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Category: UW Experts in the News

‘It’s not a good scenario’: Wisconsin farmer says continued drought could mean smaller crop yields

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Shawn Conley is a soybean and small grain specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said many farmers who just finished harvesting winter wheat brought in quality grain. Conley said soybean fields are also doing OK, but they’ll need at least an inch of rain per week until September to reach their best yields.

“If we don’t get rain, we’ll start seeing a yield hit on the soybean side of things,” Conley said. “Corn is a different matter. I think we’ve already started to see some corn yield losses out there.”

Wisconsin’s paper mills are famous, but its paper converters are just as crucial. Here’s why

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The Post-Crescent

While paper converters often go overlooked, they play an important role in both Wisconsin’s paper industry and its economy, according to a recent study from the Wisconsin Paper Council and University of Wisconsin titled, “Adding Value to Our Economy – Paper Conversion in Wisconsin.” More than 145 paper converters operated in Wisconsin in 2022, according to the study.

That number gets bigger a lot faster if you factor in companies that use paper along with plastic and other types of products, Scott Bowe, a professor and wood products specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in the May 31 episode of the Wisconsin Paper Council’s “The Paper Files” podcast about the study.

The heat index is soaring: Are you feeling more depressed?

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South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“It’s been proven that protracted hot weather can make people depressed,” said Dr. Charles Raison, who has done research on heat intolerance and summer-related depression. “It seems as if the system that modulates body temp also modulates mood.”

Raison, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said people with mental illness often have trouble with thermal regulation. “From our data, we know that people with depression tend to run body temperatures higher than average, and they don’t sweat as much. So being depressed could set you up to not be able to tolerate heat well.”

Most new Madison apartment buildings are unaffordable to average renter, analysis shows

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Wisconsin State Journal

Considering those factors, Madison needs to build its way out of the housing crisis, experts said. That means building units at all price points to stabilize rent prices, said Kurt Paulsen, urban planning professor at UW-Madison.

“It’s a hard sell, but it works,” Paulsen said. “Housing is mostly a private business. We cannot force a developer or a landlord to provide low-cost affordable housing.”

GOP measure would eliminate sales taxes for strollers, other baby products in Wisconsin

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Wisconsin State Journal

The economic impacts of the proposal could be significant because parents typically buy baby items right before and right after birth, which is around the time that parental income falls the most, said Jessica Pac, a UW-Madison assistant social work professor.

“If you spend $100 per month just on diapers, and you remove this 5% sales tax, that would be $5 per month, which alone amounts to $60 per year,” Pac said. “But then when you consider all the items covered in the proposal that are purchased in the same time period, it would modestly offset expenses in the first few years of life.”

Ketamine is promising but pricey for Madisonians

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The Capital Times

That’s a problem, said UW-Madison assistant professor Dr. Christopher Nicholas, who researches how psychedelics and other psychoactive compounds can be used to treat addiction, trauma, chronic pain and depression. “Trauma doesn’t discriminate … and those who are suffering often don’t have the resources to pay for ketamine,” Nicholas said.

Wisconsin has $125 million to fight PFAS. Here’s what’s next.

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The Capital Times

Gavin Dehnert, emerging contaminants scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped write the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ statewide PFAS standards in drinking water. He told the Cap Times the bill provides much-needed funding for testing and cleanup efforts in both public and private water sources.

“Before we can actually remediate it, we have to know where it is,” Dehnert said. “This does a pretty good job at saying, ‘OK, here is where the PFAS are. Let’s find out where the PFAS are so we can go about doing our best to remediate it.’”

Psychedelics might revolutionize therapy. What happens if you remove the trip?

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Vox

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, anesthesiology professor Matthew Banks is tinkering with something in between leaving the trip alone and anesthesia: What if you let people have their full-on psychedelic experience, but then erase their memory of the trip altogether? Do you need to remember a trip for the benefits to stick?

A heat wave is hitting Wisconsin. Here’s what to know

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Wisconsin State Journal

Limnology experts will pay especially close attention to algae growth in Madison’s lakes this week, according to Emily Stanley with the UW-Madison Center for Limnology. Excessive heat and calm water are both good ingredients for algae blooms, she said.

Stanley is expecting algae and weeds to get “slightly greener” but isn’t anticipating anything extreme. The lack of rain has slowed the growth of algae blooms this summer, so a few hot days shouldn’t make much of a difference.

‘Dairy farmers are hurting right now’: Milk prices and dry weather impacting farms

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Spectrum News

Leonard Polzin tracks dairy markets at the UW-Madison Division of Extension. He said the state is feeling the effects of a post-pandemic lag in milk demand.

“Total supply is up, and demand is down. We’re increasing inventory, cows keep producing every day, and we just can’t turn it off. Our inventory numbers of all dairy products are increasing, and buyers know that. Buyers are not hungry for product,” explained Polzin.

From cheese tasters to product testing, the Center for Dairy Research continues innovating industry

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CBS 58

For 37 years, the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) has helped innovate the dairy industry.

“Cheese-making has been around, there are lots of different guesses right now, but probably somewhere in the region of 8000 years,” CDR and University of Wisconsin Madison Professor of Food Science John Lucey said.

How Biden’s SAVE plan fits could affect student loans

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Wisconsin Public Radio

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Biden administration program for student loan relief, President Joe Biden is out with an alternative plan. The Department of Education is calling the Saving on Valuable Education plan the “most generous” repayment program of its kind. Nicholas Hillman, a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW-Madison, gives an update on federal student loan policy.

Florida kept disabled kids in institutions. A judge is sending them home.

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The Washington Post

Mary Ehlenbach, the medical director of the Pediatric Complex Care Program at the University of Wisconsin, who interviewed 44 families with institutionalized children and submitted a report on her findings for the case, said that many families were told incorrectly that their children were medically unfit to live at home or that the family wasn’t eligible to bring their child home because of the size of their house.

Bots Are Grabbing Students’ Personal Data When They Complete Assignments

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Chronicle of Higher Ed

“We behave differently if we know we’re being watched. We get timid, we get shy, we spend a lot of our cognition on what people are going to think. … That’s not what we want” in higher ed, said Dorothea Salo, a teaching faculty member at University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Information School. This is especially the case in today’s political climate, where exploring topics like gender identity and abortion can put people in danger.

Misinformation, disinformation: A guide to sort fiction from reality

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The Capital Times

Other imposter content commonly takes the form of websites or social media accounts, said Mike Wagner, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wagner is the lead investigator for the NSF-funded research project in which Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times are participating. “We’ve had misinformation since we’ve had information, and we’ve had people sharing things that aren’t true since they shared things that are true,” Wagner said.

Wisconsin may be seeing its worst spongy moth outbreak in more than a decade

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Spongy moth populations may spike temporarily about every 10 years. Outbreaks have been trending upward in the last couple of years, according to PJ Liesch, an entomologist with the Division of Extension at UW-Madison. The DNR recorded 294 acres of spongy moth defoliation in 2021, but around 85,000 acres of trees experienced a loss of leaves last year.

‘More than just a job’: Wisconsin dairy industry focused on workforce amid state’s labor shortage

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Leonard Polzin is dairy markets and policy specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension. He told Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Central Time” that most dairy processors have ongoing recruitment efforts and continue to think about ways to compete with employers hiring from the same labor pool. But he said processors are also starting to pay more attention to advancements in technology and how automation could make jobs easier or replace them altogether.

“If they can take what once was done by 10 people and do it by one person through the advent of additional investment, that’s always a topic of discussion,” he said.

Supreme Court justice writes DEI education for attorneys would create ‘goose-stepping brigade’

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: University of Wisconsin Madison associate professor of political science and legal studies Howard Schweber said given the current state of politics, it’s not surprising that the state’s high court denied the DEI education request. But he called Bradley’s comments shocking.

“Whatever tattered shreds of civility were left within the legal profession have surely vanished when you have a Supreme Court justice saying about her own state’s bar that they are effectively in a conspiracy to take over America and to make an explicit Nazi reference in doing so,” Schweber said.

Federal agriculture officials declare drought disaster in southern Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Josh Kamps is a crops and soils educator for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension in the southwestern region. He said crop conditions vary greatly across his area, even from farm to farm.

Kamps said producers who were able to plant early in the season got enough rain to get crops started, allowing the plants to grow deeper roots that tapped into water farther below the surface as soils dried out.

“We have areas where crops were planted a little bit later, maybe toward the end of May,” he said. “Those crops are really struggling. These last couple of rain showers this week are going to definitely help.”

‘Here & Now’ Highlights: Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Alder Russell Stamper II, Howard Schweber

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PBS Wisconsin

Here’s what guests on the July 14, 2023 episode said about a 2% sales tax in the city of Milwaukee that comes with specific policy conditions and a surprising circuit court ruling in the Wisconsin abortion statutes lawsuit.

Includes interview with Howard Schweber, professor emeritus of political science at the UW-Madison and affiliated faculty at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Survey: Just under half of Wisconsin businesses plan to hire additional employees over the next six months

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Steven Deller, professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said businesses remain in “wait and see mode,” as they’ve dealt with economic uncertainty since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates more than a year ago.

“Six months ago, it was like, the Fed is raising interest rates, the sky is falling, the leading economic indicators are all pointing towards recession,” Deller said. “Now, people are going, ‘Well, wait a minute, the sky is not falling.'”

Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Goldman Sachs’ prediction might be a little rosier than that of most economists. He said economists are anticipating an economic slowdown in the latter half of 2023 or early 2024.

“While people think the chances of a recession are receding, I think the average forecaster still sees a recession coming,” Chinn said. “That being said, I think most of them also think it would be a mild recession.”

4 Numbers To Watch For As The Climate Crisis Heats Up

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Forbes

The fourth number to keep an eye on is any metric of smoke. The U.S. has been in a relative lull, but more smoke is expected this weekend from wildfires in Canada. As of Friday, it was already evident on weather satellite imagery. The tweet below from the University of Wisconsin-Madison CIMSS site provides great perspecive on current and near-future status of vertically integrated smoke.

Second Alzheimer’s drug to slow disease’s progression may be approved in the US this year

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CBS News

“The modest benefits would likely not be questioned by patients, clinicians, or payers, if amyloid antibodies were low risk, inexpensive and simple to administer,” wrote UCSF’s Dr. Eric Widera, SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Dr. Sharon Brangman and the University of Wisconsin’s Dr. Nathaniel Chin. “However, they are none of these.”

Long-unfunded Wisconsin State Climatology Office boosted by USDA grant

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Wisconsin Public Radio

For the first time in a decade, the Wisconsin State Climatology Office is receiving government funding. A USDA grant will focus the office on rural needs, particularly those of farmers. We talk to Steve Vavrus, the Wisconsin State Climatologist and a senior scientist for the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Center for Climatic Research at UW-Madison, about this and funding for a statewide network of weather stations.

Rockabetty’s is closing as some Madison salons struggle with hiring, rising rents

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Wisconsin State Journal

That could have to do with workers in service industries gravitating toward jobs that were more stable during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Nancy Wong, UW-Madison professor of consumer science.

“Perhaps these industries also do not pay as well,” she said, and salon owners are faced with the expense of raising wages and offering regular hours. That cost can be passed on to customers.

Six Right-Wing Activists Filed 89,000 Georgia Voter Roll Challenges

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ProPublica

“If all these challengers are finding is inconsequential errors that do not affect election results on the whole, but they’re placing real and harmful burdens on voters, then you have to wonder why they’re really doing this,” said Derek Clinger, a senior staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “It’s doing more harm than good.”

New research and therapy development at UW Carbone Cancer Center

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Wisconsin Public Radio

According to Newsweek, the UW Carbone Cancer Center is listed as the top cancer hospital in Wisconsin for 2023. We learn about the hospital’s latest work, including prostate MRI’s and proton therapy. Interview with Dr. Joshua Lang, associate director of translational research, and Dr. Nataliya Uboha, an oncologist and faculty leader for Cancer Therapy Discovery & Development, both at the UW Carbone Cancer Center.

Earth entering a new, human-caused, geologic age

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Wisconsin Public Radio

A panel of scientists are saying the planet is entering a new geologic epoch for the first time in civilization’s history: the Anthropocene. It’s also the first era sparked by humanity’s planetary impact. We talk with Elizabeth Hennessy, a UW-Madison Environmental Studies associate professor, about the effects of humanity on the planet. 

Experts say only far northern Wisconsin has a chance to see the northern lights this week

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Jim Lattis, director of University of Wisconsin’s Space Place, said auroras are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with gasses like nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere. He said a lot of things have to go right for that to happen.

“There are solar flares popping off on the sun every other day or daily these days, but those flares have to emit something that then crosses an awful lot of space between us and the sun, and then actually interacts with the earth,” he said.

Summer nights are getting warmer in Wisconsin. Here’s why that’s a problem.

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Warmer nights can be especially concerning because the body no longer has a chance to cool down, said Elizabeth Berg, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the effect of heat in urban environments.

“If temperatures stay above a certain threshold overnight, that’s when it’s … constant stress on your system,” she said. “And that’s when things get dangerous.”

Wisconsin schools that went remote for longer saw expanded gaps in graduation rates

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Wisconsin schools that had a longer period of virtual or hybrid learning during the pandemic saw graduation rates rise among wealthier students and fall among those at an economic disadvantage, a new study found.

The study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published in the journal Educational Researcher, analyzed data from 429 public high schools in the state during the 2020-21 school year and two years before then.

Some sweet corn crops worst in 40 years as drought leaves farms in dire need of rain

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Wisconsin State Journal

The dry conditions come as corn is nearing its pollination phase, a critical six- to eight-day period that will help determine fall yields, said Joe Lauer, an agronomist at UW-Madison and an expert in corn research.

“It’s really a pretty critical time for just getting the kernel developing,” said Lauer, who has 14 sites around the state that hold 13,000 plots of more than 400 types of corn hybrids. “We need rain terribly. It’s just incredibly dry at this point. The corn actually looks pretty good yet, but we’re entering a critical phase.”

How the history of pharmacy resonates today

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Wisconsin Public Radio

More than 80 years ago, the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy was founded at UW-Madison. Today, the organization supports pharmacy education around the country. We speak with Lucas Richert, the institute director, and Hannah Rose Swan, the archivist at the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy, on how the history of pharmaceuticals resonates today.

With full plants, dairy industry experts say reports of milk dumping are unsurprising amid spring flush

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Chuck Nicholson, agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s not unusual to see some milk dumping in late spring and early summer.

“We tend to see a peak in the production of milk per cow around this time of year,” he said. “That’s based on biology of the cow and the timing of what the climate looks like to make that milk.”

Climate change ratchets up the stress on farmworkers on the front lines of a warming Earth

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LA Times

Climate change makes extreme heat more likely and more intense. Farm work is particularly dangerous because workers raise their internal body temperature by moving, lifting and walking at the same time they’re exposed to high heat and humidity, said Dr. Jonathan Patz, chair of health and the environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Supreme Court rejected student loan forgiveness—what does that mean for borrowers?

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Last week, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s attempt to cancel or reduce student loan debt. Nicholas Hillman, a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW-Madison and expert on higher education finance, joins us to talk about what the decision means for millions of borrowers.

Extreme drought threatens Wisconsin corn crop

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Wisconsin Public Radio

July is a key month for corn pollination, making the next few weeks all the more critical for the crop. That’s according to Jason Otkin, an associate research professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in drought.

“We’re entering a really important time of the year now for the corn crop — pollination in July is so critical. So if we stay dry, and if we get really unlucky and have a big heat wave, that’s going to do quite the number on the corn crop,” he told “The Morning Show.”