UW In The News

The inside story of the new NASA missions to Venus

But by those same parameters, if we were observing our own solar system from afar, we might think Venus should be Earth-like too. “If you can’t understand Venus, which is our closest Earth-like neighbor, what chance do you have of believing anything some astrophysicist tells us about exoplanets?” says planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Limaye is part of a contingent of Venus researchers interested in finding out whether its cloud layer could still host microbial life. In 2020, investigators reported in the journal Nature Astronomy seeing signatures of phosphine—a chemical known thus far only to come from biological sources—in the atmosphere. Though claims about the possible discovery didn’t pan out, the news helped to spotlight the planet as an overlooked astrobiology target.

Walmart (WMT) Offers Low-Priced Insulin to Counter Amazon’s Drug Push

The move could be “a really big deal” for people with diabetes, said Dawn Davis, an associate professor and endocrinologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

‘Dragon man’ claimed as new species of ancient human but doubts remain

John Hawks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison agrees. “My opinion is that… this is more than likely Denisovan.”

Want kids to learn math? Level with them that it’s hard.

Written by Jordan Ellenberg, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else.”

NPR’s Ina Jaffe Shares Breast Cancer Diagnosis : NPR

This diagnosis doesn’t mean I won’t be. There are outliers, as they’re called. People who live 10 years or more with stage 4. Mark Burkard at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center is studying them to see what they might have in common. So far, it’s too early to draw conclusions.

Arizona Election ‘Audit’ Should Not Be Trusted, Expert Review Finds

“The Cyber Ninjas boondoggle deviates so substantially from a proper audit or recount that the results simply can’t be trusted,” Barry C. Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Insider. “The Cyber Ninjas firm is not only unqualified to be conducting the review, but they do not actually seem interested in following protocols that could enhance public trust rather than undermining it.”

Can America’s Solar Power Industry Compete with China’s? One Firm Tries

Gregory Nemet, a University of Wisconsin solar specialist, says the Chinese successfully used a similar scheme in the early 2000s to boost their domestic wind-power industry, then dominated by European suppliers.

Kids’ cartoons have more LGBTQ representation than ever before – but only if you pay for it

AnneMarie McClain, a children’s media and education researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Insider that inclusive shows are essential to kids across income differences.”Children might not have representation in their communities. They might not have representation in their schools. And so media is a source of representation that can help children know that they’re OK and that their identities are valid,” McClain said.

The environmental impact of bidets versus toilet paper

The main thing to consider, says Andrea Hicks, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin, is where you live and what the water situation is there. For example, in Wisconsin, where Hicks is based, there’s plenty of water to spare for butt-cleansing purposes, so if a bidet is something you’re curious about you should just go for it. But water availability simply isn’t an easy thing for every person across the country—just look at the drought plaguing the West Coast currently.

Robert Hollander, towering scholar of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy,’ dies at 87

“His more than 40 years of teaching Dante gave him many insights into the poem which he incorporates into the commentary,” Christopher Kleinhenz, a professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said in an interview. “He has made Dante accessible,” Kleinhenz continued, so that “we as contemporary readers can appreciate and can see how Dante was important in the Middle Ages and how he continues to be important today.”

Jordan Ellenberg Wouldn’t Have Given the Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan

Jordan Ellenberg Wouldn’t Have Given the Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan

The Immune System’s Weirdest Weapon

The few scientists who did take up the inglorious mantle, however, quickly found a wealth of lore to uncover. Anna Huttenlocher, a rheumatologist and cell biologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has spent years watching the cells zoom through tissues and built structures in the lab.

The amount of heat the Earth traps has doubled since 2005, NASA says

“The fact that they used two different observational approaches and came up with the same trends is pretty remarkable,” said Elizabeth Maroon, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison unaffiliated with the study. “It lends a lot of confidence to the findings.”

How the U.S. Made Progress on Climate Change Without Ever Passing a Bill

“Policy makers have been dithering about climate change since 1988, and in the background you have this steady progression of technologies,” Greg Nemet, a public-affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me. Foreign industrial policy has driven that progression, he said, although American tax rebates—and California’s economic planning—have also played a part. Those policies have allowed the entire world to decarbonize and led companies to support ever more aggressive carbon cuts. That, in essence, is the green vortex.

U.S. Covid-19 Deaths Top 600,000

“In the U.S., death from Covid is almost entirely preventable,” said Ajay Sethi, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, citing access to vaccines in the country. “Crossing the 600,000 milestone is a sobering reminder that the virus is still spreading and that there are still too many people unvaccinated.”

Answers to these botanical mysteries could help a climate-stressed world

In addition to original ancestors, feral plants in other diversity hotspots should also be collected and conserved, adds Eve Emshwiller, an ethnobotanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who coauthored the Brassica rapa study. Wild-growing varieties are often seen as weeds, and farmers are sometimes advised to eradicate them.

Why America Doesn’t Really Make Solar Panels Anymore

More recently, Chinese firms have emulated this technique in order to eat Japan’s share of the global solar industry, Greg Nemet, a public-policy professor at the University of Wisconsin and the author of How Solar Energy Became Cheap, told me.

‘Crunched on both sides’: Older millennials balance student loans, retirement saving and kids’ college funds

While it’s not unusual at this stage of life to weigh your family’s financial priorities, older millennials are being “crunched from both sides,” says Cliff Robb, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who studies financial decision-making.

‘Crazy Worms’ Threaten America’s Trees And Maple Syrup : NPR

“They are very active,” Monica Turner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, once told Wisconsin Public Radio. “They almost seem like worms that want to be snakes.”

Reduced U.S. Covid-19 Data Reporting Worries Some Health Experts

Ajay Sethi, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, said a basic tenet of surveillance is to “do something,” and for a disease like Covid-19, real-time public-health data spurs action in ways that weekly or monthly reporting cannot.

Spreading Vaccine Fears, And Cashing In

“People trying to reduce confidence through misinformation — that’s unfortunate and it’s something that’s sort of hard to fight,” said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine who teaches a class to future doctors on conspiracy theories. He urges his students to be compassionate and not condescending, since all of us are vulnerable to misinformation when it seems to confirm our prior beliefs. “It’s all innuendo, but it’s wrong, and it does spread like wildfire.”

Earth has lost and gained many oceans. Here’s where a new one might appear next.

“The changes in the entire Earth system that take place as part of that changing geography are profound,” says Shanan Peters, a geoscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specializes in the co-evolution of life and Earth’s systems.

Jair Bolsonaro is facing a political reckoning in Brazil. How far will it go?

“This is one more element in place that could lead to Bolsonaro’s downfall,” Jessica Rich, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, said. “I don’t think they are yet all in place. But this is a real escalation of the threat against him.”

South Dakota Meat Processing Plant Weighing Walkout After Union Rejects Smithfield Contract

“This is a moment when workers have leverage right now,” said Laura Dresser, a labor economist at COWS, a liberal think tank at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Czech women might be able to have different last names

David Danaher, professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, noted that similar proposals have failed in the past, but said that non-gendered last names aren’t necessarily new in the Czech Republic.

What lurks beneath: A new answer to more intense storms

As storm-water infrastructure is failing, climate change is driving more frequent and intense rainfall. A 2019 study by University of Wisconsin researchers found in the eastern half of the United States, 100-year storms — ones with a 1 percent chance of happening in any year — were occurring almost twice as often as in 1950. In 2020, there were a record 20 storm and hurricane events each causing more than $1 billion in damages, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Air purifiers can’t save us from airborne pandemics.

Scientists have only begun to study the chemical mechanisms by which the purifiers actually work indoors, says Timothy Bertram, a University of Wisconsin chemist leading a study of bipolar ionizers. Without that understanding, it’s hard to evaluate what, if anything, additive purifiers do when they’re installed inside an air vent or plugged in at the back of a classroom. So far, Bertram’s study has found no evidence of the ionizers reducing aerosols.

No seditious conspiracy charges emerge in U.S. Capitol riots cases

“Seditious conspiracy is a vague and overbroad statute that could be used to criminalize some legitimate forms of protest and much mundane criminal activity,” said Joshua Braver, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Memorial Day Will Likely Mark Covid-19 Pandemic Milestone – WSJ

“Our outlook continues to improve, but there are still too many people yet to be vaccinated to feel completely safe as a whole,” said Ajay Sethi, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Dr. Sethi said he wouldn’t be surprised to see an increase in cases within communities with low vaccination rates, but he didn’t expect the kind of surge the country saw last summer.

UW System Bringing Back Summer Youth Programs

As colleges and universities ease restrictions aimed at preventing outbreaks of COVID-19, the University of Wisconsin System has announced it is bringing back pre-college and summer youth programs this summer.