“The distribution of offices does not align with the distribution of voters,” said Barry C. Burden, who heads the Election Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tag: featured
America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny
Sarah Halpern-Meekin, a sociologist at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me that “the majority” of people with low incomes make cashless transactions — on apps like Cash App, for instance.
Notes App Lists You Should Keep In Your Phone To Be Happier
“We have little insights and micro-epiphanies all the time, but we usually forget about them a few moments later,” Dahl, who is also a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds, told HuffPost. “Taking a few moments to step back and make note of the ways we are learning and growing is a great way to build some muscle memory around self-discovery.”
Detecting agricultural pests through sound
(Emily) Bick, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researches ways to better detect the agricultural pests that drive serious economic losses worldwide. She says improving these methods could result in using pesticides more strategically — less often, at just the right time.
How to be More Resilient, According to Experts
“We as humans are very social creatures,” said Kathryn Howell, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “So when bad things happen to us, we want to be together and connected to others.”
For Two-Job Workers, There Aren’t Enough Hours in a Day to Stay Afloat
“One story is that people are short of cash, and they need extra hours and the only way to pick up extra hours is by picking up a short-term job,” said Christopher Taber, chairman of the economics department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Another story is that it’s easier to work two jobs now than it was before.”
4 years into COVID, isolation continues for some disabled residents
Patients have been harassed or mocked for wearing masks in public, Dr. Jeannina Smith noted, despite international and national medical organizations emphasizing the importance of mask wearing as a mitigation tactic for illnesses. Hill has experienced this first hand.”You can’t look at someone and know that they’re receiving immunosuppression for an organ transplant or an autoimmune condition, and they remain at risk,” Smith said.
Ultrasound Brain Stimulation Boosts Mindfulness
“I haven’t seen ultrasound technology used in this way, but this type of neuromodulation has significant potential to change how we think about and enhance mindfulness,” says University of Wisconsin–Madison social psychologist Hadley Rahrig, who also studies that state of mind.
Are You Sure Your House Is Worth That Much?
“Homeowners, whether they know it or not, definitely are taking on more risks,” says Philip Mulder, an assistant professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin’s business school. A 2023 paper, for instance, found that U.S. residential properties are overvalued by $121 billion to $237 billion for current flood risks alone.
Can Thousands of Huge Machines Capture Enough Carbon to Slow Climate Change?
The U.S. plans to draw down and store more than a billion tons of CO2 annually by 2050, more than one fifth of what it currently emits. For that to be possible, carbon removal would have to become one of the world’s largest industries in just a few decades, expanding by more than 40 percent each year. That’s far faster than most technologies develop—although it is comparable to the pace of solar panels and electric vehicles. “It’d be one of the biggest things humans have ever done,” says Gregory F. Nemet, a professor of public policy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who wrote a book called How Solar Energy Became Cheap. “One of the hardest things we’ve ever done. But not unprecedented.”
Study: JD Vance Couldn’t Have Been More Wrong About “Childless Cat Ladies”
To experts, the findings are not surprising. “It makes sense that women without children would support policies like affordable childcare and paid family leave because they recognize that care links all of our fates,” said Jessica Calarco, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the book Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.
Why Hurricanes And Tropical Storms Spawn Tornadoes
Let’s dig deeper to explore why tropical cyclone tornadoes can happen. Most explanations mention “frictional effects,” so I will start there. The Weather Guys blog is a legendary and informative platform administered by my colleagues Jonathan Martin and Steve Ackerman (retired), professors at the University of Wisconsin. They write, “When a hurricane makes landfall, the winds near the ground slow down, while the upper-level winds keep their momentum. This change in the wind speed — and sometimes direction — with height is called wind shear.” There’s more to the story, however.
How Venezuela’s opposition proved its election win: ‘A brilliant political move’
“It has been a brilliant political move by the opposition, an extremely impressive logistical achievement”, said Andrés Pertierra, a PhD candidate in Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Basically, the opposition is forcing Chavismo to own up to the fact that they’re stealing the election.”
The previously stuck A23a iceberg is trapped again, spinning in a rare ocean vortex
Till Wagner, a professor in University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies how ice interacts with climate, said he has never seen a real-life example of this phenomenon on such a massive scale.
Biden administration takes another crack at student debt relief
Without fundamental changes to the student debt system, “it’s like it’s groundhog day,” remarked Nick Hillman, an expert on student loan policy at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Antarctic temperatures soar 50 degrees above norm in long-lasting heat wave
“With global temperatures increasing, that raises the potential ‘baseline’ for the average temperatures,” said David Mikolajczyk, a research meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a result, “strong warming events such as this one can occur more frequently and have a bigger impact.”
As North American bats face an existential crisis, a new study offers hope for a ravaging disease
“We created a cell line from an endangered bat species (little brown bat) to create a model for the disease in animals that are not available to be studied,” study co-author Dr. Bruce Klein — a professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Medical Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison — told Salon. “We created a model of hibernation, which is so critical to understanding of the pathogenesis of the infection.”
Could Trump Replace JD Vance? Experts Explain How It Would Work
Crucially, the rule explicitly applies to a scenario in which Vance voluntarily steps aside, says Kenneth Mayer, a recently retired political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He told BI there was no precedent for forcibly ripping the nomination away from a vice-presidential candidate after the convention.
The backlash to Butler: Who will pay for the attempted assassination attempt on Trump?
Dr. Nathan P. Kalmoe, the executive administrative director of the University of Wisconsin — Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, explained to Salon that groups which are told they are under attack — much as Trump told his audience that the person who tried to shoot him was really attacking all of them — are more likely to commit violence.
With bird flu spreading, here’s what worries scientists : Shots
The latest research, which comes from a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shows the virus can be transmitted by respiratory droplets in ferrets, but inefficiently. Amie Eisfeld, an author of the study, says their lab has not seen this kind of transmission event with any other version of highly pathogenic avian influenza that they’ve isolated from the natural world and tested in ferrets.
‘My Property, My Trees’: New Tree-Cutting Law Divides N.Y. Town
The debate over how to balance environmental concerns and property rights is becoming more common, said Max Besbris, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in housing and climate change. “There’s a very real anxiety” over best practices, he said, especially since a house is the biggest purchase many people will ever make.
Union workers at downsizing tractor factory weigh Biden vs. Trump
It was once easier for unions to influence how their members voted, because unions played a bigger role in their social lives, said Katherine Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.”But that’s a thing of the past in Wisconsin, as elsewhere,” she said.
Trump says migrants are fueling violent crime. Here is what the research shows
“Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas, opens new tab” by Michael Light, sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and two other researchers.
The 2020 study was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.• The report, which used data from the Texas Department of Public Safety between 2012-2018, found a lower felony arrest rate for immigrants in the U.S. illegally compared to legal immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens and no evidence of increasing criminality among immigrants.
World Economy Latest: US Economy’s Disconnect With Voters Badgers Biden
“You look at some of the cost of necessities — like rent, food, things like that — those things have been going up and they are felt much harder by medium and low income households,” says Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Can Dogs Get Heat Stroke? A Veterinarian Reveals the Breeds Most At Risk
A dog’s typical body temperature is about 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Maria Verbrugge, a clinical instructor of veterinary medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. Once their temperature exceeds 102.5, she says, that’s too hot, and “104 is a danger zone.”
America Stares Into the Abyss After Donald Trump Assassination Bid
And, alarmingly, Americans are now much more comfortable with the idea of political violence. A 2021 study by Johns Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that 20 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats felt that violence was warranted in the current political climate.
Houston keeps buckling under storms like Beryl. The fixes aren’t coming fast enough
Scientists are more equipped than ever before to make decisions about evacuations, development and other measures using computer systems that can predict the damage a certain storm will inflict, noted Shane Hubbard, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
Republican convention: GOP hopes to swing Wisconsin
“Wisconsin is one of the handful of states that has flipped back and forth between the last two presidential elections, so for a party that’s concerned about winning the Electoral College, this is a state where they would naturally look,” explained Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Biden’s press conference will be a key test for him. But he’s no master of the big rhetorical moment – Chicago Tribune
The debate, rather than helping Biden reset the race against Trump, confirmed voters’ preestablished fears about him, said Allison Prasch, a professor of rhetoric who researches presidential communications at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.“The president is a symbol,” she said, adding that Americans often look to the president as a mirror to reflect on their hopes and their fears.
How the Home Insurance Market Became So Distorted
Deciphering the cost of home insurance from one place to another is almost impossible. But two professors — Benjamin Keys of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Philip Mulder at the University of Wisconsin — found a workaround. They obtained data showing how much millions of American households pay to mortgage service companies, which typically includes insurance. Then they deducted payments for mortgages, property taxes and other fees, leaving them with an estimate of home insurance premiums.
Feds pull plug on Russia ‘bot farm’ that spread social media lies
Dietram Scheufele is a professor of science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies misinformation. The number of bots taken offline by the FBI operation is small compared to the myriad fake accounts on social media, he said. But he felt encouraged that the feds were going after the roots of AI-generated misinformation instead of flagging doctored videos. “I feel heartened,” the German native said. “We’ve seen tons of activities that are putting bandages on symptoms but haven’t really addressed the root cause – removing the tumor.”
Ferret study shows avian influenza strain found in US cows carries low risk of airborne transmission
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that the strain of avian influenza found in U.S. cows is not easily transmitted through the air among ferrets, but it does have some capability of spreading this way.
Not Everyone Has an Inner Voice Streaming Through Their Head
Most of us have an “inner voice,” and we tend to assume everybody does, but recent evidence suggests that people vary widely in the extent to which they experience inner speech, from an almost constant patter to a virtual absence of self-talk. “Until you start asking the right questions you don’t know there’s even variation,” says Gary Lupyan, a cognitive scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “People are really surprised because they’d assumed everyone is like them.”
June sizzled to a 13th straight monthly heat record
“Our world is in crisis,” said University of Wisconsin climate scientist Andrea Dutton. “Perhaps you are feeling that crisis today — those who live in the path of Beryl are experiencing a hurricane that is fueled by an extremely warm ocean that has given rise to a new era of tropical storms that can intensify rapidly into deadly and costly major hurricanes. Even if you are not in crisis today, each temperature record we set means that it is more likely that climate change will bring crisis to your doorstep or to your loved ones.”
Infant mortality rate rose in wake of Texas abortion ban, study shows
But the results did not come as a surprise to Tiffany Green, a University of Wisconsin-Madison economist and population health scientist who studies the consequences of racial inequities on reproductive health. She said the results were in line with earlier research on racial disparities in infant mortality rates due to state differences in Medicaid funding for abortions. Many of the people getting abortions are vulnerable to pregnancy complications, said Green, who was not part of the research.
Ag, enviro rules in jeopardy after SCOTUS decision
Even some of USDA’s discretionary spending could be challenged, explained said Steph Tai, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Bringing Back Local Milk, Ice Cream, and Cheese
As the ballooning demand continues to shape market forces, the shift towards fewer, larger farms is inevitable, says Charles Nicholson, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. With smaller-scale dairies harder hit by labor shortages and fluctuating milk prices, “this long-term trend would be hard to change with public policy or private initiatives [alone],” he says.
How ‘Rural Studies’ Is Thinking About the Heartland
Another scholar who disagreed with Mr. Frank’s diagnosis was Kathy Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But like Mr. Frank, she was interested in the question of how social class shaped politics, and thought that the way to get an accurate picture was through fieldwork. Over five years, starting in 2007, she visited 27 small towns in Wisconsin.
The World of Luxury Fruit: Does a $156 Melon Taste Sweeter?
Some of the fruits have long been given as gifts, especially in Japan and Korea. That trend is catching on in the United States, as is the taste for flawless berries and melons that travelers may have tried overseas, produce experts said. And as the luxury goods industry has grown, so too has the interest in luxury fruit, said Soyeon Shim, a scholar of consumer and financial behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The market has become much more global,” she said. Ms. Shim added, “you can buy anything you want.”
The Big Winners of This Supreme Court Term
In a famous 1974 paper titled “Why the Haves Come Out Ahead,” the University of Wisconsin law professor Marc Galanter argued that litigation systematically favors repeat players with the wherewithal to take fullest advantage of the courts. Key to his argument was the point that courts are “reactive”: They only do something when someone asks them to. That favors “the claimant with the information, ability to surmount cost barriers, and skill to navigate restrictive procedural requirements.” And most repeat players, Galanter said, tend to be “larger, richer and more powerful” than single-shotters.
Black Americans’ Responses To Trump’s Notion Of ‘Black Jobs’
Inequitable access to high-quality education plays a role in systematically routing young Black Americans into a narrow set of jobs. “Although our schools should be preparing all students for well-paid satisfying work, far too many of our Black and Brown students are relegated to poorly resourced schools,” says Gloria Ladson-Billings, the Kellner Family Distinguished Professor Emerita of Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Biden’s voter registration executive order is targeted by GOP
“It’s a nudge encouraging federal agencies to do more to help people register,” says Dan Tokaji, an election law expert, who serves as dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School. “Until recently, the complaints were really the federal government wasn’t doing enough, not that they were doing too much to advance voter registration.”
East Palestine train derailment polluted 16 states, study says
When it began to rain in various places, the pollutants were pushed from the air and deposited on the ground. The National Atmospheric Deposition Program, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, collects these ground depositions weekly across 260 sites across North America. David Gay, who serves as coordinator of the program, routinely analyzes the data to monitor air pollutants. “If you have a lot of pollution in the atmosphere, you get a lot of wet deposition pollution at the ground,” Gay said.
How Black Librarians Helped Create Generations of Black Literature
“She was a connector,” said Ethelene Whitmire, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of a 2014 biography of Andrews, who retired from the library system in 1966. “She wasn’t there to take credit, but to work behind the scenes.”
Chemicals from East Palestine derailment spread to 16 US states, data shows
Researchers expected to find some evidence of the burn 50 miles from the site, and the high levels of contamination in the samples across the vast range that it was spread was “very surprising” said David Gay, a University of Wisconsin researcher and lead author.
See the Photos of the Rare Cicada Emergence
That slight overlap does not necessarily mean the two broods will breed with one another. “Is there a possibility of interactions and hybridization? That could occur—but given the long life cycles, it’s really hard to study,” PJ Liesch, the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab, tells TIME.
Study on tween screen use shows link between parents and kids
The study caught the attention of Megan Moreno, professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and co-director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. Moreno, whose expertise is in the field of adolescent health and digital media, says she has been troubled by the widespread message — “almost to the edge of moral panic” — that social media use is causing adverse mental health outcomes for adolescents. “That has been a narrative I’ve been really interested in because I’ve really been wanting to see: Where is that evidence?” she says. “And it hasn’t been there.”
A Bird-Flu Pandemic in People? Here’s What It Might Look Like.
Crucially, no forms of the bird flu virus seem to have spread efficiently from person to person. That is no guarantee that H5N1 will not acquire that ability, said Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist and bird flu expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.“ I think the virus is clearly changing its property, because we never saw outbreaks in cows,” Dr. Kawaoka said.
Supermassive Black Hole’s ‘Wind’ Shapes Surrounding Galaxy
A team of astronomers, including from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Arizona, analyzed years of observations of a quasar—bright cores of a galaxy thought to be powered by a supermassive black hole—to find unexpected changes in the gases surrounding a black hole.
The US is losing wetlands at an accelerating rate − here’s how the private sector can help protect these valuable resources
Wetlands aren’t the most eye-catching ecosystems. They include swamps, bogs, fens and other places where soil is covered by water most of the time. But they perform a huge range of valuable services, from soaking up floodwaters to filtering out pollutants and providing habitat for thousands of species of mammals, fish, reptiles, insects and birds.
–Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Supermassive Black Hole’s ‘Wind’ Shapes Surrounding Galaxy
A team of astronomers, including from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Arizona, analyzed years of observations of a quasar—bright cores of a galaxy thought to be powered by a supermassive black hole—to find unexpected changes in the gases surrounding a black hole.
Women Are America’s Safety Net
In November 2020, in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, Calarco, who is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told the writer Anne Helen Petersen, “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.”
Feds nab felons on social media by tracking gun videos, pics, chats
“A lot of people don’t realize how exposed they are,” says John P. Gross, a University of Wisconsin, Madison law professor and former public defender who’s seen social media play a big part in criminal cases. “That’s all stuff the government can find and gain access to.”
How Members of the Chinese Diaspora Found Their Voices
“I used to think that no matter what an individual or a group does, it makes no difference,” Wang Jing, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. “But now my feeling is that, regardless of what this can achieve, I have this anger and I want to express it.”
Scientists Know When Humans and Neanderthals Had Sex and Swapped DNA
“This study gives us the most accurate picture showing how some Neanderthals joined into the modern human gene pool, and then what happened to their genes afterward,” John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was not involved in the research, told Business Insider.
The biggest cropland changes were near Ogallala Aquifer, study shows
“A lot of the assumptions were that this former cropland had a lot of overlap with formal conservation programs,” Tyler Lark, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment who co-authored the study, said in a news release. “But we saw that they’re almost entirely distinct pools.”
The truth about ‘zombie cicadas’: ‘The fungus can do some nefarious things’
P.J. Liesch, director of UW Insect Diagnostic Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained that the fungus does “really interesting things” to the cicadas it infects. “The fungus can do some nefarious things,” he told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. “It can produce some amphetamine-like compounds, which end up affecting the behavior of these infected cicadas.”
‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban
“The problem is now urgent, and we can’t say we need to do something about it in the future, we need to take action now,” said Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “The earlier we start making big cuts to emissions, the earlier we can start making a difference.”’
Women are America’s safety net. Holding society together is wearing them down.
Not long after having her second child, Calarco, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, started a project in 2017 investigating how parents’ best-laid plans for raising their children go awry.
Earth warming at record rate, but no evidence of climate change accelerating
“Choosing to act on climate has become a political talking point but this report should be a reminder to people that in fact it is fundamentally a choice to save human lives,” said University of Wisconsin climate scientist Andrea Dutton, who wasn’t part of the international study team. “To me, that is something worth fighting for.”