UW In The News

How Could Life Evolve From Cyanide?

Joining me now is Betül Kaçar. She’s an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the department of bacteriology. She’s also the principal investigator of Project MUSE, a major NASA-funded astrobiology research initiative. Betül Kaçar, thanks very much for being here.Betül Kaçar

Betül Kaçar (18:33): Thanks for having me.

Why the global economy runs on dollars

Ultimately, the question of whether the dollar will remain a global reserve currency answers itself. To misquote a famous authority on political economy, “A day may come when the dollar loses its central role as the dominant global reserve currency, but it is not this day.” It is not even this decade, and quite likely not even this century. It won’t even become a possibility until the E.U. becomes a true fiscal and political union — or until China develops an accountable liberal government and much more developed private financial markets and finally accepts the free movement of capital flows. None of those scenarios seems likely to happen soon.

Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov) is professor of political science and public affairs and director of European Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is the author (with David A. Singer) of “Banks on the Brink: Global Capital, Securities Markets, and the Political Roots of Financial Crises” (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

How Eric Adams’s Struggle With Dyslexia Is Shaping His Mayoralty

Reading experts have praised the plan, but said that the details of the implementation would be key. Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist and reading expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that all students could benefit from better reading instruction.

Foxconn Megafactory Flop Forces Wisconsin Town to Recast Its Net

“Right now, it’s a giant white-elephant-type project,” said Steven Deller, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The water lines that they ran into it, the highway infrastructure that they ran into it, the electric lines that they ran into it—it’s all way overcapacity,” he said.

Why Ukraine and Russia Both Look to the Nuremberg Trials

Of course, none of this is inevitable. History shows that it is the victor who gets to organize postwar tribunals. For Ukraine to bring Putin and his circle to justice, it will first have to win the war. There is also a dark alternative: a Nuremberg-type tribunal of Ukrainian leaders held by Russia. This would inevitably be a Soviet-style show trial—a kangaroo court that would degrade international law and could taint the meaning of Nuremberg forever.

-Francine Hirsch, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II(Oxford, 2020).

Foxconn Megafactory Flop Forces Wisconsin Town to Recast Its Net

“Right now, it’s a giant white-elephant-type project,” said Steven Deller, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The water lines that they ran into it, the highway infrastructure that they ran into it, the electric lines that they ran into it—it’s all way overcapacity,” he said.

Gender Stereotypes In Hulu’s Baby And Toddler Programming May Have Lasting Effects For Kids

Another problem with children learning these stereotypes at such a young age is that once stereotypes are learned, it’s nearly impossible to unlearn them. Patricia Devine, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison explained to Wisconsin Public Radio, “A lot of people sincerely embrace egalitarian values, but being socialized into our culture, they learn stereotypes very early in childhood, around age three, four and five. They’re firmly ingrained; they’re frequently activated, very well-practiced, and they end up being the default, or habitual kind of response.” She adds, “I’m not sure if it’s possible to unlearn them…I know I shouldn’t act based on the stereotypes, but it’s not as though my awareness or my knowledge of those stereotypes just goes away.”

Lucy Calkins Retreats on Phonics in Fight Over Reading Curriculum

Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said that while he found some of the revisions “encouraging,” he was concerned that “objectionable” concepts remain.

Cutting fossil fuel air pollution saves lives

“These [particles] get deep into the lungs and cause both respiratory and cardiac ailments,” says Jonathan Patz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the authors of the study. “They are pretty much the worst pollutant when it comes to mortality and hospitalization.”

Pollution’s death toll remains high, killing more people than war or malaria

“We have the technologies available to get us to essentially an emissions-free electricity sector nationwide in the U.S.,” said Nicholas Mailloux, the lead author of that study and a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Some other sectors will be trickier, like aviation.”

Five things to know about incoming UW-Madison chancellor Jennifer Mnookin

N.Y.C. urges people to wear masks indoors, but stops short of requiring it.

The rise shouldn’t surprise people, given the large number of unvaccinated Americans, said Ajay Sethi, an associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Energy & Environment — Canceled leases leave Biden admin at crossroads

“Our work provides a sense of the scale of the air quality health benefits that could accompany deep decarbonization of the U.S. energy system,” lead author Nick Mailloux, a graduate student at University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, said in a statement.

NASA Announces New Collaboration Probing How Life Evolved From Single-Cells On Earth

“This is the only planet known to harbor life,” said Betül Kaçar, an assistant professor in the department of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “If we cannot understand it here, how can we find it elsewhere?”

Cutting air pollution from fossil fuels would save 50,000 lives a year

Eliminating air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels would prevent more than 50,000 premature deaths and provide more than $600 billion in health benefits in the United States every year, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.

Living with Lead Creates Antibiotic-Resistant ‘Superbugs’

In December 2021 researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison reported that people with the highest levels of lead in their urine, especially those living in urban areas, were more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their bodies, even after accounting for other factors that could drive up resistance. Their results, published in Environmental Epidemiology, are among the first to show this link within the human body. The study adds antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the list of harms visited upon people without much money or social resources, usually members of minority groups, who are most likely to live in these lead-contaminated areas. “It’s really an environmental justice issue,” says environmental epidemiologist Kristen Malecki, one of the study’s authors.

Scientists Grow Plants In Lunar Soil For First Time Ever

“This is a big step forward to know that you can grow plants,” said Simon Gilroy, a space plant biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who had no role in the study. “The real next step is to go and do it on the surface of the moon.”

The Memo: Peace in Ukraine? Not anytime soon, experts say

“You think you have a chance of winning, so why stop?” said Yoshiko Herrera, a Russia expert and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She noted that alleged Russian war crimes and reports of thousands of people being forcibly deported from eastern Ukraine is likely to stiffen resolve in Kyiv even further.

The Devastating Economic Impacts of an Abortion Ban

Tiffany Green, an economist and population-health scientist and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, noted that many of those effects would disproportionately fall on those who were already marginalized—particularly women of color and nonbinary and transgender people.

The USA TODAY SmartEdition – USA TODAY US Edition – 12 May 2022 – Russia’s not first to spew ‘firehose of falsehood’

Anton Shirikov, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, sees clear parallels between the misinformation campaign Russia is waging in support of its war in Ukraine and how propaganda has been used in previous conflicts.

1 million have died from COVID in the US. Experts wonder how this seems normal.

“Virtually everything the government’s done to fight the disease, since the beginning, has placed the burden on individuals to both assess and mitigate their own risk,” Dr. Richard Keller, a professor in the department of medical history and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told ABC News. “The implications there, for the people who are dying from the disease, are that they’re dying as a result of their own individual failings.”

Slowing inflation doesn’t mean prices will fall

According to Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin, inflation can be a sign that the job market is strong and people feel comfortable spending money.

In Praise of Anxiety

A similar effect comes from being in the presence of others, which can cause anxiety in some contexts but can also provide a pathway out. Research shows that receiving direct social support is one of the best ways to manage all types of distress, including anxiety. A 2006 study from the University of Wisconsin, for example, brought participants into the lab to take part in a high-anxiety situation: They entered a loud, claustrophobic MRI machine to have their brain scanned and were told to expect electrical shocks in the course of the procedure. One third of the group were allowed to hold the hand of a loved one, one third held the hand of a stranger, and the last third were left alone.

Trump May Have Missed His Opportunity to Stick It to Hillary Clinton

“Some of the reasons you might be able to extend the statute of limitations is that there was active concealment of any kind of fraud by the defendant,” Ion Meyn, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, told Newsweek. “Here, it’d be very hard to argue act of concealment when you’re pleading that you knew about it.”

G-7 will ban Russian oil imports as US adds new sanctions; first lady Jill Biden visits Ukraine: May 8 recap

“Right now, at times, Russian propaganda even equates Nazis and Western civilization,” said Anton Shirikov, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin who specializes in propaganda and misinformation.

Donald Trump Holds Screening Of ‘2,000 Mules’ Documentary At Mar-a-Lago

“It is conspiracist thinking,” Kenneth Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Politifact.”They are interpreting data that confirms their pre-existing conclusions. It’s a zombie claim; no matter how many times you kill it, it keeps coming back.”

The horrific bird flu that’s wiped out 36 million chickens and turkeys, explained

And not much beyond mass culling can be done to slow the spread once it starts. Adel Talaat, a professor of microbiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says we should improve disease surveillance and farm biosecurity to help prevent new outbreaks and slow the spread, but a vaccine that could reliably reduce transmission would go a long way.

FACT FOCUS: Gaping holes in the claim of 2K ballot ‘mules’

Absentee ballots are also verified by signature and tracked closely, often with an option for voters themselves to see where their ballot is at any given time. That process safeguards against anyone who tries to illegally cast extra ballots, according to Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and the director of the Elections Research Project.“It seems impossible in that system for a nefarious actor to dump lots of ballots that were never requested by voters and were never issued by election officials,” Burden said.

4 Ways to Fix Social Media That Don’t Involve Elon Musk

This would help accrue “a kind of common law,” says Lucas Graves, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now, we have the equivalent of secret courts; their decisions are unseen and judgements forgotten. Transparency “pushes back against the arbitrariness” of executives, Graves says.

The Key to Attracting Venture Capitalists: Show Passion

That is the conclusion of 12 studies by researcher Chia-Jung Tsay, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She gave investors different types of records of pitch competitions—such as video only or audio only—and asked them to guess which entrepreneur had won each round. The investors who made the best guesses saw only visual images of people making pitches, with no sound or information about the pitch itself.