Category: UW Experts in the News

“People trying to reduce confidence through misinformation — that’s unfortunate and it’s something that’s sort of hard to fight,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine who teaches a class to future doctors on conspiracy theories. He urges his students to be compassionate and not condescending, since all of us are vulnerable to misinformation when it seems to confirm our prior beliefs. “It’s all innuendo, but it’s wrong, and it does spread like wildfire.”

“The changes in the entire Earth system that take place as part of that changing geography are profound,” says Shanan Peters, a geoscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specializes in the co-evolution of life and Earth’s systems.

“This is one more element in place that could lead to Bolsonaro’s downfall,” Jessica Rich, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, said. “I don’t think they are yet all in place. But this is a real escalation of the threat against him.”

“This is a moment when workers have leverage right now,” said Laura Dresser, a labor economist at COWS, a liberal think tank at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

David Danaher, professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, noted that similar proposals have failed in the past, but said that non-gendered last names aren’t necessarily new in the Czech Republic.

Scientists have only begun to study the chemical mechanisms by which the purifiers actually work indoors, says Timothy Bertram, a University of Wisconsin chemist leading a study of bipolar ionizers. Without that understanding, it’s hard to evaluate what, if anything, additive purifiers do when they’re installed inside an air vent or plugged in at the back of a classroom. So far, Bertram’s study has found no evidence of the ionizers reducing aerosols.

“Seditious conspiracy is a vague and overbroad statute that could be used to criminalize some legitimate forms of protest and much mundane criminal activity,” said Joshua Braver, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

“Everyone’s situation is different, but 529 plans for most people are an excellent choice,” says Cliff Robb, associate professor of personal finance at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “The most important benefits of 529s are the flexibility — flexibility in what you’re investing in within those plans and flexibility to pick any state’s plan — and the true benefit of tax-free growth upon withdrawal.”

“Nothing is yet known on whether the compounds found in onion would have protective or inhibitory effects on COVID-19,” Irwin Goldman, a professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, wrote in an expert opinion for the trade group.

Not all geographic names are stigmatizing, said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Here in Wisconsin, we have Lacrosse encephalitis virus, but no one ever stigmatizes Lacrosse, Wisconsin. And Norovirus is originally from Norwalk, Ohio, but people aren’t afraid of Ohio,” he said.

But for SARS-CoV-2, which has caused such global devastation, names can have serious consequences. “It’s always a good idea to have a name that is just a name,” he said.

“People continue to ask for proof that climate change is already affecting our health. This attribution study directly answers that question using state-of-the-science epidemiological methods, and the amount of data the authors have amassed for analysis is impressive,” said Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin.

“Abandoning the desire for self-determination, something that has been the very raison d’etre of Palestinian nationalism since the 1960s and something that has actually been achieved by Zionists, is a steep demand to make of both,” Nadav Shelef, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies national identity and ethnic struggle, wrote in a recent essay applying academic research on how nationalist sentiment declines to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This was the “beginning of a 35-year period when Kerkorian would buy and sell MGM three times,” according to Tino Balio, professor emeritus of communication arts at UW-Madison, who also authored a book about MGM.

“The first recorded history of a Chinese woman in the United States tells the story of a ‘beautiful Chinese Lady’ transported into New York Harbor,” Leslie Bow Ph.D., professor in the Department of English and Program in Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison, tells Bustle. This was Afong Moy, a 19-year-old Chinese woman who was coerced into traveling to the U.S. In the 1830s and ‘40s, Moy would tour the U.S. as an act, displayed for up to eight hours a day in private homes, and later in P.T. Barnum’s circus. “The spectacle of Afong Moy produced by Barnum and white traders unfortunately sutured American associations between race and exoticism that cling to Asian American women today,” Bow says.