Category: UW Experts in the News

Uncertainty avoidance is the measure of a culture’s (or an individual’s) discomfort with uncertainty and ambiguity. Researchers Dan Grupe and Jack Nitschke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people who are more comfortable with uncertainty will let events unfold, make observations with less emotional reaction, and deal with what happens.

Technology Review also spoke to Amy Niu, a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin who studies the impact of beauty filters, who said that in China some popular apps automatically add beauty filters. Niu said that apps like WeChat, the most popular social media app in China, and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, include beauty filters on the camera as the default.

“I’m actually quite amazed at the magnitude and the extent of the smoke plume coming from this fire,” said Brad Pierce, director of UW-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center.

UW Health’s Chief Quality Officer Dr. Jeff Pothof joins News 3 Now Live at Four to talk about a grim milestone in the fight against COVID-19, coronavirus variants and the potential for a fourth vaccine.

Wisconsin’s minimum wage is at the federal level, unlike its neighbors Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Iowa, however, has stayed at the same rate. As in other states, a higher rate is under discussion. An economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tim Smeeding, told Wisconsin Public Radio that a federal rate of $15 an hour would be too high all at once. He advocates raising it in stage

President Yoweri Museveni, who has led Uganda since 1986, has appointed a woman, Jessica Alupo, as vice-president and another woman, Robinah Nabbanja, as prime minister. He has also increased the percentage of women in the cabinet from 27% to 43%. This is the second time Museveni has appointed a woman as vice-president. Specioza Wandira Kazibwe served as vice-president from 1994 to 2003.

-Aili Mari Tripp

“For pressurized water reactors (PWRs), which are the most common reactor type in the US as well as the type of reactor at the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, the biggest causes of fuel leaks are debris and grid-to-rod fretting, which occurs when a nuclear fuel rod rubs against the metal spacer grids that hold the rods in place,” Katie Mummah, a nuclear engineering PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Register.

“We’ll work with our ecology team, the city’s ecology team and an ecology team from the University of Wisconsin to bring back native plants and species,” Keiser says. “Like our other Wisconsin properties, it’s a rebirth of a beautiful piece of ground.”

UW Health’s Dr. Matt Anderson and UW Health nutritionist Jean Reiche say the effect this challenge has on the body is not a positive one.

UW Health Distinguished Psychologist Dr. Shilagh Mirgain joins News 3 Now Live at Four to talk about some of the best ways to cope with those new found worries.

The concept of libel doesn’t change based on whether an allegedly libelous statement is made on social media or in a more traditional form of media such as a newspaper, according to UW Law School professor Anuj Desai.

Quoted: It’s a conceptual theory to help explain how inequality gets reproduced and maintained in our society, not an approach to demonize one racial group. It is usually taught at the graduate level, said University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Kevin Lawrence Henry.

“Critical race theory becomes a catch-all for anything that’s about equity and addressing diversity and racial disparities and inequality,” he said. “It becomes a kind of boogeyman or straw man about how we are indoctrinating children in schools, but in fact, critical race theory is not taught in the K-12 arena.”

“Stress, trauma and boredom are not your friends for precise memory,” Maryellen MacDonald, UW-Madison psychology and language sciences professor said.

“Ransomware is the corporate killer,” Bob Turner, UW-Madison Chief Information Officer said.

So far in 2021, Rock County has only seen about half of the rain the county would usually get by this point in the year, causing eastern parts of the county to reach severe drought levels. Chelsea Zegler, UW-Madison Dane County Extension Crops and Soils Educator, said the impact is minor, but could get worse if the drought continues through summer.

Andrea Bill is a researcher at the Traffic Operations and Safety Lab at UW-Madison. She is part of a team that analyzes the type of crashes that occur and looks at what can be done to prevent them, either from a behavioral standpoint or an engineering standpoint. She’s also studying how the pandemic has impacted the data.

Beijing claims the country’s 2020 TFR was 1.3. But Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told me the TFR last year was an extremely low 0.90. Yi’s estimate is consistent with 2015’s TFR.

But as with much about the SARSCoV-2 virus, that’s not certain because it’s so new. There’s not yet enough data to answer pressing questions, such as how long vaccines or natural immunity from previous infections lasts, said Ajay Sethi, a professor of population health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison school of medicine.

So far in 2021, Rock County has only seen about half of the rain the county would usually get by this point in the year, causing eastern parts of the county to reach severe drought levels. Chelsea Zegler, UW-Madison Dane County Extension Crops and Soils Educator, said the impact is minor, but could get worse if the drought continues through summer.