UW In The News

Is Facebook a publisher? In public it says no, but in court it says yes

Quoted: Kathleen Culver, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism professor, said Facebook must consider its ethical obligations outside of its legal responsibilities.But, she added, it was difficult to define Facebook’s media role using traditional terms like publisher: “What we’re navigating is a space where the language we have to date does not match the technology that has now been developed.”

Hollywood’s Russians come in from the Cold War

Quoted: Even in more real­istic works, motivations of communist characters were rarely explored. They existed as “foils against which the men of the West demonstrated their superior skills”, says Michael Kackman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Can Drinking Increase The Likelihood Of Cancer Or Death?

Quoted: On the overall view of the study, Dr. Noelle LoConte, an oncologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said to CNN, “I think it reinforces what we already knew, which is moderate and heavy drinking is bad universally for cancer.”

Focus on Just One Sport Risks Burnout for Teens

Quoted: “Today’s students have so many responsibilities and when you add specializing in a sport — with participation in school and club teams, practices, tournaments and lots of travel — there just aren’t enough hours in the day to finish their schoolwork, spend time with friends, enjoy other activities and get a good night’s sleep,” said lead author Eric Post. He’s an athletic trainer and research assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Justice Kennedy’s Retirement Could Strike Blow To Wisconsin’s Redistricting Case

Quoted: “The conventional wisdom was that he had strung out his career for an extra year or two so that he could leave his mark on these redistricting cases,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden.

SCOTUS: Kennedy’s Retirement Leaves John Roberts in the Swing Seat

Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his long-awaited retirement from the Supreme Court on Wednesday, leaving conservatives to gush with joy and liberals to wring their hands. The vacancy sets off what will be a very interesting summer.  -Ryan J. Owens, J.D., Ph.D., is a political science professor at UW-Madison, a faculty affiliate at the University of Wisconsin School of Law, and the Acting Director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership.

New Survey Reveals Equal Pay the Biggest Challenge Facing Women in Commercial Real Estate

Quoted: “No one wants to work somewhere where they are undervalued or treated unfairly, and the RETS Associates survey shines a light on the fact that the CRE industry still has significant work to do in the area of gender equality,” said Andra Ghent, associate professor of real estate & urban land economics and academic director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at Wisconsin School of Business.

UW-Madison Official: Local Communities Responsible For Own Alcohol Culture

Quoted: “The city council in Menomonie has looked at the situation downtown and decided it doesn’t fit within their morals. It’s not the standard they wish to see for their community,” said Julia Sherman, director of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project, part of the University of Wisconsin Law School. “It’s also very important for us to realize that every community in Wisconsin has the ability and authority to create its own alcohol environment.”

India’s quest to find a trillion-dollar nuclear fuel on the south side of the moon

Quoted: There are an estimated 1 million metric tons of helium-3 embedded in the moon, though only about a quarter of that realistically could be brought to Earth, said Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former member of the NASA Advisory Council.

Gov. Walker announces $700,000 in grants to support entrepreneurship in dairy industry

Governor Scott Walker today visited the Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Great Lake Cheese to award $700,000 state grants to support and promote entrepreneurship within the state’s $43 billion dairy industry.

Caught in Trump’s Trade Fight: GE Factories in Wisconsin, South Carolina

Quoted: In Wisconsin, makers of industrial equipment and parts are also seeing costs rise with tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and lumber, said Noah Williams, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy.

That Time In The Middle Ages When The Devil Became A Lawyer

Quoted: This might seem like strange territory for a historian of the European Middle Ages but it’s one that’s quite familiar to Prof. Karl Shoemaker from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focus is medieval law, and he says that just this debate – how should the law be applied – was one that people of the period thought about almost constantly.

Ultrathin “stealth sheet” can hide and fake heat signatures

Metamaterials that cloak people and objects from radar, visible light or infrared are usually thick and heavy, but now engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed an ultrathin, lightweight sheet that absorbs heat signatures and can even present false ones.

Vietnam War: Wisconsin student turns paper into book on state’s MIA soldiers

MADISON – A news story posted on Facebook jolted Erin Miller when she read it in 2014.

College-money lessons you didn’t learn in high school

Quoted: A spending plan shows how overspending one week will leave you with a cash shortage the next week. Even a $50 shortfall can feel stressful, says J. Michael Collins, faculty director for the Center for Financial Security at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The Supreme Court decided not to decide Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case. But here’s why it will be back.

On Monday, the Supreme Court surprised observers by deciding not to decide Gill v. Whitford, the high-profile case about partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin. Instead, the court remanded the case back to Wisconsin district court to give the plaintiffs “an opportunity” to provide better evidence about whether they had the right to bring the suit at all.

By Barry Burden and David Canon

Military families can teach us about the cost of family separations

Piece co-written by Tova Walsh, an assistant professor of Social Work and Affiliate of the Center for Child and Family Well-Being.

Supreme Court faces major decision on partisan gerrymandering

Quoted: Though both cases involve challenges to partisan gerrymandering, Barry Burden, a political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the justices could be having a hard time reconciling the different legal theories being argued.

Burden: No bright line ruling likely on SCOTUS gerrymandering cases

The U.S. Supreme Court soon may redefine how legislators get elected to office. Two high-profile cases that seek to rein in partisan gerrymandering are slated for decisions by late June. The rulings could be landmarks. But, however the court comes out, the fight against gerrymandering will be far from over.

Bees, climate change and Amish children: What do these UW projects have in common?

Studies of bees, climate change and Amish children are among the eight projects out of 70 receiving grants from one of UW-Madison’s largest endowments.

Some of Africa’s Biggest Baobab Trees Are Dying Off

Noted: Baobabs, especially old ones, can be more vulnerable to drought than their grizzled appearance might suggest, says David Baum, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But more evidence is needed, he says, to strengthen the link between climate change and the baobab deaths.

Study: In 2016, Wisconsin’s job market improved but the state’s poverty rate increased

Despite a robust job market, Wisconsin’s poverty rate increased to 10.8% in 2016, compared to 9.7% in 2015, according to a report released Friday by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Promises on North Korea are easy to make but hard to keep. Here’s why.

The June 12 summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Singapore seems back on the calendar. But it’s not likely to result in the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Andrew Kydd is a professor in the University of Wisconsin’s department of political science.

Earth’s days used to be just 18 hours long, but the Moon changed that

If you’ve ever felt like there just aren’t enough hours in the day just be glad that you didn’t live on Earth 1.4 billion years ago. A new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison reveals that ancient Earth had much shorter days, and the 24-hour days that we experience in modern times come courtesy of the Moon.

A day used to be less than 19 hours long 1.4 billion years ago

t’s not just you – the days really are getting longer. More than a billion years ago, the moon used to be about 40,000 kilometres closer, which made Earth spin faster. Back then, the days were less than 19 hours long. (Paywall)

The days are getting longer – but very, very slowly

As the Earth’s rotation gradually winds down, the moon moves further away. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stephen Meyers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Alberto Malinverno at Columbia University in New York calculate that over the past 1.4bn years the moon has drifted about 44,000km from Earth to a distance of 384,400km

Innovative UW researchers win Shaw science awards

Two researchers at UW-Madison have been selected as recipients of the 2018 Shaw Scientist Awards, each getting $200,000 in seed funding to continue their innovative research work.

Revealed: Why days on Earth are getting longer

As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out, explained Professor Stephen Meyers, professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Think days are short now? They once lasted just 18 hours

“As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out,” explained Professor Stephen Meyers, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

No lie-in this morning? Thank the Moon’s gravitational pull

“As the moon moves away, the Earth is like a spinning figure skater who slows down as they stretch their arms out,” said Stephen Meyers, co-author of the study and a geoscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.