“A massive vaccine rollout certainly creates new jobs — from clinic clerks and managers to nurses, medical assistants/techs and pharmacists,” said Dr. Christine B. Whelan, a clinical professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin. “There are the truck drivers to transport the vaccines and the computer folks to create the sign-up portals.”
This idea is controversial. “I’ve always felt that people don’t do enough to prevent cold and flu, and so in a sense many of these changes have been healthy,” says Jo Handelsman, an infectious-disease researcher and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She says it’s unclear whether shaking hands or spending time in crowded places meaningfully contributes to microbiome health, and so avoiding such risky practices may be all upside — a view that many infectious disease experts share.
“It’s one case out of thousands of cases involving police use of force, so we shouldn’t read too much into it,” said Keith A. Findley, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. “But it’s nonetheless very important, because it is one in which, with the whole world watching, the justice system stepped up and acted to hold the police officer responsible for an unlawful use of deadly force.
But research suggests that even if you don’t actually meet up with someone or send them an email or text, it can be enough to simply send good thoughts their way. “You can start with a simple appreciation practice,” Cortland Dahl, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, previously told HuffPost. Just bring a friend or loved one into your mind, then consciously focusing on the things you really cherish about them.
Advocates for reopening have pointed to data showing significant learning losses during the pandemic, particularly for students of color. But parents of color are far more concerned with loss of life, said John B. Diamond, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
There’s good reason to use it, Dr. Murray and others said. “We’ve had clear difficulties figuring out what works best, when, and in what contexts,” said Adeline Lo, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who was an author on the international study. “This at least puts another fact on the table that may be helpful.”
“Mace’s claim is a complete non sequitur. A state will always have at least one congressional seat no matter how small it is,” said Kenneth Mayer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and another redistricting expert.
And yet, despite violent backlash from Southern planters, Black growers managed to gain a toehold. The key was collective action, University of Wisconsin sociologist Monica White explains in her book Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement, 1880–2010. Launched in 1886 to organize landless Black farmers and to pool money to buy land and tools, the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union boasted 1.2 million members at its peak. At the Tuskegee Institute, the Alabama land-grant college founded by Booker T. Washington and other formerly enslaved people, agricultural scientist George Washington Carver pushed crop diversification, composting, and other proto-organic methods to help sharecroppers “make enough profit to purchase their land, feed their families, and achieve economic autonomy,” White writes. Carver toured Alabama in an “agricultural wagon,” delivering lectures and demonstrations of his techniques.
“It’s one case out of thousands of cases involving police use of force, so we shouldn’t read too much into it,” said Keith A. Findley, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. “But it’s nonetheless very important, because it is one in which, with the whole world watching, the justice system stepped up and acted to hold the police officer responsible for an unlawful use of deadly force.
Children rarely develop severe forms of COVID-19, and deaths from the disease are rarer still. On rare occasions — one estimate1 puts it at around one case in 1,000, although it could be even lower — kids who’ve experienced even mild infections can later develop a sometimes deadly condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). “I’m tired of seeing sick kids. I want to see them protected,” says James Conway, a paediatric infectious-disease specialist and vaccine researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Focusing on the potentially devastating impacts of climate change may demoralize people and cause them to distance themselves from the problem, said Dominique Brossard, professor and chair of the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“I’m tired of seeing sick kids. I want to see them protected,” says James Conway, a paediatric infectious-disease specialist and vaccine researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
More people may yet decide to get vaccinated as it becomes clear how much protection it provides, said Ajay Sethi, a professor of population health studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“I try to be an optimist,” he said. “I don’t want to write off rural areas saying they’re forever going to be the communities refusing vaccination. Over time, that will change.”
To discuss Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador and the current state of US-Mexico relations, I reached out to Patrick Iber, a professor of Latin American history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A political science professor is seeking to challenge Attorney General Josh Kaul in the 2022 election to be Wisconsin’s top attorney.
Ryan Owens, 44, who has taught law and political science courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the last 10 years, is the second Republican to announce a run against the Democratic incumbent.
The challenge now is logistics. Dr. Peter Newcomer, chief clinical officer for University of Wisconsin Health, said the treatment never really took off at his facility. And now, with a low load of cases to begin with, his hospital is only treating a patient or two a day. Wisconsin hasn’t seen the same surge as Michigan.
As the vaccines have rolled out, many experts have strenuously rejected the idea that there’s any “best” vaccine. “The best vaccine is the one that goes in your arm,” said Mary Hayney, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy who researches vaccination. “I truly believe that there is not a big difference among the vaccines, or a discernable difference. Whatever one is offered to you, take it.” (Again, Hayney spoke to Slate before the latest J&J news.)
Another hurdle is getting local, state and federal labs all working together. “There are lots of cats that need to be herded,” said University of Wisconsin virologist Thomas Friedrich.
“Miss Carson” was Rachel Carson, who would later make history with her book “Silent Spring,” about the dangers of the pesticide DDT. Stanley Temple would become Dr. Temple, a well-known bird conservationist and a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Dr. James Conway, a UW Health pediatrician and vaccine expert, and Ajay Sethi, a UW-Madison infectious disease epidemiologist.
Debunking that information is a challenge, but an expert UW-Madison associate professor of Public Health Services Ajay Sethi is on a mission to shut down misinformation surrounding the vaccine.
The shooting in Indianapolis is just one of 45 mass shootings across the country in just over four weeks. UW-Madison communication arts professor Joanne Cantor said people are feeling the emotional impact. “There’s a potential with one after the other after the other to be desensitized,” Cantor said, adding, “On the other hand, it can make you feel worse and worse and worse.”
Written by John B. Diamond, the Kellner Family Distinguished Chair in Urban Education and a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s education school, and Jennifer Cheatham, a senior lecturer on education and the co-chair of the Public Education Leadership Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former superintendent of the Madison school district in Wisconsin.
In 1957, when Marvin Kalb joined CBS Radio in New York to write local news, television was called “electronic journalism,” and the backdrop for the “CBS Morning News” was a cardboard sign hanging above a desk on the fifth floor of the Grand Central Terminal building. The United States had yet to recognize what it referred to as “Red China” diplomatically, and Edward R. Murrow still worked for CBS
-Kathryn J. McGarr is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of “The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics.” Her forthcoming book is about Washington foreign policy reporters in the early Cold War.
But visualizing or trying to understand “how many” a billion dollars is doesn’t really help us understand any better how much money a billionaire has. Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else,” said thinking about “how much” a billion dollars is is more useful. Basically, how rich is a billionaire?
Steven Wright, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said second-degree manslaughter is a charge for offenses that are not planned — one example in the statute specifically addresses hunting accidents, not uncommon in Minnesota.
“From a social science perspective, the decision from the governor to not go towards a lockdown I think is a sensible one,” said Dominique Brossard, chair of the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin. “You need to work with what you have as far as people’s psychological state.”
Joe Biden’s election gave some a glimmer of hope that the current $1.8 trillion mountain of student debt might finally be eliminated. Pressure from social movement groups, including the Movement for Black Lives and the Debt Collective, alongside progressive politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Jamaal Bowman, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have made the once-utopian demand for full student debt cancellation into a distinct political possibility.
Quoted: According to Lori Kido Lopez, an associate professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison, the reduction of that identity to “something that can be consumed in a mainstream way erases the radical roots of that history,” which was born out of anti-imperialist and civil rights activism in the 1960s.
Persuading people to get a COVID-19 vaccine remains a challenge even as more than a 120 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose.
Public health officials have struggled to find persuasive and accessible approaches throughout the pandemic, from explaining where COVID-19 originated to how the virus spreads among individuals, along with steps to prevent its transmission, its inequitable impacts on people’s lives, and now relevant risks and benefits information about vaccines.
-Dominique Brossard, Todd Newman, Emily Howell
If this new and perplexing reality has added to your stress, you’re not alone. “It has really produced a ton of new anxiety, this process of reopening, re-engaging with social interactions after a year trying to avoid them,” said Malia Jones, a community health scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The vaccines seem to have provided a promising path out of the pandemic, she said, “but also, oh my God, we have to renegotiate every single one of these situations.”
It’s tricky to predict how long the rest of the clinical trials and approval processes will take, but Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who oversees vaccination programs there, said that it’s likely that vaccines will be available for 12- to 15-year-olds this summer, for 5- to 11-year-olds in late 2021, and for babies over 6 months old, toddlers and preschoolers in early 2022.
The “Mom Mentor” of Milwaukee and an assistant professor in UW-Madison’s Department of Population Health Sciences explain how systemic racism contributes to negative outcomes for pregnant Black women.
A few lines above hers in the table of contents, Pickens saw the name of Sami Schalk, another colleague. Schalk, who studies race, gender, and disability in American literature as an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, also did not know she was going to be included in the reader. She messaged several of the other authors and soon formed a group text, which migrated to Facebook, then an email chain.
“There’s no other way to say it- it’s completely unproven whether these devices would work in a real-world setting,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor Timothy Bertram, according to Kaiser Health News (KHN).
“Teachers reported lower levels of perceived stress and depression, and absenteeism went down, all during the highly stressful Covid-19 pandemic,” says Cortland Dahl, PhD, chief contemplative officer at HealthyMinds Innovations and a research scientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Oguzhan Alagoz is a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who studies infectious disease modeling. He agrees another surge in cases in Wisconsin would likely not be as bad as surges before vaccinations started.
“Even if we do see an increase in cases, as long as we vaccinate the vulnerable individuals, our hospitalization and deaths are not going to be as bad as what we have seen over the last several months,” Alagoz said.
“This paper will drive people to look at the importance of butterflies as pollinators,” says Karen Oberhauser, a butterfly biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the research. If the results hold up in other crops, butterflies might be added to a short list of commercially important pollinators including honey bees, bumble bees, hoverflies, and beetles.
University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor Timothy Bertram told KHN that “it’s completely unproven whether these devices would work in a real-world setting.” He added his research has shown that ion-generating and hydroxyl-releasing products may create potentially harmful ozone or other small particles, and that tried-and-true air filtration tech is the most effective option.
“In the whole global accounting of Crispr [gene editing] therapies, somatic cell genome editing is going to be a large fraction of that,” says Krishanu Saha, a bioengineer at University of Wisconsin-Madison who is currently part of a consortium investigating the technique’s safety. “I mean, that’s certainly the case now, if you look at where trials are, where investment is.”
“It’s a nice, clean demonstration” of movement’s benefits, says Martha Alibali, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who studies gesture in education and was not involved in the study. A model, she says, is “a super important concept, a really foundational statistical concept.”
“This paper will drive people to look at the importance of butterflies as pollinators,” says Karen Oberhauser, a butterfly biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the research. If the results hold up in other crops, butterflies might be added to a short list of commercially important pollinators including honey bees, bumble bees, hoverflies, and beetles.
“It’s a nice, clean demonstration” of movement’s benefits, says Martha Alibali, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who studies gesture in education and was not involved in the study. A model, she says, is “a super important concept, a really foundational statistical concept.”
“One of the reasons I wanted to fight this virus as hard as we have was to get them back to some sense of normalcy,” Dr. William Hartman, UW-Health Astrazeneca covid vaccine trial principal investigator said.
Quoted: “I think we’re all at the edge of our seat, fingers crossed we don’t experience that, but all the signs indicate that we could experience it,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re headed in the wrong direction.”
Although vaccines appear to be highly effective against new variants of COVID-19, not enough of the population is yet vaccinated to prevent a surge without other precautions, Sethi said.
“It doesn’t happen in the summer,” says Beth Drolet, professor and chair of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who is studying the covid toe phenomenon. “The toes can stay blue for weeks, but eventually go back to normal.”
As the vaccine rollout accelerates this spring and summer, “we would expect to see a decrease in post vaccination covid toes,” says Lisa Arkin, director of pediatric dermatology at Wisconsin. “Covid toes are easily treatable with rewarming. They resolve spontaneously. Sometimes, we use topical medicines to treat inflammation in the skin. Most patients experience mild swelling and itch, which resolves within days to weeks.”
A toxic substance is likely killing off the axons, says Ian Duncan, a neurologist at the University of Wisconsin who has collaborated with the FWC. He’s an expert on disorders affecting the myelin sheath, the fatty layer that protects nerve fibers in a mammal’s central nervous system. Initially it looked like FLM may involve deterioration of the myelin sheath, but analysis of the dead panthers’ spinal cords showed that not to be the case.
Dr. Makeba Williams, an OB-GYN at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told Insider flying during pregnancy is generally safe before 36 weeks, though more precautions are needed during the pandemic, especially if you’re not vaccinated.
“It’s unfortunate we have to talk about [flying while pregnant] in the context of a death,” she said, “but it’s relevant to a lot of people.”
“The increased likelihood for a recently widowed person to die — often called the “widowhood effect” — is one of the best documented examples of the effect of social relations on health,” wrote Dr. Nicholas Christakis, who runs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University and coauthor Felix Elwert, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in a seminal 2008 study.
“The take-home message is that infrastructure in most parts of the country is no longer performing at the level that it’s supposed to because of the big changes that we’ve seen in extreme rainfall,” said Daniel Wright, a hydrologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of the study.
Quoted: “I think it’s safe to say Wisconsin elections are now going to be mixed-mode operations for the foreseeable future,” said political scientist Barry Burden of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“A good chunk will vote on election day, as they always have, but there will also be a good chunk voting earlier,” either in person or with a mail ballot, Burden said.
“Seeds are ultimately what feed us and the animals we eat,” Jack Kloppenburg, a rural sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. “Control over seeds is, in many ways, control over the food supply. The question of who produces new plant varieties is absolutely critical for the future of all of us.”
“They were angry and ignorant of treaty rights,” said Larry Nesper, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who witnessed some of the confrontations. “I heard one person say, ‘I’m poor, I’ve got a crappy education, I don’t have a lot of nice things, but at least I’m not a damn Indian.’”
Quoted: It’s a step in the right direction, according to Barry Orton, a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison telecommunications professor who has helped local governments with telecom issues.
“The words are good,” Orton said, but the proof will come in the details.
Still, many American homeowners strive for a perfectly uniform, bright green lawn. And according to research by Paul Robbins, PhD, professor and dean at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, many do this in spite of misgivings about the sometimes mysterious chemical inputs involved.
Bailey is a licensed psychologist at the Family Therapy Center of Madison. She is also a college instructor, and clinical consultant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Psychology. Dr. Bailey recommends people balance being informed with making sure to not be overwhelmed.
“Even in the communities that do the best job of this, those summer meals are only reaching a fraction of the kids who normally get fed during the school year,” said Judi Bartfeld, a food security research and policy specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The vaccines have been tested on tens of thousands of people in clinical trials, millions have been inoculated across the globe and complications have been rare. Still, there are those who are taking a wait-and-see approach, said Patrick Remington, former epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Preventive Medicine Residency program.
UW-Madison Professor Jonathan Martin answers that question in his new book “Reginald Sutcliffe and the Invention of Modern Weather Systems Science.”
UW professor Frank Tuerkheimer noticed the lack of diversity in education, specifically around the Holocaust. He decided to leave his career as a federal prosecutor and become a teacher in order to increase Holocaust awareness. Tuerkheimer teaches a course on the post-Holocaust prosecution of those who contributed to the death of Jewish people.
Dr. James H. Conway, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said what we really care about is a vaccine’s effectiveness — its real-world potential.
