Joranson, director of the Pain Policy Study Group at the University of Wisconsinâ??s medical school, who has worked to change drugs laws around the world.

Quoted: Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Quoted: Jo Handelsman, the University of Wisconsin-Madison plant biologist who coined the term “metagenomics,” says that the bee work represents “a very nice first step and an exciting discovery.”

Quoted: Don Downs, a political science and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Morris A. Davis, assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: UW-Madison entomologist Phil Pellitteri.

Quoted: Phil Pellitteri, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied mosquitoes for more than 30 years, said the downpours of August have caused the mosquitoes to hatch just about anywhere there’s standing water, including highway ditches and flooded fields.

Quoted: Brian Gould, an agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Susan Fischer, director of Student Financial Services at UW-Madison, tells students to resist the pitch and the freebies. “Just go buy a T-shirt if you need a T-shirt.”

Quoted: Bruce P. Barrett, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin who was not involved with the review.

Quoted: John Hawks, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

There’s a real generational divide on the issue of video games.

For those older than 35 or so, games are mostly an unfortunate waste of time or, worse, a Trojan horse introducing our kids to violent, sexist themes. For those younger than 35, they are a leading form of entertainment, a resource for creativity and innovation, and — contrary to the common stereotype — a way to socialize.

Constance Steinkuehler is an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Jeffrey P. Smith, a professor of film studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Joanne Cantor, who taught communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: Jake Vander Zanden, an aquatic ecologist with the UW-Madison Center for Limnology.

Quoted: Tom Oâ??Guinn, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin and executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin Hospital emergency medicine physician Darren Bean said blowing air into someone having a heart attack induces pressure in the lungs that slows blood flow.

Quoted: Don Waller, a professor of botany and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin entomologist Phil Pellitteri said.

Quoted: Robert Lemanske of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.

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.

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.

Quoted: Jonathan Martin, chairman of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.