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Category: UW Experts in the News

Trump wants Wisconsin ballot drop box ruling to apply to past elections. It doesn’t work that way

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Trump’s continual fixation on delegitimatizing the outcome of the 2020 election overlooks the fact that Republicans did well down ballot that year.

“Many supporters of Donald Trump remain incredulous that he could have lost Wisconsin. They view Biden as a weak candidate and point to big crowds at Trump’s rallies and his online followings as evidence that he should have won,” Burden said. “Assuming there was election fraud is a way to keep those beliefs in tact.”

5 Types Of Epiphytes That Make Great Houseplants

House Digest

The Horticulture Division at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says bright indirect light and consistently warm temperatures are the keys to keeping your Schlumbergera thriving. As is the best water drainage possible, considering that left to their own devices in nature, these epiphytes will literally hang from a cliff where moisture retention is an unheard of environmental possibility. A well-cared-for, happy holiday cactus can be part of your family’s history for a century. It will thank you for the attention it receives by offering more and more flowers with each passing season.

UW data expert on keeping info private after Roe reversal

FOX 47

On Friday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order seeking to firm up some abortion protections, including data privacy. According to data experts, the reversal of Roe v. Wade opened up more cracks for sensitive information to fall through.

“The reversal of Roe, the Dobbs decision, just again brought lots and lots of new people to the realization that we don’t actually have much data privacy and that can be a problem,” said Dorothea Salo.

It’s been on the mind of Salo, Distinguished Faculty III at UW Madison’s Information School, before the Roe decision.

“Right now the legal landscape really doesn’t control this,” she said. “Here in Wisconsin, there have been a couple of bipartisan data protection bills in the Senate and the Assembly and they just haven’t gone anywhere.”

The smoking rate for Black adults in Wisconsin is nearly three times higher than for white people — the worst disparity in the nation

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The adult smoking rate for Black people living in Wisconsin is 30%, or nearly three times higher than white people in the state at 12%. That 18 percentage point disparity is the widest gap between Black and white smokers in the nation, according to Dr. Michael Fiore, co-author and director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention.

The statistics may give researchers clues about how to reduce those numbers and save lives, Fiore said.

Another supermoon, this one called the Buck Moon, is rising on July 13, and it’s the last one of the year

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: The moon reaches its closest point to Earth every 27 days, Jennifer Stafford, an astronomy graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said in an interview last month. A full moon occurs every 29½ days.

What makes summer special for moon-gazing, Jim Lattis, director of UW-Madison Space Place said in an interview earlier this summer, is that full moons are lower in the sky. During the summer season, the sun is higher, and the moon is lower, making the moon especially picturesque.

It will appear biggest when it’s lower in the sky, near the horizon — just after rising, or just before setting — due to a scientific phenomenon called “the moon illusion.”

The BA.5 Wave Is What COVID Normal Looks Like

The Atlantic

Ajay Sethi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, still works at home, and avoids eating with strangers indoors. He masks in crowded places, but at home, as contractors remodel his bathrooms, he has decided not to—a pivot from last year. His chances of suffering from the virus haven’t changed much; what has is “probably more my own fatigue,” he told me, “and my willingness to accept more risk than before.”

‘We don’t actually have much data privacy and that can be a problem’: UW data expert on keeping info private after Roe reversal

WISC-TV 3

“The reversal of Roe, the Dobbs decision, just again brought lots and lots of new people to the realization that we don’t actually have much data privacy and that can be a problem,” said Dorothea Salo. It’s been on the mind of Salo, Distinguished Faculty III at UW Madison’s Information School, before the Roe decision.

Ag policy expert predicts strong milk prices through fall of 2022

Wisconsin State Farmer

At the second Dairy Exchange of the year sponsored by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, cheesemakers and allied industry people gathered to hear a dairy market update from Mark Stephenson.

As it turns out, it will be the last market update Stephenson will present as he will be retiring from his post as director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin. Fortunately he was able to impart some good news to dairy farmers.

Tim Michels, Wisconsin’s GOP frontrunner for governor, isn’t ruling out overturning results of 2020 election

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: Rob Yablon, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School who specializes in election and constitutional law, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this year that there is no legal way for state lawmakers to decertify the 2020 election

“At this point, the bell cannot be unrung,” he said.

Howard Schweber, a UW-Madison political science and legal studies professor who is an expert in constitutional law, also said the fact that officials elected in 2020 have held office for more than a year “makes the whole thing even more preposterous.”

Another supermoon is rising on Wednesday, and it’s the last one of the year

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The moon reaches its closest point to Earth every 27 days, Jennifer Stafford, an astronomy graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said in an interview last month. A full moon occurs every 29½ days.

The Buck Moon name is rooted in Indigenous history.

Native Americans, Stafford explained, attribute wisdom and reverence to the moon and use it as a way of tracking the seasons.

Wisconsinites are carrying the weight of the nation’s problems on their shoulders heading into the midterm election, survey finds

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsinites have the weight of the nation’s problems on their minds heading into the 2022 midterm elections, a nod to a state whose voters might be pivotal to the balance of power in the U.S. Senate this fall.

That was a key finding of the La Follette Policy Poll, a written survey sent to 5,000 state residents last fall, which asked about the issues that matter to them most and the problems they most want solved. Nearly 1,600 responded.

“The main goal was taking a pulse on what are the policy topics Wisconsinites care about most with the hopes of steering our elected officials and candidates toward those topics,” said Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

Tonight’s “Legendary: An Evening of Celebration” will continue critical conversations on broadening racial and gender equity in STEM

Madison 365

With funding from organizations such as WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation), CUNA Mutual Group, Dane Arts, and the Morgridge Center for Public Service, Karanja and her team were able to bring important conversations to the forefront regarding women of color in STEM fields. These are conversations that Karanja and the Represented Collective look to continue at an event tonight at the Goodman Community Center on Madison’s near east side titled “Legendary: An Evening of Celebration.” It will be a night of cocktails and conversation and commemoration of women in the STEM fields.

With a focus on women of color, the event will feature a group of panelists including Ana Hooker (Senior Vice President & Chief Laboratory Officer at Exact Sciences), Angela Jenkins (Technology Project Manager at American Family Insurance), Ponmozhi Manickavalli Sathappan (IT Manager at CUNA Mutual Group), and Dr. Jasmine Zapata (Chief Medical Officer for Community Health at Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health, and Physician and Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health) who will lead a community discussion regarding issues of representation, professionalism, visibility, microaggressions, macroaggressions, and many other topics that affect the experiences of women across the STEM fields.

Along with being able to hear from the panelists, event-goers will also be able to partake in celebrating the accomplishments of Erika Bullock and Maxine McKinney de Royston who are both assistant professors in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education.

New COVID-19 variants are very easy to catch

Wisconsin Radio Network

New variants of COVID-19 are reminding us that the pandemic is not over. UW Health’s Chief Quality Officer Dr. Jeff Pothof, said two new variants are much more transmissible – even among those fully vaccinated or with prior infection.

“It’s really easy to catch COVID-19 with, you know, BA-5 or BA-4,” Pothof said. “With these variants that are so contagious, it really probably comes down to a matter of, you know, minutes, or maybe even seconds of being in close proximity to someone who’s shutting this virus for you to get infected.”

After hitting record highs this spring, gas prices fall in Wisconsin

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Peter Carstensen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, who specializes in antitrust law and energy law, predicts the situation will improve but change will be slow.

“My expectation is prices are going to stabilize in a downward trend,” he said. “It’s not going to be a huge drop, but it’s going to continue to go down.”

Carstensen said that’s because domestic production is increasing and drivers will likely decrease their miles, slowing demand. Despite that, he said other problems will keep costs high.

“The capacity to do things inexpensively is just not there,” he said. According to Carstensen, supply chain issues, the need for new wells, limited refinery capacity and the crisis in Ukraine will be roadblocks to easing the burden on drivers.

What President Biden’s executive order on abortion means for Wisconsin

TMJ4

Friday morning, President Biden signed an executive order that provides some protection for emergency medical care access to women who seek abortions in states that ban it, like here in Wisconsin. But it does not undo the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

“I mean this is a lot of smoke, but not a whole lot of heat,” said Ryan Owens, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He says the president does not have the power to legalize abortion nationwide.

“The reality is in order to get any effective change on this you’d have to look at changing legislation,” said Owens.

‘A hammer in search of a nail’: Wisconsin AG candidate Eric Toney prosecutes eligible voters for address snafus

PBS Wisconsin

Quoted: Ion Meyn, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin, called the cases against Wells and others in Fond du Lac County “a real abuse of (prosecutorial) discretion.”

Toney did not respond to multiple requests for an interview or answer emailed questions. But in a statement to Wisconsin Watch, he said attorney ethics rules prevent him from commenting on a pending case.

“Elections are cornerstone (sic) of our democracy which must be defended at every turn, not just when you agree with the law or the politics,” he wrote. “I want people (to) exercise their right to vote and ensure they do so lawfully. Wisconsin law requires someone to register to vote where they live, not where they receive mail. That is made clear on voter registration forms.”

Where does ‘up north’ Wisconsin begin? We might never answer the question, but here are 5 possible ways to define it

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: “You’ll know you’re in the tension zone when you’re heading north and … oaks that are dominant in southern Wisconsin, such as bur, black and white, meet up abruptly with red and white pine as well as paper birch and tamarack swamps that are more characteristic of the north,” writes David Mladenoff in the Fall 2012 issue of Grow magazine, a publication of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

How Wisconsin’s ‘honor’ system for removing guns from domestic abusers failed Jesi Ewers

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: “I think there needs to be that follow up, and that follow up needs to be much quicker,” said Ryan Poe-Gavlinski, director of the Restraining Order and Survivor Advocacy Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “In restraining order cases, they do that firearms surrender hearing two weeks out, but why are we not doing them within 48 hours?”

Study finds around half of Great Lakes residents know about advisories outlining safe fish consumption

Wisconsin Public Radio

Fish is a popular food in Wisconsin whether it’s part of a Friday night fish fry or a staple for Wisconsin tribes. However, a new study finds around only half of people surveyed in the Great Lakes region know about fish advisories that set limits on how much is safe to eat.

The study was published in June in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Researchers from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and University of Wisconsin-Madison found around 5 million people ate more fish than recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency recommends no more than two meals or 12 ounces of fish per week.

Some 5 milliion people may be eating more fish than recomended by health advisories, according to research by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Duluth News Tribune

Only about half the people living in the Great Lakes region are aware of fish consumption advisories that warn people to limit their meals of fish, according to a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, also found that an estimated 5 million people across the region exceeded the general recommended fish intake of two meals, or 12 ounces per week, as suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency for all fish, including those purchased in stores.

Plastic has made farming easier, but what happens to the material after it’s used?

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: Melissa Kono is a community development educator in Clark and Trempealeau counties for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension.

She said farmers use plastic sheeting to protect hay and silage from the elements in order to feed their livestock all winter. Some forms of these plastics include top covers for silage bunkers — think white tarp covering mounds of silage with tires holding the tarp down — long bags that hold long, skinny rows of silage and wrap for individual hay bales.

“Their other option for silage would be a silo and those are very costly to construct,” Kono said. “Having a silage pile makes it easier to access, especially if farmers don’t have a lot of space, or makes it more accessible to feeding animals, which helps cut down on time and cost. I just think because farmers are stretched so very thin these days, having plastics to use has probably made it more economical.”

What do you want to hear from Wisconsin candidates ahead of the midterm election?

Wisconsin Public Radio

Noted: Over the next four months, our “Wisconsin Main Street Agenda” project will report on what we’re learning from residents and explain what we know about the mood of the electorate based on that massive survey of Wisconsin residents by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center.

The project is a partnership of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Ideas Lab, the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin Public Radio.

UW-Madison research shows plants could produce more materials for medicine, biofuel

Wisconsin Public Radio

Plants already pull significant weight in removing carbon dioxide from the air, but a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows there’s potential for plants to capture more.

The study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, also shows the potential to increase the amount of aromatic compounds — or the building blocks for certain biofuels and medicines — produced by plants.

It’s been 25 years since the landing of the Mars Pathfinder. Planetary exploration has never been the same.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: To Sanjay Limaye, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the landing itself was “astounding.”

With a newly-minted astronomy doctorate at the time, Creighton recalled a general feeling of relief. “We’re going to be able to move forward; the road has been set,” she said.

On Conservative Radio, Misleading Message Is Clear: ‘Democrats Cheat’

The New York Times

“Liberals or even most moderates never listen to it, they don’t pay attention to it, they don’t see it, they don’t hear it,” said Lewis A. Friedland, a professor who studies radio at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So you don’t know it exists, you don’t know how widespread and how powerful it really is.” In Wisconsin, he said, local radio stations play “extreme right-wing propaganda” five or six hours a day.

This Common Spice Will Prevent Your Plants from Dying

BestLife

While plants can die at any stage of life, they’re most vulnerable as seedlings (about two to three weeks after germination). At that stage, one of the most common killers is damping-off disease. According to the University of Wisconsin Madison Department of Horticulture, damping-off is caused by several soil-borne fungi that are moved around in the soil and on soil-contaminated items like garden tools and plant pots. The infection can cause root rot and is fatal. If your seedlings are infected, they’ll emerge from the soil looking healthy, but soon collapse and die.

A year in, legal fight over Gableman election investigation keeps growing

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “The investigation has become a morass of competing lawsuits back and forth between different parties in the state and outside the state,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And those legal debates have sort of overtaken the substance of the investigation itself.”

Wisconsin’s conservative high court hands GOP another weapon

The Associated Press

Quoted: “Most people on the street would say when a term … expires, there’s an opening. The Supreme Court has said that commonsense understanding is not right,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said. The ruling “raises the question of why is there a term at all? Maybe we just say a person serves for life the way a U.S. Supreme Court justice does.”

UW Health Experts offer firework safety advice for families

NBC-15

“Firework fuses tend to be pretty short and they burn pretty quickly but this doesn’t seem to stop some people from lighting one while still holding onto it and unfortunately just about any firework that detonates in the hand is going to pack enough energy to cause some damage” said UW Health Pediatric Emergency Medicine Specialist Dr. Greg Rebella.

UW Health Experts offer firework safety advice for families

NBC-15

“Firework fuses tend to be pretty short and they burn pretty quickly but this doesn’t seem to stop some people from lighting one while still holding onto it and unfortunately just about any firework that detonates in the hand is going to pack enough energy to cause some damage” said UW Health Pediatric Emergency Medicine Specialist Dr. Greg Rebella.

In a post-Roe world, some medical students rethink plans to practice in Wisconsin

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Molly Wecker, a second-year medical student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had long planned to be an obstetrics-gynecology doctor in her home state. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling last week, the Rock County native is rethinking her plan.