“Even if only 85% of Black voters instead of 90% vote for Biden, additional turnout helps Democrats,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Concern No. 1 is just whether he will get a smaller share of the Black vote than he did last time around.”
As young Chinese-Americans raised (and, in Stephen’s case, born) in the United States, Helen and Stephen were in a rare position to guide Americans through this once-forbidden land. “We saw China through their eyes as Americans that could broker more easily into Chinese culture,” says Cindy I-Fen Cheng, author of Citizens of Asian America and professor of American history and Asian-American studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison. “We saw it with fresh eyes. We’re like, ‘Look at the wonders!’”
Scientific discovery doesn’t always require a high-tech laboratory or a hefty budget. Many people have a first-rate lab right in their own homes – their kitchen.
Wisconsinites can be jailed for failing to pay public fines and court debts. We talk with John Gross, a clinical associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and director of the Public Defender Project, about how frequently it happens and how it affect the justice system.
Around 50 percent or fewer ash trees have died in northern Wisconsin where infestations are relatively new, according to PJ Liesch, an entomologist with the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Unfortunately, we’re still going to be seeing lots of ash trees dying over the years and likely decades to come,” Liesch said.
“It is the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive folksong field collection ever made for the Library of Congress,” said James P. Leary, professor emeritus of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies at UW-Madison. It reminds “us that we cannot fully grasp the richness of American roots music without recognizing the many peoples, tongues, and sounds that – whether past or present, from mainstream or margins, deservedly acknowledged or unjustly ignored – have always made America great.”
Dr. Nick Hillman, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referenced a 2020 article written by Dr. Denisa Gándara and Dr. Sosanya Jones titled Who Deserves benefits in higher Education? A Policy Discourse Analysis of a Process Surrounding Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, telling Newsweek via email on Thursday that “they have found policymakers favor certain groups over others based on notions of deservingness.
The UW-Extension office said it depends on the lawn. Lawns that are solely turfgrass will provide few resources for pollinators. But lawns that have low-growing plants like dandelions will provide nectar and pollen.
The Cardinal-Hickory Creek fight is as much about legal principles as it is about the fate of the mile-wide section of the wildlife refuge the developers want to traverse. The actual environmental impacts of the current deal on the table are arguably not the worst outcome, explains David Drake, a wildlife specialist at the University of Wisconsin. With proper mitigation, he argues, the ecosystem could respond well to the proposed land swap. “After the transmission towers are constructed, there is a minimal impact at that point,” he explains, though he warns that construction would still pose dangers like habitat disturbance and invasive species.
“Small, transient episodes of loneliness really motivate people to then seek out social connection,” said Anna Finley, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute on Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But in chronic episodes of loneliness, that seems to kind of backfire” because people become especially attuned to social threats or signals of exclusion, which can then make it scary or unpleasant for them to interact with others.
“Lawns seem to draw as much irrational hate as they do love these days,” said Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are.”
“The dairy industry has never had to deal with something like this before,” says Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and a former dairy veterinarian. “This is probably going to be the most important outbreak in my professional career.”
Cicadas are very loud indeed. Extension entomologist P.J. Liesch of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told CBS 58 in Milwaukee that a grove of trees with a bunch of singing and screeching cicadas could reach 70 to 80 decibels – a similar volume to a vacuum cleaner.
KP.1.1 and KP.2, nicknamed FLiRT (pronounced “flirt”), are considered omicron variants, said University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of population health sciences Ajay Sethi. The “FL” and “RT” in the name refer to the mutations present in the variants that allow them to evade some of the immunity people have built up from past infections or vaccines.
And for well over a decade Jo Handelsman, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been championing a state microbe. Among other things, Lactococcus lactis is used to make cheese, a big local industry. Professor Handelsman said the idea to make it a state symbol started off as a joke in a meeting of the bacteriology department.
Colleagues were considering how to educate people about the benefits of microbes, but then they decided “that’s actually a great idea”. The first attempt to pass it, in 2009, failed, but it’s back on the agenda.
The milestone transplant excites Dr. Anna Gaddy of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Dr. Didier Mandelbrot of UW Health who work with patients living with chronic kidney disease.
“The burden of chronic kidney disease in the United States is just enormous and the vast majority of people with chronic kidney disease don’t know that they have it,” Gaddy said.
The connection between humans and dogs has long been studied by researchers in fields like anthropology and psychology—but not by many economists. Interview with David Weimer, author of a new book that studies human-canine relationships through an economic lens.
We talk to authors of new book “Chasing the Stars,” James Lattis and Kelly Tyrrell, about the history and astronomical impact of the Washburn Observatory on the UW-Madison campus.
Dr. Sterling Johnson, a study author who leads the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention at the University of Wisconsin, said it would be very important for clinical trials to start to take participants’ APOE4 status into account.
Dr. Keith Poulsen, director of the UW-Madison Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, has been monitoring a strain of avian influenza called H5N1 that has so far been identified in dairy cows in nine states. It has not been found in Wisconsin, but Poulsen said researchers are testing cows that are transported across state lines.
“I think folklore forecasts will continue to reside in our social communities and circles. They’re tradition,” says Steve Ackerman, retired professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He adds tactfully: “While old sayings of the coming weather still enter our social lives, I do think we rely more now on forecasts that better reflect our understanding of atmosphere circulations.”
If you find them, remove them before they start flowering or seeding, said Susan Carpenter, native plant garden curator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. Native plants should be your first choice to replace invasives, but you can also opt for noninvasive ornamentals, Carpenter said.
Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, has studied how best to teach African American students. She told us an encouraging teacher can change a life.
“We still don’t fully understand some of the core aspects of their biology,” said PJ Liesch, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin. Though there are theories about the insects counting the years through the compounds in tree sap, soil temperatures and their own underground communication, none manage to completely unravel the cicada’s mystery.
“If it had liquid water in the past, and if we can really confirm that, then yes – Venus would likely be the planet I would place my bet on,” University of Wisconsin-Madison planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye tells Inverse.
ssistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In those situations, having members of both parties present reduces the risk that observers might think poll workers are trying to benefit one side or another, said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It should build trust in the system, because it means that each polling place, if it were staffed by at least one Republican and one Democratic poll worker, has a monitor from each party essentially keeping eyes on what’s happening,” Burden said.
Steve Vavrus, director of the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, said that continues an ongoing trend where many months have been warmer than normal.
“Not only here, but over most of the country,” Vavrus said. “And that would continue the long- term trend with our warming climate.”
Student protests across the UW system are as old as the universities themselves. One project is working to archive that history, specifically at UW-Madison. It’s called Sifting and Reckoning. It shares the history of student protests and uncovers the exclusion and violence toward marginalized groups on campus. Kacie Lucchini Butcher, the director of the Rebecca M Blanks Center for Campus History, shares about the project.
Research shows that traumatic experiences can shift the physical makeup of our brains, said Shanda Wells, behavioral health manager for Behavioral Health in Primary Care at UW Health. When we encounter life-threatening events, it can change how we react to other things, which makes processing those experiences all the more vital.
If concerns around bird flu persist, milk’s relevance may continue to slide. Even the slightest bit of consumer apprehension could cause already-struggling dairy farms to shut down. “An additional contributing factor really doesn’t bode well,” Leonard Polzin, a dairy expert at the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Division of Extension, told me. For the rest of us, there is now yet another reason to avoid milk—and even less left to the belief that milk is special.
I spoke to Tyler Lark, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose 2022 study questioned ethanol’s climate credentials and concluded that it can be more carbon-intensive than gasoline. He told me that the margins on ethanol’s benefits are thin enough that, depending on the model you chose to calculate its effects, the results can be radically different. His paper prompted rebuttals from the Renewable Fuel Association, an industry group, and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Sleep apnea has become more common in recent years, with an estimated 30 million Americans affected by the condition. Interview with Dr. Stacey Ishman from UW Health.
Beth Olson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences in the Department of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recently spoke to WPR’s “Central Time” about
A meteorite found in Wisconsin 15 years ago is now on display at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Geology Museum.
There are some educational interventions that could help those at the lower end of the income-distribution spectrum. Educating consumers on certain kinds of fraud or teaching them how to negotiate or dispute debts are examples of some effective interventions, said J. Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and faculty director of the school’s Center for Financial Security.
Column by Burden, a professor of political science at UW-Madison.
Many people brush off measles outbreaks as a problem for the unvaccinated, or dismiss spikes in mpox as an issue mainly for men who have sex with men, Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. And they shrug off just about any epidemic that happens abroad.
UW Health’s Dr. Jeff Pothof joins News 3 Now Live at Four to discuss the importance of being vaccinated against measles.
The announcement Tuesday from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force makes official a draft recommendation announced last year. The recommendations were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Several University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers aided in the study, including UW School of Medicine and Public Health professor Amy Trentham-Dietz, who’s the lead author of the study.
An innovative program at UW-Madison is connecting communities throughout Wisconsin to education, outreach, technical assistance and research to help local governments solve challenges and improve livability and wellbeing.
PJ Liesch, an entomologist with the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said defoliation could slow the growth of trees that may be logged for lumber. From a forest health perspective, it could also leave them vulnerable to secondary pests like the two lined chestnut borer. The insect, a native relative of the invasive emerald ash borer, typically targets weaker oak trees and starts killing branches in the upper canopy.
With spongy moth increasing for several years now, Liesch said there’s a lot of stressed oak trees. “So the secondary insects and problems can start popping up, and then it’s a very slippery slope leading to tree death in some situations,” Liesch said.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison are leading a new nationwide hub for school mental health grants.
Katie Eklund, Stephen Kilgus and Andy Garbacz are in charge of METRICS, a new center dedicated to addressing students’ mental health needs. They’re co-directors of the School Mental Health Collaborative, under UW-Madison’s Department of Educational Psychology.
“Any habitat that provides more flowers is going to be a benefit to pollinators. That being said, if your lawn is all grass with no flowers at all, not mowing for the month of May is not going to have any impact on pollinators,” said Hannah Gaines-Day, research scientist at UW-Madison’s department of entomology. “So, if you’re participating just to participate but you have no flowers, then the pollinators are not going to see a benefit.”
“While opioids are involved in the majority of overdose deaths in the United States, we are increasingly seeing deaths involving a variety of other substances as well,” says Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, associate professor in the department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “Substance use trends also look quite different from one region to another.”
These critters might also be known as May bugs, June beetles or even screen-thumpers, depending on where you live, and are characterized by a reddish-brown or almost black color, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
University of Wisconsin–Madison Vice Provost and CIO Lois Brooks shares how an internal group supports a vibrant, collegial IT community at the university.
The state’s top disease official says reports of public exposure to two infectious diseases in Wisconsin last week show new emphasis is needed on the importance of vaccines.
“I’m excited that states and institutions are thinking about ways to streamline the pipeline into college,” said Taylor Odle, assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has studied college admission policy extensively.
With Colorado becoming the ninth state to confirm bird flu in dairy cattle last Friday, Wisconsin farmers are becoming increasingly concerned about the spread of the highly contagious H5N1 avian influenza virus.
It’s having a deep impact on the labor force. According to a 2023 report from High Roads Strategy Center, part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin’s women labor force participation dropped below 60% for the first time since the late 1980s.
“Our relative (workforce) advantage shrank quite substantially over the last two years,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of High Roads Strategy Center. “We know that child care has been in crisis, even before the pandemic. Our structures for taking care of kids tend to weigh heavily on women and on women’s work.”
In 2012, a group of law students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison saw a need for free legal assistance among undocumented immigrants.
Around 200 immigrants were facing deportation in Wisconsin at that time, but there were few legal resources for them, especially in the Dane County area. In response, the students established the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Immigrant Justice Clinic.
rofessor of Political Science, Director of the Elections Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
That’s what led him to share the discovery on Reddit. From there, the poster was able to source the expertise of John Hawks, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He regularly writes about paleoanthropology, the study of human evolution through fossil and archaeological records.
The phenomenon attracted the attention of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who shared thermal imagery of the ring on social media and then studied the warm water, revealing the cause in a blog on its website.
“It’s very kind of New Age with spiritual components,” said Bruce E. Wampold, a counseling psychology professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has studied the effectiveness of psychotherapy in clinical trials. “It’s on the periphery of what I would say evidence-based treatments would be.”
On the Friday 8 O’Clock Buzz with Andy Moore, Dean Diana Hess from UW-Madison’s School of Education discusses the critical need for teachers in Wisconsin and the innovative Wisconsin Teacher Pledge program.
In some areas of the state, “from a distance, they can actually look like plumes of smoke because there are so many, probably tens or hundreds of thousands, in some of these mating swarms that they form,” said P.J. Liesch, director of the UW-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.
But “the 2023 numbers seem to indicate that bump is over and we’re back to the trends we were in before,” said Nicholas Mark, a University of Wisconsin researcher who studies how social policy and other factors influence health and fertility.
In H5N1-infected cows, the first thing that tends to happen is their appetite disappears and their activity goes down. Then their milk production dries up. In some animals, the milk they do produce turns yellow and thick. “It’s an odd thing that seems to be unique to this particular virus,” said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
