UW In The News
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The Unspoken Health Effects of the Republican Tax Bill
Barbara Wolfe, a professor of population-health sciences at the University of Wisconsin, explained to me that this is what economists call an income-inequality hypothesis: Your health is influenced not only by your own level of income, but by the level of inequality where you live. Sociologists have described a similar socioeconomic-inequality hypothesis: As socioeconomic disparities grow, overall health metrics decline.
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Officer Zen-dly
When UW-Madison psychology researcher Dan Grupe launched a pilot study examining the effects of mindfulness-based training on a small group of Madison police officers, his biggest question wasn’t whether the program would help officers better cope with job stress. It was whether police officers would buy into training that involved yoga, meditation and talking about their feelings.
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Representing big ideas in word bubbles
For a uniquely ambitious father-son bonding project, Steven and Ben Nadler pooled their talents. The duo with Madison roots wrote and illustrated, respectively, a history of 17th-century philosophy. “Heretics! The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy”—published in graphic novel form—melds the extensive scholarship of Steven, the elder Nadler, and the younger Nadler’s whimsical visual style.
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Wisconsinites Head To Shopping Centers For Black Friday
Noted: Sales in Wisconsin are expected to keep pace with national numbers, or exceed them slightly, according to Jerry O’Brien, executive director of the Kohl’s Center for Retailing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Q&A: Leslie Orrantia forges relationships between UW-Madison and community
Leslie Orrantia was not yet director of community relations for UW-Madison in April 2016, when leaders of Madison’s communities of color demanded accountability from Chancellor Rebecca Blank and then-Police Chief Susan Riesling for what they felt was poor treatment of minority students on campus.
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Know Your Madisonian: UW-Madison professor examines abrupt ecosystem changes
In the summer of 1978 when Long Island native Monica Turner was an undergraduate at Fordham University, she volunteered as a naturalist in Yellowstone National Park.
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FCC Rule Rollback Makes It Easier To Buy And Sell Media Outlets
NPR’s Kelly McEvers talks with University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Lewis Friedland about the FCC’s decision to roll back rules that aim to curb single media companies’ control of local news.
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Q&A: Leslie Orrantia forges relationships between UW-Madison and community
Leslie Orrantia was not yet director of community relations for UW-Madison in April 2016, when leaders of Madison’s communities of color demanded accountability from Chancellor Rebecca Blank and then-Police Chief Susan Riesling for what they felt was poor treatment of minority students on campus.
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A pleasant picture for baby boomers: Lower risk of macular degeneration
“It may have something to do with the cumulative impact of a lot of gains in health care, in terms of preventing and treating childhood infections, and improved maternal and child health,” said Karen Cruickshanks, a UW-Madison epidemiologist who led the study, published Thursday in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.
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Republicans used to support free trade. Then Trump happened.
Quoted: “These shortcuts can be political ideology; it could be religiosity, deference to scientific authority,” says Dominique Brossard, a psychologist who studies public opinion at the University of Wisconsin. “People don’t see themselves as being irrational doing this.”
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We may know why Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is red instead of white
Noted: The red material Carlson made “has optical properties that are an excellent match to the spectrum of the Great Red Spot,” says Larry Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. By adjusting particle size and concentration, their model could match the visible spectra of other reddish clouds on Jupiter, unlike Loeffler’s material.
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How a Wisconsin undergrad is introducing the world to astrobotany
Fictional astronaut Mark Watney’s creatively old-fashioned method of growing nutritious, life-sustaining potatoes in the soil of another planet in the film The Martian was for most people their first exposure to elements of the field of astrobotany.
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Leckrone’s Legacy at Camp Randall Stadium
Over the past 100 seasons at Camp Randall Stadium, few people have had as much of a lasting impact on the game day atmosphere as UW marching band director Mike Leckrone. After 49 years at the university, he has helped create traditions and familiar sights and sounds for Badgers fans attending a home football game.
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WARM Program attracts doctors-in-training to rural areas
As the aging population continues to rise, the demand for doctors goes up along with it. Smaller areas around the country are most effected by the doctor shortage.
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EatStreet co-founders named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list
Co-founders of Madison-based startup EatStreetMatt Howard and Alex Wyler were named to the Forbes 2018 30 Under 30, released Tuesday. Howard and Wyler were selected in the consumer technology category. Their company, an online and mobile food ordering and delivery service, started in 2010 in a dorm room at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Pioneering UW-Madison professor teaches forgiveness
MADISON, Wis. – Think back to a time you felt wronged by someone. Does the memory still cause you pain? A professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison is teaching classes in the practice of forgiveness to students at the UW School of Education.
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Gwen Jorgensen Training for Marathons
There’s nothing unusual about wanting to make a pivot in your professional life. But when an Olympic gold medalist feels compelled to make a career change while at the top of her game, it can come as a surprise.
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Cancer Doctors Cite Risks of Drinking Alcohol
The American Society of Clinical Oncology, which represents many of the nation’s top cancer doctors, is calling attention to the ties between alcohol and cancer. In a statement published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the group cites evidence that even light drinking can slightly raise a woman’s risk of breast cancer and increase a common type of esophageal cancer.
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Why So Many People Choose the Wrong Health Plans
Noted: Simply providing consumers with good options doesn’t ensure that they will choose wisely. Three economists, Saurabh Bhargava and George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University and Justin Sydnor of the University of Wisconsin, examined the problem in a 2017 paper. They studied an anonymous, large company that gave employees many choices.
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End of a ‘whoopensocker’: UW’s famed dialect dictionary closing after 54 years
“A dictionary is never done,” said George Goebel, the third and, it turns out, final editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English, also known as DARE.
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Randy Jackson: Agriculture can indeed fix our food system — if we reimagine it
A recent article by Tamar Haspel argues that the local and organic food movement can’t fix our food system. If this movement were solely focused on “buy fresh, buy local” at farmers markets and upscale restaurants, we would agree. However, bigger changes are underway for sustainable agriculture. Farmers and others in the sustainable food movement pursue a broader vision of change in agriculture.
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Why Doing Good Is Good for the Do-Gooder
Noted: Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been studying the effects of positive emotions, such as compassion and kindness, on the brain since the 1990s. He said the brain behaves differently during an act of generosity than it does during a hedonistic activity.
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How Beets Became Beet-Red
Noted: Plants modify tyrosine by adding other molecules to create an enormous array of useful substances. This is how morphine is made in the opium poppy, and mescaline in cactuses. Intrigued by this process, Hiroshi Maeda, a professor at University of Wisconsin and senior author on the paper, collaborated with beet experts to study how the plants make betalains from tyrosine.
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Banner night for Bonner
The admiring crowd swirling around the guest of honor last Thursday night at the Pyle Center’s Alumni Lounge was so thick that I could only get within a few feet of her as she stood near the entrance and surveyed the room.
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Ted and Mary Kellner commit $25 million gift to UW-Madison
She was the daughter of a New York cement salesman. He was the son of a legendary Wisconsin track star and Milwaukee-area businessman.
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Needed In Wisconsin: At Least 27,000 Nurses
The need for registered nurses continues to grow in Wisconsin. That’s prompted the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing to launch a program that allows people who already hold a bachelor’s degree in a different subject to get a nursing degree with one additional, full year of intense instruction. The needs of Wisconsin’s aging population and the changing demands of the health care system are driving the new program, according to Nursing School Dean Linda Scott.
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Swish Upon a Cure
Wisconsin basketball head coach Greg Gard and his wife, Michelle, issued the challenge and UW-Madison students answered. At the sixth-annual “Swish Upon A Cure,” UW students helped raise the Gard’s donation to $20,349 in the fight against cancer.
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Can Call of Duty Make You an NBA Star?
Noted: Shawn Green, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that games like Call of Duty develop retained skills specifically because they are fun. Games created with the sole intent to improve cognition are what he referred to at a panel at the University of California, San Francisco, as “chocolate-covered broccoli.” The level of genuine engagement in the game correlates with how likely the player is to retain the skills necessary to play it.
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UW-Madison homecoming events to benefit those in need
With UW-Madison’s Homecoming Week upon us, the Wisconsin Homecoming Committee’s events are once again set to benefit charities and organizations across the country.
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After 15 Years, UW-Madison Odyssey Program Continues To Change Lives
Socrates can’t pay your rent. But the University of Wisconsin-Madison Odyssey Project is convinced that the classics can change lives.
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