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Mindfulness exercises for anxiety are the best thing you can do in 2022

Mashable

It’s easy to believe we’re adept at taming anxiety born of uncertainty thanks to the pandemic. But this may be a false assumption. Dr. Jack Nitschke, a clinical psychologist, and associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, told me that exposure to unpredictability doesn’t necessarily improve our coping skills. “I actually don’t think people get better at tolerating uncertainty just because there’s a lot of it,” he said.

Covid News: U.S. Daily Record for Cases Is Broken

New York Times

David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said of the Omicron estimate, “The 73 percent got a lot more attention than the confidence intervals, and I think this is one example among many where scientists are trying to project an air of confidence about what’s going to happen.”

Sharks may be able to protect us from coronavirus, research suggests. Here’s how

Miami Herald (McClatchy)

Although some may fear sharks when swimming in open waters, these often misunderstood creatures may hold a way to help protect us from the coronavirus, new research suggests. As one of the ocean’s top predators, sharks have antibody-like proteins that can stop the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study published Dec. 16.

Seeking refills: Aging pharmacists leave drugstores vacant in rural America

Kaiser Health News

“It’s going to be harder to attract people and to pay them,” said David Kreling, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. “If there’s not a generational thing where someone can sit down with their son or daughter and say that they could take the store over, there’s a good chance that pharmacy will evaporate.”

Kids under 5 still waiting for Covid-19 vaccine protection

CNN
Dr. Bill Hartman, who runs the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine trial for kids 6 months to 5 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thinks a vaccine for this age group could be available as early as the “first month or two” of 2022.
Even that isn’t fast enough for some parents, but having worked on several trials during the pandemic, Hartman has been impressed with how quickly things can move when there are dedicated volunteers.
“I feel lucky to live in a city that has a population of people that really want to help us get answers so we can end this pandemic,” he said. “I tell the volunteers all the time that someday in the future, they will be able to tell a story about how they helped save the world.”

How Long Does Omicron Take to Make You Sick?

The Atlantic

Shorter incubation periods generally lead to more infections happening in less time, because people are becoming more contagious sooner, making onward transmission harder to prevent. Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me he still wants more data on Omicron before he touts a trim incubation. But “it does make sense,” he said, considering the variant’s explosive growth in pretty much every country it’s collided with. In many places, Omicron cases are doubling every two to three days.

Seeking Refills: Aging Pharmacists Leave Drugstores Vacant in Rural America

Kaiser Health News

“It’s going to be harder to attract people and to pay them,” said David Kreling, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. “If there’s not a generational thing where someone can sit down with their son or daughter and say that they could take the store over, there’s a good chance that pharmacy will evaporate.”

Opinion | Is the University of Austin Just a PR Stunt?

New York Times

To debate the free speech crisis — or lack thereof — on campuses, Jane Coaston brought together Greg Lukianoff, the president and C.E.O. of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and Mark Copelovitch, a professor of political science and public affairs and the director of the Center for European Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mexico’s monarch butterflies are falling victim to a real-life butterfly effect

Vox

Climate change may be one of the other threats pushing down monarch numbers. It’s messing with weather across their range, which plays a huge role in how many butterflies ultimately arrive in Mexico each year, according to Karen Oberhauser, a monarch expert and professor of entomology at the University of Wisconsin Madison. It’s getting hotter where monarchs breed, for example, and that makes it harder for them to flourish, she said.

As medicine aims to close diversity gaps, orthopedic surgery is an outlier

STAT News

The lack of diversity is painfully obvious to patients as well. When one of her family members needed a serious operation recently, Angela Byars-Winston, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin who is Black, scoured the internet looking for expert orthopedic surgeons who could provide a second opinion. She was struck that nearly all of them were white. “Really,” she told STAT, “there’s hardly anyone that looks like us? In the whole country?”

What a Giant Map of Fungus Tells Us About Climate Change

AP

“When you talk about carbon cycles you really want to start thinking carefully about decomposers,” said Anne Pringle, a professor of botany and bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “A massive and coordinated effort to collect biodiversity data on a global scale is badly needed and will be very welcome”, she added, saying “there are good reasons to include all kinds of fungi in that effort.”

Loyalty to family — instead of CNN — puts Chris Cuomo at risk

AP

While people can relate to wanting to help a family member, his primary obligation as a journalist is to CNN’s viewers, said Kathleen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. These revelations can damage CNN’s reputation, and all journalists, at a time people are already suspicious of the profession, she said.

‘Sad and angry and frustrated’: Black moms on the Rittenhouse verdict

NBC News

“He was 17 at the time of the offense,” said Steven Wright, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin. “Having someone who looks like a child there might make some jurors see their younger selves in him or their children in him, and they might think, ‘What would my younger self have done or my son or daughter have done in his position?’”

That Product Will Work Well for You. But for Me? Not So Much.

Wall Street Journal

In the end, it’s useful to remember that it’s simply not possible for everyone to be correct in believing that products work better for others, yet our studies show that people reach this conclusion. We buy books for the pleasure or knowledge we expect them to impart, creams for the lines they will hopefully erase, and cooking classes to acquire new skills. Do these products work? When we buy them for ourselves, we hope so. When we buy them on behalf of others, we know so. If this sounds discouraging, take comfort in the abiding truth that when you believe others will benefit more from these products, everyone else feels exactly as you do.

-Dr. Polman is an associate professor of marketing at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Can a Machine Learn Morality?

New York Times

Joseph Austerweil, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tested the technology using a few simple scenarios. When he asked if he should kill one person to save another, Delphi said he shouldn’t. When he asked if it was right to kill one person to save 100 others, it said he should. Then he asked if he should kill one person to save 101 others. This time, Delphi said he should not.

Darrell E. Brooks’s low bail in case before Wisconsin parade attack draws backlash

The Washington Post

Michele LaVigne, a former director of the Public Defender Project at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told The Post that setting Brooks’s cash bail at $1,000 is not necessarily unusual and that bail amounts can vary between jurisdictions and courtrooms. When Brooks was arrested earlier this month, she said, officials weighing what bail to request probably considered the seriousness of the charges and the fact that he was already out on bail in the earlier case and had continued showing up for court appearances.

Kyle Rittenhouse Acquitted in Bombshell End to Vigilante Murder Trial

The Daily Beast

“There is a significant risk that there is going to be unrest regardless of the outcome. Simply because the case is so politicized and whichever side prevails, the folks who support the other side are going to feel a grave injustice has occurred,” Keith A. Findley, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, told The Daily Beast ahead of the verdict.

Fact check: Sneezing doesn’t cause temporary death

USA Today

“While the heart rate may slow down, the heart continues beating and does not really stop,” Dr. Nizar Jarjour, a professor of medicine and radiology at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health, said in an email. “Right after the sneeze is over, the heart rate goes back to normal. You really do not die for a second when you sneeze!”

America’s Decline Started at Home

The Nation

One thing is becoming quite clear, however. The environmental destruction in our future will be so profound that anything less than the emergence of a new form of global governance—one capable of protecting the planet and the human rights of all its inhabitants—will mean that wars over water, land, and people are likely to erupt across the planet amid climate chaos. Absent some truly fundamental change in our global governance and in energy use, by mid-century humanity will begin to face disasters of an almost unimaginable kind that will make imperial orders of any sort something for the history books.

-Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author of In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power and Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State.

Rittenhouse Jury Enters 24 Hours of Deliberation, Likely to Worry Defense, Experts Say

Newsweek

“Like the Chauvin and Zimmerman cases, this case raises tough issues of self-defense,” Ion Meyn, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, told Newsweek. “Unlike those cases, this case involves four separate incidents, each requiring a complex set of considerations. Given how many people were shot or shot at, I think this case is even more complicated.”

Kyle Rittenhouse jury returns for second day of deliberations as Kenosha braces for verdict

USA Today

Keith Findley, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, called the lack of decision “odd.”

“The only reason I can think of for waiting is perhaps he wants to give the jury a chance to acquit so he doesn’t have to, but that’s speculation on my part,” Findley, co-founder of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, said.

The COVID Cancer Effect

Scientific American

There is little doubt that the chaos ushered in by the pandemic will lead to more cancer deaths. But determining how many has been difficult: many cancers are slow-growing, their development can be complex, and factors such as treatment decisions play a big role in outcomes. To assess how missed screenings might affect cancer mortality rates, the National Cancer Institute turned to Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison whose research involves modeling both cancer epidemiology and infectious diseases.

Kyle Rittenhouse trial: Who is Judge Bruce Schroeder?

NPR

“This is a case that brings to the fore a lot of matters of public concern – gun rights, the use of force by police officers – and it makes sense that people are paying attention, then, to what’s happening in the courtroom and the manner in which conversations are occurring,” said Cecelia Klingele, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

‘Piece of theater’: Legal experts weigh in on Kyle Rittenhouse’s seating jurors deciding his fate by lottery

NBC News

John P. Gross, the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Public Defender Project, said he has seen only judges do the picking, but he didn’t object to Rittenhouse’s having the heavy hand of selection.

“It’s completely random, and whoever is picking is picking,” Gross said. “It was an interesting piece of theater having the judge inviting the defendant to make the draw.”

Video shows deer break window, jump into church on opening day of Michigan’s hunting season

Washington Post

Roman Catholic leaders believed a consecrated church was “protected space,” Karl Shoemaker, a professor of history and law at the University of Wisconsin and author of “Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500,” told History.com in 2019. “It would be inappropriate in the extreme to carry weapons into the church or to arrest someone or to exercise force within the church.”