Category: UW Experts in the News

Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education, says that while cases specifically related to face masks in school are uncharted territory, courts have historically decided that parental rights do not trump a school’s ability to take steps to keep kids safe.

“Heading into the winter months, we can significantly delay the next grim milestone if more people, especially those at high risk for severe illness, choose to get vaccinated,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nancy Wong, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of consumer research and marketing, said the imbalance is magnified when employees are female because anger about mask mandates can trigger sexist bullying and harassment.

Matthew Lazzara, an expert on the meteorology of Antarctica and scientist at the University of Wisconsin, monitored the South Pole temperatures in recent months from his office in Madison with awe. In an interview, he said it was around minus-100 degrees on numerous occasions. Over the years, he’s traveled to Antarctica many times to support his research.

Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin, said last week that if vaccine-hesitant people “start to get the idea that this is only going to last for six or eight or 10 months,” they may be further soured on the whole idea.

In a blog post published today, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that kids under 13 were already online, misrepresenting their ages and downloading apps meant for older teens and adults. Megan Moreno, a pediatrician who studies social media’s impact on adolescent health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isn’t buying it.

“In concrete terms, you could see the price or the valuation of U.S. Treasury debt going down, which is the same as saying interest rates are going to rise for U.S. government borrowing. What that’s going to do is it’s going to tend to blow up our deficit faster than it otherwise would,” said Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

They’re not for establishing the residence of a voter in Maricopa County to vote,” Barry C. Burden, Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on the press call. “We don’t know how they get their data or what they do exactly, ” he added.

Ahead of the presentation, election experts criticized some of the methodology used by Cyber Ninjas that was detailed in the draft report. The report said the firm used a commercial public database to try to match information about voters. Such databases typically rely on the National Change of Address database, which can be out of date and incomplete and isn’t designed for that purpose, said Barry Burden, the Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The best practice (is) to look at multiple polls and not to fixate on an individual poll, which can be cherry-picked to make inaccurate arguments,” Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email.

“If we want to ask what kind of world do we want to have, 15 to 29 is kind of the age that’s doing it,” said Connie Flanagan, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies youth activism. “Those are the years when you’re taking stock of your life. And as a result, you’re taking stock of your world.”

A 2018 study led by Volker C. Radeloff at the University of Wisconsin, Madison found that about one-third of new homes built between 1990 and 2010 were in the wildland-urban interface. Cheap mortgage rates have meanwhile made these markets more accessible.

he toilet technology being developed by Joshua Coon’s academic lab is focused on urine, because it is easier to sample and analyse. He describes himself as “a smart toilet enthusiast”, rather than someone who is racing to get a product to market, although he says he is in talks with industry leaders. “There are several thousand known different small molecules that exist in urine and they give you insight into what’s going on,” says Coon, who is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Leigh Senderowicz, a health demographer at the University of Wisconsin Madison, describes the ambiguity around essential care as “a fissure” that allows groups “to pursue whatever existing agenda they have.” Abortion is one prominent example, said Senderowicz, whose team has researched reproductive autonomy during the pandemic.

A 2019 study led by Tyler Lark, an agricultural researcher at the University of Wisconsin, estimated that tillage for cropland expansion put as much carbon dioxide into the air annually as 31 million cars. A 2018 study, led by The Nature Conservancy, found that in the U.S., conserving grasslands could prevent almost three times as much carbon emission as conserving forests.

Since May, the number of COVID-19 cases at hospitals run by the University of Wisconsin’s UW Health system has quadrupled, Dr. Jeff Pothof said in an interview.

For starters, laboratory experiments show that masks block the respiratory droplets and aerosols that transmit SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. In one test, mechanical engineer David Rothamer and his team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison used a machine in a classroom to pump out particles of the same size as those that carry the virus.

Christoph Mans, clinical assistant professor of zoological medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said in 2016 that 50 snake species live in the United States.

Nancy Wong, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she stopped shopping at Costco because she felt like she was losing money.