UW In The News

‘Lurching Between Crisis and Complacency’: Was This Our Last Covid Surge?

“We’re in a shoulder season, where it’s cooler in the South than it is in the middle of the summer and it’s warmer in the North than it is in the middle of the winter,” said David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

HHMI devotes $2 billion to boost diversity in biomedical sciences

“It is a disservice to fund individuals to come into environments that continue to drive them away,” said Angela Byars-Winston, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health who led a 2019 National Academy of Science study on effective mentoring in STEM fields. “We know there are things institutions can do to change the environment instead of focusing on students who are not broken.”

Wisconsin GOP review of 2020 election beset by blunders from former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman

“I do think it’s harmful,” Barry C. Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said of the review. “It’s obviously amateurish and uncoordinated and irresponsible and open-ended and partisan. The people who are leading the effort have already decided they think the election was fraudulent, or they’re distrustful of the outcome. It’s a violation of all the standards you’d use in a usual election audit or review the state might do.”

UW-Madison secures $20 million donation for new classroom building

Vaccine hesitant New Yorkers consider leaving the city as mandates take effect

“We can’t expect that medical systems who have earned the mistrust of many marginalized groups will now be trusted because of Covid. It doesn’t work that way,” said Tiffany Green, a population health scientist and economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As more colleges require COVID-19 vaccinations, one is finding success without mandate

Getting vaccinated on campus at the University of Wisconsin in Madison is relatively normal.

“I think is in the best interest of everyone, not just here on campus but in the larger Dane County community for students to be vaccinated,” said Sam Kuchta, a senior at the university.

Dorland v. Larson: On the Legal Disputes at the Heart of “Bad Art Friend”

The New York Times dropped jaws with a tea-spilling article detailing an ongoing six-year dispute between a white writer who donated a kidney and a writer of color who wrote a short story inspired by the donation. Dawn Dorland and Sonya Larson now find themselves deep into contentious litigation with no end in sight.

Why 2021’s college sophomores are the new freshman

With so many colleges going virtual last year, many sophomores are on campus for the first time. But it’s different — a lot still feel like freshman. Colleges set up programs to get them caught up.

UW-Madison chancellor headed to Northwestern in 2022

Wisconsin’s political divide has implications for 2022 and 2024 elections

Still, Wisconsin, a state whose people enjoy a reputation for embodying the concept of “Midwestern nice,” stands out. Mark Copelovitch, (Ken) Mayer’s University of Wisconsin colleague, argued that everything that has become commonplace at the national level, including the transformation and radicalization of the Republican Party, has been part of Wisconsin’s political experience for the last 10 years. “Wisconsin has been the canary in the coal mine,” he said.

Remote Workers Can Live Anywhere. These Cities (and Small Towns) Are Luring Them With Perks.

“I can see where this is going to end up going to people who were going to move to a community anyway,” said Tessa Conroy, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies economic development. “Or maybe you do manage to attract someone. Is that really the ideal resident, someone who was paid?”

Wisconsin’s political divide has implications for 2022 and 2024 elections

“When you have 51 percent of the vote, it had been generally [accepted] that you don’t govern like you’ve got 95 percent of the vote,” said Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “In 2011, that norm was abandoned.”

A newspaper tries to make ends meet by asking for donations in honor of its reporters

Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said she sees no immediate problem with the campaign but generally advocates for news organizations to take every opportunity to “pull back the curtain” and educate their audiences about the role ethics plays in their business decisions.

9-year-old raises money for diverse library books with lemonade stand

The presentation included statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center, which found that there are more books with main characters that are white or animals than there are books with protagonists that are Black, Indigenous, or a person of color.

Flu shot side effect: Are reactions worse this year?

Nasia Safdar, the medical director for infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin Hospital: It really shouldn’t. Quadrivalent vaccines have been available and most of us have been getting those for years. There is a high dose flu vaccine that is recommended for people who are older, and the arm tenderness might be a little bit more and it takes a little bit longer to recover.

Who Was Emma Tenayuca? A Mexican American Champion of Workers’ Rights | Teen Vogue

Tenayuca’s drive to lead and organize union workers stemmed from her personal understanding of their plight. “It wasn’t by coincidence,” Marla Ramírez, assistant professor in the Department of History and Chican@ & Latin@ Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Teen Vogue. “She knew the people she was organizing. She grew up with them. She had similar experiences of discrimination, inequality, hunger, and poverty,” Ramírez explains. “She was fighting for herself when she was fighting for others too.”

Alcohol Is the Breast Cancer Risk No One Wants to Talk About

University of Wisconsin oncologist Noelle LoConte has long felt that the link doesn’t get enough attention—even among oncologists. She is the lead author of a 2017 statement on alcohol and cancer from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which calls on these specialists to take the lead in addressing “excessive exposure to alcohol” through education, advocating for policy changes, and research.

School Mask Mandates Are Going to Court. Here’s What to Know

Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Education, says that while cases specifically related to face masks in school are uncharted territory, courts have historically decided that parental rights do not trump a school’s ability to take steps to keep kids safe.

An American tragedy: 700,000 US COVID deaths despite widely available vaccines

“Heading into the winter months, we can significantly delay the next grim milestone if more people, especially those at high risk for severe illness, choose to get vaccinated,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Imbalance of power: Why low-wage, working women bear the brunt of anti-mask backlashes

Nancy Wong, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of consumer research and marketing, said the imbalance is magnified when employees are female because anger about mask mandates can trigger sexist bullying and harassment.

The South Pole just had its most severe cold season on record

Matthew Lazzara, an expert on the meteorology of Antarctica and scientist at the University of Wisconsin, monitored the South Pole temperatures in recent months from his office in Madison with awe. In an interview, he said it was around minus-100 degrees on numerous occasions. Over the years, he’s traveled to Antarctica many times to support his research.

A new name for UW-Madison’s natatorium and a $20 million donation to help build it

Some fear boosters will hurt drive to reach the unvaccinated

Dr. James Conway, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin, said last week that if vaccine-hesitant people “start to get the idea that this is only going to last for six or eight or 10 months,” they may be further soured on the whole idea.

UW-Madison sees record freshman enrollment

Facebook suspends efforts on an Instagram for kids

In a blog post published today, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that kids under 13 were already online, misrepresenting their ages and downloading apps meant for older teens and adults. Megan Moreno, a pediatrician who studies social media’s impact on adolescent health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isn’t buying it.

What’s going on with the debt ceiling?

“In concrete terms, you could see the price or the valuation of U.S. Treasury debt going down, which is the same as saying interest rates are going to rise for U.S. government borrowing. What that’s going to do is it’s going to tend to blow up our deficit faster than it otherwise would,” said Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Trumpers Spent Millions On The Arizona Election Audit. All They Found Was More Votes For Biden.

They’re not for establishing the residence of a voter in Maricopa County to vote,” Barry C. Burden, Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on the press call. “We don’t know how they get their data or what they do exactly, ” he added.

Report affirms Biden victory in Arizona as Maricopa County pushes back against other review findings

Ahead of the presentation, election experts criticized some of the methodology used by Cyber Ninjas that was detailed in the draft report. The report said the firm used a commercial public database to try to match information about voters. Such databases typically rely on the National Change of Address database, which can be out of date and incomplete and isn’t designed for that purpose, said Barry Burden, the Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The message from Israel is clear: Covid booster shots should be standard

The biology of Sars-CoV-2 immunity, however, is the same whether you’re in Tel Aviv, Tokyo or Toronto. The pioneering Israeli work of making third doses the standard provides an instructive template for other countries to follow as quickly as possible, while also ensuring that this becomes the global standard of vaccination for everyone, no matter where they live.

-David O’Connor is professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin

Fact check: Biden’s approval rating is higher than Trump’s term low

“The best practice (is) to look at multiple polls and not to fixate on an individual poll, which can be cherry-picked to make inaccurate arguments,” Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email.