When folklorist Jim Leary was growing up in Rice Lake, Wis., in the 1950s and ’60s, old-time ethnic music was everywhere. You could dial up the local radio station, WJMC, and hear live broadcasts of Scandinavian music by the Eric Berg Band. The nearby ski lodge was a venue for Slovenian accordion music. Polka star Whoopee John was a frequent visitor from his home base a few hours away in New Ulm, Minn.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Bill Tracy has become the school’s first organic agriculture researcher, inaugurating an endowed professorship that could lead to new advances in a field that might not otherwise see university research.
The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is the recipient of the nation’s first endowed chair focused on plant breeding for organic crops, representatives of Organic Valley and Clif Bar & Company said today at a ceremony at the State Capitol. The endowment will be funded in perpetuity with a $1 million gift from the companies and matched by a $1 million gift from UW graduates John and Tashia Morgridge.
Noted: In the Journal of Adolescent Research, researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green State University describe relationships as “intimate unions” that are “best conceived of as dynamic trajectories involving a heterogeneous and multi-directional array of transitions.” That’s academic for: you don’t really have a clue what’s going to happen. In a study of 792 young adults who were dating, about half of the respondents had tried to rekindle an old relationship; a few more, 57 percent, had at least had sex with an ex.
Quoted: Addressing the decision during a climate change forum in Madison on Tuesday night, Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison, emphasized the health benefits of tackling climate change, such as preventing 6,600 asthma deaths. “It’s not just energy policy and dollars. We’re talking about lives. We’re talking about people dying,” Patz said.
UW-Madison University Health Services will spend an extra $400,000 next academic year for additional staffing and new or expanded programs aimed at reducing student-reported rates of campus sexual violence.
A UW-Madison alumnus and current board member of the UW Foundation has been selected to serve as interim vice chancellor for finance and administration. Michael Lehman, a 1974 graduate of the School of Business, will start work on March 7, the university said on Tuesday.
Lorna Jorgenson Wendt, a UW-Madison alumna, who was a champion for women’s equality before, during and after marriage, died at the age of 72 on Thursday.
UW Health, a Madison health care system, said Tuesday that Dr. Alan Kaplan, executive vice president and chief clinical transformation officer for UnityPoint Health in West Des Moines, Iowa, has been named chief executive officer of UW Health.
The college frenzy obsesses on key hurdles students must clear to snag a spot in a good college: taking tough courses and getting good grades, building an impressive list of extracurriculars, gathering the financial resources to pay the bills. But the simple fact of a student’s street address can be as big a hurdle as any.
Quoted: John Milton Cooper, a Princeton alum and Wilson biographer who taught history at University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted in his essay that the former president also supported minority rights, albeit perhaps in less significant ways, such as speaking out against lynchings and opening university positions for Catholics, Jews, and poorer students.
English students at Southern Door High School are beginning to experience a Chinese literary classic in advance of this year’s Great World Texts In Wisconsin Conference. More than 1,200 students statewide including those at Southern Door High School have begun reading Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’en’s novel of sixteenth-century China.
UW Health has named Dr. Alan S. Kaplan as its new chief executive officer. According to a release from UW Health, Kaplan is a nationally known health care leader with a track record of leading large-scale clinical and cultural transformation with a focus on care coordination.
Kaplan currently serves as executive vice president and chief clinical transformation officer for UnityPoint Health in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Quoted: “Even with the high value of the dollar, we are still exporting, but not as much as we were when the dollar was not quite so strong,” said Bruce Jones, an agricultural economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that not only was 2015 the hottest year on record, but places like Brazil, where the disease began, and Columbia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, where it’s now flourishing, saw record-breaking temperatures last year too.
There will be an inescapable irony in the unlikely event Bryan Cranston wins a best actor Oscar later this month for his portrayal of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
Noted: Apps, by themselves, are not a continuing care program. But since they are used on phones, they are a logical tool to help people stay connected to their programs. David Gustafson, the University of Wisconsin professor who led A-Chess’s development, said that the evidence is that people in recovery need three things: social connection, motivation (“the desire to keep on keeping on”) and confidence that they know how to cope with their struggles. Apps can help with all three.
Hundreds of teams applied, but a team of UW-Madison researchers was one of only eight teams that were chosen in the Mind Matters Challenge co-sponsored by the NCAA and U.S Department of Defense.
Together these two entities have contributed more than $40 million towards the study of concussions. The UW-Madison team consists of Assistant Professor of Human Ecology Dee Warmath and Athletic Training and Kinesiology Professor Dr. Andrew Winterstein.
Over the next two years the team will work with some of the 2,500 student and club team athletes on UW-Madison campus. These students will help them test out new strategies for getting the word out on how dangerous ignoring a concussion can be.
The spread of mosquito-born Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in children of infected women, has led to travel advisories for pregnant women and, in some countries, advice that women delay pregnancy entirely. What is Zika, and how can countries fight it? Joy Cardin talks to UW-Madison’s Kristen Bernard about how Zika is spreading, the challenges it poses, and how big a problem it may become in the U.S.
Hundreds of fireballs streak across Earth’s atmosphere every day, said Jim Lattis, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but people witness few of them. The majority fly over uninhabited areas, and many also occur during daytime when the sun’s glare makes them hard to detect.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross says the system must do more to acknowledge and understand students of color.
Seven executives met for a recent roundtable discussion at Wisconsin State Journal offices, one year after they gathered for a similar exchange, to see if conditions in the area’s tech industry have improved or slid backward.
Capitol Times Editor Paul Fanlund’s interview with Darrell Bazzell, who is departing in April as UW’s vice chancellor for finance and administration to assume a similarly high-ranking post at the huge University of Texas campus in Austin.
At 21 years old, Keven Stonewall, a Chicago Public Schools graduate, has already conducted lab research offering scientists worldwide a breakthrough in their fight to cure colon cancer.
Noted: Bagged greens are usually washed thoroughly (some packages boast that their contents are “triple-washed”) with a little bleach, but that unfortunately doesn’t make any difference if the produce carries disease-causing bacteria. “Listeria is a natural soil inhabitant, and spinach commonly comes in contact with the soil,” says Jeri Barak, associate professor of plant pathology and executive member of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Listeria, like Salmonella and E. coli, can’t be rinsed or washed from leaves even if the dirt is, she says.
Noted: The Zika epidemic parallels the 1999 West Nile Virus outbreak in New York, according to Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both arrived during record-hot summers and involved the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which bite more frequently in hot weather.
Quoted: “It could be that Zika is causing [microcephaly] with another factor, which is definitely possible. There could be other environmental factors, there could be co-infections that cause the unfortunate microcephaly, and at this point there is just not enough evidence to say it is causing it,” said Kristin Bernard, a mosquito-borne virus researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Overall, infectious disease researchers are pushing toward a more interdisciplinary approach to predict outbreaks. Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at UW-Madison, is doing research to connect the dots between climate change and global health, offering a glimpse into the ways differing scientific fields can combine to build a proactive approach to mosquito-borne disease. His research has revealed a link between dramatic climactic shifts and the occurrence of viral outbreaks.
Quoted: “The arrival of Zika virus in Brazil is not good news,” wrote Thomas M. Yuill, an emeritus professor of veterinary science and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Badgerloop, the University of Wisconsin’s largely undergraduate team, laid claim to one of the event’s most impressive booths. Throughout the weekend, team members, who were clad in matching red-and-black polo shirts and khakis, built an Oculus Rift-like headset out of cardboard to help explain their pod’s unique technology to the steady throng around their eye-catching display.
In honor of Black History Month and former Wisconsin head coach Bill Cofield, the Badgers will be wearing special throwback Adidas uniforms several times in the month of February. UW will be wearing the uniforms modeled after those worn in 1976, Cofield’s first year as head coach in Madison.
Noted: As “Read Your Heart Out Day” added more schools, they began to add more community readers. “Pastors joined The 100 Black Men and we had community representation from sororities and fraternities and high school students and athletes,” Belnavis said. “We just grew and grew and embraced the UW sports – some of our UW basketball players and football players came to join in.”
Quoted: “What they’re recommending is that if you traveled to a place where Zika virus is, which is an ever-changing thing, that you avoid donating blood, if you’ve traveled there within 28 days,” said Dr. Daniel Shirley, a clinical professor of infectious disease at UW Health.
Shirley said that right now there is not a test to screen for the Zika virus in donated blood.
“Each test that they run on transfusion blood is a big process to institute that across the board, and so it would take some standardization and some testing before that ever happened,” Shirley said.
A new partnership with UW-Madison promises to deliver Monona officials a wealth of information on how to improve the city’s transportation infrastructure, housing and amenities.
Senior class officers at University of Wisconsin-Madison didn’t choose a famous entertainer, author or politician to give the Class of 2016 commencement address May 14.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison spent $8 million the last six months of 2015 fending off attempts to raid some of its most productive and accomplished faculty after international attention over state budget cuts and possible changes to tenure protections created faculty unrest.
A UW-Madison team that designed a pod for transporting people at futuristic speed finished third in SpaceX’s first worldwide Hyperloop competition, hosted at Texas A&M University Jan. 29 and 30.
UW-Madison has spent at least $8 million since last summer to retain top professors after state legislators cut higher education funding and changed faculty tenure policies, Chancellor Rebecca Blank told the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Thursday.
A new study from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Minnesota found lithium ion batteries used to power laptops and cell phones can be harmful to important microorganisms in soil.
(Video) Christie (Christine) Whelan is a professor of consumer science at UW-Madison. She talks about the Barbie’s makeover on Live at Four.
Quoted: But if you’re really intent on sidestepping illness, meditation may be the best way to stay cold free, says Dr. Bruce Barrett, a professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Wisconsin. In his research, he’s found that mindfulness meditation can lower risk for common respiratory infections by up to 60% by combating immune system-crippling stress.
A dazzling sight streaked across the skies of southern Wisconsin Monday night leaving some people confused about exactly what they saw. A bright strip of light was captured by a rooftop camera and the footage was posted to YouTube by University of Wisconsin Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Based off of the video’s timestamp, the “fireball” was spotted just before 6:30 p.m.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor John Hawks is part of a team that made one of the greatest fossil discoveries of the past half century.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin says Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson will return to Madison this spring to give the school’s commencement address.
Rose lives in a four-by-seven-foot trailer she built herself with salvaged materials, and she parks wherever she can. It’s a small space to share with an enormous red bloodhound, but Rose wouldn’t have it any other way.
Quoted: Al McCoy, the JRW Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says what we’re witnessing is the first time in modern history the Chinese have systematically fought to capture this key ’heartland’ region, and thus unify the Eurasian landmass.
Quoted: The zip code that a child is born into oftentimes determines their life chances,” said Nick Hillman, an author of the study and assistant professor of education leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “Place matters because it reinforces existing inequalities.”
Quoted: Dr. Thomas O’Guinn of the University of Wisconsin has written several books on advertising and brand promotion. He has consulted with a wide range of corporations on advertising campaigns. He worked on public service announcements for the American Cancer Society, so he knows that advertising is not always about puppies and horses.
Noted: El Nino, a natural warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide, usually puts northeastern Brazil into a drought, as it did last year. Aedes aegypti does well in less-developed regions in droughts, because it lives in areas where poorer people store water in outdoor containers, said Jonathan Patz, director of the global health institute at the University of Wisconsin.
Demographers forecast that more college students in the future will be low-income adults returning to school. And President Barack Obama is pushing to make college more affordable with a package of proposals that includes providing two free years of college to all high school graduates, expanding the low-income Pell grant program for older students like Atkinson, and giving bonuses to colleges that enroll and graduate significant numbers of low-income students. Meanwhile, student activists pushed for more affordable college on campuses across the country during the Million Student March in November.
Quoted: While most Americans probably won’t see the inside of a Gulfstream, the campaign plane is a reality of early state primaries, said Ken Mayer, a presidential political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Noted: Lead also complicates water conservation. When customers use less water, that remaining in the system sits in the pipes longer, offering lead more opportunity to leach into it. “Systems can’t just go blindly into water demand reduction or conservation plans,” said Gregory Harrington, a UW-Madison professor of civil and environmental engineering. Lead’s relatively small part in the water system infrastructure highlights some of the long-term decisions ahead for water utilities — including Madison’s, which has about 900 miles of pipe, much of which is at least 50 years old. “I think the biggest decision they’re going to have to make is how to fund infrastructure over time,” Harrington said.
Quoted: Inclusion starts with ensuring that minority students are “not on campus in token amounts,” said Linda S. Greene, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has served in various administrative roles that included diversity work.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank outlined the university’s efforts to educate students on voter ID information in a Friday blog post.
Blank said in the post that after the 2011 voter ID law was implemented, she and other administrative officials worked with legislators to ensure that students across the UW System could obtain voter ID cards.
Quoted: “We thought the effect might be dampened with the groups actual media exposure prior to watching the program. Typically Muslims and Arabs are shown on television as more violent and aggressive and are shown in more stereotypical ways like as terrorists,” said Sohad Murrar, the study author. Murrar is a graduate student studying social and personality psychology in at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It was particularly exciting to see this positive shift it was quite a robust effect, and we think if people’s prejudice was dampened in this case, this could be applied to other target groups.”
Noted: As a graduate of the UW Odyssey Project, I have been able to see up close and personal what a game changer education can be. One day, we are going to see the families of those Odyssey graduates changing the game in Madison, as they and their children go on to college. Odyssey exposes us to literature, art, history and philosophy, which is empowering. It might take time, but I believe that we are going to see some serious outcomes as a result of Odyssey and Odyssey Junior.
While budget cuts are occurring on campuses across the University of Wisconsin System this year, the system’s own annual report released Monday said its financial standing “remained relatively strong” as of June 30, the end of the last fiscal year. That’s just a snapshot in time, UW System officials said, and it does not account for $250 million in state budget cuts that will come into play between this fiscal year and next.
Inspired by other popular podcasts that bring science to the masses, such as Radiolab from New York Public Radio, UW-Madison’s “Science Narratives” is aimed at “people who aren’t going to be interested in sitting down and reading an academic article,” said Lika Balenovich, who oversees the project.
Dr. Matthew Leota is a University of Wisconsin Madison Research Scientist who studies mosquito borne illnesses. He says they encountered the Zika virus while researching something else in Columbia. “I’ve been primarily working on a virus called Dengue virus and another virus called Chikungunya virus, which are transmitted by a mosquito called Aedes Aegypti, and so Aedes Aegypti is also the mosquito that is currently spreading Zika virus around the Americas, and so it was somewhat coincidentally that we came upon Zika virus working in Columbia.”
When Owen Daniels looks to the sky as he discusses plans for life after the NFL, just know that he’s not searching for an answer.
