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Real Time Economics

Wall Street Journal

“Naloxone access may unintentionally increase opioid abuse through two channels: (1) saving the lives of active drug users, who survive to continue abusing opioids, and (2) reducing the risk of death per use, thereby making riskier opioid use more appealing,” the University of Virginia’s Jennifer Doleac and the University of Wisconsin’s Anita Mukherjee write. Because there are more opioid abusers needing to fund their drug habit, theft may also rise.

Aprium, anyone? The pick of hybrid fruit and vegetables

The Guardian

Row 7, a collaboration between a chef, a plant breeder and a seedsman, aims to sell seeds for vegetables that might not otherwise reach a broad market, reported the New York Times last month. One of its offerings is the Badger Flame, a beetroot of brilliant orange that a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison bred to produce a sweet and mild variety his children would enjoy.

Group of UW researchers spend all year in Antarctica

CBS 58, Milwaukee

ANTARCTICA (CBS 58) —  Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth where the sun doesn’t shine for six months at a time, but it’s staffed by a group of scientists based out of Wisconsin all year long. Meteorologist Justin Thompson-Gee had the opportunity to talk with scientists of a research project called IceCube in Antarctica.

A Secret Superpower, Right in Your Backyard

New York Times

As the verdant hills of Wakanda are secretly enriched with the fictional metal vibranium in “Black Panther,” your average backyard also has hidden superpowers: Its soil can absorb and store a significant amount of carbon from the air, unexpectedly making such green spaces an important asset in the battle against climate change.

Fed’s Crisis-Era, Bond-Buying Plan Was Largely Ineffective, Economists Say

Wall Street Journal

The paper presented at the conference was written by David Greenlaw of Morgan Stanley , James Hamilton of the University of California San Diego, Ethan Harris of Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Kenneth West of the University of Wisconsin. It argues most of what people now believe of the asset purchases is likely wrong.

Ancient cave paintings turn out to be by Neanderthals, not humans

The Verge

Other experts agree with the dates and that the timing means the art must have been created by Neanderthals. There’s no fossil evidence of modern humans in Spain that long ago, says John Hawks a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who wasn’t involved in the research. “There’s no secret story,” he says. “The results are just, ‘Hey, Neanderthals were making these things, and you didn’t know it.’”

The U.S. State With the Most Bipolar Politics

OZY

The tallies were always close. And when turnout in cities like Madison and Milwaukee lags, urbanites can be swallowed by rural folks — and those latter voters have become more consolidated around the Republican flag in the last decade, says Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Obama’s success in the state, and Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, proved, “Yeah, we could be very blue, but you have to excite and engage the base,” Burden says.

The women of U.S. hockey really hate Canada and really deserved a gold medal.

Slate

Hilary Knight was “crushed and heartbroken” after that come-from-ahead loss. “There was definitely an I-don’t-know-if-I-can-go-another-four-years kind of feeling,” she told NBC Sports’ Nick Zaccardi last year. Knight, who was a college star at the University of Wisconsin, had thought at one point that she wasn’t even going to make it to Sochi. She’d gone to Boston to train for the games, she told Fox Sports, and ended up calling her mom “bawling crying because my funding essentially wasn’t enough to live out here.

Teen spirit in the lab

Nature

Although still in high school, VanDommelen has logged hundreds of hours in a lab headed by biomedical engineer Melissa Skala at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The experience has sent the teenager down a career path that will probably include many more hours at the bench. “At first, I wasn’t sure that research was something that I wanted to do in my future,” VanDommelen says. “But after all of the positive experiences that I’ve had, I definitely want to continue this.”

Gold for 4 former Wisconsin Badgers as U.S. beats Canada in shootout thriller in women’s hockey

Wisconsin State Journal

Captain Meghan Duggan, forward Brianna Decker and backup goaltender Alex Rigsby also were among the former Badgers players celebrating. On the other side, it was heartbreak for five former or current UW players with Canada: forwards Blayre Turnbull, Sarah Nurse and Emily Clark, defenseman Meaghan Mikkelson and backup goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens.

Why social media appeals after mass shootings have done little to change gun laws

Washington Post

University of Wisconsin researchers found a similar trend in their study of Twitter conversations after 59 mass shootings from 2012 to 2014. That research, which has not yet been published, analyzed 1.3 million tweets and 700 related hashtags, using machine learning to sort them into various categories, said political science professor Jon C. W. Pevehouse, who co-authored the study with Dhavan V. Shah, a journalism professor, and several others.

Should You Exercise When You Are Sick?

Time

There’s some evidence that very intense exercise—running a marathon, say—can briefly suppress your immune function, says Dr. Bruce Barrett, a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. But in general, physical activity is a great way to shield yourself from illness, he says.

Bacterial sex: the promiscuous process driving antibiotic resistance

Stat News

A year after the initial discovery of bacterial conjugation, Joshua Lederberg married Esther Zimmer, who had just earned a master’s degree in genetics from Stanford University while working in Tatum’s lab. The young Lederberg team — Joshua was 22 and Esther 24 — moved to the University of Wisconsin, where they began to explore the strange world of bacteria sex.Esther Lederberg was an exceptionally talented bench scientist.

Radio Chipstone: Bound Together by Cloth

WUWM-FM, Milwaukee

If you look to your left as you walk into the School of Human Ecology on the UW Madison campus, you will see something wondrous in the Design Gallery window. The exhibit is called “Whirling Return of the Ancestors: Egúngún Arts of the Yorùbá in Africa and Beyond.” The garment in the window is worn in what’s called a Masquerade.

Why Is It So Hard for Democracy to Deal With Inequality?

The New York Times

Before reform, Byron Shafer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, writes in “Quiet Revolution: The Struggle for the Democratic Party and the Shaping of Post-Reform Politics,”

there was an American party system in which one party, the Republicans, was primarily responsive to white collar constituencies, and in which the other, the Democrats, was primarily responsive to blue collar constituencies.

Congress debates DACA and immigration: The psychology that makes America a nation of immigrants

Quartz

Smiling, and showing emotions in general, is more common in countries that are historically diverse than in homogenous places, say researchers from Niedenthal Emotions Lab, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Individuals in diverse societies have to rely on emotional expression to navigate the panoply of foreign cultures, social norms, and languages they came across during the course of everyday life.

USA’s Granato Takes Anonymous Squad on Olympic Mission

New York Times

Granato joined the New York Rangers after the Calgary games and went on to a 13-year playing career with three NHL clubs. He turned to coaching in 2002 and worked as an assistant or head coach with three NHL teams until taking over in 2016 as head men’s hockey coach at the University of Wisconsin, where he had a standout collegiate playing career.

High cancer-related expenses take a toll on quality of life

Reuters

“When cancer patients spend more on their cancer treatment and other health care, they have less to spend on activities they enjoy and other needs, which can negatively affect their well-being,” said coauthor Joohyun Park, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy.“It turns out that financial burden is directly related to health and well-being,” Park told Reuters Health by email. “The more a cancer patient spends on health care, the worse the quality of life and mental health.”

UW-Madison Program To Cover Four Years Of Tuition For Incoming Freshman Whose Family Income Is $56,000 Or Less

Wisconsin Public Radio

A University of Wisconsin-Madison program, Bucky’s Tuition Promise, will cover four years of tuition and segregated fees for incoming Wisconsin resident students whose families make $56,000 or less per year. We talk with the school’s director of Financial Aid to learn more.

How to Stay Warm At a Bitter-Cold Olympics? Face Tape and a Whistle-Like Gadget

New York Times

In 1988, University of Wisconsin researchers studied the device, called a Lungplus, when used by 91 subjects in various cold-weather conditions. Over all, Lungplus users reported more comfort breathing in very cold temperatures. The researchers noted that Lungplus breathing at minus 15 degrees Celsius received similar scores, in terms of comfort, as regular breathing in 20 degrees Celsius, according to the research published in Applied Ergonomics.

Sinclair Broadcast Group solicits its news directors for its political fundraising efforts

Chicago Tribune

Given that tradition, Sinclair’s policy “violates every standard of conduct that has existed in newsrooms for the past 40 or 50 years,” said Lewis Friedland, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin and a former TV news producer. “I’ve never seen anything like this. They certainly have the right to do it, but it’s blatantly unethical.”

The Price-Fixing Scandal Rocking Big Chicken

Mother Jones

Because these lawsuits are private litigation, they will likely not result in structural reform to the poultry sector, says Peter Carstensen, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches competition and regulation in the meat sector. And, he says, the lawsuits probably won’t have “much effect” on the “very serious problem” of how processors “exploit the farmers who raise their chickens.”

Study: Mississippi River Shutdown Would Cost Millions

Memphis Daily News

The study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison estimates that a shutdown of the river at Hannibal, Missouri, would require trucks to move more than 12 million tons of grain during a nine-month shipping season, costing millions of dollars and damaging roads.

The Gap Between The Science On Kids And Reading, And How It Is Taught

NPR

Seidenberg is a cognitive scientist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In his latest book, Language at the Speed of Sight, he points out that the “science of reading” can be a difficult concept for educators to grasp. He says it requires some basic understanding of brain research and the “mechanics” of reading, or what is often referred to as phonics.

Cities May Be Altering the Natural Instincts of Foxes and Coyotes

City Lab

Under a dimly lit streetlight in Madison, Wisconsin, a woman witnessed a standoff between a fox and a coyote—two predators that have made the city their home. In an email to wildlife researcher David Drake at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she described the brief (and quite frankly, anti-climatic) interaction: For about 15 seconds, they stood face-to-face, about 10 feet part. They then turned around—and sauntered off in the opposite direction.

Polisis AI Reads Privacy Policies So You Don’t Have To

Wired

Today, researchers at Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan announced the release of Polisis—short for “privacy policy analysis”—a new website and browser extension that uses their machine-learning-trained app to automatically read and make sense of any online service’s privacy policy, so you don’t have to.