UW In The News
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Ask the Weather Guys: What connection does UW-Madison have with the National Weather Service?
Last week, the director of the National Weather Service (NWS), Louis W. Uccellini, visited his alma mater as the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award winner. Uccellini presented the story of the intellectual and professional journey that led him to the leadership of this extraordinarily important government agency … Uccellini’s visit reminded us all, we strive to do great things at Wisconsin and we usually succeed.
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University of Wisconsin Band rocks packed house at Mauston High School
Members of the University of Wisconsin Band played to a packed gym on Saturday at Mauston High School.
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BTN LiveBIG: Wisconsin engineers fish for inspiration on artificial-eye development
If you don’t already, odds are that someday you’ll hold a newspaper at arm’s length to read it more clearly. This incredibly common eye condition, called presbyopia, generally affects those in their 50s and older. It occurs when eye muscles begin to age and harden, making it more difficult to focus on nearby objects.
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UW-Madison scientists let crowds tell the New Yorker what’s funny
University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have developed a way for New Yorker magazine to use crowd-sourcing to judge captions in its weekly cartoon caption contest.
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How to Not Fight with Your Spouse When You Get Home from Work
Noted: Different recovery times. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has spent decades studying the relationship between our emotions and various brain structures and neurological systems. In his 2012 book The Emotional Life of Your Brain, Davidson notes that people vary widely with regard to the speed with which we recover from adverse experiences. (Davidson calls this quality “resilience,” but I prefer “recovery time,” as I use the former term more broadly when discussing our overall response to stress and challenges.) Davidson’s research demonstrates that people with different recovery times even show different patterns of activity in their brains.
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The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War
While it wasn’t written about the Vietnam War, the song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by The Animals became an iconic song at the time, and now signifies the era.
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Madison is a serious poetry city
The recent “retirement” of one of my favorite poets of all time, Ron Wallace, from the UW–Madison English Department reawakened a personal source of civic pride: Madison as a serious poetry city.
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Snowshoe Hare Habitat Shrinks As Winters Grow Milder
New University of Wisconsin-Madison research shows that the snowshoe hare’s habitat in northern Wisconsin is shrinking, in part due to shifts in climate.
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If You’re Rich, You’ll Probably Live Longer
Quoted: Barbara Wolfe, Ph.D., a professor of public affairs, economics, and population health services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wasn’t involved with the study, said environment could play a role in health as well.
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Legal fight against Wisconsin right-to-work law faces difficult path
University of Wisconsin Madison history professor William Jones said such arguments have initially seen success in other states, although they have ultimately fallen short when the case has been appealed. He pointed to the most recent challenge of Indiana’s right-to-work law, which was struck down, but then eventually upheld by that state’s Supreme Court.
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Shakespeare collection from 1623 to make stop in Madison
A nearly 400-year-old collection of William Shakespeare’s plays will be on display this fall in Madison.
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UW-Madison to award posthumous degree to student who died in October
Officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison plan to award a graduate student who died last year a rare posthumous degree.
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Rebecca Blank: UW-Madison won’t lay off tenured faculty
UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank said Friday that the university won’t lay off tenured faculty so long as it remains a leading research school.“Top-ranked universities always take care of their tenured faculty,” Blank said in a blog post. “As long as this university is a top-ranked institution we will behave like other top-ranked universities. That means we don’t layoff tenured faculty. Period.”
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Madison to host a Shakespeare treasure — the First Folio
The First Folio, a printed collection of William Shakespeare’s plays that dates back to 1623, is scheduled to arrive in November. Shipped under conditions of top security and high-tech climate control, the book will be on display for nearly six weeks at the Chazen Museum of Art, with UW-Madison Libraries and UW Arts Institute as co-presenters.
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UW engineering PhD student who died last year will get rare posthumous degree
When he died last October at age 30, Craig Schuff, a quadriplegic, was just a few neutrons short of completing his doctorate in electrical engineering at UW-Madison. He had already earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering, already passed a qualifying examination and prelims, and had already begun preparing to defend his thesis. He had interrupted his graduate studies in the College of Engineering once before, in 2011, when a Lake Monona diving accident damaged his spinal cord and left him motionless, but no less motivated. Now, in death, Schuff rejoins the elite: In May at UW-Madison graduation ceremonies, his parents will accept for him a posthumous doctorate in electrical engineering.
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Why Pennsylvania Dutch language is thriving
Noted: The Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania Dutch population was made up of “church people, or fancy Dutch” associated with Lutheran and Union churches, says Mark Louden, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Among them, the language is pretty much gone, diluted out as children grew up, went to college and married non-Dutch-speaking people.
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Meet Ashley Hampton, the vegan blogger behind ‘Raw in College’
University of Wisconsin-Madison sophomore Ashley Hampton is, in many ways, a lot like other students on her campus. She’s in sorority, is steadily working toward a degree in community and nonprofit leadership, and loves to travel and spend time with friends.
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Chicago State, a Lifeline for Poor Blacks, Is Under Threat Itself
Quoted: Clifton Conrad, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the situation at Chicago State foreshadows what many small universities could experience in the coming years, as state budgets contract and less money is designated for higher education.
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UW-Madison initiative chooses 14 research projects to fund
University of Wisconsin-Madison officials have chosen 14 research projects to receive an average of about $300,000 each over the next two years as part of its UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative.
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Fresh burrows await badgers at Vilas Zoo as a new exhibit is planned
Badgers, which have long been as synonymous with Wisconsin as cheese, will soon be burrowing into a new home at Vilas Zoo.Zoo, Dane County and UW-Madison officials announced plans Wednesday for a larger exhibit to house the zoo’s two current badgers, with a tentative goal of opening in time for the fall football season. Fundraising efforts are underway for the Wisconsin Heritage Exhibit, with $350,000 of the required $650,000 already collected.
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Former chancellor Donna Shalala to address women’s summit at UW
Former UW-Madison chancellor Donna Shalala will be keynote speaker at a global summit for women at the university.
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Cruz, Sanders still face steep climb
Quoted: “This primary matters a lot for both parties,” Kathy Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in the wake of Tuesday’s election. “When you’re making a calculation whether it’s worth it to stand in line, the message you were getting this time around was yes.”
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Tiny flea reveals the devastating costs of invasive species
Humans have played a key role in moving species to new locations, resulting in an exponential spread of species over the last century. Many of these nonnative species never become invasive – that is, damaging – and a few may even have positive effects on ecology or human economy. However, many, such as Asian carp in North American rivers and Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, cause enormous ecological and economic damage.
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A Thin Line Divides Engaging With Activists and Alienating Them
Patrick Sims, vice provost for diversity and climate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, decided last week that he had had enough.When he received a picture of a racial slur, scrawled on notebook paper, that had reportedly been slipped under a freshman’s dorm-room door, Mr. Sims did something unusual for a campus administrator. He recorded a video.
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Voting at UW-Madison went relatively smoothly, officials say
In spite of Tuesday’s record turnout, the wait to vote at UW-Madison polling locations remained manageable, officials there said.University officials stressed that delays for the campus locations didn’t hit the one and two hour waits seen at UW-Green Bay and Marquette University at some points Tuesday.“The city clerk’s office tells us the max wait time was about 15 minutes,” spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said.
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US election 2016: Is it all going wrong for Trump in Wisconsin?
Quoted: “I think the deepest concern that talk radio people have about Trump is not so much that he’s rude and will say politically incorrect things, but that they don’t buy that he’s a bona fide conservative,” says University of Wisconsin public affairs professor Donald Moynihan.
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Seniors exercise plan designed for independence
A UW-Madison professor has developed an exercise plan that gives seniors a chance to maintain their independence in their own homes. The program — called PALS, or Physical Activity for Life for Seniors — is being offered at sites around Wisconsin, with more sites on a waiting list.
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Bernie Sanders could win in Wisconsin tonight. But what matters is by how much.
Quoted: “Sanders needs to start winning by a couple of touchdowns for the media to start taking his narrative seriously,” says Michael Wagner, an elections specialist at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
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Could Wisconsin be a turning point in GOP race?
Quoted: “Even when Scott Walker was battling the unions [in 2011] and 100,000 people were marching around the capitol, those were family-friendly events,” says Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “There were massive policy disagreements, but not a lot of personal insults.”
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How Scott Walker helped Bernie Sanders win Wisconsin
Quoted: The renewed focus on bread-and-butter Democratic principles, especially within organized labor, arrived in step with Sanders’ message, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Barry Burden, director of its Elections Research Center, told CNN.
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