UW In The News

Meet the Woman Who Rocked Particle Physics—Three Times

One of the many women who, in a different world, might have won the physics prize in the intervening 55 years is Sau Lan Wu. Wu is the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an experimentalist at CERN, the laboratory near Geneva that houses the Large Hadron Collider.

Wisconsin researchers study genetic screening for Amish

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are working to expand newborn genetic screening for Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities in the state.

Wisconsin researchers study genetic screening for Amish

“We want to be able to offer very rapid, low-cost confirmatory testing of genetic disorders,” said Dr. Christine Seroogy, a pediatric immunologist and associate professor at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. “Additionally, it could be cost-saving, in that we are diagnosing the disorders early, which saves the families lots of diagnostic testing.”

Childhood trauma leaves scars that are genetic, not just emotional, study affirms

Neglect, abuse, violence and trauma endured early in life can ripple directly into a child’s molecular structure and distort their DNA, according to a new study this week from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Report: Critical Communications Infrastructure Could Be Under Water in 15 years

Thousands of miles of buried fiberoptic cable in densely populated coastal regions of the United States may soon be inundated by rising seas, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Oregon, reports news.wisc.edu.

Trevor Matich goes fishing with Wisconsin Badgers’ offensive line

Trevor Matich chats and breaks down film with the Wisconsin Badgers’ offensive line while fishing. (Video.)

Paul Fanlund: Five years in, Rebecca Blank sees UW ‘at a good place’

UW Madison addresses acceptance and affordability concerns over ice cream

The University of Wisconsin at Madison is the largest and best known of Wisconsin’s 13 public universities, but over the past decade it has earned a reputation among some Wisconsinites for being expensive, liberal and hard to get into. The Wisconsin Alumni Association, equipped with a refurbished dairy van and gallons of ice cream, is trying to change that.

Monarch butterfly ‘way station’ feeds migrating insects in Duluth

Noted: Karen Oberhauser, who directs the University of Wisconsin Arboretum and is the former head of the Monarch Lab at the University of Minnesota, says the loss of breeding habitat also is a huge problem in the Upper Midwest where milkweed used to grow between rows of crops like corn and soybeans.

Mindfulness y meditación: un experto explica el trasfondo de esta práctica milenaria

Dr. Charles L. Raison speaks with CNN Español about the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. (In Spanish)

Elitist? Callous to state students? UW-Madison tries to smooth image

If you’ve heard it’s next to impossible for Wisconsin kids to get into the University of Wisconsin-Madison, here’s the scoop.

Confronting Implicit Bias in the New York Police Department

Noted: But Patricia G. Devine, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin who runs a research laboratory on prejudice, said she was troubled by the spread of such training in the absence of probing, objective research. She said more study of officers’ unintentional biases is necessary to evaluate how training can impact their behaviors. Additional data is needed, she said, to determine if officers retain what they are taught and if civilians are benefiting from fairer policing.

UW-Madison-led team and Antarctic observation led to discovery from galaxy far, far away

Astronomers trace cosmic ray neutrino back to remote blazar

The initial detection by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, and subsequent observations of high energy radiation from the same source by space telescopes and ground-based observatories, indicate such black holes act as the particle accelerators responsible for at least some of those cosmic rays.“The evidence for the observation of the first known source of high-energy neutrinos and cosmic rays is compelling,” said Francis Halzen, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of physics and the lead scientist for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

What’s a Blazar? A Galactic Bakery for Cosmic Rays

Scientists have finally located a source of the most energetic rays. Starting with a single signal—a flash of light in a detector at the South Pole—and combining it with telescope data from a collaboration of over a thousand people, astrophysicists have traced the origin of some of Earth’s cosmic rays to a blazar, a type of galaxy, 4 billion light years away. “We’ve learned that these active galaxies are responsible for accelerating particles and cosmic rays,” says physicist Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Origin of Mystery Space Radiation Finally Found

Quoted: “It’s exciting, no doubt, to have finally nailed the cosmic accelerator,” says the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Francis Halzen, lead scientist with IceCube. The results are reported today in three papers appearing in Scienceand the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Tracing the Source of Cosmic Rays to a Blazar Near Orion

Astronomers said the discovery could provide a long sought clue to one of the enduring mysteries of physics and the cosmos. Where does the rain of high-energy particles from space known as cosmic rays come from?

Scientists link record heat and power outages in Southern California to climate change

“Air conditioning saves lives from heat waves,” Jonathan Patz, who directs the University of Wisconsin’s Global Health Institute, told Earther. “But if the electricity to run air conditioners requires coal-fired power plants, then we have a problem.”

Preparing your teen for college dorm life? Don’t over-pack

Quoted: “Sometimes we don’t know what to do with emotions,” so parents channel them into packing and shopping to feel productive, said Beth Miller, a coordinator for residence life at University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been involved in campus life for the past 17 years. “But sometimes parents are purchasing things based on emotion and not necessarily based on need.”

Why the warming planet and increased air conditioning use could cause future deaths

According to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, increased use of air conditioners may only be making a bad problem even worse.

Emotional support from families makes a difference for low-income students

Roksa and her co-author, Peter Kinsley, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin Madison, surveyed 728 students in their first year at a two- or four-year institution and who had applied for financial aid in Wisconsin. Roksa asked each student about the financial and emotional support they received from their families and how engaged they were on campus and collected information about their academic success to determine how the three measures were related. The results were recently published in Research in Higher Education. The abstract is available here.

A true wildfire ‘fix’: End bad incentives that nudge people into harm’s way

Noted: In research published in March, scientists with the Forest Service and University of Wisconsin-Madison reported that 43 million homes now lie within the so-called WUI. After decades of new housing additions, the WUI footprint has swelled to 190 million acres — an expanse 10 percent larger than the state of Texas. Based on those trends, the U.S. wildfire problem could have as much to do with people’s preferences to live near forests and nature as it does a changing climate.

What parents should know to prevent, and deal with, bug bites

Column by Dipesh Navsaria, associate professor of pediatrics: For children, summer brings the delight of endless hours outdoors, enjoying nature in full flourish. But that natural world includes insect life, some of which bite humans — including our children. While most are harmless, there are several issues that can cause concern. Let’s explore briefly the world of insect bites — when to worry, and when not to.

An Astrophysics ‘Breakthrough’ Will Be Unveiled Thursday. Here’s How to Watch.

An international team of astrophysicists will reveal a “breakthrough” discovery Thursday (July 12), and you can watch the announcement live.The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced in a statement that it will host a news conference Thursday at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) to unveil new “multimessenger astrophysics findings” led by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, an NSF-managed facility at the South Pole.

New Chinese Tariffs Mean Lower Prices For Wisconsin Farmers

Quoted: Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s reminiscent of the “guns versus butter” model in economics.

Political Scientist: Wisconsin GOP Candidates In Tricky Position For Midterms

Quoted: With their control of the reins of government at both the state and national level, Republicans have found themselves in a somewhat unusual and tricky position for the midterms this fall, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist. Eleanor Neff Powell, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and faculty affiliate of the Elections Research Center, said that the upcoming election will present challenges for GOP candidates.

Air conditioning to tackle summer heatwaves causes surge in deadly pollution

One way of tackling this problem is to roll out more air conditioning systems, but according to Professor Jonathan Patz at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this means trading one problem for another.

Air conditioning could add to global warming woes

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison forecast as many as a thousand additional deaths annually in the Eastern US alone due to elevated levels of air pollution driven by the increased use of fossil fuels to cool the buildings where humans live and work.

Meteorologists just found the coldest natural temperatures on the planet

“We’re always interested in how temperatures behave,” says Matthew Lazzara, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the study’s authors. “In Antarctica, we still haven’t learned a lot of the basics.” His team found conditions need to be just so, in the right spot, to brew up the perfect freeze.

Protecting Eagles’ Nests Are Key To Conservation

After the endangered species list was created and targeted conservation efforts began, eagle populations recovered. Researchers have found that one of the keys to recovery is protecting the nest of breeding pairs of eagles. Their results were published earlier this year in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Ecologist Benjamin Zuckerberg, an author on that study, explains what it means for the future conservation of eagles and endangered raptors.