Dr. David Kiefer, an MD who is medical director of UW Health’s Integrative Health Consult Clinic, said NDs can help fill unmet health care needs around the state. Kiefer did family medicine training in the Seattle area, where he was on the faculty at Bastyr University, the naturopathic medical school Henkel attended.
During the past three decades, Susan Paskewitz, a medical entomologist at UW-Madison, has documented the growing prevalence of ticks in Wisconsin. Paskewitz found that deer ticks, also called black-legged ticks, have moved steadily from northwest to southwest, and then into the central and eventually slowly into the eastern and southern Wisconsin.
Tom O’Guinn quoted.
But what makes the mutation “weird and unique” is that it appears to set the stage for other variants, says Kyle Wolf, a biophysicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. SARS-CoV-2 infects cells faster when it has more RBDs flipped up—but that also makes its spikes more likely to fall apart before they find their target. A virus with DOUG appears to be more stable: When its RBDs up, they wedge together, holding the spike proteins together until it finds a host, Wolf explains. The mutation could be required for other variants, which opened the spike even further, but needed a way to stabilize the package, says Sophie Gobeil, a structural biologist at Duke University.
Elliot Tebbe, a University of Wisconsin assistant professor with a Ph.D. in counseling psychology and a trans man, said he and other trans people feel “a sense of exhaustion (from feeling) constantly under attack by different legislators and all these different policy initiatives.”
UW Professor John Gross explains a sentencing hearing as the time when lawyers and victims can address the courtroom, talking deeper about the case and how it impacted them. After that, a judge hands down a defendant’s sentence. But Gross says no matter what anyone says in the courtroom come Thursday, it won’t change Halderson’s fate since first degree intentional homicide carries with it a mandatory sentence to life in prison in the state of Wisconsin.
In our new feature, “Digest,” Isthmus interviews unsung or behind-the-scenes members of the service industry and lets them speak for themselves.
Sasha Debevec-McKenney, 31, is a poet, an instructor at UW-Madison, and the current artist-in-residence at StartingBlock. She’s also a part-time server. She has worked at restaurants in New York City and Madison, including Willalby’s Cafe, Settle Down Tavern and Diner in WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn. Currently she works a couple lunch shifts a week at Morris Ramen.
If life had gone as planned, Maria Alice Lima Freitas would be in medical school, inspired by the career of her father, a surgeon who practiced in Brazil. But instead of changing careers, the 49-year-old therapist retired from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Researchers in Wisconsin continue to study the spread of black-legged “deer” ticks and the long-term impact of Lyme disease. In a recent presentation, Susan Paskewitz, a medical entomologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said ticks have “invaded our state entirely” and, as the climate warms, are marching into Canada.
Xia Lee, a tick biologist in Paskewitz’s lab, has studied the insects for more than a decade. Lee says Lyme-bearing ticks “are always born uninfected,” but they pick up infections as they feed on animal hosts.
Lee notes that Wisconsin never got the proper recognition as the site of the first case of the disease.
“We like to joke about it and say that Wisconsin was actually the first state where Lyme disease was detected,” he says, “but we never got the glory for naming (it).”
Richard Keller, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison: “Like gun violence, overdose, extreme heat death, heart disease and smoking, [COVID] becomes increasingly associated with behavioral choice and individual responsibility, and therefore increasingly invisible.”
Quoted: Over the past three decades, Susan Paskewitz, a medical entomologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, has documented the growing prevalence of ticks in Wisconsin.
Paskewitz found that deer ticks, also called black-legged ticks, have moved steadily from northwest to southwest, and then into the central and eventually slowly into the eastern and southern Wisconsin.
“They invaded our state entirely,” Paskewitz said in a 2021 Wednesday Nite @ The Lab episode. She said the regeneration of forests decimated by logging in the early 1900s and rebounding of the deer population are the main drivers in Wisconsin. Paskewitz said warming temperatures caused by climate change are expected to lengthen the tick season and accelerate their northward march into Canada.
“It’s been shown that infected butterflies have lower flight ability and suffer from all of these fitness ramifications, but this is the first time it’s really been shown on a population level that a really important feature of monarch biology is affected by the rate of infection,” says Karen Oberhauser, director of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.
Ellen Zweibel, professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Wisconsin, explained why the findings could rule out the starburst model. She said the typical duration of a nuclear starburst, and therefore the length of time into which a starburst would inject the energy that forms the bubbles, is about 10 million years.
But Thomas O’Guinn, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Business who specializes in political branding, said…(behind paywall.)
For Maddy Rauls, teaching is a family business.
The fourth grade bilingual English language arts teacher in Waunakee has several aunts who are teachers, and her dad was her high school’s chemistry teacher.
When she started school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in September 2017, a career in teaching was on her radar, especially because she loved babysitting and working with kids at summer school. When she liked the education classes she took her first couple of years, that sealed the deal.
Ian Coxhead, professor and department chair of Agriculture & Applied Economics at UW-Madison, believes that conditions could worsen before they improve.
As a gallon of gas now teeters at four dollars in Madison, UW-Madison professor Jon Pevehouse, whose expertise is in international political economy, said he expects prices continue to increase.
According to Enno Siemsen, a professor of operations management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, if the conflict is short and companies want to reopen their operations, “all the investments you’ve made over years are basically gone. If you want to reenter the Russian market, you’re starting more or less from scratch.”
Federal income tax forms offer taxpayers the option to check a box to give to a fund for presidential campaigns. NBC News’ Joshua Johnson speaks with Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about how many candidates are avoiding the fund as it comes with strings attached.
“Because of our over-dependence on the private motorized vehicle, we are leading sedentary lifestyles,” said Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “According to several reports from the World Health Organization, because of that increase in sedentary lifestyles there are almost four million premature deaths every year.”
The pollutants driving the climate crisis are also making people sick, and as the crisis worsens people are getting sicker. That’s the bad news.Now the good: Mitigating the climate crisis, according to a global health expert, would eliminate nearly half of the world’s premature deaths.“When you think about what it means to get to a low-carbon economy, and what it could mean for our health, this is an amazing opportunity,” said Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Solving the global climate crisis is the greatest health opportunity of our times, and a low-carbon future could improve global health and achieve economic benefits.”
The United States banned beef imports from Brazil because of unsanitary conditions found in some of the country’s meatpacking plants and animal health concerns in 2017, but the Trump administration reversed the measure in February 2020. Holly Gibbs, a land use scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, explained the move came after on-site inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service found improvements in practices at six Brazilian beef production plants. Since then, she says, exports to the United States have been climbing to pre-ban levels. Calls for a ban were renewed recently in response to a reported outbreak of mad cow disease in Brazil.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and redistricting expert Rob Yablon said while it’s not especially likely, he “would not be surprised at all” if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear the Legislature’s appeal in some form.
“This is an area of law that is in flux right now,” Yablon said. “The approach that the Wisconsin Supreme Court majority took is essentially in line with the way that these claims have been handled for the last few decades, but the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled interest recently in revisiting some of that case law.”
Here’s what guests on the March 4, 2022 episode had to say about the split decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopting maps submitted by Gov. Evers, Gableman’s 2020 election report and February 2022 statewide polling on elections and issues.
The nation’s highest court takes between 100 and 150 of the over 7,000 cases it’s asked to review each year. But this case is likelier than most to get reviewed, UW-Madison Law School associate professor Robert Yablon said. “This is a high-profile case,” he said. “It’s an election law case. And I think in that category of cases, there is a much higher likelihood that it’s going to get taken up.”
Why? Anton Shirikov, a misinformation researcher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, argues in The Washington Post that it’s partly because Russian propagandists are so good — understanding their audience and knowing how to make their tales appeal through “dramatic and entertaining” detail.
Richard Keller, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says that much of the current pandemic rhetoric—the premature talk of endemicity; the focus on comorbidities; the from-COVID-or-with-COVID debate—treats COVID deaths as dismissible and “so inevitable as to not merit precaution,” he has written. “Like gun violence, overdose, extreme heat death, heart disease, and smoking, [COVID] becomes increasingly associated with behavioral choice and individual responsibility, and therefore increasingly invisible.” We don’t honor deaths that we ascribe to individual failings, which could explain, Keller argues, why national moments of mourning have been scarce.
Aaron LeBeau regularly visits a local grocery store’s seafood department to stock up on tuna, salmon and octopus. But LeBeau isn’t shopping for himself: He has hungry sharks to feed at his laboratory.
Though they might look mean, “sharks are, to put it lightly, misunderstood,” says LeBeau. He’s a professor of pathology (the study of diseases) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nurse sharks — the kind he studies — are “probably the most docile sharks in nature. Pretty much all they do is sleep and eat.”
Madison wouldn’t be Madison without its lakes. At least Hilary Dugan — an assistant professor of aquatic biology and ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — thinks so. Dugan works at the Center for Limnology right off of Lake Mendota, tucked away behind a frozen Lakeshore Path next to the Memorial Union. She said people either know exactly where the center is, and what limnology is, or know nothing about it at all.
In general, there’s strong evidence that mindfulness-based interventions, including MBCT, are an effective treatment for depression. A meta-analysis of conducted by Dr. Simon Goldberg, an assistant professor in the department of counseling psychology and faculty at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, indicates that such programs are as effective as psycho- and behavioral therapies.
The UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Natural Resources have issued a scientific report examining how global warming has affected the state over the past decade, with measurable effects differing by season and time of day.
“A lot of this effort, I don’t want to say is wasted because it gives people a good, patriotic feeling, but most of this is not going to make much of an economic dent in Russia,” Jon Pevehouse, a UW-Madison professor focusing on international political economy, said. “To do that you’re going to have to turn off the gas and oil spigot, and that’s something that the Biden administration has not suggested it will do anytime soon.”
As Wisconsin farms prepare for the upcoming growing season, some producers are having a hard time finding enough workers.
Claire Strader is an organic vegetable educator for FairShare CSA Coalition and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension in Dane County. Last fall, she started hearing from farmers who were worried about a potential labor shortage.
“They knew that they were going to be losing workers from their farms because those workers were telling them that as they were moving on to other opportunities,” Strader said. “Those farmers, in particular vegetable farmers, were telling us that they were in a crisis looking for workers.”
James Thomson, the University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist who first isolated and grew human embryonic stem cells, inspiring a generation of researchers, and igniting a furious ethical debate that he would later help resolve, will be retiring in July after more than 30 years with the school.
The weakness of the Kremlin’s propaganda effort is also that it relies on shared anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian sentiment. On its eve, the war against Ukraine was not popular, suggesting that Moscow will rely heavily on propaganda and censorship to sustain popular acquiescence to the conflict. Further hostilities, especially attacks against civilians, could undermine not only support for the war but Putin’s own approval. And if regime support crumbles, so would the power of state media.
-Anton Shirikov is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His research focuses on propaganda, misinformation, political polarization and trust.
“I see the devastating effects of this viral infection every day as it leads to death and disability of my patients who were previously leading healthy, active lives,” Dr. Jeannina Smith, medical director of the transplant and immunocompromised host service at the University of Wisconsin, told ABC News. “Omicron was not mild for our patients.”
Six months into the pandemic, Christine Whelan sensed something was different. “I was noticing this odd thing, that more and more cars had taken their mufflers off, and there were more and more people gunning their engines really loudly, making a bunch of racket on the road,” said Whelan, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and expert in human behavior and cultural trends. “I couldn’t understand why I was only now hearing this, and I had this sense in the back of my mind that this had something to do with the pandemic, and with a sense of anger at the political world around us and a sense of disenfranchisement.”
The new maps hand Democrats a marginal win, but they still keep many districts “impenetrable” for the party, UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said. “I think it tells us what the politics of the state Legislature are going to be like for the next decade,” Burden said.
President Biden addressed concerns of high inflation in his State of the Union address, while presidents have “very limited ability to effect price inflation.” That’s according to Andrew Reschovsky, a professor emeritus of applied economics and public affairs at UW-Madison.
Ozioma Okonkwo at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Elena D’Onghia and her University of Wisconsin, Madison, team’s project focuses on protecting astronauts from harmful cosmic rays and solar radiation. Just as Earth’s magnetic field does that for life on our planet, this project, CREW HaT, involves magnetic coils that can be carried by a crew producing an external magnetic field to divert harmful charged particles.
“Anyone who is in a position where they would benefit from greater than normal cognitive control, top-down attention, peripheral visual processing would benefit from playing action games, which are primarily first- and third-person shooter games,” Dr. C Shawn Green, a professor of psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote in the article. “That’s obviously a huge set of individuals, from those involved in combat, to people like surgeons or pilots.”
Elizabeth Maroon, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA TODAY this is because temperature patterns are informed by both natural variability and the influence of accumulating greenhouse gases.
UW Health psychologist Victoria Egizio tells 27 News that some may be excited to ditch the mask because they’ll be able to communicate better.
UW-Madison political science professor and elections administration expert Kenneth Mayer said the claim is meaningless. “Even if the Legislature did pass some sort of ‘decertification’ now it would have no legal effect,” he said. “Once the electors have cast their ballots, and they have been counted in Congress, that’s the end of it.”
Andrew Kydd, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on international relations, joins Live at Four to talk about the latest developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Allison Prasch, an assistant professor of rhetoric, politics and culture at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, previewed President Biden’s first State of the Union address, and talked about historic examples of presidents addressing the nation in the midst of threats to economic and political stability both at home and abroad.
It’s hard enough to deal with one of those—but when there are so many stressful matters orbiting at once? It’s a lot, says Victoria Egizio, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison. “The Russian invasion of the Ukraine is now on top of all of the other anxiety-provoking events that have been unfolding in the world during the last couple of years,” Dr. Egizio tells The Healthy.
But most galling to Professor Yoshiko Herrera of the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, was the video’s failure to explore Moscow’s interventions into Ukrainian affairs since independence. She described the video as “naive” and an example of the kind of “whataboutism” Putin promotes: pointing out questionable parties and pieces of legislation in other countries, and thereby reducing scrutiny on far worse abuses on the part of Russian authorities.
Quoted: “The government has to provide more resources, if we’re going to ensure that everybody has their basic needs met during this transition time, and it’s wonderful to see people in the community coming together,” said Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “But that’s not going to solve the problem for everybody.”
The legal clinic is helping evacuees file for asylum and training attorneys to represent them in that process — positions that are in short supply. Barbato and other immigration experts fear some people will fall through bureaucratic cracks unless the federal government takes action to stabilize the system.
With mask mandates lifting once again and some itching to return to normal, the head of UW Hospital’s Transplant Infectious Disease Program called for continued vigilance on behalf of her immunocompromised patients.
Dr. Jeannina Smith, who also teaches in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Medicine, said her patients are “very valuable, vital (and) important members of our society.”
Nonetheless, they are particularly susceptible to COVID-19 as Wisconsin approaches the end of its second full year in the pandemic.
Signs are static.
They can, of course, convey concise and relevant historical information. But they are limited to one point in time, said Kasey Keeler, an assistant professor of civil society and community studies and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
That’s why Keeler is leading a project, “Mapping Dejope: Indigenous Histories and Presence in Madison,” which will make Indigenous history of the area digitally accessible.
Quoted: UW-Madison public affairs and economics professor Menzie Chinn and UW-Madison economics professor Kim Ruhl.
“What I thought would happen was that when the traffic came back to normal, we would see the speeds go back down to where they were before 2020,” said Andrea Bill, assistant director of the Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory at UW-Madison. “And we did not see that in 2021.”
Pediatrician at UW Health Kids and associate professor of pediatrics at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Dr. Mala Mathur, believes that this anxiety manifests in kids as a result of fear that them or a loved one could contract Covid-19.
Experts said America could see a potential for cyber attacks from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A UW Madison professor said though nation-state attacks don’t seem to be Putin’s goal at the moment, now is a good time to take stock and put added security in place.
“I think we have to be careful generally, but I think it wouldn’t be a bad time for companies and individuals to take security precautions seriously,” said Yoshiko Herrera, Professor for the Department of Political Science at UW Madison.
Herrera recommends backing up hard drives and making sure you have secure passwords in place.
Yoshiko Herrera, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on Russia and eastern Europe, and Jon Pevehouse, the chair of UW-Madison’s political science department, join Live at Four to explain what’s next following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Quoted: “Stock markets tend to react very quickly, but then unless there’s some real material damage, you’re gonna get a reversion.” said Mark Copelovitch, Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Yoshiko Herrera agreed with Keane.
“Taking control of the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, is key to [Putin’s] plan,” said Herrera, an expert on U.S.-Russian relations. Given the opposition of the Ukrainian government and people, she said “the prospect of an insurgency or protracted struggle, unfortunately, seems likely.”
Quoted: Putin “has been preparing economically for sanctions for years,” Yoshiko Herrera, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in Russia and U.S.-Russia relations, told this column. Herrera cited Russia’s expansion of its reserves of foreign currency in recent times as one example
Referring to the invasion of Ukraine, Herrera added, “He is willing to pay an economic cost for this. Saying we are making it economically costly? That is not going to do it. He has already factored that in.”
The new book “Battleground” is a deeply academic dive into how Wisconsin became such an unwelcoming place for civil discourse during the past dozen years … “The decay of the traditional political communication ecology in our state has accelerated over the past decade,” said Lewis Friedland, an emeritus journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of six co-authors, all professors. Besides Friedland, the authors are Dhavan Shah and Michael Wagner, who teach journalism at UW, Katherine Cramer and Jon Pevehouse, both UW political science professors, and Chris Wells, a former UW journalism professor now at Boston University.
