UW In The News

Eating only raw food is ranked the worst diet

“What’s nice is Mediterranean is relatively user friendly. How it’s structured is similar to the (U.S. Department of Agriculture) healthy eating plan,” Camila Martin, a nutritionist at University of Wisconsin Health in Madison, who wasn’t involved in the rankings, tells TODAY.com. “It’s very modifiable based off what people have access to even with limited resources.”

7 questions older patients should ask their surgeon

What’s the goal of this surgery? Ask your surgeon, “How is this surgery going to make things better for me?” said Margaret “Gretchen” Schwarze, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Will it extend your life by removing a fast-growing tumor? Will your quality of life improve by making it easier to walk? Will it prevent you from becoming disabled, akin to a hip replacement?

Study: Toxic PFAS chemical plume detected in Green Bay

University of Wisconsin researchers have traced movement of the chemicals in nearby groundwater and streams. In a report published last week, they said a plume had made its way into Green Bay, which extends 120 miles (193 kilometers) along northeastern Wisconsin and the south coast of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Day 3: Small Talk Has Big Benefits

Weak ties often have different knowledge from those in our immediate social circle, said Stav Atir, an assistant professor of management at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Atir led a study in 2022 that suggested that people underestimate the potential for learning from these interactions. “In our data, we often see strangers giving each other recommendations such as a new restaurant to check out, a new band to listen to and even a potential place of employment,” she said.

CDC tracking rise of new XBB.1.5 COVID variant, already more than 40% of U.S. cases

“With what we know so far, XBB.1.5 has not acquired any new mutations in the viral protein targeted by Paxlovid. The susceptibility of XBB.1.5 against Paxlovid should not change given the current data,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Peter Halfmann, one of that study’s authors, told CBS News in an email.

How did the pandemic affect the Corona Beer brand?

A group of researchers from the University of Kentucky, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ohio State University actually set out to study how consumers reacted to the beer brand after its name became inadvertently associated with the coronavirus.

Fact check: Post falsely links WI military votes to election tampering

Such a comparison is inappropriate because of turnout differences in both elections, Barry Burden, a politics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told USA TODAY in an email.

“Turnout of military and especially non-military voters is far higher in a presidential contest because of the intensity, visibility and national importance of a presidential election,” Burden said. “Military voters in particular tend to be less involved in non-presidential elections because their deployments take them away from the everyday news of state politics.”

Layoffs have ticked up but hiring is still strong

Many companies still need to hold on to workers, said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin.“I think you’d need a much higher ratio of layoffs to hiring in order to be alarmed.”

Private investors, Rising Rents

These firms “have an incentive to raise rents as quickly as they can so that they can get the next buyer to pay more,” said Michael Brennan, chairman of the Brennan Investment Group, a real estate firm, and director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Other owners, he said, are “not as maniacally focused on getting the last nickel as quickly as they can.”

Best Kids TV Shows And Cartoons for Toddlers

“The main key, as in all parenting, is to know your kid,” says Marie-Louise Mares professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Some kids are pretty easily scared, others really love excitement, some adore anything to do with trucks, others are crazy about puppies.”

UW Odyssey to help veterans transition into college with ‘Beyond Wars’ program

What Is a Bomb Cyclone? A Winter Storm Explained

If traveling by vehicle, pack a winter survival kit, and in the event of getting stranded in the snow, stay with the vehicle. Laura Albert, an industrial engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies emergency response and preparedness, recommends packing such a kit with jumper cables, a small shovel, a flashlight, warm clothes, blankets, bottled water and nonperishable snacks, plus a bag of sand or cat litter to regain traction on snow or ice.

Director of Tribal Relations Aaron Bird Bear leaves UW-Madison a changed campus

Here’s what’s driving the frigid storm that’s messing up holiday plans across the US

“You won’t see the like of this kind of a storm probably another time in the next 25 or so years,” Jonathan Martin, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells The Verge. “It’s really intense, and in some locations, the impacts will be extraordinary.”

Democrats close legislative year with final swipes at Trump: The Note

Along the way, testimony provided by Richard Baris, the director of Big Data Poll, a group that conducts exit polling, and Dr. Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, highlighted the use of polls and methodology, a key feature of elections that are sure to continue to be put under scrutiny in future cycles.

How to protect yourself and your loved ones during this “tripledemic”

So how can we best navigate this icky viral chaos? I asked Elizabeth Stuart, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor, and James Conway, a physician specializing in pediatric infectious disease at the University of Wisconsin. Here’s their advice, edited for length and clarity.

Signs You’re Practicing ‘Toxic Forgiveness’ When You’re Wronged

But, some psychologists dislike the term. Robert Enright, Ph.D., an expert in forgiveness science and professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says “toxic forgiveness” is a “misunderstanding of what forgiving another person actually is.”

‘It was a set-up, we were fooled’: the coal mine that ate an Indian village

Leah Horowitz, a cultural geographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, takes a different view. “It stops being persuasion and becomes manipulation when you’re offering someone something they don’t feel that they can refuse,” she said. This kind of process, Horowitz added, is shaped by massively unequal power dynamics between the corporations, local elites and villagers. In many cases, the latter are very poor and have not been empowered to make informed choices. Shukla, the Chhattisgarh-based activist, put it like this: “How can you even expect villagers to give a free and informed consent in such compromised situations?”

‘Great concern’: Invasive group A strep cases spiking in parts of US — CDC is investigating

“We are seeing an increase in invasive Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A strep) bacterial infections here in our area, mostly following respiratory viral illnesses like Influenza A and RSV,” said Conway, who’s also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Subnivium: The secret ecosystem hidden beneath the snow | New Scientist

ECOLOGIST Jonathan Pauli used to spend a lot of time keeping track of animals over winter – often across cold, harsh landscapes that seemed inhospitable to life. It always surprised him that as soon as the weather got warmer in early spring, insects would pop up. “Snow fleas would emerge from underneath the snow,” Pauli recalls. Where, he wondered, had they been hiding? Eventually, he discovered some old scientific papers from the 1940s and 1960s. They revealed a secret world that Pauli, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been studying ever since: a hidden ecosystem under the snow.

Why Nuclear Fusion Could Be A Clean-Energy Breakthrough

It takes more than extreme heat and pressure. It also takes precision. The energy from the lasers must be applied precisely to counteract the outward force of the fusion fuel, according to Stephanie Diem, an engineering physics professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Two Cheers for the Tyrant in the Corner Office

A host of studies show that even in regular people power produces over-confidence, risk-taking, insensitivity, intolerance and a higher likelihood of treating other people as means rather than ends. The so-called “cookie monster study,” conducted by psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, shows that randomly assigned “powerful people” are more likely to help themselves to second cookies, eat with their mouths open and get crumbs on their faces.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Reaches for Trump Playbook to Cover January 6 Remark

Speaking to Newsweek, Ion Meyn, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin, said Greene’s comments would fall under “protected speech,” meaning she is unlikely to face any police action in response.

Good vibes: UW-Madison hip-hop class builds bridges through dance

By 2025, coal will no longer be the main way to generate the world’s electricity

But that’s changing, said Greg Nemet at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And that change matters for the proliferation of renewables.

“China is the biggest driver of it, one, because China is so big, but also because they now have much more ambitious targets for renewables and, you know, China lives up to its targets,” he said.

Before Beer Became Lager, a Microbe Made a Mysterious Journey

The finding matches with climactic modeling suggesting that Ireland would be a hospitable environment for the yeast, said Chris Hittinger, a professor of genetics at University of Wisconsin — Madison, who was on the team that found the yeast in Patagonia and not involved in the current study. What’s less clear is why the yeast been so difficult to find in the wild beyond South America, where it grows plentifully in association with beech trees and is thought to be a native species.

Trump Faces New Danger as Jan. 6 Committee Announces Criminal Referrals

“Although the DOJ is independent, such a referral is more than symbolic,” Ion Meyn, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin, told Newsweek. “A referral from a congressional committee that has conducted its own investigation is particularly influential. The referral would place significant pressure on the DOJ to prosecute, and the DOJ will be expected to justify any decision to decline the referral.”

Beef shortage looms, Florida citrus in peril: US farms hit by climate change effects in 2022

Things would have been much worse if it weren’t for advances in plant breeding, said Paul Mitchell, a professor of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Crops are more resilient to dry weather than they were 20 years ago,” he said.

Scientist Betül Kaçar On The Value Of Early Space Science And Astrobiology Education

The focus of Betül Kaçar’s research is on the origin and early evolution of life, including fascinating topics such as the influence of geology on the development of biology. A Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the principal investigator at Kaçar Research Lab, she was one of the plenary speakers at the NASA-sponsored biannual meeting Astrobiology Science Conference, AbSciCon22. Along with her research, Kaçar is deeply interested in science education and the best ways to bring science to school-aged children.

Just how tight is Madison’s student rental market? Researchers hope to find out.