University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists are looking into whether climate change may lead to the faster spread of diseases like the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus.
As more infections become resistant to antibiotics, a University of Wisconsin research team’s search for new ways to knock down bad bacteria and fungi has become increasingly urgent.
Noted: Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin, has explored how the top quintile is pulling away from the rest of society. In an essay published earlier this year, “Gates, Gaps, and Intergenerational Mobility: The Importance of an Even Start,” Smeeding finds that the gap between the average income of households with children in the top quintile and households with children in the middle quintile has grown, in inflation-adjusted dollars, from $68,600 to $169,300 — that’s 147 percent.
They may not wipe out entire cities or occur after earthquakes, but two University of Wisconsin researchers say the Great Lakes have tsunamis that can wreak havoc of their own.
Noted: Increasingly, anthropologists say that the key to understanding the rise of civilization is to study political and religious institutions. Many now believe that societies took up farming not out of necessity but for cultural reasons — to please a king or to satisfy their religion. T. Douglas Price, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the origins of agriculture, argues that farming was a conscious choice made by societies with pre-existing levels of political sophistication.
Hyperloop is the name of a potential transport system, with the idea of shooting people in pods through a tube at speeds of over 700 mph. Does this sound like a pipe dream straight out of science fiction? Not for Elon Musk. You know him – he’s the owner and innovator of Tesla Motors and SpaceX. But for Hyperloop, he invited over 100 teams from around the world to a competition to present their ideas on how to make Hyperloop work. Well, a team from UW-Madison made the cut.
Quoted: Linda S. Greene, the Evjue-Bascom law professor at the University of Wisconsin, draws a sharp distinction between how Goodell successfully handled the Brady case and how he mishandled the Ray Rice investigation, protecting a star player and his team in a clear case of domestic abuse.
People are less receptive to new information when they are offended. That was one of the key findings of a 2013 study by communication scientists at the University of Wisconsin. Researchers tested the effect of “uncivil” reader comments appended to online articles — remarks like, “You must be dumb if you think X.””The results were both surprising and disturbing,” study co-authors Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele wrote in a summary published by the New York Times. “Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.”They called this phenomenon the “nasty effect.”
Do you text while watching TV, or listen to music while reading? Media multitasking is known to distract people not only when they are doing it, but when they aren’t consuming media – which is detrimental to performance at school or work, for maintaining relationships and for general well-being. A new study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States shows that a short meditation exercise involving counting one’s breath – inhaling and exhaling nine times – can sharpen one’s focus, and especially so for heavy media multitaskers.
UW-Madison junior Deshawn McKinney has been selected to receive the prestigious national Truman Scholarship. The Harry S. Truman Scholarship, created by Congress in 1975 as a memorial to the former president, is intended to support the next generation of public service leaders.
Quoted: Michele Hilmes, a professor emeritus of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, points out that the DVD market went a long way toward breaking language barriers by providing subtitles and dubbing. What Netflix can do that DVDs can’t is provide an instantaneous global push.
A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have devised a cheap method to make impressively fast and flexible silicon-based transistors. Their technique involves using beams of electrons to create reusable molds of the patterns they want, as well as a very, very tiny knife to etch minuscule trenches into those patterns. The result is a small, bendy transistor — though not as small as a the Navy’s single-molecule design — that can transmit data wirelessly and has the potential to operate at a whopping 110 gigahertz. In other words, it’s capable of some extremely fast computing and could lead to wearables a lot more powerful than those available today.
The rusty-patched bumble bee used to be abundant, including in Wisconsin. This story starts at UW-Madison’s Arboretum.
When the United States took the global lead in combating the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic in 2014, the White House and public and private organizations sent out an all-call for assistance in equipping health care workers on the front lines with better weapons to battle the disease.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine have developed lab mice that can be used for testing vaccines and antivirals against the Zika virus.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine have found a way to simulate the Zika virus in mice, a step that should help researchers better understand the disease and even gain a foothold in the effort to develop vaccines and antivirals.
Bud Selig is just not the retiring type.So even though it’s been 15 months since he stepped down as commissioner of Major League Baseball after nearly 23 years on the job, it would be a stretch to say he’s retired.
Noted: According to Jill Thein-Nissenbaum, an associate professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a staff physical therapist for UW Athletics and Badger Sportsmedicine, said that even people who regularly exercise have this problem. She said she knows someone who was in great shape — playing indoor soccer three times a week during the winter — but on his first day back on the golf course, he was left feeling stiff and sore.
Noted: Ryan Owens, a professor of political science at University of Wisconsin-Madison and an honorary fellow at the Institute for Legal Studies, said when the court is at its usual state of nine sitting justices, the judges try hard to avoid a situation where there is a chance of a deadlock.
Noted: A University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor in Journalism Ethics, Robert Drechsel, adds that Facebook, while not necessarily a media company, has the same responsibilities like those of media outlets and should provide content that is “thorough, fair, accurate, complete, and contextual.”
Another academic year draws to a close this month, and as it ends I have mixed emotions. I’m certainly happy for the graduates, as well as the students who’ve just completed a year of outstanding education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At the same time, I’m concerned about the racially charged incidents that were reported on the UW–Madison campus this past semester.
Noted: Christof Koch, the president and chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, and Giulio Tononi, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin, have proposed that consciousness is nearly ubiquitous in different degrees, and can be present even in nonliving arrangements of matter, to varying degrees.
Last week, the director of the National Weather Service (NWS), Louis W. Uccellini, visited his alma mater as the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award winner. Uccellini presented the story of the intellectual and professional journey that led him to the leadership of this extraordinarily important government agency … Uccellini’s visit reminded us all, we strive to do great things at Wisconsin and we usually succeed.
Members of the University of Wisconsin Band played to a packed gym on Saturday at Mauston High School.
If you don’t already, odds are that someday you’ll hold a newspaper at arm’s length to read it more clearly. This incredibly common eye condition, called presbyopia, generally affects those in their 50s and older. It occurs when eye muscles begin to age and harden, making it more difficult to focus on nearby objects.
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have developed a way for New Yorker magazine to use crowd-sourcing to judge captions in its weekly cartoon caption contest.
Noted: Different recovery times. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has spent decades studying the relationship between our emotions and various brain structures and neurological systems. In his 2012 book The Emotional Life of Your Brain, Davidson notes that people vary widely with regard to the speed with which we recover from adverse experiences. (Davidson calls this quality “resilience,” but I prefer “recovery time,” as I use the former term more broadly when discussing our overall response to stress and challenges.) Davidson’s research demonstrates that people with different recovery times even show different patterns of activity in their brains.
While it wasn’t written about the Vietnam War, the song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by The Animals became an iconic song at the time, and now signifies the era.
The recent “retirement” of one of my favorite poets of all time, Ron Wallace, from the UW–Madison English Department reawakened a personal source of civic pride: Madison as a serious poetry city.
New University of Wisconsin-Madison research shows that the snowshoe hare’s habitat in northern Wisconsin is shrinking, in part due to shifts in climate.
Quoted: Barbara Wolfe, Ph.D., a professor of public affairs, economics, and population health services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wasn’t involved with the study, said environment could play a role in health as well.
University of Wisconsin Madison history professor William Jones said such arguments have initially seen success in other states, although they have ultimately fallen short when the case has been appealed. He pointed to the most recent challenge of Indiana’s right-to-work law, which was struck down, but then eventually upheld by that state’s Supreme Court.
A nearly 400-year-old collection of William Shakespeare’s plays will be on display this fall in Madison.
Officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plan to award a graduate student who died last year a rare posthumous degree.
UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank said Friday that the university won’t lay off tenured faculty so long as it remains a leading research school.“Top-ranked universities always take care of their tenured faculty,” Blank said in a blog post. “As long as this university is a top-ranked institution we will behave like other top-ranked universities. That means we don’t layoff tenured faculty. Period.”
The First Folio, a printed collection of William Shakespeare’s plays that dates back to 1623, is scheduled to arrive in November. Shipped under conditions of top security and high-tech climate control, the book will be on display for nearly six weeks at the Chazen Museum of Art, with UW-Madison Libraries and UW Arts Institute as co-presenters.
When he died last October at age 30, Craig Schuff, a quadriplegic, was just a few neutrons short of completing his doctorate in electrical engineering at UW-Madison. He had already earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering, already passed a qualifying examination and prelims, and had already begun preparing to defend his thesis. He had interrupted his graduate studies in the College of Engineering once before, in 2011, when a Lake Monona diving accident damaged his spinal cord and left him motionless, but no less motivated. Now, in death, Schuff rejoins the elite: In May at UW-Madison graduation ceremonies, his parents will accept for him a posthumous doctorate in electrical engineering.
Noted: The Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania Dutch population was made up of “church people, or fancy Dutch” associated with Lutheran and Union churches, says Mark Louden, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Among them, the language is pretty much gone, diluted out as children grew up, went to college and married non-Dutch-speaking people.
University of Wisconsin-Madison sophomore Ashley Hampton is, in many ways, a lot like other students on her campus. She’s in sorority, is steadily working toward a degree in community and nonprofit leadership, and loves to travel and spend time with friends.
Quoted: Clifton Conrad, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the situation at Chicago State foreshadows what many small universities could experience in the coming years, as state budgets contract and less money is designated for higher education.
University of Wisconsin-Madison officials have chosen 14 research projects to receive an average of about $300,000 each over the next two years as part of its UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative.
Badgers, which have long been as synonymous with Wisconsin as cheese, will soon be burrowing into a new home at Vilas Zoo.Zoo, Dane County and UW-Madison officials announced plans Wednesday for a larger exhibit to house the zoo’s two current badgers, with a tentative goal of opening in time for the fall football season. Fundraising efforts are underway for the Wisconsin Heritage Exhibit, with $350,000 of the required $650,000 already collected.
Former UW-Madison chancellor Donna Shalala will be keynote speaker at a global summit for women at the university.
Quoted: “This primary matters a lot for both parties,” Kathy Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in the wake of Tuesday’s election. “When you’re making a calculation whether it’s worth it to stand in line, the message you were getting this time around was yes.”
Humans have played a key role in moving species to new locations, resulting in an exponential spread of species over the last century. Many of these nonnative species never become invasive – that is, damaging – and a few may even have positive effects on ecology or human economy. However, many, such as Asian carp in North American rivers and Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, cause enormous ecological and economic damage.
Patrick Sims, vice provost for diversity and climate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, decided last week that he had had enough.When he received a picture of a racial slur, scrawled on notebook paper, that had reportedly been slipped under a freshman’s dorm-room door, Mr. Sims did something unusual for a campus administrator. He recorded a video.
In spite of Tuesday’s record turnout, the wait to vote at UW-Madison polling locations remained manageable, officials there said.University officials stressed that delays for the campus locations didn’t hit the one and two hour waits seen at UW-Green Bay and Marquette University at some points Tuesday.“The city clerk’s office tells us the max wait time was about 15 minutes,” spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said.
Quoted: “I think the deepest concern that talk radio people have about Trump is not so much that he’s rude and will say politically incorrect things, but that they don’t buy that he’s a bona fide conservative,” says University of Wisconsin public affairs professor Donald Moynihan.
A UW-Madison professor has developed an exercise plan that gives seniors a chance to maintain their independence in their own homes. The program — called PALS, or Physical Activity for Life for Seniors — is being offered at sites around Wisconsin, with more sites on a waiting list.
Quoted: “Sanders needs to start winning by a couple of touchdowns for the media to start taking his narrative seriously,” says Michael Wagner, an elections specialist at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Quoted: “Even when Scott Walker was battling the unions [in 2011] and 100,000 people were marching around the capitol, those were family-friendly events,” says Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “There were massive policy disagreements, but not a lot of personal insults.”
Quoted: The renewed focus on bread-and-butter Democratic principles, especially within organized labor, arrived in step with Sanders’ message, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Barry Burden, director of its Elections Research Center, told CNN.
The discovery of gravitational waves, the last piece of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to be proved, certainly amounts to the biggest discovery in physics since the discovery of the Higgs boson a few years ago. So, the Perpetual Notion Machine invited UW-Madison astrophysicist Peter Timbie on the show this week to explain gravitational waves and what this discovery means for future research. And not only that, it appears that gravitational waves have a sound all its own, which we heard on the show.
Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talks to Renee Montagne about which candidates students, unions, rural and urban voters support.
The Wisconsin presidential primaries on Tuesday will be won by the candidates who best harness Wisconsin’s politics of resentment.
Called the Agriculture Dean’s Residence but also the Fred House, the Lake Dormer House, Building No. 0072 and “the house formerly known as 10 Babcock Drive,” the 120-year-old Queen Anne at 620 Babcock Drive has Gothic details and no known ghosts. UW-Madison’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) is seeking to raise $2 million for interior renovations to turn its 10,000 square feet into a center for agriculture-related student organizations.
According to Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it comes as little surprise that Sanders is appealing to some sections of the population.
Quoted: “I think it is incorrect to look at the data and conclude that those voters are more ignorant,” Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an interview. “Instead, there’s a strong correlation between having a college degree or not, and your economic situation in life.”
The powwow is organized by Wunk Sheek, a UW-Madison student group that promotes awareness of indigeneous issues and cultures. The event is free and open to all, said Emily Nelis, a Wunk Sheek leader and one of the event’s coordinators.
Quoted: “With bloodstream infections you will often get fever, shaking, chills,” said Dr. Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease specialist with University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics, in a March 9 interview on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Central Time.” “If the infection is in a particular body site like the skin, you might see redness or inflammation of the skin. If it’s a pneumonia you might get respiratory symptoms. But it’s not something I would consider to be a low-grade or subtle infection. It’s usually fairly significant, fairly apparent.”
