UW In The News

New documentary chronicles the brief but brilliant life of Lorraine Hansberry

Raised as part of a prominent, groundbreaking family on Chicago’s South Side (her father, a successful real estate broker, was dubbed “The Kitcheonette King”), Hansberry spent a brief period at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to New York in 1950 where, before turning to the theater, she worked as a journalist and political activist. Along the way she would cross paths with everyone from Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Report Predicts Thousands Of ‘Advanced Energy’ Jobs Could Be Added To State

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Energy Institute and a national nonprofit called The American Jobs Project have issued the look at job growth in what’s called the advanced energy sector — think of products like energy-conserving water heaters and thermostats.

Call it the ‘Nick’: New UW recreation facility to honor philanthropists Ab and Nancy Nicholas

Meet Julia Nepper, who earned a UW-Madison Ph.D. at 23

“It’s OK to be wrong. Until you acknowledge what you don’t know, you cannot progress,” said the North Carolina native who, at age 23, received her Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison last month.

How Scientists Saved Bald Eagles From Destruction in Minnesota

Over two-and-a-half decades later, it’s being hailed as an unqualified success. On Tuesday, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey announced in the Journal of Applied Ecology that bald eagle populations at Voyageurs have been tremendously rehabilitated to stable numbers thanks to nest protection. Collected data in reveals that the breeding population of these birds has risen from 10 pairs in 1991 to 48 pairs in 2016.

In a fast-warming world, scientists say recent cold wave was exceptionally weird

Their finding that the intensity of Arctic cold is easing in a warming world is supported by many other studies. For example, Jonathan Martin, a meteorology researcher at the University of Wisconsin, has documented considerable shrinkage of the pool of frigid air surrounding the Arctic in recent decades.

This Is When Your New Year’s Resolution Will Fail

Make sure the quick win isn’t too hard or too easy, adds Alex Stajkovic, assistant professor of management and human resources at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin. “Easy goals are not motivating, and goals perceived to be beyond our ability may cause cessation of effort,” he says.

UW Study Questions Effectiveness Of Killing Wolves To Protect Livestock

Scientists at the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies looked at 230 verified wolf attacks on livestock in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from 1998 through 2014.

The Olympics in the Korean Crisis

According to David Fields, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Korean-American complex is like a precarious iron tower, which is strong but brittle, ready to collapse from any unexpected action like a preemptive strike of North Korea by the Trump administration.

Climate Change Is Altering Lakes and Streams, Study Suggests

“We’re monkeying with the very chemical foundation of these ecosystems,” said Emily H. Stanley, a limnologist (freshwater ecologist) at the University of Wisconsin — Madison. “But right now we don’t know enough yet to know where we’re going. To me, scientifically that’s really interesting, and as a human a little bit frightening.”

New Chazen Art Museum director brings industrial Midwest background

Amy Gilman has lived in Madison only a few months — but will likely become one of the more visible faces in the city’s art world.

The Olympics in the Korean Crisis

Noted: According to Daniel Fields, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Korean-American complex is like a precarious iron tower, which is strong but brittle, ready to collapse from any unexpected action like a preemptive strike of North Korea by the Trump administration.

Martin Luther King spoke to UW-Madison and UWM students 1 year after winning Nobel prize

More than four decades ago, a crowd estimated at almost 3,000 packed the Stock Pavilion on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to listen to the wisdom of the most recent Nobel Peace laureate.

Trump Administration Proposal Would Allow Oil Drilling Federally Protected Waters

A new plan proposed by the Department of Interior would open some federally protected waters to off-shore oil drilling. We speak Steph Tai of the University of Wisconsin Law School about the news and what the law says.

Medical experts predict worst flu season in history

A different approach to the universal vaccine is under way at FluGen, a biotech firm in Madison, Wisconsin. Backed by both government and VC funding, the company is working with technology first discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Dr. Gabriele Neumann and exclusively licensed to FluGen. “Our vaccine, called RedeeFlu, is based on a premise that says what happens if you take a [naturally occurring] ’wild type’ of flu virus and modify it to infect the human body but don’t allow it to replicate and cause illness,” said Boyd Clarke, executive chairman of FluGen. (Coincidentally, his maternal grandfather died in the 1918 pandemic.)

Har Gobind Khorana: Nobel winning biochemist is honored in today’s Google Doodle

In 1960, he move to the US for a role at the Institute for Enzyme Research in the University of Wisconsin. It was there that he made his Nobel-worthy discovery and became a naturalized American citizen. In 1970, Khorana joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the Alfred P. Sloan professor of biology and chemistry, the position he held until he died on Nov. 9, 2011 at age 89.

Joining the dots between Afghanistan’s opium trade and Washington’s failing struggle against the Taliban

In the words of Alfred W McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of a new book, In the Shadows of the American Century, “Afghanistan is the world’s first true narco-state – a country where illicit drugs dominate the economy, define political choices and determine the fate of foreign interventions.”

UW-Madison Nobel Prize winner honored with today’s Google Doodle

It celebrates the 96th birthday of Har Gobind Khorana, an Indian-American biochemist whose passion for science started under a tree in the small village of Raipur, India, and grew into Nobel Prize-winning research on nucleotides and genes while at UW-Madison.

Wisconsin Sees Decline in Number of Dairy Farms

“The growth is really in the medium- to large-size dairy operations,” said Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The growth in those sectors and the increase in productivity of being a bigger operation, the volume of milk is actually not being affected by this.”

Har Gobind Khorana: Why Google Is Celebrating Him Today

Born in 1922 as the youngest of five children in a rural village that is now part of eastern Pakistan, Khorana learned to read and write with help from his father, according to the Nobel Prize’s biography of the biochemist. With a number of scholarships, Khorana went on to earn a doctorate in organic chemistry in 1948. He conducted his Nobel Prize-winning research on nucleotides at the University of Wisconsin, and he later became the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

America’s Rivers Are Getting Saltier

“When we’re throwing down road salt, we might be thinking about the fact that we’re putting salt into the water, but we’re not thinking that it may also mobilize lead,” says Hilary Dugan, a limnologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was not involved in the study. Dugan has studied lakes in North America, which she also found to be increasing in salinity.

Healthy habits of mind bring happiness and can be learned – even by the busy

Lastly, purpose. Longitudinal research tracking people for years shows that purpose in life in the latter decades of life can predict whether a person will be alive 10 years later. Identifying your purpose, your larger aspirations in life, and aligning your everyday behaviour and experiences with that core purpose, is something we know can promote well-being and motivate you to do things that are meaningful to you.Take time daily to think about what you care about most in life. Create reminders to connect to your larger purpose, and question whether your actions that day contribute or are in conflict with your purpose. And ask yourself how your activities can be reframed to support your larger purpose. Richard J. Davidson is the director and founder of the Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry

Google Doodle honors Har Gobind Khorana, who deciphered our DNA

Khorana did stints in research institutions in Switzerland and Canada before landing at the Institute for Enzyme Research and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There, he decoded how cells read the language of RNA written in structures represented by the letters A, C, U, and G. He did this by using enzymes to create sequences of these letters. Arranging them into distinct patterns, he and other scientists found that the genetic code comprised 64 three-letter “words,” known as codons.

How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan

After 16 years and more than $1 trillion, this Guardian piece argues western intervention has resulted in Afghanistan becoming the world’s first true narco-state. “Washington’s massive military juggernaut has been stopped in its steel tracks by a small pink flower – the opium poppy,” Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Alfred W McCoy, writes. “Throughout its three decades in Afghanistan, Washington’s military operations have succeeded only when they fit reasonably comfortably into central Asia’s illicit traffic in opium – and suffered when they failed to complement it.” In this piece, McCoy outlines how the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan.

The Relationship Between Stress And Asthma

Researchers at UW-Madison (Natalie Guyette) are looking at how stress affects the symptoms of asthma in a four year study looking at how the mind and body communicate in stressful situations. We talk with one of the key professors about their findings.

What Logan Paul Says About Internet Culture

YouTube star Logan Paul has been weathering a barrage of controversy following his video depicting an alleged suicide victim in Aokigahara, a forest in Japan. The video–coupled with others posted on his YouTube channel–highlights a growing concern over what is being produced on social media platforms. We speak with Kathleen Culver, assistant professor and Director of UW-Madison’s Center for Journalism Ethics, about the news and what these videos say about internet culture.

Experts concerned over kids posting ‘digital self-harm’ on social media

It’s called “digital self-harm,” and its rates are similar to traditional means of self-harm, such as cutting or burning, researchers say.The study, led by Justin Patchin, professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, found that 6 percent of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 engage in digital self-harm.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Neuroscientist Chiara Cirelli of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Sleep and Consciousness, who conducted the study, explained at the time, ‘I don’t think we know of any cognition function that isn’t affected by sleep deprivation.’

How climate change could counterintuitively feed winter storms

“It’s just inconclusive at this stage,” said the University of Wisconsin’s Martin. “I think the jet is getting wavier, I’m not sure it’s connected to the Arctic,” he added.

Could Gene Therapy One Day Cure Diabetes?

Alan Attie, whose University of Wisconsin lab studies the genetic and biochemical processes underlying genetics, called it “beautiful and elegant work.””An exciting development in the diabetes field is the discovery of extraordinary plasticity in alpha and beta cells,” he told Gizmodo. “Work such as that from the Gittes Lab demonstrates the way in which this plasticity can be harnessed for therapeutic purposes.”