UW In The News

UW-Madison student’s Food Shed idea to offer fresh produce while cutting food waste

Every day while working in a research lab, Hannah DePorter sees produce wasting away in compost piles. “There were just hundreds of pounds (of vegetables) left there,” DePorter said. “I would just come home with a ton of vegetables and my friends would take it within three seconds and it would all be gone.” That put the University of Wisconsin-Madison student’s wheels in motion to develop Food Shed, an initiative to support local farmers and reduce food waste.

Burden: Wisconsin’s retirement system is a competitive advantage

The state’s retirement system was one of the things that brought me to Wisconsin.

UW study looks at issues with online dating

There’s an online dating site for nearly everybody, but can too many choices be problematic? Live at Four talks with professor Catalina Toma, one of the authors of a recent University of Wisconsin study, that reveals choice overload can raise the stakes.

Medical College and UW scientists seek to illuminate early stages of Alzheimer’s disease

Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are seeking to do what has only become possible in recent years: use imaging technologies to illuminate the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and its effect on the still-living brain.

A Wisconsin grad is using art to educate about the school’s prairie past

A native of the Midwest, Liz Anna Kozik spent much of her childhood surrounded by prairies. Yet it wasn’t until Kozik left her home in Naperville, Illinois, for her undergrad studies in Rhode Island that she began to appreciate their beauty. She opted to go to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin – not just so she could be close to the prairie again, but also to study the grassy habitat’s history.

UW-Madison archaeologists excavating Aztalan Park pits

“It’s always exciting to be here,” said Schroeder as she watched members of her team check the measurements on the westernmost pit. “This is the third consecutive summer on this project to discover and explore what daily life at Aztalan was like 900 to 1,000 years ago.”

Madison professor archiving podcasts, making sure the audio form never disappears

A UW-Madison professor says it’s the golden age for podcasts, but he’s worried some of those podcasts may soon disappear.

This Summer Promises To Be A Big One For Ticks

Interviewed: Susan Paskewitz talks about the upcoming tick season, and ways we can protect ourselves from getting bitten.

Pardeeville twins carry on family legacy in Marines

For twin brothers Cogan and Cole Kirchenwitz, joining the U.S. Marine Corps continues a family legacy, but the road ahead is the result of decisions they made entirely on their own.The Pardeeville brothers, 22, received their commissioning certificates in May in a ceremony after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Reserve Officers Training Corps. They were among 35 graduates who completed ROTC training, and in the military they will follow in the footsteps of their father and grandfather.

The science behind a perfectly-toasted marshmallow

Noted: But take the marshmallow out of the heat, and it’ll deflate — although the stretched out gelatin doesn’t bounce back. “It shrinks to a shriveled mass,” Richard Hartel, a food scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells The Verge in an email. “Don’t get me started on Peeps jousting.”

The Benefits of Talking to Yourself \

Noted: “The idea is, if you hear a word, does that help you see something?” said Gary Lupyan, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

University of Wisconsin Naming Partnership approaches halfway point

The price to buy nothing has gone up over the last 10 years, and an exclusive group of donors is very interested in finding out what the next 10 will bring.

UW-Madison beefing up efforts in Milwaukee to help minority, low-income students get to college

A pre-college program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that partners with schools to help prepare minority and low-income students for college is narrowing its focus to Milwaukee and Madison public schools, the university announced Monday.

Q&A: Carrie Kruse taps student experiences to lead UW-Madison’s College Library

When hundreds of students entered College Library in December 2014 for a silent die-in protest, it not only brought the Black Lives Matter movement to the University of Wisconsin campus, it also informed an emerging “beyond neutral” practice at the library.

UW-Madison Professor Archiving Podcasts For Future Generations

Jeremy Morris is a futuristic thinker. While some are heralding podcasts as a trendy new medium, Morris is worrying about what will become of them in the future when we may not use iPhones, iPods or MP3s. Morris, an assistant professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, founded PodcastRE, a project that aims to archive podcasts.

Addiction App From UW Researchers Up For National Award

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have come up with a smart phone app for addicts that’s getting recognition from Harvard’s Innovation in American Government competition.

UW Researchers: Study Shows Zika Virus May Be Wider Threat Than Thought

As scientists worldwide try to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus, they’re also trying to find out how widespread the virus is, since many pregnant women don’t have symptoms.

UW among 50 law schools with best job placements for 2016 grads

While things remain grim for many law schools, the one at the University of Wisconsin recently landed among the top 50 in a much-watched metric: the percentage of graduates who landed real lawyer jobs.

UW’s La Follette School director: Tommy Thompson Center a great idea

A new public policy center at University of Wisconsin-Madison named for former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson is a great idea, said Donald Moynihan, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs on campus.

Lawmakers Show Sympathy for Trump Plan to Squeeze Research Costs

As talk of extreme budget-cutting is again in vogue in Washington, that argument appears to have resonance. But an attempt to reduce research overhead could pose the most serious threat not to well-endowed institutions like Harvard, but to state research universities and cash-strapped private colleges.

At issue are grant payments known as indirect-cost reimbursements. Those are the additional amounts that agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation provide to universities that win research grants, to help cover administrative and facilities costs.

Former Avalanche coach Tony Granato makes graduation a family affair

BOULDER – College is called the best four years of your life. For former Colorado Avalanche, now University of Wisconsin head hockey coach Tony Granato, it could be considered the best four decades.

Your kids learn about money from the same people who teach them about sex

Noted: Parents don’t have to be money experts to talk about the importance of delayed gratification or the difference between wants and needs, says report researcher Elizabeth Odders-White, associate finance professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

A Call To Continue Federal Funding For Research

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank makes the case for continue federal funding for research done at colleges and universities.

UW-Madison nursing students help with tornado relief in Barron County

BARRON COUNTY (WKOW) — A team of UW-Madison nursing students is assisting in tornado relief efforts Saturday in northwest Wisconsin.

Not silent

One of this young century’s great literary feuds began on April 18, 2011, right here in Madison, at Union South.

The Feminist Consultants for “A Doll’s House, Part 2”

Lucas Hnath set out to write a sequel to Ibsen’s famous play, imagining the future of protagonist Nora Helmer. His producer, Scott Rudin, proposed a playwriting method you might call dial-a-feminist. Hnath reached out to several academics, including Susan Brantly, who teaches Scandinavian literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Toril Moi, an Ibsen scholar at Duke and the author of “Sexual / Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory.”

Protecting Your Eyesight: The impact digital screens have on you

Sydney McCourt is a sophomore at UW Madison.  As the semester comes to an end, she’s spending more and more time in front of a screen.

Kindness in the Classroom

An ongoing study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds is working to incorporate mindfulness techniques into everyday activities for elementary students.

The Kindness Curriculum helps students focus on their minds and bodies, while also adding elements of kindness and empathy.

The Body is Not a Computer – Stop Thinking of It as One

In 2009, University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineer Justin Williams oversaw an effort that successfully used a brain-computer interface to send messages from the brain to Twitter.

“It was both a small and a big step,” he told Gizmodo. “Ten years later have we gotten much further? I’m not sure.”

Nigel Hayes showing NBA teams his full self

With Nigel Hayes, there’s always two stories to tell.