Co-authored by J. Michael Collins, a professor in the School of Human Ecology and the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and Tyler Q. Welch is a PhD candidate in the Wisconsin School of Business’ Risk and Insurance department, both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Democrats are now a party of higher income and more educated voters, rather than lower income and less educated voters, and that makes them more reliable voters,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.
Tim Carr, deputy chair of the real-estate department at the University of Wisconsin, says another option is to invest through online platforms that offer slices of ownership of large properties to investors, a process known as syndication. Two popular platforms—BiggerPockets and RealtyMogul—offer a variety of properties, deal structures and potential returns.
A dangerous bird flu, in other words, was suddenly circulating in mammals — mammals with which people have ongoing, extensive contact. “Holy cow,” says Thomas Friedrich, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “This is how pandemics start.”
The award is well deserved, says Brian Rebel, a particle physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Finding the Higgs [boson] in 2012 was a once-in-lifetime event, but it was only the first step,” Rebel says. Since then, LHC scientists have been pinning down the mass of the Higgs and its interactions, as well as discovering 72 new particles, investigating antimatter and probing the nature of the ‘quark–gluon plasma’ that existed soon after the Big Bang. “It takes a small army to create the tools to test and validate these results,” says Rebel.
Martin Ventura, the Urban Agriculture and Community Gardens Specialist at UW-Madison Extension, manages and maintains farms in the Milwaukee area, some of which are farmed by immigrants, particularly in the Hmong community. UW-Extension, Ventura said, had a former partnership with the Hmong American Friendship Association to establish a Hmong heritage garden plot, allowing local communities to farm.
It’s unclear whether the episode will “sour the relationship between him and Trump,” said Barry Burden, the director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center, to the Post. While Trump has steadfastly supported the man many consider his de facto co-president, the recent election loss “could be the start of a slow divorce between the two of them.”
“There are some articulated bones that are nearly absent in other metoposaurid bone beds in North America, and completely unknown for Buettnererpeton,” study co-authors Dave Lovelace and Aaron Kufner, who are both geoscientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tell Popular Science’s Andrew Paul.
Hillary Jones Henry faced tough choices when he received his February stipend for teaching Swahili at the University of Wisconsin-Madison six days late, receiving one-fourth of the promised amount.
Michael Light, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, began teaching “Immigration, Crime, and Enforcement” in 2017 after transferring from Purdue University. An instant success, the class has full enrollment each semester, which Light said demonstrates its relevance in today’s political climate.
“Although Green Bay being a city, you know, of course has a substantial number of Democratic leaning votes as well,”said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and affiliate faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “Counties like Brown County and other northern counties, which are traditionally conservative strongholds in Wisconsin depend heavily on manufacturing and agriculture, and those are areas that are being slammed by the tariffs.”
UW-Madison administrators have long wanted to tear down the Humanities Building for a host of reasons. The facility has faced problems since before it opened in the late 1960s, including costly construction, design cuts and poor acoustics.
Birds, amphibians, large predators and their babies all come out in springtime, explain our guests, two UW-Extension wildlife specialists. Then, we talk to a filmmaker and Wisconsin native about his Tomah-area film project.
“Like other metoposaurids, it probably spent most, if not all, of its life in the water eating fish, other amphibians, or anything unfortunate enough to venture too far into the water,” University of Wisconsin-Madison paleolontologists and study co-authors Dave Lovelace and Aaron Kufner told Popular Science.
“The optimal monetary response is to stimulate the economy, raising aggregate income and boosting demand for imported goods,” wrote Minneapolis Fed economist Javier Bianchi and University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor Louphou Coulibaly.
Study first author Aaron Kufner, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and colleagues uncovered fossils of Buettnererpeton bakeri in a Wyoming fossil bed called Nobby Knob.
“This assemblage is a snapshot of a single population rather than an accumulation over time,” Kufner said in a statement. The discovery “more than doubles the number of known Buettnererpeton bakeri individuals.” Alongside the B. bakeri fossils, the team also found fossilized plants, bivalves and fossilized poop, called coprolites.
The role of Musk — who is overseeing a controversial cost-cutting operation for Trump — made the race in part a referendum on him, said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center.
“He is such an unusual person and he has this outsize influence in what is going on,” Burden said of Musk, who is listed by Forbes as the world’s richest person. “So that concern fit the narrative of what he was doing in the Wisconsin race, throwing his weight around and using his wealth. It was just a step too far for a lot of voters.”
The approach is unique, according to Mary Beth Collins, the executive director of the Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She finds that celebrities typically engage in philanthropy only when necessary.
“We want to see funds and resources from the more endowed people in the world going to those leaders on the ground that really know the place and the experience and the issues best,” Collins said.
The Trump administration cut funding for social security research programs across the country, including one at UW-Madison. We talk the director of the local program about how its research has helped shape public policy and what impact these cuts will have.
Learn to appreciate insects, with guidance from local artist Jennifer Angus, entomologist P.J. Liesch, bumblebee expert Judy Cardin and more.
“Parents and kids are very aware of the narrative and very worried,” says Megan Moreno, an adolescent-medicine physician at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. That sparks family battles over screens — and leaves parents unsure what to do.
In 2023’s state Supreme Court election, Wisconsin’s young voters voted at a higher rate than ever recorded, Howard Schweber, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Washington Examiner.
“I’m not shocked that we might see that record broken again,” he added. “It’s a reflection of a lot of things – the nationalization of the election, the enormous flow of money, the enormous number of ads, the genuine stakes. I do like to think that there is also something about the Wisconsin culture of civic engagement and getting out there and having your voice heard.”
“The (Republican) Party is behaving as if it has a mandate for really dramatic action,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center.
“A loss by conservatives in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race would be a big symbolic setback,” he continued. “It would suggest the public is tired of that and wants the administration to stop and go in a different direction.”
“It looks like Elon Musk’s intervention probably backfired,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center. “It really provided fuel for Crawford’s campaign and a kind of focal point for people who were upset by what’s happening in Washington.”
“We could see this kind of back-and-forth at fairly short terms — a year, two years, three years in between them — in a way that deprives the court of one of the key things that is supposed to separate law from politics, which is stability,” said Howard Schweber, professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The court’s upcoming decisions on abortion, union rights and election laws have helped make this a blockbuster election,” says Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin political scientist. Another matter at stake could be the shape of the state’s congressional delegation, which is currently filled by six Republicans and two Democrats. If Crawford wins, a round of redistricting for the congressional map could follow the one already implemented for state legislative seats.
The level of intensity in the state feels about like a presidential election, said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s now become kind of a national referendum, or at least a way to measure the temperature of the electorate a couple of months into the Trump administration. The fact that the court is up for grabs ideologically and is weighing in on these important issues and money is so easily spread into these campaigns has really been the kind of magic stew that has put these elections on the map for everyone.”
Allison Prasch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specialises in US political rhetoric, said this race was a strategy test for both sides.
“We know that Wisconsin, up to the very end of the presidential cycle, was very close,” she said, noting that some cities such as Milwaukee and Madison unexpectedly swung towards Trump and helped deliver him the state’s electoral college votes. “What happens in Wisconsin [now] is going to tell us a lot about what’s going to happen, not just in 2026 but in 2028.”
Written by Sarah McKinnon, faculty director of Latin America, Caribbean, and Iberian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and member of the Migration in the Americas Project.
This March, Wisconsin saw both temperatures in the 70s and snow flurries. Here to explain the battle between winter and spring we experience this time of year are the Weather Guys, Steve Ackerman and Jon Martin.
Manny Teodoro, a professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the project’s founder and lead researcher. He told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that this kind of comprehensive report is only possible in Wisconsin because of the “depth and quality of data we have on water system performance.”
“You could not do this in any other state,” he said.
Emeritus Professor of Public Affairs and Applied Economics at University of Wisconsin Madison, Andrew Reschovsky, said low income students, students with disabilities and rural school districts can impact how much each student costs, when calculating state aid allocated per pupil. He added that the formula used to determine state aid amounts in Wisconsin does not take these factors into account.
“Those sort of factors are not part of our what are called general aid formula in Wisconsin. In most other states, they are integral to the main funding formula,” said Reschovsky.
At University of Wisconsin-Madison, radiology and biomedical engineering professor Pallavi Tiwari is leading a team of researchers to make cancer diagnoses more comprehensive with the help of AI. Tiwari is also one of the leaders for the school’s RISE-AI and RISE-THRIVE initiatives focused on AI in advancing health outcomes.
“The 12th Amendment states that anyone who is ineligible to be president is also deemed to be illegible to serve as vice president,” said Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “This means that Trump could not serve as vice president, which is the post he would need for the Vance scheme to be executed.”
“It’s really the first major election since Trump and Republicans took office in January,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center.
“It’s become kind of a referendum on the Trump administration, and what Elon Musk is doing as part of that, and Musk has amplified that by getting involved in Wisconsin,” explained Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If there was any doubt about whether this election had a connection to national politics, Trump and Musk have made that connection for voters.”
However, the same court declined a request to redraw boundaries for the Wisconsin congressional map. Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he believes the issue is being “overblown” in this year’s race.
“I think it’s possible, but I wouldn’t say that it’s likely,” Burden said of congressional redistricting. “And it’s not the most important thing determining what happens in those midterm elections.”
In a social media post Friday morning, Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Musk appears to be crossing a line.
“Earlier payments were for registering, but this is for voting,” Burden said. “A clear violation of the state’s election bribery law.”
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, said he believes Schimel has made Trump the centerpiece of his campaign because Republicans have fared poorly in Wisconsin when Trump is not on the ballot.
“Schimel hitching himself to the Trump train looks like the tactic they believe is necessary to reel in less attentive voters who take note of Trump, even if it comes with the risk of blowback,” Burden said.
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, credited the state Democratic Party for the large number of out-of-state residents donating to Crawford.
“The Democratic Party of Wisconsin established a national profile over the past five years and has attracted contributions from a network of progressive donors all over the country,” Burden said. “Touting Crawford’s campaign has definitely brought contributions her way.”
“Earlier payments were for registering but this is for voting. A clear violation of the state’s election bribery law,” Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin Madison, wrote in a post on X.
Bryna Godar, staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said Musk changing the terms of his offer “puts the payments and attendance at the rally back into a gray area under Wisconsin law.”
“The question is whether the offers are ‘in order to induce’ people to vote or go to the polls, and there can be arguments made on either side of that question,” she said in an email.
Robert Yablon, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that the huge spending in the race was only possible because of the state’s loose campaign finance laws. People in Wisconsin can donate unlimited amounts to state parties, which can pass that money on to candidates. There are also very weak anti-coordination laws between independent expenditure groups and campaigns.
“You would hope that in a judicial race, you might have different candidates – maybe they have different ideologies or philosophies, different ways that they talk about the law, but it’s shared ground that they believe that the judiciary ought to operate independently from other branches, ought to check those branches,” he said.
“That ought to energize Democrats that there’s still some life left in the party, despite them being kind of at sea in Washington,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Christine Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, shared data with me on trends in the educational profile of heterosexual married couples from 1940 to 2020. According to her calculations, in 2020, American husbands and wives shared the same broad level of education in 44.5 percent of heterosexual marriages, down from more than 47 percent in the early 2000s.
Chuck Nicholson, an associate professor of animal and dairy sciences and agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shared insights on the potential ramifications.
His research, recently featured in Time magazine, highlights the challenges posed by the back-and-forth nature of tariffs on the economy.
Mike Wagner, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying how media use relates to political behavior, said mimicking trusted local news is a “pretty sophisticated” strategy — but possibly not for long. He said his surveys show more Wisconsinites avoiding news and information altogether.
“They’re overwhelmed by the constant din of content, and they seek it less,” he said. “As newspapers probably continue to decline, the value of looking like a newspaper will also decline.”
Steven Deller, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called Canada’s billboard campaign “pretty unusual.”
“I can’t think of a single time that another government has taken a very proactive kind of marketing campaign like this,” Deller said.
“I think it’s extreme nervousness about how these tariffs will disrupt trade,” he added.
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, credited the state Democratic Party for the large number of out-of-state residents donating to Crawford.
“The Democratic Party of Wisconsin established a national profile over the past five years and has attracted contributions from a network of progressive donors all over the country,” Burden said. “Touting Crawford’s campaign has definitely brought contributions her way.”
A few years ago, D’Orazio spoke with Madison family medicine physician, Dr. James Bigham, about a program to train doctors and medical students at University of Wisconsin-Madison about how to talk to patients about firearms.
D’Orazio’s first question to Bigham: How many of these doctors know anything about a gun? “How are they going to answer questions from their patients if they have never touched a gun, shot a gun, know what a bullet is?” he said. “That’s where I come in.”
Some researchers, including John Womersley, a former chief executive of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, and Tulika Bose, an LHC physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, want to see higher-energy machines developed as quickly as possible.
No dairy is pathogen-free, even with the best precautions, said John Lucey, a food science professor who has studied raw milk extensively. Harmful bacteria are in the soil, in the digestive tracts of cows and in the poop they deposit, Lucey said.
Louise Robbins, a retired professor of library studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the money might be the only source of funding for some tribal libraries.
“It’s very heavily used by people of all ages, income levels, needs, abilities, and [the order] would really severely damage services and have a huge impact, a multiplying impact, because people often use the funding from ILMS to match other funding,” Robbins said.
Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said while there are potential conflicts of interest with the volume of money in court races, funding that is less traceable presents a different challenge.
To help students engage in career wellness, a group of students from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona—supported by advisers from Cal Poly Pomona—created Tune In to Strive Out, which encourages students to channel their inner potential for future success and collective well-being.
“This temporal boundary, however, was nearly breached in 2019,” said Dr. Jonathan Temte, professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Temte was part of the team who declared measles eliminated in 2000.
Some researchers, including John Womersley, a former chief executive of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, and Tulika Bose, an LHC physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, want to see higher-energy machines developed as quickly as possible.
A UW expert is advising people who used 23andMe, a DNA genetic testing company, to delete their accounts after the company filed for bankruptcy.
Dorthea Salo is a distinguished teaching faculty at the UW-Madison information school. She says people’s genetic information could be at risk if 23andMe has to sell their data.
Director Samantha McCabe runs International Student Services at UW-Madison. She said international students are worried about a potential travel ban, their visas and federal funding uncertainty. She is concerned recent federal actions could ultimately shrink the international student population at UW-Madison.
“We could see this kind of back-and-forth at fairly short terms — a year, two years, three years in between them — in a way that deprives the court of one of the key things that is supposed to separate law from politics, which is stability,” said Howard Schweber, professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
