Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us it is not possible to know how many Georgians voted for Biden and no other candidate. That “would require individual-level information from ballots, not aggregation information about ballots cast in each race,” he said.
Category: UW Experts in the News
Professor: Let’s Drop The ‘Guilty’ In ‘Guilty Pleasure’
“I believe that pleasure is freedom,” said Schalk, an associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Pleasure is part of liberation.”
No, that’s not a mountain behind Madison…
Researcher Tim Wagner at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Space, Science, & Engineering Center (SSEC) knew exactly what it was. All he had to utter was “Superior Mirage” and his wife grabbed his camera for him. He snapped a photo shortly before 8:30 Wednesday morning – showing what appeared to be a mountain behind the capitol city.
How the pandemic is changing the future of the movie industry
UW-Madison media professor, Dr. Derek Johnson says even the largest theater companies are struggling right now. He says the new option to stream releases at home will likely be attractive to many families because of the lower cost.
UW Health psychologist explains importance of safeguarding mental health this holiday season
Dr. Shilagh Mirgain, a UW Health distinguished psychologist, recommends if you live by yourself, prioritize social connection in safe ways.
Top UW Health official says COVID-19 vaccine should be available for frontline workers before Christmas
UW Health Chief Quality Officer Dr. Jeff Pothof said he believes there will be a quick turn around once there is authorization , and the hospital is already preparing for which healthcare workers will get vaccinated first once shipments come in.
Black residents built Halyard Park. Now they fear being taxed out their homes as downtown development moves northward.
Quoted: Revel Sims, a gentrification expert and urban planning professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the question he hears the most often is this: Can development occur without displacement?
“I don’t have a silver bullet answer,” he said. “For a long time, the strategy has been you can’t stop it, you just have to get benefits (through) community benefit agreements.”
Wisconsin’s not so white anymore – and in some rapidly diversifying cities like Kenosha there’s fear and unrest
Kenosha, Wisconsin, became a national byword for racial unrest when protests in August erupted in violence.After local police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back, leaving him paralyzed, furious residents took to the streets expressing years of pent-up anger. During nighttime hours, fires were set.
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Report: Limited Workforce, Housing And Broadband Coverage Create Challenges For Rural Wisconsin
Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agreed the COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for rural Wisconsin.
Trump’s ‘Most Important’ Speech Was Mostly False
Election experts also attribute some of the disparity to “ballot roll-off,” which is when voters skip certain races. Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us it’s not unusual for voters to “choose a candidate at the top of the ballot and then ‘roll off’ as they move down the ballot. There is nothing suspicious about lower participation in lower level races.”
Temperature Tightrope: Health officials break down Pfizer vaccine distribution plan
“If you’ve ever had steaks or ice cream delivered to your home, they deliver it with dry ice. That’s the temperature we’re talking about here,” David Andes, UW-Madison professor and infectious disease chief said.
Pricey mini campus promises students maskless, safe spring term
Craig Roberts, epidemiologist emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that “bubbles sound good in concept but are difficult to pull off, especially at this scale.”
“The key, he said, “is the degree to which the community stays in the bubble, of course, and nobody violates the rules” — sneaking into town, for example. But staff members could be potential problems if they’re coming and going from the community. That makes it more like a long-term care facility, he said, where only residents are on lockdown.
Report: Limited Workforce, Housing And Broadband Coverage Create Challenges For Rural Wisconsin
Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agreed the COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for rural Wisconsin.
For First Time In Months, Wisconsin’s COVID-19 Cases Are Declining. Experts Say It May Not Last.
Before Thanksgiving, Wisconsin was “at least leveling out, maybe trending down a little bit on some of the measures we look at,” said Dr. Jeffrey Pothof, the chief quality officer for UW Health. It would have been too soon to know if the state’s outbreak had begun to recede, but there was data suggesting that was possible.
As COVID-19 vaccine nears, Wisconsin looks at how to divvy up first doses
Dr. Jonathan Temte, associate dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index gives some priority to rural areas. The index includes socioeconomic status, minority population, housing, transportation and other factors.
Holiday air travel surges despite dire health warnings
Previous holidays including Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day were followed by increases in new cases. David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin who has studied the role of travel in the pandemic, expects the same thing to happen after Thanksgiving and leading up to Christmas.
Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election
When asked to comment on similar claims about “Biden-only” voting in Georgia, Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us it is not possible to know how many Georgians voted for Biden and no other candidate. That “would require individual-level information from ballots, not aggregation information about ballots cast in each race,” he said.
For First Time In Months, Wisconsin’s COVID-19 Cases Are Declining. Experts Say It May Not Last.
That’s what Ajay Sethi is expecting. The epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health said the data in the next two weeks will likely tell us where Wisconsin will stand a month from now. He isn’t optimistic.
Covid Vaccine Legality: Will you be required to take it?
Alta Charo is a law and bioethics professor at UW-Madison. She said a vaccine mandate at the federal level is unlikely because it would be challenged in courts. Charo explained there’s more public health power at the state level.
Thanksgiving will lead to increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, UW expert says
Associate Professor Ajay Sethi, an expert on infectious disease epidemiology, said in an email to The Badger Herald that students should space out their COVID-19 tests.
Fears of coronavirus jump intensify in Thanksgiving’s aftermath
Days after millions of Americans ignored health guidance to avoid travel and large Thanksgiving gatherings, it’s still too soon to tell how many people became infected with the coronavirus over the course of the holiday weekend. But as travelers head home to communities already hit hard by the disease, hospitals and health officials across the country are bracing for what scientist Dave O’Connor called “a surge on top of a surge.”
“It is painful to watch,” said O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Like seeing two trains in the distance and knowing they’re about to crash, but you can’t do anything to stop it.”
Wisconsin Corn Growers Expected To Bring In Record Yields
Joe Lauer, an agronomy professor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said farmers were grateful for more normal weather patterns this year after an extremely wet season in 2019.
Retail Experts Say Black Friday Will Be Very Different For Retail Industry This Year
“The in-store experience is going to be so much different,” said Hart Posen, a professor of management and human resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business.
Health Experts Ask People To Avoid In-Person Black Friday Shopping As Spread Of COVID-19 Remains High
Malia Jones researches how our social environment affects our health as a social epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Laboratory. She also serves as the editor in chief of Dear Pandemic, an interdisciplinary group of all-female researchers and clinicians who create fact-based social media content about COVID-19.
How Biden’s Climate Goals Could Play A Big Role In Shaping Wisconsin’s Energy Future
Greg Nemet, an energy researcher and professor of public affairs at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Biden can accomplish a lot through executive orders.”The downside is they’re not durable if a new president comes in in four years or eight or 12 years and changes direction,” said Nemet.
Midwest has yet to see peak of latest COVID-19 surge, experts fear
“I think it is premature to feel that we turned the corner until we see at least a week or two to have sort of [a] decline,” said Dr. Oguzhan Alagoz, an expert in healthcare analytics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Could lawmakers ‘mess’ with Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes? Possibly
As established under Wisconsin law, officials from both the Democratic and Republican parties convene at the state Capitol and nominate one slate of electors per party, according to UW-Madison Law School professor Rob Yablon. Each slate contains 10 electors, one from each of the state’s eight congressional districts and two at large.
Pandemic accelerates move to online shopping this holiday
“It’s fair to say it’s a buyer’s market because of that pent-up up supply,” said UW-Madison Associate Professor Cliff Robb.
Wisconsin Corn Growers Expected To Bring In Record Yields
Quoted: Joe Lauer, an agronomy professor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said farmers were grateful for more normal weather patterns this year after an extremely wet season in 2019.
“There’s a little more peace of mind, if you will, in kind of going through what I just call an average normal production season,” Lauer said. “We’re going to end up with record yields but it’s just kind of easier psychologically to take.”
Shawn Conley, soybean and wheat specialist for UW-Madison’s Division of Extension, said a lack of precipitation throughout the state at the end of summer caused the USDA to lower their forecasted yields to 53 bushels per acre. That’s six bushels, or almost 13 percent, higher than last year.
But Conley said most farmers were happy to have the dry weather.
“That allowed farmers to have a lot of days in the field that they can push through and get their crops out of the field in a timely manner,” Conley said.
Retail Experts Say Black Friday Will Be Very Different For Retail Industry This Year
Quoted: “The in-store experience is going to be so much different,” said Hart Posen, a professor of management and human resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business.
Retailers adjust and public health experts urge caution looking ahead to Black Friday in the pandemic
Quoted: “It will be unlike any other Thanksgiving week shopping that we’ve had, I imagine,” says retailing expert Jerry O’Brien.
Perhaps this year’s biggest Black Friday change is that retailers effectively started Black Friday weeks ago.
“They’re pretty much all coming out openly saying, ‘We’re going to spread Black Friday out through November,’” says O’Brien, who is executive director of the Kohl’s Center for Retailing Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison epidemiologist Dr. Ajay Sethi is hoping that foot traffic will be modest and safe.
“I anticipate there’ll be less Black Friday shopping this year compared to last year, because a sizable proportion of people are well aware of our pandemic,” says Sethi, an associate professor of population health sciences and faculty director of the UW-Madison master of public health degree program. “It obviously needs to be minimal, because we want to have really no crowding anywhere, for at least the next several weeks or months, so we can stop the spread of COVID in the state.”
‘To beat this virus, we have to be united’: Chaos and resistance to COVID-19 measures hinder Wisconsin’s response
Quoted: 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, said the best approach to tackling the massive outbreak is working together.
“To beat this virus, we have to be united in response,” he said.
Despite less driving, fatal crashes and excessive speeding are up in Wisconsin in 2020
But David Noyce, a UW-Madison engineering professor and director of the university’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory, said many of the most serious crashes don’t have anything to do with the number of vehicles on the roads.
Report: Wisconsinites follow national trend in cutting cable subscriptions
Many customers are either canceling subscriptions or never signing up in the first place if they are able to instead subscribe to streaming services, which may be cheaper or more tailored to their interests, UW-Madison professor emeritus Barry Orton said. “They’re all focusing on exclusive content,” Orton said of streaming services. “Something you can’t watch anywhere else.”
Leaf-cutter ants are coated in rocky crystal armor, never before seen in insects
The discovery is especially surprising because the ants are well known. “There are thousands of papers on leaf-cutter ants,” says study co-author Cameron Currie, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Are Cuban-American Voters Really a ‘Special’ Case?
The other, media, is taking on new forms in a digital age, but if recent statements by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Beto O’Rourke are anything to go by, this is a national problem for Democrats that a growing chorus within the party are already well aware of. Grenier tells me that Democrats in Florida are already well aware that the GOP’s hold over the Cuban-American community was not built overnight. We can’t expect Democratic inroads to be either.
Andrés S. Pertierra (@ASPertierra) is a PhD student in Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A native of Washington, DC, he previously received his undergraduate degree from the University of Havana, Cuba.
Did Viruses Create the Nucleus? The Answer May Be Near.
Quoted: Just this year, researchers spotted pores in the double-membrane-bound viral factories of coronaviruses, which are eerily reminiscent of the pores found in cell nuclei. “If this result holds up, and assuming that the pore-forming protein was not derived from a eukaryotic genome, then it does blunt one argument against the virus model,” wrote David A. Baum, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in an email.
Leaf-cutter ants have rocky crystal armor, never before seen in insects
Quoted: The discovery is especially surprising because the ants are well known. “There are thousands of papers on leaf-cutter ants,” says study co-author Cameron Currie, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We were really excited to find [this in] one of the most well-studied insects in nature,” he says.
Opinion: Wisconsin’s law enforcement officers are leaving in droves. Here’s what we can do to keep communities safe.
Ryan J. Owens is an attorney, the George C. and Carmella P. Edwards professor of American Politics, and the director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He writes this in his personal capacity.
Who would benefit from canceling $10,000 in student debt?
Biden’s platform states that “student debt both exacerbates and results from the racial wealth gap.” Of the 1 in 5 Americans with student loan debt, a disproportionate number are Black. Nick Hillman, associate professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at University of Wisconsin-Madison, points out that data shows in communities of color, 17% of borrowers are in default and their median loan is $9,067.
AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is 70% effective on average, data show
“The top line is this is more great news,” said Dave O’Connor, a vaccinologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is a volunteer in the AstraZeneca trial. (He believes he received the placebo, because he had no side effects after either dose.)
‘Not sure how long we can hold the line’: With hospitals full, doctors and scientists beg Wisconsinites to stay home for Thanksgiving
The scale of the pandemic is straining health care systems in Wisconsin so badly that even large hospitals like UW Health University Hospital in Madison are nearly full, said Jeff Pothof, a physician and chief quality officer at UW Health … “Early on, we managed the surge, we had contingency plans, we were keeping up,” said Pothof. “But now we’re getting towards the end of that book. If we get there, we don’t have anything magic. We don’t have anything else left up our sleeve.”
The Facts on Trump’s Post-Election Legal Challenges
It said the clerks did so following “illegal guidance” from the Wisconsin Election Commission, but the campaign has presented no evidence of wrongdoing. David Canon, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, said such charges sounded more like something that belonged in a lawsuit rather than a request for a recount.
“In a recount, all you are doing is recounting the ballots to make sure they were recorded properly,” Canon told WMTV, an NBC affiliate in Madison.
Gen Z’s Next Victim: The Lawn
Landscape architects like Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed the lush meadows of Central Park, brought the status symbol to the masses by designing sweeping, pastoral parks for public use, says Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are.
Tested Negative For COVID-19? Here’s What You Need To Know
Jonathan Temte, associate dean for public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said lab tests are imperfect, and there are factors people should consider before making the assumption that a negative result means they’re safe to be around others.
Needs outpace donations: Nonprofits worry ‘donor fatigue’ will hamper goals
Money given directly to nonprofits can be more helpful to some charities, said Mary Beth Collins, executive director of the UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies, but the United Way has also shown its worth by collaborating with other local leaders to raise emergency funds at the onset of the pandemic.
‘Checks and balances’: Inside the life cycle of a Wisconsin absentee ballot
“The result of the election was not terribly different from four years ago; it went to the Democrats rather than the Republicans, but Wisconsin remains a narrowly divided state,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison. “I think election officials managed to operate in that highly partisan environment quite well.”
Wisconsin receives “D” grade for social distancing
Professor Song Gao, researcher at the UW Geospatial Data Science Lab says he’s part of a team partnering with different data vendors that track location based service apps. Through a grant, this research is able to track and help analyze travel distance using cell phone mobility data.
Potent new antifungal discovered in the microbiome of marine animals
Fungal infections affect hundreds of millions of people globally each year. “They’re particularly a problem for people whose immune system is suppressed,” says David Andes at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This includes people being treated for cancer, organ transplant recipients and premature babies.
Trump campaign’s Wisconsin recount could quickly turn into a lawsuit
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the recount effort is clearly not actually about changing the election result given the margin.
What Trump Showed Us About America
Katherine J. Cramer is professor of political science and chair of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is author of The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.
The past few years have taught me just how removed the cultural elite in the United States is from many of the other people in this nation. By cultural elite, I mean those of us who create the knowledge and the media content people consume, as well those of us in positions of political and other decision-making power. There is a deep well of people in this country who are sure the system is not working for them, and we seem to be only coming around to recognizing how deep it goes.
President Trump is seeking a recount in two Wisconsin counties, but what he’s really doing is preparing for a lawsuit.
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the recount effort is clearly not actually about changing the election result given the margin. Instead, he said, Trump’s goals could be to put a cloud over the election results, raise suspicions, and to lay groundwork for the future.
Movie Theaters Get State Boost
According to Tino Balio, a Professor Emeritus of Communication Arts at UW-Madison and an expert on the history of American cinema, the 1918 pandemic ultimately didn’t leave a lasting impact on the industry. “Throughout the 1920s, the film industry grew exponentially and it became well-entrenched and, during that period, there was a tremendous theater construction boom,” he says. But, Balio makes that caveat that things are different this time around.
Alzheimer’s Research Looks at Hot Spots Across the U.S.
In another of the studies released earlier this year, researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health found that, based on autopsies, people who lived in the poorest neighborhoods at the time of their death were about twice as likely to have brain changes typical of Alzheimer’s disease as people who lived in the wealthiest neighborhoods. Researchers used the Neighborhood Atlas, a map developed by the University of Wisconsin that charts neighborhoods by socioeconomic status.
“We are in the baby steps of trying to understand what is driving this,” says Ryan Powell, a scientist who helped lead the study.
After Exceeding Expectations, Wisconsin’s Economic Recovery Has Stalled, Says UW Researcher
After Wisconsin’s economy made significant strides toward recovery following the downturn caused by the coronavirus, improvement has recently slowed. That’s according to Dr. Noah Williams, director of the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Trump campaign to request recounts in Dane, Milwaukee Co., wires $3M to WEC
A UW Madison political science professor, David Canon, detailed the move to get a partial recount could be more of a political power move.
Back To Basics: How Wisconsinites Can Stop The COVID-19 Spike From Worsening
Ajay Sethi is an epidemiologist and associate professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
COVID-19 tied to mental illness diagnoses
“For some people, for any number of reasons, the immune system kick that the virus causes then sets in motion long-lasting changes in how the brain works,” Dr. Charles Raison said Saturday. “It diminishes the brain’s ability to work effectively, and so you get all these symptoms.”
Video Games to Relax
Although the neuroscience of video gaming is not conclusive, there may be evidence that the benefits are not (pardon the phrase) just in your head. Recently, a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of California, Irvine developed Tenacity, a game with the goal of increasing mindfulness.
The Cities Central to Fraud Conspiracy Theories Didn’t Cost Trump the Election
“From a partisan perspective, Trump’s vilification of cities makes no sense,” Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email. “It has little to do with his loss in Wisconsin, which resulted mostly from small shifts in the white vote outside of the city, particularly the suburbs, Dane County, and other parts of Milwaukee County.”