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.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Varsity Band will perform at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 22, at Iola-Scandinavia High School.
We’ve already got robot receptionists, who respond to human interactions — now we have a robot that changes how it looks depending on your personality. This robot, designed by Sean Andrist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been developed to respond to ’social gaze’ — essentially the social context in which we look at one another. The robot uses social cues, which it processes via a bespoke algorithm, to figure out what kind of personality you have and respond accordingly.
#blackOclock: That’s the social media tag some University of Wisconsin-Madison students are using to share pictures of themselves decked out from head to toe in the color black to celebrate the first day of Black History Month.
Some of Wisconsin’s brightest minds filled the UW Engineering Hall today. They were all there for the Wisconsin Regional Middle School Science Bowl.
Middle school students from across the state traveled to Madison for this. Organizers say the kids impress them every round.
While much of the nation is steadily boosting state funding for higher education, several recent reports suggest the opposite is true in Wisconsin, though the governor’s office argues that’s not the full story.
Column: The (Epic founder Judith) Faulkner story is one of a kind, to be sure. But there are hundreds like it involving smaller companies that have been formed by men and women who came here because of what the UW had to offer. That’s why it’s so troubling when the university becomes a whipping boy for politicians who profess they want to make it easier for businesses to create jobs when, in fact, one of the largest job creators is the university itself.
Angela Byars-Winston, a counseling psychologist at the U. of Wisconsin at Madison, is involved in an ambitious training program in “culturally responsive mentoring,” funded by the NIH.
Quoted: “It’s no different than, ’Why do we teach science in school?’ ” said Diana Hess, who has researched civic education and students’ discussion of controversial political issues, and is dean of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Countering prejudice might be as easy as kicking back with the right sitcom. That’s according to new research that suggests media that depict Muslim characters in a positive, relatable way, can counter prejudiced attitudes toward Muslims. “Entertainment media…are likely to be one of the most effective ways to improve intergroup relations and promote diversity,” says Sohad Murrar, a doctoral candidate in Social Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Researchers are working on a number of new weapons for combatting insect-borne disease. One potential is a common bacterium, wolbachia. Mosquitoes infected with it in laboratory studies are unable to transmit dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes are being introduced in Medellin, Colombia, part of a project aimed at eliminating dengue. Matthew Aliota, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, will be studying the method’s prospect for controlling Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.
One of the most significant efforts to study changes in the climate has been taking place near the top of the world. It’s a place called Petermann Glacier in Greenland, one of the largest glaciers in the Arctic Circle and a glacier that has experienced dramatic melting. It is a harsh and dangerous environment, and it has drawn some of the world’s leading climate scientists who are only able to work there a little over a month a year.
A recent article, “UW-Madison sex assault discipline process leaves both sides crying foul,” raised questions about how the university responds to allegations of sexual violence.
Madison firefighters were at Memorial Union shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Thursday to combat the fire which was extinguished by 4 p.m., said Madison fire Department spokeswoman Cynthia Schuster. According to Schuster, the fire was discovered underneath roof tiles of the Union. A portion of tiles had to be removed to put out the fire and some water damage occurred on the fourth floor of the building as a result. The cause has not been determined and the fire remains under investigation.
Wisconsin’s rural school districts are facing a “perfect storm” of declining enrollment and uncertain funding that pose tough questions about their future, according to a new report. A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher said that the information she compiled in her report are the kind of problems that won’t go away any time soon.
UW Urban Canid Project leader and professor of forest and wildlife ecology David Drake provides strategies and tips for hazing coyotes.
Quoted: “Typically the way people have predominantly viewed snow was almost like a simplifying agent of the landscape,” says Jonathan Pauli from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A lot of what was known about winter only really considered what happened to the animals traversing its surface, even among ecologists, he adds.
Noted: The row with the GOP frontrunner arguably lends weight to the notion that Fox News is politically neutral but James Baughman, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says this would not have factored in Mr Ailes’ decision. (Subscription required.)
At the University of Wisconsin in the early 1960s, Mr. Lipofsky was a student of Harvey K. Littleton, a ceramist who created the first glassblowing classes in the United States. “He asked me if I was interested in glass, and I said, well, I’ve never heard of it,” Mr. Lipofsky recalled in an interview at the Oakland Museum of California, describing his first day in Mr. Littleton’s ceramics class.
Quoted: Michael Corradini, professor of engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he hopes the bill will pass because he feels nuclear power is a better alternative to fossil fuels and ultimately help in the fight against climate change.
Quoted: Katy Culver, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches social media, said she has a hunch.”I would suspect it’s mainly issues of privacy law and data security,” she said.
Michael Wagner, also at UW-Madison, said he thinks Facebook hired Van Hollen to handle lawsuits.
Quoted: Joseph Glass, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in addiction and treatment, said expanding access to ADFs is not a panacea for the problem.
Vergara was working with a unique demographic — his students ranged from 18 to more than 80-years-old. Instead of a UW classroom, they gathered in an all-male minimum security corrections facility. His students were inmates at the Oakhill Correctional Institute, about 30 minutes south of Madison.
At the time, Vergara was the program coordinator for the Oakhill Prison Humanities Project. It received its first major grant in 2013, giving numerous inmates at the Oakhill facility the chance to take classes in the humanities. About 20 UW graduate students and faculty teach courses in history, literature, art, drama, creative writing and philosophy.
Unless you’ve eaten at Carson’s Market on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus or watched local cooking shows on television in the 1950s, you’re probably unfamiliar with the name Carson Gulley. Born the son of Arkansas sharecroppers in 1897, Gulley moved to Madison in 1926 and eventually became head chef of the UW residence halls. Among his many achievements was being the first African American to star in his own local TV program.
Noted: Que El-Amin, 31, graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with an art degree and received a master’s degree in geography from Chicago State University. Khalif El-Amin, 29, has a sociology degree from the UW-Stevens Point.
Quoted: “Students living in poverty are not arriving to school in the morning on a level playing field,” said Seth Pollak, one of the study’s authors and a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “They are hungry, tired, stressed. No one is reading to them at home. The children we were studying didn’t even have crayons or Magic Markers at home.”
A Wisconsin Planned Parenthood clinic in 2010 provided heart and brain tissues from aborted fetuses to University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers for studies aimed at understanding the growth of babies with and without birth defects.
The United Council of University of Wisconsin Students fired back at a state senator Monday, saying the efforts to improve the climate on campus for students of color are important for all students … State Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, vice-chairman of the University and Technical Colleges Committee, last week criticized UW System President Ray Cross for acknowledging that UW campuses had work still to do to improve the experience of students, faculty and staff of color.
Many would describe using science to defy the laws of physics as a rare feat. But for University of Wisconsin assistant professor Mikhail Kats, it’s just another day in the lab.
Looking ahead to February, temperatures are expected to be above normal in Wisconsin, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison meteorologist.
Legislation being proposed at the Capitol provides “ticket amnesty” for underage drinkers who report sexual assaults on UW campuses. With sexual assault remaining the most under reported crime, Attorney General Brad Schimel backs the legislation.
Computer scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are tasked with protecting data from some of the nation’s most prolific science research programs, and they’ve just gotten a financial boost to bolster their efforts.
Noted: Politicians getting so far out ahead of public opinion is “pretty unusual,” said Barry Burden, a political-science professor and the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “When we see examples of true leadership it’s usually on topics that matter only to a segment of the population, or that have a technical element that makes [the issue] difficult for most of the public to understand.”
Madison tech companies that get acquired don’t need to close up shop if they can convince their buyers there’s more benefits from the acquisition than the technology itself, leaders of life sciences companies said at a WARF panel.
Tim Browning was at it again Sunday morning near the Monona Terrace, putting together his latest display. This year he built a large, wooden sculpture he’s calling a “Madison-don”, a play on a mastodon on exhibit at a UW-Madison museum.
Don Featherstone’s flamingos are forever linked to UW–Madison thanks to a couple pranksters, a columnist and an official ruling.
Quoted: Jerry O’Brien, director at UW’s Kohl’s Center for Retailing Excellence, said the proposal would benefit consumers.
“Consumers get more bang for their buck, retailers get an opportunity to draw more people into their store,” O’Brien said “It might be easier to plan sales, you know that’s going to be a big day.”
Quoted: Those consumers just might be one of the answers to investors’ woes, said David Silberman, who is pursuing a master’s degree in finance and participating in the Applied Security Analysis Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While past studies have examined the ways in which debts affect the mental health and well-being of adults, new research led by professors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Dartmouth College examines the problem from the child’s point of view.
On the afternoon of Friday, January 17, about 30 people filled the Walnut Way Conservation Corp. (2240 N 17th St) to discuss UW-Madison School of Medicine’s TRIUMPH programand showcase its accomplishments.
Noted: Tate and others say slavery books for children are an intricate art of communicating historical crimes that neither overwhelms nor misleads readers. “There’s no checklist for the right way to do this,” says Megan Schliesman, a librarian at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re in the midst of a huge learning process.”
