UW In The News

A Bird-Flu Pandemic in People? Here’s What It Might Look Like.

Crucially, no forms of the bird flu virus seem to have spread efficiently from person to person. That is no guarantee that H5N1 will not acquire that ability, said Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist and bird flu expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.“ I think the virus is clearly changing its property, because we never saw outbreaks in cows,” Dr. Kawaoka said.

Supermassive Black Hole’s ‘Wind’ Shapes Surrounding Galaxy

A team of astronomers, including from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Arizona, analyzed years of observations of a quasar—bright cores of a galaxy thought to be powered by a supermassive black hole—to find unexpected changes in the gases surrounding a black hole.

The US is losing wetlands at an accelerating rate − here’s how the private sector can help protect these valuable resources

Wetlands aren’t the most eye-catching ecosystems. They include swamps, bogs, fens and other places where soil is covered by water most of the time. But they perform a huge range of valuable services, from soaking up floodwaters to filtering out pollutants and providing habitat for thousands of species of mammals, fish, reptiles, insects and birds.

–Steph Tai Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Supermassive Black Hole’s ‘Wind’ Shapes Surrounding Galaxy

A team of astronomers, including from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Arizona, analyzed years of observations of a quasar—bright cores of a galaxy thought to be powered by a supermassive black hole—to find unexpected changes in the gases surrounding a black hole.

Women Are America’s Safety Net

In November 2020, in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, Calarco, who is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told the writer Anne Helen Petersen, “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.”

Feds nab felons on social media by tracking gun videos, pics, chats

“A lot of people don’t realize how exposed they are,” says John P. Gross, a University of Wisconsin, Madison law professor and former public defender who’s seen social media play a big part in criminal cases. “That’s all stuff the government can find and gain access to.”

How Members of the Chinese Diaspora Found Their Voices

“I used to think that no matter what an individual or a group does, it makes no difference,” Wang Jing, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. “But now my feeling is that, regardless of what this can achieve, I have this anger and I want to express it.”

Scientists Know When Humans and Neanderthals Had Sex and Swapped DNA

“This study gives us the most accurate picture showing how some Neanderthals joined into the modern human gene pool, and then what happened to their genes afterward,” John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was not involved in the research, told Business Insider.

The biggest cropland changes were near Ogallala Aquifer, study shows

“A lot of the assumptions were that this former cropland had a lot of overlap with formal conservation programs,” Tyler Lark, an assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment who co-authored the study, said in a news release. “But we saw that they’re almost entirely distinct pools.”

The truth about ‘zombie cicadas’: ‘The fungus can do some nefarious things’

P.J. Liesch, director of UW Insect Diagnostic Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained that the fungus does “really interesting things” to the cicadas it infects. “The fungus can do some nefarious things,” he told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. “It can produce some amphetamine-like compounds, which end up affecting the behavior of these infected cicadas.”

‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban

“The problem is now urgent, and we can’t say we need to do something about it in the future, we need to take action now,” said Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “The earlier we start making big cuts to emissions, the earlier we can start making a difference.”’

Women are America’s safety net. Holding society together is wearing them down.

Not long after having her second child, Calarco, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, started a project in 2017 investigating how parents’ best-laid plans for raising their children go awry.

Earth warming at record rate, but no evidence of climate change accelerating

“Choosing to act on climate has become a political talking point but this report should be a reminder to people that in fact it is fundamentally a choice to save human lives,” said University of Wisconsin climate scientist Andrea Dutton, who wasn’t part of the international study team. “To me, that is something worth fighting for.”

The most pressing bird flu mysteries scientists want answered

Yoshihiro Kawaoka put into words a question that worries many scientists watching this situation, the worry that underscored Fouchier’s insistence that this outbreak must be stopped as quickly as possible. “We do not know whether the bovine H5N1 virus will become established in cattle,” wrote Kawaoka, a flu virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If it does, will it evolve to adapt more towards ‘mammalian-like’ influenza viruses? … Will it pose a risk to human health?”

Pregnancy is an engineering challenge − diagnosing and treating preterm birth requires understanding its mechanics

Article co-authored by Melissa Skala, professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Why Bird Flu Is Causing Eye Infections in Dairy Workers

“Given the amount of virus detected in milk from H5N1 virus-infected cows, I am concerned about its spillover to humans, poultry and other animals,”says Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

College Alone Can’t Save Women

In the fall of 2020, Jessica Calarco encapsulated what so many families were experiencing during the pandemic in a memorable phrase: “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. At the time, Calarco, now an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (her promotion to full professor takes effect later this summer), was studying how parents were navigating the pandemic, a project that included two national surveys and hundreds of hours of interviews

Sociologist: Lack of social safety net impacts students

Calarco, who’s previously published A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (2020) and Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School (2018), began researching what became Holding it Together prior to the pandemic, while an associate professor of sociology at the University of Indiana at Bloomington. The pandemic changed the scope of her work somewhat (go figure), and she’s also switched institutions, to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She agreed to chat about her process and findings, and their implications for student success.

Organic cheese and free lunch for all: what the US can learn from other nations about better school meals

Providing exceptional school meals for millions of US children won’t come without a collective struggle, and our analysis of school food politics around the world reminds us to raise the bar in what we’re fighting for.

-Jennifer Gaddis is an associate professor in civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Internships are linked to better employment outcomes for college graduates – but there aren’t enough for students who want them

Are there enough paid internships?No. Only two out of three internships offer compensation for students at four-year colleges. The situation is worse for students at two-year institutions, where 50% of internships are unpaid.

1. Matthew T. Hora

   Associate Professor of Adult and Higher Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

   Hee Song Project Assistant at the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Blue-eyed cicadas, rare and striking, emerge at Illinois arboretum

“It’s still pretty cool if you saw one, but it’s not — get ready — something out of the blue,” said Dan Young, director of the University of Wisconsin’s insect research collection.

White evangelical Christians are some of Israel’s biggest supporters. Why?

Podcast includes segment with Daniel Hummel, a fellow in the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Washington Post said it had the Alito flag story 3 years ago and chose not to publish

Kathleen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said it was a bad call. And, she added, if she were at the Post she would have argued for the paper to be more forthcoming. While Martha-Ann Alito has the right to her own opinions, a flag like that shouldn’t be on display outside the home of a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Culver said. “It’s a flag that flies in the face of the neutrality that the Supreme Court is supposed to be observing,” she said.

Opinion: I’m a millennial mom. Why are you looking at me to fix the birth-rate problem?

“In order to make childbearing seem like an easy option, having more kids an easy option, you’d have to go even further than many of the states that have strong social-safety-net systems,” said Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin and the author of the forthcoming “Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.”

Bird flu, raw milk debate converge

“These claims — I’m a chemist by trade — just make no sense whatsoever on any kind of science or chemistry basis,” University of Wisconsin–Madison food science professor John Lucey told The Hill. “I’ve been doing research on dairy products and milk for 20-plus years,” Lucey added. “In my field, nobody gives credence to these fantastic claims.”

Website offers free, practical advice for caregivers of dementia patients

“It’s a really pragmatic approach that’s put together in a very thoughtful fashion,” said Art Walaszek, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who has been involved in that effort.

Christians support Israel in wartime through visits, donations and volunteering

Christian support for Israel emerged in earnest during the ’60s and ’70s, Daniel Hummel, a research fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and expert on U.S.-Israel relations and American evangelicalism, says. He is also the director for The Lumen Center, in Madison, Wis., which focuses on the study of Christianity and culture.

The Problem With Nudging People to Make a Better Choice

In the end, though, the main takeaway from our research is that nudges may be a great first step. But that’s all they are: a first step. Much of the hard work is what comes next.

-Evan Polman is an associate professor of marketing and Kuechenmeister-Bascom professor in business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sam J. Maglio is a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto.

How China Pulled So Far Ahead on Industrial Policy

“There’s enormous economies of scale by going big as China did,” Gregory Nemet, a professor of public policy at the University of Wisconsin who has studied the global solar industry. When the investments resulted in overcapacity, suppressing the profitability of China’s companies, Beijing was willing to ride out the losses.

Damages From PFAS Lawsuits Could Surpass Asbestos, Industry Lawyers Warn

One challenge facing medical research lies in the sheer number of different PFAS chemicals that have now entered the environment, each of which can have slightly different health effects, said Steph Tai, associate dean at the University of Wisconsin’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and an expert in the use of science in environmental protection and litigation.