UW In The News

SHINE Medical wins NRC’s OK to build medical isotope plant

Noted: Piefer was in the UW-Madison’s nuclear engineering Ph.D program, and after getting his degree, he developed the technology, he said, and forged a partnership with the private, nonprofit Morgridge Institute for Research on the UW campus.

In Vietnam, troops connected through diverse music

Noted: Bradley teaches a course on the war at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Werner, a professor and chairman of the university’s Afro-American Studies Department. A decade ago, they began talking about music at a Christmas party at the Vet Center in Madison and were quickly surrounded by a group of guys sharing stories of the music they listened to in Vietnam.

Poverty across Wisconsin reaches highest level in 30 years

Poverty in Wisconsin hit its highest level in 30 years during the five-year period ending in 2014, even as the nation’s economy was recovering from the Great Recession, according to a trend analysis of U.S. census data just released by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.

Where’s The Color In Kids’ Lit? Ask The Girl With 1,000 Books (And Counting)

Noted: Fewer than 10 percent of children’s books released in 2015 had a black person as the main character, according to a yearly analysis by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And while the number of children’s books about minorities has increased in the last 20 years, many classroom libraries have older books.

UW talks about ‘moving forward’ in conversations about race, ethnicity

University of Wisconsin administration and students tackled tough questions regarding race and diversity Wednesday in an effort to create a plan that could fuel changes to campus culture.

More than 400 people came together in an open discussion on diversity issues, possible solutions to incidents of hate and bias, increasing retention rates and cultural competency.

UW Health slashes salad bar prices; sales soar

At the beginning of 2016, UW Health cut the price of its cafeteria salad bar almost in half, from $8.00 a pound to $4.99 a pound. In just the first month of the price cut, the hospital reports it sold 5,000 more salads than it had in other months.

THIS WEEK ON FOODIE: Stoney Acres Farm

Video: Stoney Acres Farm, near Wausau, hosts a popular pizza night with ingredients from their farm. (Subjects are both UW-Madison grads who met in class as undergraduates.)

Subprime gets bad rap in ‘Big Short’ but is key to easing affordability crisis

Op-ed by Jaime Luque, Assistant Professor, Real Estate & Urban Land Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

UW professors win prestigious research fellowships

Three UW-Madison professors have been selected as Sloan Research Fellows, one of the top awards given to young researchers.

UW-Madison team helping to develop system for thwarting cyberattacks

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of three schools working with non-profit research institute SRI International under a $5.3 million federal grant to develop technology to thwart particularly costly cyberattacks.

Smart Sole Can Charge Your Smartphone as You Walk

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin have developed a new energy-harvesting technology capable of capturing energy produced as humans walk. WSJ’s Monika Auger reports. Photo: UW-Madison College of Engineering

Dalai Lama visiting Madison on March 9 for live-streamed panel on global well-being

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will visit Madison next month for a panel event on global-well being.

The event, titled “The World We Make,” is hosted by the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and will take place on Wednesday, March 9th, at 1:30 p.m. in the Capitol Theater at the Overture Center for the Arts.

Leon Varjian honored in Madison

The Madison city council honored a man Tuesday whose humor was so remarkable that a 1992 book on college pranks dedicated an entire chapter to him.
Members passed a resolution declaring February 23 Leon Varjian Day.

The Wisconsin Idea: Alive, but how well?

Noted: Kathy Cramer, director of the UW–Madison’s Morgridge Center for Public Service, says the university’s historic role helping policy makers solve state problems has shrunk due to suspicion on both ends of State Street. However, she says, some initiatives continue, including student internships and leadership programs, and embedding graduate students from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research in state legislators’ offices.

Zika researchers release real-time data on viral infection study in monkeys

Researchers in the United States who have infected monkeys with Zika virus made their first data public last week. But instead of publishing them in a journal, they have released them online for anyone to view — and are updating their results day by day. The team is posting raw data on the amount of virus detected in the blood, saliva and urine of three Indian rhesus macaques, which they injected with Zika on 15 February. “This is the first time that our group has made data available in real time,” says David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a leader of the project, whose scientists have dubbed themselves ZEST (the Zika experimental-science team). He hopes that releasing the data will help to speed up research into the nature of the virus that has spread across the Americas.

Eye Floaters Often From Age-Related Causes, Physician Says

For the most part, eye floaters — spots in the eye that can look like specks, strings or cobwebs — are annoying, but for the most part, the viewer doesn’t have to do anything about them.Most eye floaters are caused by age-related changes, according to the Mayo Clinic. Here’s how they can happen, according to Dr. David Gamm, who is the director of the McPherson Institute of Eye Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As people age, the jelly substance in the middle of the eye, vitreous, loses its firmness and becomes more liquid. As that happens, the proteins and molecules that make up that substance band together and form strings or balls. They then float around in that core liquefied area in the center of the eye.

What’s happened to progressivism?

Quoted: Mike Wagner, associate professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who is studying post-Act 10 politics in Wisconsin, says passage of the law and Walker’s recall win not only demoralized progressives, it also severely curtailed the political capital and political power of Democrats’ biggest allies—public sector labor unions. In 2015, Walker signed a right-to-work law that weakened Wisconsin’s private sector unions as well.

Four coyotes tagged in Tosa; public encouraged to help monitor them

Quoted: “What we want folks to know is if they see a coyote, it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Marcus Mueller, a graduate student at UW-Madison working on the project, during a Feb. 22 public information meeting on coexisting with the animals.

UW scientist Dave Pagliarini wins presidential award

UW-Madison scientist Dave Pagliarini has been selected by Pres. Barack Obama as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

UW-Madison again ranks high in Peace Corps participation

UW-Madison sent more of its students to the Peace Corps this year than all but one other university, again putting the campus near the top for participation in the international program.

Wildlife expert: Killing coyotes only temporary solution

Quoted: During a public Monday night meeting, University of Wisconsin-Madison wildlife expert Dr. David Drake said that killing rather than trapping would open the door for other packs to move in.

Specimens in State Herbarium linked back to George Washington Carver

They were just tiny black dots on sesame stalks, unnoticed except to the trained eye.

Wisconsin hires Leonard to coach defensive backs

The University of Wisconsin officially announced the hiring of new defensive backs coach Jim Leonard over the weekend.

Rising star

Faisal Abdu’Allah has not shied away from controversial topics since joining the UW-Madison faculty.

Mapping brains of people with epilepsy

An ambitious project to map the human brain by the National Institutes of Health has funded a four-year, $5 million statewide study to image the brains of people with epilepsy. Researchers at UW-Madison and the Medical College of Wisconsin have joined the NIH Human Connectome Project, a national library of medical imaging data being used to create maps of human brain connectivity.

UW-Madison professor supports journalist Anna Day after her arrest

Noted: Lindsay Palmer, a journalism professor at UW-Madison, said she realizes the challenges an independent journalist faces when covering conflict in foreign countries.

Making music in times of stress can ease suffering

Column by Teri Dobbs, associate professor of music, on how making music during times of incredible oppression and stress provides individuals — especially children — a place of normalcy, safety and community, if only for a short time.

UW scientists team up with Big Oil to develop renewable jet fuel

Low oil prices are restraining the ability of renewable energy technologies to compete, but work forges ahead on alternatives to petroleum-based fuels.

The Pink Tax: Why Women’s Products Often Cost More

Quoted: “Yes, sometimes women do need smaller versions of things, and for jeans and other clothing, we want different cuts and different fashions,” says Christine Whelan, director of MORE: Money, Relationships and Equality at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “But the idea that that equates to somewhere between a 30 to 50 percent price hike is simply playing on the socialized culture that says women need to look a certain way.”

UW alumna wins prestigious Gates scholarship to Cambridge

A 2014 graduate of UW-Madison has been selected as one of 35 Americans to win a prestigious scholarship to the University of Cambridge in England, only the second UW-Madison graduate to do so.