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Category: UW Experts in the News

It’s Your Money: Beginning A Budget

WKOW-TV 27

A budget is lot like a diet; instead of eating less food, you’re spending less money. And like a diet, you can’t let small setbacks derail your long term plan. And, you need realistic goals to be successful.

“If you cut out the foods you love the most you’re usually not going to stick to your diet. So, we try to say that a budget needs to be flexible and realistic,” says Michael Gutter, University of Wisconsin-Extension Financial Specialist.

Fruit flies hold clue to brain diseases

Daily Cardinal

This year, as the oldest baby boomers turn 60, scientists are working diligently to understand the aging brain. While scientists have led doctors to recognize and treat symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases�diseases marked by the progressive breakdown of the brain�the causes and prevention of these diseases remain a mystery.

Funds pinch hurts special education

Wisconsin State Journal

Rainwater said he backs an upcoming state report led by UW-Madison education researcher Allan Odden that will call upon the state to begin crafting education budgets based on what’s needed to adequately educate all children, including those with special needs, to meet the state’s own education standards.

Profs: Errors, bias foil Mideast peace

Capital Times

Nations seeking a lasting peace in the Middle East must understand global politics, the need for consensus and the fact that current policies are misguided and need to be re-examined, say two professors and Middle East policy experts.

(Ali Abootalebi, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and Nadav Shelef, a professor of Israeli studies at UW-Madison, outlined their “Paths to Peace” in the Middle East during a lecture at the Overture Center’s Capitol Theater on Wednesday.)

Safe Internet requires total network security, prof. says

Wisconsin Technology Network

Madison, Wis. – When it comes to securing information networks, Paul Barford believes the good guys always are one step behind the guys in the black hats.

Barford, an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Computer Sciences, said the acceleration of malicious activity that began in 2001 shows no signs of abating. In fact, the fun-seeking hackers that did their damage for simple notoriety have been joined by a more sophisticated class of cyber criminals.

Doyle delivers research funds

Badger Herald

As part of his plan to provide $5 million to stem-cell research companies, Gov. Jim Doyle presented $1 million Tuesday to a new company aiming to generate blood products from human embryonic stem cells.

Doyle presented the financial package to founders of Stem Cell Products Inc., started by research pioneer and University of Wisconsin biology professor James Thomson, who isolated the first embryonic stem-cell line.

Doyle gives $1 million stem cell grant to company started by UW researchers

Daily Cardinal

Gov. Jim Doyle announced another pledge for stem cell research Tuesday, giving $1 million to a stem cell start-up company founded by three UW-Madison researchers including James Thomson, the professor who pioneered stem cell research and isolated the first embryonic stem cell.

Stem Cell Products, Inc., run by Thomson and fellow UW-Madison researchers Igor Slukvin and Dong Chen, will begin research on a process that derives red blood cells and platelets from embryonic stem cells. According to Doyle, platelets are in short supply and the U.S. military frequently flies wounded soldiers to Germany in order to perform blood transfusions.

Dust Linked to Storm Frequency

New York Times

Scientists studying 25 years of satellite images have found that the frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean was substantially reduced in years when sandstorms and trade winds combined to send millions of tons of dust streaming west over the sea from the Sahara Desert. The correlation, measured by a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin and federal agencies, is described in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Layers of dry, dusty air, moving at up to 50 miles an hour, can disrupt tropical storms in several ways. The research shows that many factors can affect hurricane seasons, complicating efforts to determine whether global warming has played a role recently, some of the authors said.

Rob Zaleski: Penn professor concerned about fraud in upcoming election

Capital Times

In the first few days after the 2004 presidential election, Steve Freeman was more perplexed than anything.

How could it be, the University of Pennsylvania professor wondered, that exit polls showing John Kerry would win most of the critical battleground states were wrong and that George W. Bush wound up winning the popular vote by almost 3.5 million?

(UW-Madison political science professors Ken Mayer and Charles Franklin, described as critics of Freeman’s research, are quoted.)

Bird flu still a major worry

Wisconsin State Journal

A year ago, bird flu was in the news nearly every day. The drumbeat of a pandemic threat was growing louder. Health officials hurried preparation plans.
Today, bird flu seems more like the punchline of a joke.

But experts say it remains just as dangerous – and just as able to cause a worldwide outbreak of flu like none seen since 1918, when as many as 50 million people died.

“The reality is this virus is continuing to spread,” said Christopher Olsen, a virologist at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. “It’s continuing to infect birds. It’s continuing to kill human beings.”

UW Prof Is National Expert On Education Policy And No Child Left Behind Act

Wisconsin State Journal

When publications like the New York Times want an expert to comment on the big issues facing public schools like testing or immigration, it’s a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor they’re likely to call.
Relatively unknown in his adopted hometown, history and educational policy studies professor William Reese is able offer a long view on these kinds of perennial hot-button issues that resonate across the country, and provoke local debate, too.

Professor nets $10 million to battle poverty

Badger Herald

University of Wisconsin College of Agricultural and Life Sciences professor Michael Carter will administer a $10 million, five-year federal program aiming to curtail poverty in third-world nations.

The program, called the Assets and Market Access Collaborative Research Support Program, is part of a United States Agency for International Development effort addressing global poverty.

Nothing nice to say

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a UW-Madison political science professor; Ken Goldstein, another UW-Madison political science professor who is an expert on TV campaign ads.

UW scientists ID flu-fighter p

Capital Times

A substance that could block the deadly bird flu virus exists right in your body.

It’s a peptide – a very small piece of a protein. But it has managed to block several strains of influenza in tests with cell cultures and mice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lampert Smith: Girls, you don’t have to take it

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison’s committee for a Coordinated Community Response to Dating/Domestic Violence is sponsoring a used cell phone drive all month to benefit the Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS) of Dane County (www.abuseintervention.org). Each donated phone will earn $40 for DAIS. Drop-off boxes will be placed at eight campus locations: 75 Bascom Hall, the Campus Women’s Center in the Memorial Union, Eagle Heights, Kronsage, Union South, the Graduate School Office in Bascom, Witte, and the Student Organization Office. Please delete all stored information prior to dropping off your cell phone. Contact Tonya Schmidt tschmidt@bascom.wisc.edu or Yolanda Garza ygarza@bascom.wisc.edu.

Talking With Kids About Violence In Schools

NBC-15

From an attempted attack in Green Bay to the shooting at Weston high school to deadly incidents in Colorado and Pennsylvania.

This recent wave of school violence doesn’t surprise many experts, who say media coverage of one shooting can often encourage copy cats.

“In a way, showing this negative emotional reaction may also spur on kids who are looking for some kind of redemption or revenge.”

Joanne Cantor is a UW professor who specializes in how kids deal with frightening images they see in the media.

Battling Epstein-Barr

Daily Cardinal

The Epstein-Barr virus, the most common culprit of mono, infects most people and is linked to cancer later in life. Researchers at the UW-Madison McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research and the German National Research Center for Environmental Health have discovered information about the virus�s lifecycle which could lead to virus-specific, targeted treatments for certain cancers.

RCF funding status contested

Daily Cardinal

UW Roman Catholic Foundation spokesperson Tim Kruse said Sunday night that blatant religious discrimination, miscommunication and unaccountability were responsible for the organization�s current preclusion from Registered Student Organization status.

Copycat Syndrome And More Violence Feared

Wisconsin State Journal

Experts quoted: Joanne Cantor, a retired UW-Madison professor of communications; Joe Newman, chairman of psychology at UW-Madison; Dr. Marcia Slattery, a UW-Madison psychiatrist on an American Psychiatric Association committee dealing with mental health and schools; and Dr. Gwen McIntosh, a UW-Madison pediatrician who studies school violence.

Dieting Could Lead to Injury

NBC-15

At the collegiate level, athletes will do anything to gain an edge. For women, that often means counting calories.

But a new study out of Saint Louis University shows women athletes who don’t eat enough set themselves up for more injuries and leg pain.

“This is not the first study that’s demonstrated that young women athletes are not eating enough calories.”

Dr. Greg Landry teaches sports medicine at the UW and says a low-calorie diet causes women to produce less estrogen, a key factor in bone development.

Psychos Need a Little Sympathy (Wired News)

Wired.com

It’s difficult to empathize with, let alone have sympathy for, a psychopath. But one scientist believes psychopaths, despite their sometimes terrifying behavior, deserve compassion.

At its core, he argues, psychopathy is a learning disability that makes it difficult for psychopaths to stop themselves from pursuing harmful behavior.

Many psychopaths end up in jail, where they comprise up to 25 percent of the incarcerated population. Outside of prison, just 1 percent is diagnosed with the disorder.

The incidence of psychopathy is about the same as schizophrenia, but a clear differential exists when it comes to studying the former, says Joseph Newman, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Terror Bill Still Problematic Despite Compromise (WPR)

Wisconsin Public Radio

(MADISON) Conservatives are hailing a compromise reached last week in the U.S. Senate on a bill that outlaws the use of torture and defines the legal rights of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base. But an expert on the history of the CIA�s use of torture says the bill has a huge loophole in it.
University of Wisconsin-Madison history professor Alfred McCoy has spent his career documenting the role of the CIA in U.S. foreign policy. (Fourth item.)