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UW In The News

  • Nebraska and Maine allocate electoral college votes differently than other states

    NPR | March 18, 2024

    Nebraska and Maine long ago discarded the electoral college’s winner-take-all approach to allow split ballots if a candidate wins the popular vote in a congressional district. (Featuring quote from Barry Burden.)

  • COVID-19 misinformation continues to pose danger 4 years post-pandemic

    USA Today | March 15, 2024

    Many people are disparaging or dismissive when talking about people who believe misinformation, but it can happen to anyone, said Sedona Chinn, an assistant professor in the life sciences communication department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  • Obscure legal theory could weaken voters’ protections from racist laws

    The Guardian | March 15, 2024

    The ruling is part of a suite of attacks in recent years aiming to chip away at section 2, said Daniel Tokaji, an election law expert who is dean of the law school at the University of Wisconsin. “These are judges who are not terribly friendly to the voting rights and in particular to protections that racial minority groups have long had to wait for,” he said.

  • Powerful Realtor Group Agrees to Slash Commissions to Settle Lawsuits

    New York Times | March 15, 2024

    “This will be a really fundamental shift in how Americans buy, search for, and purchase and sell their housing. It will absolutely transform the real estate industry,” said Max Besbris, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “Upsold,” a book exploring the link between housing prices and the real estate business.

  • Are we breaking the Atlantic Ocean? The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, explained.

    Vox | March 14, 2024

    “This is a sort of $2 million question,” Till Wagner, an atmospheric and ocean scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says. “Can this actually happen? And if so, when?”

  • Health food packaging buzzwords are confusing. This guide can help.

    National Geographic | March 13, 2024

    Kathleen Glass, associate director of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, describes purchasing organic as “a lifestyle choice,” adding that there’s no evidence that organic is more microbiologically safe than conventionally grown foods.  Compared with 50 years ago, she says, the amount of pesticides and herbicides allowed on food are well below levels that could cause long-term health impacts.

  • Low-income Californians face steep water costs; rate help ahead?

    Los Angeles Times | March 12, 2024

    Other states average significantly less. Manny Teodoro, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has tracked the water rates of a sample of about 400 utilities across the country and found that the average monthly bill last year for a typical four-person, single-family household was $44.77. That represented a 25% increase from 2017.

  • House passes immigration bill named for murdered Georgia student

    The Washington Post | March 8, 2024

    “Many politicians, law enforcement personnel and ordinary citizens are nonetheless incensed because this person should not have been in the country and thus capable of committing a crime,” Michael Light, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has published several studies showing undocumented immigrants are not more crime-prone than native-born Americans, told The Washington Post last month. “This view that the person’s undocumented status is an aggravating factor is also likely a reason why these crimes generate such strong responses.”

  • The Era of the Much Older Sibling

    The Atlantic | March 8, 2024

    This new norm of spaced-out siblings seems to be a by-product of the changing American family. The reasons are difficult to parse, but “we know that partner switching explains some of it,” Christine Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who co-authored that 2020 study on the phenomenon, told me.

  • Warm climate cuts short decades-long wolf study near Lake Superior, MI

    Associated Press | March 7, 2024

    Less ice could translate to longer fishing seasons, but winter storms could wreck nets and traps and destroy whitefish eggs that rely on the ice for protection, said Titus Seilheimer, a University of Wisconsin-Madison fisheries specialist.

  • Zero-proof and low-ABV drinks are becoming more popular

    Marketplace | March 6, 2024

    Christine Whelan studies the wellness economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She said this is one Gen Z and millennial health obsession she can get behind. “The movement away from alcohol is probably the best of the wellness remedies,” Whelan said, compared to, say, vitamins and supplements, in terms of its proven positive impact on our health.

  • How to address the problem of discarded donor organs

    STAT | March 4, 2024

    Column by Joshua Mezrich, a professor of surgery, transplant surgeon and holds the Mark A. Fischer Chair in Transplantation at UW Health and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

  • Inside Smashmallow, Silicon Valley’s Failed Marshmallow Startup

    Business Insider | March 4, 2024

    Everyone agrees that it ought to have been possible, engineering-wise, to make a machine that made Smashmallows. Everyone also agrees that, in the end, no one was able to. “The fact that Tanis said they could do it was interesting,” says Richard Hartel, a food engineer who leads the candymaking program at the University of Wisconsin. “Their engineers must have said, ’Well, this shouldn’t be a problem.’ They probably figured this was going to be easy, and it turned out to be harder than they thought.”

  • Scientists Debunk the Idea That Smiling Makes You Happy

    Inverse | March 4, 2024

    Such rigor is admirable, but it also means one can miss things, says Simon Goldberg, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He studies the effects of meditation, including research among people who have psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. He noted that because of Dunn and Folk’s strict criteria, they omitted hundreds of studies on meditation’s benefits. “It’s, in the spirit of rigor, throwing lots of babies out with the bathwater,” he says. “It’s really very obvious that meditation training reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.”

  • Daddy Longlegs Have Been Hiding Extra Eyes From Us

    The New York Times | March 1, 2024

    Guilherme Gainett, then a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was looking through a microscope at the embryo of a daddy longlegs when he saw it — or, rather, saw them.

  • Trump’s claims of a migrant crime wave are not supported by national data

    NBC News | March 1, 2024

    The data is incomplete on how many crimes each year are committed by migrants, primarily because most local police don’t record immigration status when they make arrests. But the studies that have been done on this, most recently by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, show that in Texas, where police do record immigration status, migrants commit fewer crimes per capita.

  • The truth about illegal immigration and crime

    The Washington Post | February 29, 2024

    “Many politicians, law enforcement personnel and ordinary citizens are nonetheless incensed because this person should not have been in the country and thus capable of committing a crime,” said Michael Light, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has published several studies showing undocumented immigrants are not more crime-prone than native-born Americans. “This view that the person’s undocumented status is an aggravating factor is also likely a reason why these crimes generate such strong responses.”

  • The amount of frigid winter air is near a record low, and shrinking

    The Washington Post | February 28, 2024

    For about a decade, Jonathan Martin, a professor of meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, has analyzed the size of the cold pool at this level — or the area of the hemisphere covered by temperatures at or below 23 degrees (minus-5 Celsius). This winter’s cold pool will finish the winter as the second-smallest on record, Martin said.

  • Snow and ice are a way of life here. See how a lost winter upended that.

    Washington Post | February 28, 2024

    In Madison, Wisconsin’s capital in the southern part of the state, temperatures rise into the triple digits in the summer but have never hit 60 degrees in January, said Steve Vavrus, Wisconsin’s state climatologist.

  • Years later, pandemic purchases trigger buyer’s remorse – Marketplace

    Marketplace | February 27, 2024

    Shopping is actually a very normal, human response to chaos. It’s what Christine Whelan, a professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calls credible costly commitments. These are purchases we think may solve our problems.

  • Is the 100-year old TB vaccine a new weapon against Alzheimer’s?

    The Guardian | February 26, 2024

    A pilot study by Coad Thomas Dow of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues suggests that BCG injections can effectively reduce plasma amyloid levels, particularly among those carrying the gene variants associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. Although the sample size was small – just 49 participants in total – it has bolstered hopes that immune training will be an effective strategy for fighting the disease.

  • Meet some of UW-Madison’s 14 students, alumni recognized as Fulbright scholars

    The Daily Cardinal | February 23, 2024

    The United States Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs recognized 14 University of Wisconsin-Madison students and alumni as 2024 Fulbright Scholar Program awardees in early February.

  • Legislature approves $740M for UW system, including a new engineering building at UW-Madison

    Wisconsin State Journal | February 23, 2024

    The Legislature on Thursday approved about $740 million in capital investments across the Universities of Wisconsin, including a new engineering building at UW-Madison that rallied massive industry support.

  • How the polar vortex could deliver one last blast of wintry weather

    The Washington Post | February 23, 2024

    “What is remarkable is we have a second disruption to the stratospheric vortex happening right now,” Andrea Lang, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said in an email. “Two major disruptions to the polar vortex in one season is not common. It has happened before, but it is not something that you expect to happen in any given winter season.”

  • Opinion | Americans Believe the Economy Is Rigged Against Them

    New York Times | February 21, 2024

    By Katherine J. Cramer and Jonathan D. Cohen. Ms. Cramer is co-chair of the Commission on Reimagining Our Economy at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Mr. Cohen is a senior program officer at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

  • Do California’s High Road worker training programs offer a step up?

    San Francisco Chronicle | February 20, 2024

    The High Road program is an improvement compared to many other workforce programs, which often prioritize training people for jobs regardless of the quality, said Laura Dresser, the associate director of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She helped coin the term “high road” and served as a consultant to California’s workforce programs in 2017.

  • Gait speed is one of your vital signs, so make sure yours is OK

    CNN | February 19, 2024

    “For people who have certain injuries, a gait analysis can help us correct the mechanics that might cause it to recur,” said Dr. Bryan Heiderscheit, a professor in orthopedics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of Badger Athletic Performance in Madison.

  • As hunger grows, UW-Madison is redirecting excess food from the landfill to its students

    Wisconsin State Journal | February 19, 2024

    A number of programs, many of them student-led, redirect food waste from UW-Madison’s two largest food producers — University Housing, which runs multiple dining hall and food market locations across campus, and the Wisconsin Union, which oversees the Memorial Union and Union South — to student organizations or food pickup locations to give away free meals.

  • This Is Your Brain on 3-D Printing

    Wall Street Journal | February 16, 2024

    But then the journal Cell Stem Cell—always on my nightstand—reported that scientists at the University of Wisconsin had not only perfected a way to create brain tissue this way but could create brain cells that mimicked the behavior of real ones, and I knew that the breakthrough was real. Kudos to the Badger State scientists for figuring out that arranging the printed brain cells side by side, like a row of stick pretzels or a batch of linguine, would allow neurons to communicate just like those in a conventional brain.

  • How rising import prices could affect inflation

    Marketplace | February 16, 2024

    Not every type of import is raising a red flag right now. For instance, imports of industrial supplies, materials and other intermediate goods got more expensive. But those are just a small part of what goes into a finished product that a consumer buys, says Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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