UW In The News

Love it or hate it, feelings run high over candy corn come Halloween

“It’s not any sweeter than a lot of other candy, and I’ve tasted every candy there is,” said Richard Hartel, who teaches candy science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Burying power lines for wildfire prevention is effective but expensive

“So one option is to essentially just shut down the power line, because if there is no voltage and no current on the line, there is no chance of this release of energy happening and then there is no chance of an ignition,” explains Line Roald, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose work includes modeling the risk of wildfire ignition and power outages in the electric grid.

Before Trump, before Agnew, Hate Mail Reveals Long-Simmering Hostility to Journalists

Looking beyond published records to private discourses provides a fuller portrait of the U.S. at midcentury and the resentments that linger. Handwringing about the low trust in journalism that social media and online comments make visible today is justified as long as we acknowledge it has deep roots, ones that will not disappear when Trump rallies stop.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)Kathryn J. McGarr is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She earned her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and is the author of City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (University of Chicago Press, 2022).

The Republican Party loves Israel. That support wasn’t always a key GOP priority

“Graham first visited Israel in 1960. And it’s a really big deal,” said Daniel Hummel, a research fellow at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Not only did Graham preach in Israel, but he met with then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion: “He really makes a point to articulate a Christian Zionist view that the nation of Israel is a fulfillment of God’s plans for the Jewish people and that it has a great future ahead of it,” explained Hummel.

Should You Delete Your Kid’s TikTok This Week?

Families with a direct connection to the region may have a tougher time navigating the next few days than those without one. And age matters a lot, the experts said. Younger kids, particularly those in second grade or below, should be protected from watching upsetting videos as much as possible, says Heather Kirkorian, the director of the Cognitive Development and Media Lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. They’re too young to understand what’s happening. “They don’t have the cognitive and emotional skills to understand and process,” she told me.

Book bans on rise: How Moms for Liberty rating system helps drive them

Rating books according to one person, or a group’s subjective moral guidelines, is not how professional librarians assess whether books are suitable for libraries, said Megan Schliesman of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education.

What Kind of Year Has It Been for Gardeners? An Aggravating One.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison determined that heating compost or soil to at least 104 degrees for three days will kill the cocoons, but solarizing isn’t an option in a bed containing plants.

What Colors Do Dogs See?

But unlike humans, who see very poorly in low light, canines have evolved to see well in both daytime and nighttime conditions, explains Paul Miller, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

UW-Madison bucks System’s enrollment declines, tops 50K students

Even with a reduced freshman class this year, total campus enrollment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is now the largest in the campus’ history.

Hurricane Idalia flung flamingos across US: What states are they in?

When Dexter Patterson, a faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, got the call from a friend, he thought it was a joke, in part because Madison is the site of one of the greatest plastic flamingo pranks of all time, he said.

What the United States Can Learn From Brazil About Asylum

But not all asylum seekers in Brazil are treated equally. In a new book published this month titled The Color of Asylum: The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil, Katherine Jensen, an assistant professor of sociology and international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers a more complicated look at how different groups of asylum seekers, namely Congolese and Syrians, navigate the asylum process in South America’s largest nation.

Paul Ryan Predicts Exactly When And How Trump’s 2024 Run Could Be Doomed

Ryan, speaking at the University of Wisconsin, expressed hope that Republican rivals to front-runner Trump would by then consolidate behind the one showing the most momentum — and deprive Trump of the nomination.

College personal essays: How schools could end this nightmare.

olleges might think that essays help open up opportunities for students, but the opposite could be true. A new study by Taylor K. Odle, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Preston Magouirk, a data scientist at the District of Columbia College Access Program, looked at the nearly 300,000 students who started but never submitted an application through the Common App.

Ukraine Finds Defects in More Than Half of Tanks Sent by Ally

Mikhail Troitskiy, a professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek that recent military developments are not “insurmountable” for Ukraine and could simply be a byproduct of different governmental systems not properly repairing equipment.

The New Face of Nuclear Energy Is Miss America

“Why isn’t this being shouted from the rooftops?” asked Stanke, a 21-year-old nuclear engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is too Wisconsin-nice to shout, but in more than 20 states so far she has touted clean energy and nuclear medicine at schools, nursing homes, a state legislature and once on a water-skiing podcast.

We carry DNA from extinct cousins like Neanderthals. Science is now revealing their genetic legacy

Human evolution was not about “survival of the fittest and extinction,” said John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It’s about “interaction and mixture.”

Meet the Climate-Defying Fruits and Vegetables in Your Future

Phil Simon, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has spent more than a decade trying to breed a carrot whose seeds can germinate even when the soil is salty, hot and dry.

AOC? Romney? If voters don’t want Biden or Trump, who’s their pick?

For Biden, one of voters’ biggest concerns appears to center around age. Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, previously argued that, even if Biden’s age has not affected his ability to do the job, “some members of the public may nonetheless believe he is not mentally sharp enough or that he lacks the necessary physical stamina.”

Healthcare workers worried about potential masking changes in hospitals

“It’s shocking to suggest that we need more studies to know whether N95 respirators are effective against an airborne pathogen,” said Kaitlin Sundling, a physician and pathologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a comment following the June meeting. “The science of N95 respirators is well established and based on physical properties, engineered filtered materials, and our scientific understanding of how airborne transmission works.”

Five things to know as Wisconsin Republicans weigh impeaching Supreme Court justice

“The U.S. Supreme Court has said that judges have a First Amendment right on the campaign trail [to speak] about disputed legal and policy questions,” said Robert Yablon, an associate professor of law and faculty co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at University of Wisconsin Law School.

How are Gen Zers buying homes already?

Members of Gen Z still face difficulties in home buying born out of the housing crisis, but they also benefited from entering the workforce at a time of record-low interest rates, said Max Besbris, an associate sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

DHS warns about 2024’s cyberthreats

The uncertainty of not having a nonpartisan elections leader in a paramount state is worrying, experts said. “The elections commission is training clerks around the state and issuing guidance, so to have uncertainty about who the top administrator is going into this crucial election season, I think is a real problem,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and director of its Elections Research Center.

Wisconsin Weighs Ousting Elections Official as Control of Voting Gets Partisan

“It’s a serious problem to not have seasoned trusted leadership in place well before the election gets under way,” said Barry Burden, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who added that the nation will be watching the state in the 2024 presidential contest. “It’s a battleground state. It’s maybe the battleground state.”

US poverty rate 2022: Levels jumped, breaking a three-year streak

“Child poverty took a big jump,” said Timothy Smeeding, a leading expert on the poverty line and professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Opinion | America Already Knows How to Make Childbirth Safer

Dr. Tiffany Green, a professor at the school of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said she believes the effort to reduce maternal mortality should focus not only on care received in hospitals, but on the social and economic conditions faced in general by Black women. The United States should consider using federal civil rights law in cases where racial bias severely hurt the care a patient received. “If you think bias is a fundamental driver of these iniquities then you have to hold providers accountable,” Dr. Green said.

An inverted yield curve signals recession. Is it wrong this time?

Parts of the yield curve started inverting in July 2022, yet the economy is still humming along. It’s too early to start calling the bond market a liar, said Menzie Chinn, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

School mask mandates are back. So are the political divisions they deepened.

“Some school districts are rightfully going to want to protect vulnerable students,” said Tiffany Green, an associate professor in the department of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “Why would we not want to be proactive in protecting students, protecting teachers, protecting staff?”

A few schools mandated masks. Conservatives hit back hard.

“Some school districts are rightfully going to want to protect vulnerable students,” said Tiffany Green, an associate professor in the department of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. “Why would we not want to be proactive in protecting students, protecting teachers, protecting staff?”

How hospitals can help patients prep for appointments

Working on question lists does not require a trained coach, however. A family member or friend can be a helpful guide to preparing for a visit, as the process of making a question list can decrease worry and increase a patient’s sense of control. In fact, there are various methods to brainstorm, clarify, and organize a question list, and anyone can find frameworks to navigate their medical decisions, including the Ottawa decision guides, the University of Wisconsin Surgery’s Best Case/Worst Case framework, or our own pre-appointment question list.

NASA’s New Air Pollution Satellite Will Give Hourly Updates

“The data from these field campaigns acts like a decoder ring” for the satellite instrument, said Tracey Holloway, a professor of energy analysis and policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies air quality but is not involved in this project.