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The Struggle to Mend America’s Rural Roads

The New York Times

Quoted: A legally loaded semi-trailer truck can produce 5,000 to 10,000 times the road damage of one car according to some estimates, said Benjamin J. Jordan, director of the Wisconsin Transportation Information Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Roads and bridges have not kept up.

Madison’s Don Voegeli’s Electronic Switch Influenced The Sound Of Public Radio

Wisconsin Public Radio

As a public radio listener, you’re probably familiar with the theme song for NPR’s “All Things Considered.” It’s had a few variations over the decades.

But did you know it was originally composed in Madison in 1971?

It was written by Don Voegeli, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and the longtime music director at WHA (now known as Wisconsin Public Radio).

Opinion: Why Are You Still Packing Lunch for Your Kids?

The New York Times

The solution is right in front of us. When kids eat school lunch, they and their parents are supporting the efforts to improve the national program for current and future generations.

Jennifer Gaddis is an assistant professor of civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools.”

Danez Smith: ‘White people can learn from it, but that’s not who I’m writing for’

The Guardian

The New Yorker said of Don’t Call Us Dead that Smith’s poems “can’t make history vanish, but they can contend against it with the force of a restorative imagination”. That imagination was honed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Smith studied before going on to form the Dark Noise Collective with other artists including Franny Choi, with whom Smith co-hosts the poetry podcast VS.

How each US state is impacting the personal finance IQ of students

CNBC

Melody Harvey, National Poverty Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, found in a study she conducted that state-level personal finance education requirements make young individuals significantly less likely to borrow payday loans than peers who were not provided the education, across race, ethnicity and gender.

Aerobic exercise limits risk of Alzheimer’s in vulnerable adults

New Atlas

Previous research has shown us how regular exercise can be beneficial for cognitive function and help stave off the brain degeneration associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s, but scientists continue to learn more about the mechanisms at play. The latest discovery in this area comes courtesy of researchers from the University of Wisconsin (UW), who have published a new study describing a relationship between regular aerobic exercise and a reduced vulnerability to Alzheimer’s among high-risk adults.

California Is on the Brink of an Owl War

Gizmodo

Quoted: “[The barred owl] is larger and more aggressive so it can directly out-compete spotted owls,” Connor Wood, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Earther. “And they are also more flexible with what they eat and where they live, so the landscape can support more barred owls.”

Bizarre neutrinos detected in Antarctica could open the door to new physics discoveries

Salon.com

“It’s commonly said that neutrinos are ’elusive’ or ’ghostly’ particles because of their remarkable ability to pass through material without smashing into something,” Alex Pizzuto of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, one of the leads on this paper, said in a press release. “But at these incredible energies, neutrinos are like bulls in a china shop — they become much more likely to interact with particles in Earth.”

You may have more Neanderthal DNA than you think

National Geographic

Quoted: Scientists have long speculated about Neanderthals’ relationships to modern humans. While the exact question shifted over the years, it’s a debate that goes back to Neanderthals’ initial discovery, says John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the study.

Dog treated for cancer by UW vets to be in Super Bowl ad

Fox 11

“Scout’s illness devastated us,” MacNeil told WMTV. “We wanted this year’s Super Bowl effort to not only raise awareness, but also financial support for the incredible research and innovative treatments happening at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, where Scout is still a patient,”Mark Markel, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine says this is an incredible opportunity, not only for the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the School of Veterinary Medicine, but for veterinary medicine worldwide.

Goodwill Sparks Deep Division, at Least on Balance Sheets

Wall Street Journal

Quoted: Thomas Linsmeier, a former member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, said he thinks there is “momentum on the board to move toward amortization.” A “driving factor of concern … is the amount of cost in the impairment test,” Mr. Linsmeier, a professor of accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.

We’re trying to keep the Galapagos pristine. That might destroy them.

The Washington Post

Visiting the Galapagos Islands — which have long been considered Charles Darwin’s natural laboratory — is like stepping into a nature documentary. You can snorkel with playful sea lions, watch “Darwin’s finches” feed and inch up to ancient giant tortoises.

Elizabeth Hennessy is an assistant professor of history and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the author of “On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden.”

Winter is missing from much of the Northern Hemisphere this year. When will it show up?

The Washington Post

Although the cold lodged over the frozen north is intense, it covers a historically small area for this time of year. Jonathan Martin, a professor of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, wrote in an email that the size of the “cold pool” over the Northern Hemisphere, which is indicated by temperatures of 23 degrees or lower a mile above ground, ranks as the smallest on record for December and early January.

The Virtuous Midlife Crisis

Wall Street Journal

Quoted: “The midlife journey will be more difficult for a good chunk of them because of heightened problems of inequality,” says Carol Ryff, director of the Institute on Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and principal investigator of a large study on midlife in the U.S. She pointed to a recent rise in “deaths of despair” among middle-aged adults driven in part by drug overdoses, alcohol abuse and suicide.

Autism’s genetic drivers may differ by sex

Spectrum News

Quoted: The findings support the idea that women can sustain a larger genetic hit than men without having autism, a phenomenon called the ‘female protective effect,’ says Donna Werling, assistant professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in the work. But the mechanisms that might protect women are a mystery.

Lynda Barry’s Making Comics is a “cookbook” for people afraid to draw

Vox

But it’s Beuys’s quote that comes to mind when reading Making Comics, the latest handwritten college textbook-of-sorts by the highly successful cartoonist Lynda Barry. In the book, Barry makes a similar assertion to Beuys by using the experience and anecdotes she’s accumulated during her tenure as a professor of comic book studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, But Should We?

The New York Times

Qutoed: LAs Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says of our genetic-engineering capability, “At a very instinctive level, there’s a sense that these are things humans are not supposed to be doing.”

Quoted: Playing to fears around worst-case scenarios can be a powerful tactic. Dietram Scheufele, who studies scientific and political communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says that scientists are generally much worse than activist groups at shaping public opinion, in part because they tend to rely on logical reasoning and facts, while activist groups are more likely to tap into unconscious values and emotions — like using the term “Frankenfoods” to describe G.M.O.s.

From service to science: NIH shifts focus of mentoring network aimed at boosting grantee diversity

Science

Quoted: “A growing body of evidence exists about how to create and sustain successful and inclusive mentoring relationships,” says Angela Byars-Winston, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin (UW), Madison, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “We hope our report can catalyze [the] use of that evidence.”

Heavy road salt use a growing problem, scientists say

USA Today

Quoted: Given the amount of salt used on roads, that’s a real problem, according to Hilary Dugan, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A 2017 study by her team found that nearly half of the 284 freshwater lakes in their sample in the Northeast and Midwest had undergone “long-term salinization.” One in 10 of them reached a threshold where scientists worry about impacts on aquatic life.