UW In The News

A homegrown food trend has turned into an invasive species crisis

“Invasive golden oyster mushrooms, a wood decay fungus, can threaten forests’ fungal biodiversity and harm the health of ecosystems that are already vulnerable to climate change and habitat destruction,” said Aishwarya Veerabahu, a mycologist and graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who recently co-authored a study on the species.

We tracked illegal fishing in marine protected areas – satellites and AI show most bans are respected, and could help enforce future ones

Written by Jennifer Raynor, an assistant professor of natural resource economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW-Madison research drives startups. Federal science cuts stall our mission.

Written by Jordan Ellenberg, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The golden oyster mushroom craze unleashed an invasive species – and a worrying new study shows it’s harming native fungi

Written by Aishwarya Veerabahu, a Ph.D. candidate in botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Y’all, we need to talk about ‘y’all’

“It feels like home when I hear it,” says Kelly Elizabeth Wright, an assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who grew up in Tennessee. “It’s from where I was raised. But it makes me feel included and welcome. And I think that’s part of why people are embracing it, because it has this capacity to make others feel included and welcome.”

Bad Bunny makes a ‘political statement’ as Puerto Rico residency begins

“The theme and the ethos of this record is sort of affirming that Puerto Rican culture in the face of cultural and physical displacement of Puerto Ricans,” said Meléndez-Badillo, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is attending one of the concerts this weekend.

Just how harmful is vaping? More evidence is emerging

Data on the long-term health effects is limited, because vapes are relatively new and constantly evolving. Many people who use them are in their teens or 20s; it might take a while before further effects become apparent.

Even so, “common sense tells you — your mom would tell you — that a superheated chemical inhaling right into your lungs isn’t going to be good,” said Dr. James H. Stein, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. Increasingly, research is pointing to the reality that while vapes do not contain the same dangerous chemicals as cigarettes, they come with their own harms.

Why it’s so hard to warn people about flash floods

The shape of a cloud, where water accumulates in the cloud, and how dry the air is between the cloud and the ground in different locations, are all factors that might influence how much rain hits the ground in a certain location, according to Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and manager of the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Getting those very precise measurements at those very precise locations is something that we’re still working on, improving that science,” Vagasky says. Progress hinges on more advanced computer modeling and a better understanding of how precipitation forms in clouds.

UW-Madison’s Black Males in Engineering Video Series wins prestigious Telly Award

The Black Males in Engineering (BME) video series, led by UW-Madison School of Education faculty member Dr. Brian Burt, recently received a Silver Telly Award in the Campaign – Education & Training category. The honor recognizes non-broadcast video campaigns created for general educational purposes and underscores the series’ impact on addressing critical gaps in STEM education support.

More explosive volcanoes expected as glaciers melt

Pablo Moreno-Yaeger from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is presenting the research at the conference, said in a statement: “Our study suggests this phenomenon isn’t limited to Iceland, where increased volcanicity has been observed, but could also occur in Antarctica. Other continental regions, like parts of North America, New Zealand and Russia, also now warrant closer scientific attention.”

Hurricane forecasters are losing 3 key satellites ahead of peak storm season − a meteorologist explains why it matters

Written by Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and research program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How does the job market determine whether or not there’s inflation?

Slower wage growth has an outsized impact on the cost of services, said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Because services are provided, you know, the main input is going to be labor,” he said.

But Chinn said there are factors that could actually lead to higher wages in the service sector. For instance, employees might ask for higher wages to help them cover the cost of tariffs.

Sea spiders lack a key body part and a missing gene could explain why

Biologists interested in reconstructing the family trees of spiders and their relatives have long sought a complete sea spider genome, said Prashant Sharma of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is an author of the new paper. Because sea spiders are members of a group that are siblings of arachnids on land, characteristics they share with modern land spiders could be traced to a common ancestor.

Musk vows to start a third party. Funding’s no issue, but there are others.

“A new party is going to benefit most from Musk if they can draw on his resources but keep him in the background,” said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center. “And if he can portray himself as an innovator and a tech entrepreneur — and somebody who is really contributing to the American economy and funding this new operation without being its front person — I think that’s probably going to lead to the most success.”

The hidden cost of convenience: How your data pulls in hundreds of billions of dollars for app and social media companies

Written by Kassem Fawaz, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Jack West, a doctoral student in computer science, both a the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Scandinavia has its own dark history of assimilating Indigenous people, and churches played a role – but are apologizing

Written by Thomas A. DuBois, a professor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

From injured pups to promising careers, UW Veterinary School gives aspiring techs a real shot

UW’s newly expanded $174 million facility offers plenty of high-tech tools and advanced care options—but it’s the heart behind the work that stands out.

“Across the nation, there’s a shortage of veterinary technicians and staff in the veterinary profession,” said Dr. Chris Snyder, hospital director. “Giving an opportunity to welcome them in and to see what cutting-edge veterinary care can look like—and what a career working in a teaching hospital can be—and how rewarding that is to be able to train others.”

First images from world’s largest digital camera reveal galaxies and cosmic collisions

Keith Bechtol, an associate professor in the physics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been involved with the Rubin Observatory for nearly a decade, is the project’s system verification and validation scientist, making sure the observatory’s various components are functioning properly.

He said teams were floored when the images streamed in from the camera.

“There were moments in the control room where it was just silence, and all the engineers and all the scientists were just seeing these images, and you could just see more and more details in the stars and the galaxies,” Bechtol told NBC News. “It was one thing to understand at an intellectual level, but then on this emotional level, we realized basically in real time that we were doing something that was really spectacular.”

Mark Copelovitch on the high costs of political and economic uncertainty

UW-Madison political science professor Mark Copelovitch discusses how the unstable landscape of tariffs and war abroad disrupt both the overall global marketplace and the everyday lives of American consumers.

Can A.I. quicken the pace of math discovery?

“I think we’ll learn a lot about what the capabilities of various A.I. protocols are from how well we can get them to generate material that’s of interest,” said Jordan S. Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is part of a team applying for an Exponentiating Mathematics grant. “We have no intuition yet about which problems are going to be hard and which problems are easy. We need to learn that.”

Why is everybody ‘crashing out’?

Kelly Elizabeth Wright, an assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the lead editor of Among the New Words, said that it can be difficult to pinpoint when a phrase is created, and whether or not the language comes from African American Language or if it is just used within Black communities.

“I don’t think that it’s inaccurate to say that Black Twitter and other online spaces were using these terms maybe first or more visibly than when it was floating around in high school classrooms all across the country this year,” Dr. Wright said. “I also don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that young people online are using this term. I think both things can be true at the same time.”

Sasha Maria Suarez on revitalizing Indigenous languages

UW-Madison history professor Sasha Maria Suarez describes programs by tribal nations, K-12 schools and higher education institutions to teach Wisconsin’s Indigenous languages to learners of all ages.

Many falls are preventable. These tips can help.

Many falls can be prevented, said Dr. Gerald Pankratz, a geriatrician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That makes him “optimistic about this issue,” he said.

In his practice, Dr. Pankratz said, it is not unusual for people assessed as having a 50 percent chance of falling over the next year to cut their risk in half by taking action to avoid slips and trips.

Wisconsin state lawmakers, industry experts share concerns about proposed limits to AI regulation

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Annette Zimmermann is a political philosopher of AI and co-lead of the school’s Uncertainty and AI research group.

“Much like many other experts working in this area, I’ve been deeply concerned about imposing such a heavy handed blanket ban on any sort of state-based efforts to effectively regulate this space,” Zimmermann said. “Right now, unfortunately, we’re in a regulatory landscape where we are heavily relying on individual states to think very hard about how to protect ordinary citizens and consumers from these kinds of harmful outputs.”

Clinical psychologist explains how ADHD drugs work, addresses unscientific harm concerns

James Li is the A. A. Alexander Associate Professor of Psychology and an investigator at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that Kennedy’s statements on the harms of medications like Adderall aren’t based in science.

“The evidence is quite clear that the medications that are currently FDA-approved and prescribed to treat ADHD in particular are fairly well tolerated. They don’t lead to early mortality … and they are generally very beneficial when used properly under doctor’s orders,” Li said.

A hidden gem on campus: Inside UW-Madison’s Zoological Museum

All that most students see of the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum (UWZM), located in the Noland Zoology Building, is the fourth floor staircase’s sign prohibiting entrance from all other than museum staff.

Behind the locked doors, however, the museum’s extensive collections of animal skins and skeletons serve as a powerful resource for research and learning.

Officials launch new grant-making program to improve rural health outcomes

The Orion Initiative, administered through the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, aims to invest in partnerships between frontline rural providers and the academic medical community.

Rising housing costs are forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, new report says

Rising housing costs have been forcing some Wisconsinites to delay medical care, which can lead to negative health outcomes for residents and communities.

That’s according to a new report from the University of Wisconsin-Extension as part of a project examining livability in rural communities led by Tessa Conroy, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at UW-Madison.

‘My Childhood in Pieces’ is a funny, moving look at mid-century life

Book review written by Porter Shreve, director of the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How your pets alter your immune system