The University of Wisconsin-Madison study focused on synapses, the spaces between two connected neurons. To communicate with one another, neurons release neurotransmitters, chemical messengers that nerve cells use to communicate, into synapses. In the mouse experiment at the heart of the study, the authors found that synapses shrink during sleep and expand during wakefulness.
Quoted: The deadly European heat wave of 2003 is a cautionary tale. The first to die were manual laborers, such as roofers, says Richard Keller, a medical historian at the University of Wisconsin Madison who wrote a book on the extreme event called Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003. “It’s always easy to rationalize those deaths away, but they may be a harbinger of things to come,” he says.
Quoted: “It’s taking people who are basically normal and would like to look better and feel better about themselves, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” said James Grotting, a plastic surgeon on the clinical faculty at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “But there might be no end of what patients might request if it’s covered by a third party.”
UW-Madison researchers have received a patent for a way to synthesize acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the pain reliever Tylenol, from plant material, an alternative to the current process using chemicals from coal tar.
“A guilty pleasure is something that we enjoy, but we know we’re either not supposed to like, or that liking it says something negative about us,” said Sami Schalk, an assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“That negative thing often ends up being an association with categories of identity we disparage and marginalize in society,” according to Dr. Schalk.
Quoted: “It gets complicated,” says Paula Niedenthal, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was not involved in the recent research.
UW-Madison’s effort was known as “DreamUp Wisconsin,” and Berger said last May that the goal was to put about $4,000 in the pockets of Dane County families. The university’s Institute for Research on Poverty led the effort and helped solicit proposals, which all included a partnership between the university and community.
Assistant Professor Traci Snedden from the School of Nursing: As we watch the Women’s World Cup and the sheer athleticism of these elite female players, what we don’t see is the lagging research on concussion injury in girl’s and women’s soccer. The rate of concussion among female soccer players has been called an unpublicized epidemic.
Quoted: “All of the Democrats, I think, will feel obligated to be on board with some kind of redistricting reform,” said Barry C. Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I think it guarantees that it’s going to be a prominent issue throughout this next election cycle.”
Quoted: That heat wave fell in the month of August, when many in France take vacations and leave critical services understaffed and ill prepared to deal with the emergency, said Richard Keller, professor of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wrote a book on the 2003 event.
Quoted: Europe has learned from the 2003 heat wav, which killed more than 70,000 across the continent, said Richard Keller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of medical history. The death toll should be more limited this year, said Keller, the author of Fatal Isolation, a book on the Paris heat wave of 2003 that killed thousands. “France is much better prepared, emergency services are in place, and awareness of the dangers is much higher,” Keller said.
Needless to say, however, not all researchers come to the same conclusion. Take a study conducted a decade ago entitled “Are All Americans Saving ‘Optimally’ for Retirement?” Its authors were two economics professors at the University of Wisconsin—Madison: John Karl Scholz and Ananth Seshadri.
This is the story of a book deal, a substantial advance and the kismet of a cultural moment. It’s about a first-time author finding her subject and following her dream. And it begins with women talking to each other — about their voices.
This week, UW-Madison took some small steps to change that narrative with the dedication of a new heritage marker on Bascom Hill that recognizes the historical significance of the campus as the Ho-Chunk’s ancestral home.
Quoted: The filing itself does not guarantee that the government is going to bring charges, but it does suggest that the government is strongly considering them, said Peter C. Carstensen, an antitrust expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Law School.
Liz Binversie, an agriculture educator with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Brown County Extension, urges cautious optimism for dairy farmers considering diversifying with hemp.
Poverty in Wisconsin has remained mostly stagnant over the past decade, despite historically low unemployment in recent years, according to a new report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Karen Oberhauser, a monarch butterfly researcher and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum not affiliated with the study, has major concerns around releasing nonnative butterflies.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank, surrounded by about three dozen members of the Ho-Chunk Nation, dedicated a new heritage marker on Bascom Hill last week that recognizes the campus as the ancestral home of the Ho-Chunk tribe.
Quoted: Would any degree of mosaicism be tolerable? It might depend on the condition being treated, says Krishanu Saha, a bioengineer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “If we have 30% of the liver edited and we’re trying to treat, let’s say, a retinal disease, is that ok?” he says. “In some cases it could be.”
“There’s a lot of internal feelings related to money because money can also reflect the power and the balance of the relationship,” says Lauren Papp, the director of the Couples Lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of several studies on marital conflict. “Money is something that we bring with us from our childhood. So, what does money mean to a person? If someone buys something, is that an act of love, is that an apology, is that just what you expect?”
Noted: In the 1990s, researchers found that flies use these genes to build their limbs. In an influential paper, Neil Shubin of the University of Chicago, Sean Carroll of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Cliff Tabin of Harvard University speculated that flies and vertebrates — and other animals with appendages — inherited this network of genes from a common ancestor.
Quoted: Bob Bradley, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Department of Food Science and author of two books on the topic of butter, said in an interview that such products are mislabeled. “It is not butter,” he said flatly.
Noted: Dr. Amy Kind is a physician and Ph.D.-trained researcher in geriatrics with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies the way people’s environment affects their well-being. That can mean the ways housing or income-levels in a neighborhood can affect population health. She said another big factor in her aging patients’ health is their ability to maintain social connections.
Quoted: Similar moves haven’t yet been seen in Democratic-controlled legislatures with incoming Republican governors, said Howard Schweber, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Now that it’s an established strategy, I’m sure we’ll see it again,” he said.
Quoted: Schmitt, 83, one of just four moonwalkers still alive, remains active in the scientific community. He’s currently an associate fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the user advisory group for the National Space Council, revived by President Donald Trump in 2017 for the first time since it was dissolved in 1993.
Quoted: Alta Charo, a researcher in bioethics and law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says Rebrikov’s plans are not an ethical use of the technology. “It is irresponsible to proceed with this protocol at this time,” adds Charo, who sits on a World Health Organization committee that is formulating ethical governance policies for human genome editing.
Meanwhile, a 2018 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that more than 4,000 fiber optic cabling will be submerged underwater.
Quoted: Alta Charo, a researcher in bioethics and law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says Rebrikov’s plans are not an ethical use of the technology. “It is irresponsible to proceed with this protocol at this time,” adds Charo, who sits on a World Health Organization committee that is formulating ethical governance policies for human genome editing.
Without clear understandings, things can go very wrong in the hospital. Consider this account from Dr. Gretchen Schwarze, a vascular surgeon and ethicist at the University of Wisconsin.
Quoted: “I predict over time we will see a slow and steady elimination of federal funding for research that uses fetal tissue, regardless of how necessary it is,” said University of Wisconsin law professor Alta Charo, a nationally recognized bioethics expert.
Barneveld became part of a landmark study of tornado debris by University of Wisconsin-Madison meteorology professor Charles Anderson. In the days following Barneveld’s tornado, Anderson and his students placed ads in newspapers, conducted a ground survey and a mail and phone campaign seeking information on the fallout of debris.
In their paper published in the journal Pediatrics in 2016, they wrote that high mortgage and student loan debt didn’t have the same negative impact on parents’ and kids’ well-being as credit card or medical bill debt, says lead author Lawrence M. Berger, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and professor and doctoral program chair in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA Today the technology for a carbon-free economic system is already in place.
Quoted: Armando Ibarra, chair of the Chicano and Latino Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of The Latino Question: Politics, Laboring Classes and the Next Left, says union power extends beyond the workplace.
Noted: Bill Tracy leads the sweet corn program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His work is intended to help the state’s corn farmers.
Carrots have just one land-grant breeder: Irwin Goldman at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: If all 50 states did participate, O’Rourke’s goal of 50 million new registered voters seems plausible, according to Barry Burden, professor of political science and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It would require 21% of eligible voters to register.
Quoted: But other green technologies have achieved lower costs and more widespread adoption precisely because of the relatively free movement of ideas, people and production, as University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Gregory F. Nemet notes in his new book, “How Solar Energy Became Cheap.”
Quoted: Jonathan Patz, a physician and director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA Today that he has studied the health effects of global warming for two decades.
Quoted: Humans have always told stories as a way to connect, share our past, and look into the future, says Robert Glenn Howard, Director of Digital Studies and professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: If love is a kind of deep knowledge, then it’s possible no one loves beets more than Irwin Goldman, a professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Quoted: “It is kind of a ‘duh,” said Eleanor Neff Powell, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She’s one of many researchers who have found evidence that money and politics are linked, just like American voters always suspected. McKay isn’t the first scientist to show that the two forces connect outside the roll-call vote.
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new way of mimicking the complex coordination between our two arms and hands, a development that could one day help robots defuse bombs and allow nurses to care for patients thousands of miles away.
Stress reduction techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing, getting some exercise into your routine, and optimizing your sleep at night can help, the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says. Turmeric, fresh produce, and probiotics are also considered anti-inflammatory foods, as Annakeara Stinson previously wrote for Bustle.
New missile tests in North Korea have put the region back in the spotlight. The tests portend trouble ahead for President Trump’s extremely ambitious Korean agenda no matter how much confidence he has in Kim Jung Un.
–David P. Fields is the associate director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin and the author of “Foreign Friends: Syngman Rhee, American Exceptionalism, and the Division of Korea.”
Noted: Around the world, protected areas appear to be facing increasing threats from industrial-scale developers, said Lisa Naughton-Treves, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new report.
Quoted: Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that the water-vapour signal lies in the spectrum band between 23.6 and 24 GHz and that 5G transmissions could easily leak into that range. “It would be like noisy neighbours moving in next door with a very loud transmitter,” he told Physics World.
Features commencement speaker J.J. Watt
The research team led by Daniel Rakita from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, US, set out to find a way to replicate the so-called “gestalt” effect of human two-handed movement, in which arms and hands move together to achieve what each individual limb cannot do alone.
Yuli Liu, a PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped develop the device.
Quoted: “We used to expect the middle class to grow. That was kind of a given. And we’ve had nearly 20 years where it hasn’t,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a progressive policy institute on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus.
Quoted: CNN spoke to Ryan Owens, a professor from the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Paul Schiff Berman, a professor from the George Washington University Law School, to outline some of these cases.
In a recent study, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin documented significant temperature increases and lower precipitation levels that threaten the biodiversity and ecosystems of the parks: Glacier National Park — loss of greenery, melting glaciers; Yellowstone, the world’s first national park — devastation of whitebark pine forests.
Quoted: “At a fundamental level, I bet most people who drink [alcohol] don’t really know exactly how this drug works,” said Kevin Strang, a faculty associate in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education. “It’s unique in the drug world.”
It was summer on the Pacific coast and Ani Michaud, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was standing at a small fish tank in the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, peering through a camera’s viewfinder.
Quoted: “It’s going to be very difficult to fine-tune short-term policy rates using sales and purchases of long-term securities,” Menzie Chinn, an economist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said.
Quoted: Jordan Gerth, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, called CTIA’s blog post both “misleading” and “misinformed.” He noted that the canceled sensor was replaced by a similar one currently flown on two NOAA satellites while international agencies also fly such instruments.
A report by the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs found nearly one-third of the more than 2,000 people surveyed reported skipping a test or treatment due to costs.
Quoted: At a time when two out of every three undergraduates enroll in a two-year or four-year degree program within 25 miles of their home, according to the Department of Education data, Nick Hillman, associate professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says it’s time policymakers and politicians begin paying attention to geography inequality, one of the most overlooked aspects of college access and opportunity.
Noted: Linsey Steege, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, studies how to improve the health, safety and performance of health professionals. Her work points to what she calls the “supernurse” phenomenon.
