Rosh Hashanah is often treated as a time to reflect on the previous year and focus on hopes for the coming year, according to Jordan Rosenblum, the Belzer Professor of Classical Judaism and Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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The push to control America’s exploding geese population
“We have probably 11 million Canada geese in the Eastern half of the United States,” said David Drake, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico as a Category 1 storm. Flooding still wrought havoc.
“It’s a double whammy. You have a hurricane with strong gusts and then a tail of intense rain that remained stationary over the south dropping two to three feet of water,” said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Ángel Adames-Corraliza, a native of Puerto Rico. “That’s a nightmare scenario.”
Water problems in Jackson, Mississippi, go deeper than pipes, experts say
“If [we] drink from the same water source, even if [we] don’t like one another, we’re sort of handcuffed, whether we like each other or not, we’re drinking from the same water, so we both have an interest in making sure that it’s good,” Manny Teodoro, an associate professor at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told ABC News.
Virginia’s governor restricted rights for trans students. Is it legal?
“Freedom of expression under the First Amendment is much different in a college classroom than it is in a K-through-12 classroom,” said Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. While pronouns are a new and “gray area,” she said, “there are plenty of cases that just show that First Amendment rights of teachers are strictly limited.”
Bad Bunny Is A Folk Artist First And A Pop Artist Second
“For those of us in the diaspora, his music is a way to connect to home. It’s comforting to listen to him refer to places I used to go to when I was living on the island,” said Aurora Santiago Ortiz, assistant professor of Latinx studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Scholars and teenage TikTokers alike express a sense of intimacy with the music, which speaks to us as only a local can.
President Joe Biden Declaring Pandemic ‘Over’ Has Experts Reeling
“There is simply too much uncertainty about what happens next,” David O’Connor, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin, told The Daily Beast. “Will future variants outrun existing vaccines and therapeutics? What will be the impact of long COVID years, and potentially decades, from now? What other challenges can we not foresee three years into COVID-19 that will challenge us collectively in 2025, 2030, 2040 and beyond?”
“Buy now, pay later” needs regulation, CFPB says
There are rules governing how credit card companies vet borrowers’ creditworthiness and disclose terms. In the buy now, pay later space, “it’s a little bit more Wild West in style,” said Cliff Robb, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin.
Climate change could soon affect biofuel supply | Popular Science
“Increasingly dryer and hotter weather conditions pose a threat to successful cultivation, and ultimately, the yield of agro-derived biomass feedstocks,” says Victor Ujor, assistant professor of food science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “With a near-global drop in rainfall, plant growth and yield will fall dramatically, if this trend continues.”
Child poverty fell by nearly half in 2021, Census Bureau says
A Columbia University study estimated that child poverty jumped 40% when the expanded child tax credit expired last December. “What the numbers today really tell us is that poverty isn’t inevitable,” said Sarah Halpern-Meekin, who researches poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It is in part a product of our policy choices.”
Queen Elizabeth II’s death reignites conversations about colonial history
“We essentially have to respect her for her very long service, but as the monarch, she cannot be disentangled from colonization of South Asia,” Mou Banerjee, a professor of South Asian history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told NPR.
How to Fix America’s Confusing Voting System
Barry Burden, a professor and the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, believes that in the United States, the registration step “is probably more of a deterrent to voter participation than we realize,” he said. “It’s a little challenging for most voters, but if a person doesn’t have the literacy skills or language skills to navigate that bureaucratic process, it could be a deterrent to even getting registered or getting a ballot in the first place.”
Family Farms Can Reduce CO2 Emissions By Giving Cows More Pasture Time
When you have pasture-based systems and organic crop production, you have a smaller carbon footprint. That’s how Nicole Rakobitsch puts it. Rakobitsch is director of sustainability at Organic Valley, the largest organic dairy cooperative in the United States, and also part of a University of Wisconsin-Madison research team behind a first-of-its-kind study. The peer-reviewed research uses a “breakthrough methodology” that includes accounting for the carbon sequestration benefit of grazed pastures.
The Debate Over Muslim College Students Getting Secret Marriages
This question is in “an evolutionary moment right now,” Asifa Quraishi-Landes, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Islamic constitutional theory, said. Recent publications have made an effort to explore the many kinds of relationships and marriages that Muslims experience, whether or not they are recognized according to traditional Islamic law. “Tying the Knot,” “a feminist / womanist guide to Muslim marriage in America,” published in the spring of 2022 by a group of female Muslim scholars, including Quraishi-Landes, takes on topics ranging from mut‘a marriages—the temporary partnerships practiced by some Shia Muslims—to interfaith marriages, L.G.B.T.Q. marriages, and polygynous marriages, in which men have multiple wives, although the latter are rare among the estimated three and a half million
Stonks Aren’t the Only Reason Why Businesses Should Know Their Memes
Are there drawbacks to this ambition? Last year, Ben Pettis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison argued that “overreliance on KYM as an authority on memes and their history can contribute to the homogenization of Web histories,” potentially obscuring or downplaying a given meme’s connections to harmful ideologies, for instance.
Purring Is a Love Language No Human Can Speak
Carney told me that in some animals, purring could be a sort of vocal tic, like nervous laughter; cats might also be trying to send out pleas for help or warning messages to anyone who might dare approach. Or maybe bad-times purrs are self-soothing, says Jill Caviness, a veterinarian and cat expert at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and parent to a feline named Electron. They could even be a cat’s attempt to dupe its pain-racked body into a less stressed state.
A Genius Cartoonist Believes Child’s Play Is Anything But Frivolous
And since 2012, Barry, a 66-year-old who in 2019 received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship — the so-called genius grant — has been at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has held various positions and now does cross-disciplinary teaching on creativity. So when it comes to self-expression, to making art, it’s fair to say that she’s an expert. But in many ways, not nearly as much of an expert as your average little kid, which is something Barry has been thinking about a lot lately.
Think preparation will help you later? You will probably be right, a new study says
“This study was the first to demonstrate that participants’ expectations of how their cognitive performance ’should’ change as a result of cognitive training can influence the actual outcomes that they show,” said Jocelyn Parong, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral research associate department of psychology’s Learning and Transfer Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, via email.
Growing a New Type of Organ Donor
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are also exploring ways to customize pigs to address other medical problems. The scientists are using gene editing to create pigs with gene mutations that cause the disease neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1. Around one in 3,000 babies in the U.S. is born with the condition, which can cause tumors on nerve tracts in the skin and eyes, learning disabilities and gastrointestinal problems.
Fact check: False claim Biden has filed for reelection
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he found no evidence of a candidate filing by the Biden campaign on the FEC website.
Post-Roe, some areas may lose OB/GYNs if medical students can’t get training
At the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, Laura Jacques, an assistant professor, advises medical students who plan to apply to an OB/GYN residency. She says she believes Wisconsin’s recently reinstated abortion ban — which makes providing an abortion a felony offense — will have a chilling effect on the program’s ability to attract candidates.
“There’s no question that residents are going to not come to states that won’t give them the training that they value and think they need,” Jacques said.
Forgiveness: How To Forgive Yourself And Others
Another leading expert on forgiveness, Robert Enright, Ph.D, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a pioneer in the scientific study of forgiveness, defines the practice by three factors. The first factor is moral virtue. “Moral virtues deal with goodness toward others,” he says, adding that this is not contingent upon one specific religious belief, though it is part of many religions, including Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.
When Private Schools Take Public Money But Still Discriminate
Currently, the practice is perfectly legal. It’s also coming under increased scrutiny. “This is a hot button issue,” says Suzanne Eckes, education law professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’ll probably see a lot of litigation.”
People Answer Scientists’ Queries in Real Time while Dreaming
The findings “challenge our ideas about what sleep is,” says Benjamin Baird, a researcher who studies dreams at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was not involved in this study. Sleep has classically been defined as unresponsiveness to external environmental stimuli—and that feature is still typically part of the definition today, Baird explains. “This work pushes us to think carefully—rethink, maybe—about some of those fundamental definitions about the nature of sleep itself and what’s possible in sleep.“
Biden tries to preempt Republican attacks on crime ahead of midterm elections
Yet the political environment is slightly different in Wisconsin, another 2022 and 2024 battleground state to which Biden is expected to travel next week, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center Director Barry Burden.
Jill Biden tests negative for COVID after rare rebound infection, and U.S. cases are rising in 12 states
While most Americans are now living free of face masks, one group — the roughly 7 million who are immunocompromised — are still mid-pandemic, the Guardian reported Tuesday. Dr. Jeannina Smith, medical director of the infectious disease program at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics, describes the trauma suffered by organ transplant patients who lose their transplant when the test positive for COVID in a hospital setting. One such patient, “was sobbing because she said, ‘It’s so hard for me to see that people care so little about my life that wearing a mask is too much for them.’”
The fascinating history of baby formula
“There have always been cases in which infants have not been able to be breastfed,” Rima Apple, professor emerita of women’s studies and nutrition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology and author of Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890-1950, tells Yahoo Life. “Mothers die; mothers are ill; for some reason a baby can’t latch on.” Often, centuries ago, one solution was to hire a wet nurse, she explains, although that came with a vast range of problems, from fleeting availability to the fact that anyone employed as a wet nurse would likely need to neglect her own baby’s needs in the process.
Wild mushrooms aren’t all poisonous, but they all require caution
KidsPost asked Anne Pringle, a scientist who studies fungi at the University of Wisconsin, about fungi’s image problem.
How Quitting a Job Changed My Personal Finances
The Karles represent a group of individuals and families who have made a change and are now dealing with the financial consequences, for better or worse. “The pandemic made people really think and take stock of their living situations,” said Cliff Robb, an associate professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We saw so many different employment opportunities become flexible in their structures, so people started to reassess it all.”
Presidents can’t declassify documents with Green Lantern superpowers
Written by Kenneth R. Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of “With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power” (Princeton, 2002).
The Court’s Liberals Still Have Power
About the author: Joshua Braver is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
To become law, a Supreme Court opinion needs the backing of five justices. That reality has forced progressive justices for almost 50 years to compromise with center-right justices, resulting in legal doctrine rife with contradictions and loopholes, which conservatives have ruthlessly exploited to pare back the rights of women, racial minorities, and the gay community. Progressive justices had to make these bargains in order to get the five votes needed to be in the majority. That’s how things work.
As prison education expands in Wisconsin, incarcerated students find success
In addition, the Odyssey Beyond Bars program expanded its English 100 college-credit course to four state prisons this past semester. The University of Wisconsin-Madison organization will add an intro to psychology class next year.
In collaboration with UW-Madison and four other campuses, the UW System will also soon offer incarcerated students a pathway to a bachelor’s degree through its Prison Education Initiative. Last December, the program received a $5.7 million grant from Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.
What Scientists Say about the Historic Climate Bill
Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
If the IRA passes in the House, it will mark a historic turning point for the U.S. as the first major piece of legislation to limit our carbon emissions and hence future warming of our planet. The outline of where we go from here is already written in the shortcomings of this bill: we must stop investing in fossil fuel infrastructure and make this legislation merely a first step of many more meaningful steps to come.
‘South Park’ enjoys a silver anniversary of satire
“As much as I love ’The Simpsons’ and I think ’The Simpsons’ is really important, I think ’South Park’ has definitely done things that ’The Simpsons’ haven’t,” says Dr. Jonathan Gray, a media and cultural studies professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose books include “Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality.”
The other reason why food prices are rising
“There’s a direct relationship with what we’re seeing in fuel prices and fertilizer prices,” Jo Handelsman, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told CNBC.
Unpaid Internships Are Still Common — Here’s What to Do When Asked to Work for Free
Ah, internships: a time for exploring new interests, hands-on learning, and…exploitation?
Not always. But often. Data from the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates somewhere between 31% and 58% of internships in the United States don’t pay.
Clean Tech Comes Back Around: Elements by Liam Denning
On the latest Energy Transition Show podcast, host Chris Nelder asks Gregory Nemert, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in the process of technological change, the big question: How will this transition thing actually happen?
Why the FBI Might Want Scott Perry’s Personal Cellphone
But Ion Meyn, an associate law professor at the University of Wisconsin, said investigators would have had to present a judge with sufficient evidence linking the information stored on Perry’s personal phone to the commission of a crime before obtaining the warrant.
What Scientists Say about the Historic Climate Bill
Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin–MadisonIf the IRA passes in the House, it will mark a historic turning point for the U.S. as the first major piece of legislation to limit our carbon emissions and hence future warming of our planet. The outline of where we go from here is already written in the shortcomings of this bill: we must stop investing in fossil fuel infrastructure and make this legislation merely a first step of many more meaningful steps to come.
How to View the Last Supermoon of the Year
“The difference is only obvious in photographs comparing the perigee full moon with an apogee full moon,” said James Lattis, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Climate change may aggravate more than half of human pathogens
Even after sounding warnings about the impacts of climate change on human health for more than 25 years, Jonathan Patz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute, was still surprised at the many ways researchers found climate hazards affect disease.
“They found over 1,000 unique pathways,” said Patz, who participated as a co-author. “That to me was striking.”
Stormy Weather And Dogs – 4 Things You May Have Overlooked
Steve Ackerman and Jon Martin are respected meteorology professors at the University of Wisconsin who have a long-running series called “The Weather Guys.” On their website, they discussed another way dogs “detect” storms changes. They write, “Thunder, the loud noise that accompanies lightning, gives this nimbostratus cloud the name thunderstorm. Some dogs don’t like loud sounds, whether from a thunderclap or fireworks.”
Are monarch butterflies endangered in the US?
“This is an assessment by an international scientific body that looked at all of the data and said monarchs are endangered,” says Karen Oberhauser, an expert on monarch butterfly biology and conservation and the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. “That means they’re in danger of their population going so low that it wouldn’t be able to recover.”
Climate hazards have worsened risks of most infectious diseases, study finds
“If climate is changing, the risk of these diseases are changing,” said study co-author Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Injectable hydrogel fills surgical cavities to keep brain cancer at bay
Glioblastoma is one of the most deadly forms of cancer, often returning with a vengeance after surgery to remove it. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have now developed an immunity-boosting hydrogel that can be injected into the brain after surgery to clear out remaining cancer stem cells.
Could learning algebra in my 60s make me smarter?
Carol D Ryff at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute of Ageing told me about stereotype embodiment theory, which was proposed by the Yale psychologist Becca Levy. It says that the culture presents older people as moving slowly, being hard of hearing, talking too loud, and unable to read small print. These depictions are funny when we’re young; then we grow old and enact them, and they undermine a person’s sense of wellbeing.
A look at new UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s first day on the job
Photo story.
Jennifer Mnookin begins term as UW-Madison’s 32nd Chancellor
On her first day as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jennifer Mnookin said she is working to build a “bold vision” for the state’s flagship campus by connecting with stakeholders, including state lawmakers who opposed her chancellorship.
The Mysterious Dance of the Cricket Embryos
Dr. Donoughe contacted Christopher Rycroft, an applied mathematician now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and showed him the dancing nuclei. ‘Wow!’ Dr. Rycroft said. He had never seen anything like it, but he recognized the potential for a data-powered collaboration; he and Jordan Hoffmann, then a doctoral student in Dr. Rycroft’s lab, joined the study.
More scientists are studying pediatric cancer
“These changes in recent years have prompted approaches that are beginning to make a real impact on improving the care and outcome of children with diseases thought incurable 10 years ago,” says Paul Sondel, the Reed and Carolee Walker professor of pediatric oncology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and a pediatric oncologist for more than 40 years. “Nevertheless, while we are seeing new progress, we know there is still a long way to go to be able to cure all children with cancer.”
Tuition, state funding and diversity: New UW-Madison chancellor’s agenda has familiar ring
Jennifer Mnookin spent her first day on campus meeting with students, faculty and campus leaders as she takes on the role as UW-Madison’s 30th chancellor.
Mnookin, who comes to Madison from her previous role as dean of the UCLA School of Law, said her primary goal is to have conversations with UW-Madison students and staff and community and state leaders to discuss ways to keep UW-Madison affordable, while also addressing challenges like accessibility, funding and diversity.
New UW-Madison chancellor meets with students, staff on first day on campus
New University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin met with students and staff members Thursday during an ice cream social to mark her first day on campus.
Invasive insect that feeds on plants in the carrot family reported for first time in Minnesota
Scientists identified the moth with the help of the University of Wisconsin Diagnostic Lab.
Coyotes are here to stay in North American cities – here’s how to appreciate them from a distance
Coyotes have become practically ubiquitous across the lower 48 United States, and they’re increasingly turning up in cities. The draws are abundant food and green space in urban areas.
-David Drake, Bret Shaw, Mary Magnuson
Beyoncé to Replace Lyric on ‘Renaissance’ After Backlash From Disability-Rights Advocates
Lizzo’s lyric change in June primed people to recognize the language in Beyoncé’s album, said Sami Schalk, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the upcoming book “Black Disability Politics.”“The important thing is that it was brought up again and slowly over time, we will hopefully see more people thinking differently about this word,” Dr. Schalk said.
Vanilla is anything but ordinary: Here are 5 unexpected products that contain this spice
“It’s literally the most popular flavor and fragrance in the world, and it’s a multimillion-dollar industry,” University of Wisconsin botany professor and vanilla expert Ken Cameron said recently to On Wisconsin, the UW-Madison alumni magazine.
At UW-Madison, Grandparents University crosses generations
At Grandparents University, the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s intergenerational education program, learners young and old enroll for a taste of campus life, the chance to learn from college instructors and an opportunity to spend time with their loved ones.
A Navajo scientist couldn’t translate his work to his family. Now, because of a UW-Madison project he co-founded, he can.
That’s when Martin and his colleagues — Joanna Bundus, a biology post-doctoral fellow at UW-Madison, and Susana Wadgymar, an assistant professor of biology at Davidson College in North Carolina — founded Project ENABLE (Enriching Navajo As a Biology Language for Education), an online dictionary of biology terms translated from English to Diné Bizaad, a Navajo language.
International Talent: Ripe Silicon Valley Conditions That Are Changing Remote Work
Silicon Valley is the perfect example of the international hiring phenomenon. Researcher Sarah Edwards from the University of Wisconsin-Madison explains that “the expansion of Silicon Valley into increasingly intimate and global spaces” will result in the decentralization of the Valley as the leading startup city. Other cities like Miami are thriving in the industry thanks to digital nomads and increased job mobility (as was shown during the Great Resignation.)
Omicron BA.5 Surge: 5 Ways to Stay Safe
Talk to your family and friends as well as other members of your community to find out whether they’ve had Covid recently or know anybody who has or recently had Covid, Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. Because you’re more likely to interact with people in your network, you may get a better sense of incidence in your community and what your own risk of getting sick may be.